by Barber_TheDreamer
Reed died buried in dirt, an uneducated laborer who never got his chance to learn. Reborn in a world of magic, he's still just a slum orphan digging graves for gangsters. Until he accidentally offers dozens of corpses to a forgotten earth god. Everything changes. Granted devastating earth magic and a sacred oath to pursue knowledge, Reed escapes to the Western Demon Realm, the empire's deadliest frontier where criminals, cultists, and fortune-seekers carve civilization from cursed soil. The god's blessing is brutal. Every corpse fed to the earth grants Reed new knowledge and abilities. Construction. Agriculture. Combat. Governance. Everything civilization needs, learned from those it buried. Reed has one goal: survive long enough to learn everything. But when you can raise cities from nothing and bury armies in seconds, the world won't let you study in peace. They wanted him uneducated. He'll become the wisest man alive, burying his enemies and building his empire from their graves.
