Undead Mage: I Have a Skeleton Clone

Chapter 771 - 497: Massive Resources, Ghost Special Ops, Undead War Machines!

"It’s this one!"

Yan Yan reached out, and a box several cubic meters in size flew out from the research chamber, hovering in front of Fang Zhou. The box opened, revealing it was full of books.

It wasn’t just books, but also notes, scrolls, and the like. The materials varied; there was grass paper, parchment, and some were made from the hides of unknown beasts.

"Where did these come from?" Fang Zhou squatted down, casually picking up a scroll and opening it.

It wasn’t a Magic Scroll.

He flipped through the rest, finding no Magic Books, gold, treasures, or Divine Artifact fragments. There were only tattered ancient texts, scrolls, and notes.

Notes written by a Skeleton Mage.

They documented many details of this Naraku Civilization Skeleton Mage’s journey from an ordinary person to a Glory Champion. The contents touched upon many secrets, such as the "Broken Continent," the "Demon War," the "Death Transfer Barrier," and the "Star Sky Giant Monster."

This box was the embodiment of the Skeleton Mage’s life, holding all his secrets.

"Organize all of them," Fang Zhou said as he walked into the research laboratory. "This box, and those books you thought were useless."

Whether something was useful or not wasn’t for Yan Yan to decide; it was Fang Zhou’s call. He intended to scrutinize them all thoroughly.

***

Several hours passed unknowingly. It was very late, and the dangers of the Mage Tomb had been largely neutralized. Fang Zhou and the members of Flame Medal decided to set up camp in the underground tomb, taking the opportunity to sort through the spoils of their adventure.

Of course, their division of labor was clear. The Flame Medal members were responsible for organizing, while Fang Zhou was responsible for the harvest.

***

The Blood Moon loomed over the dome of the sky, and war continued to ravage the Wasteland of Strife.

Before the Lord’s Hall, Fang Zhou sat high upon his throne. Sain stood respectfully behind him, while Tidamia meticulously reported on the various intelligence gathered around the Corpse Tomb Territory.

"My Lord, the [War Factory] is operating at full capacity, and there is a significant shortfall in Skeleton Series resources. However, we have manufactured ten units of the [Soul Silence War Drums], which can fully cover the central army’s Corpse Knight Guard. Their specific effects will need to be tested in actual combat."

Fang Zhou was multitasking. His main body was at the Mage Tomb campsite sorting through the abundant spoils, while his Clone was in the Corpse Tomb, researching combat deployments for the next stage of battle.

Ever since defeating the Giant Zombie Lord and annexing his territory, the Corpse Clone had led the Tomb’s army into numerous campaigns. In the world of the Undead, where there was neither politics nor logistics to speak of, strength was the sole measure of victory. It was impossible for any Undead to win a battle against a stronger opponent with their rigid thinking, except for someone like Fang Zhou, whose mind was filled with military strategies.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t that there were no other high-level Undead with strategic minds like Fang Zhou in the Undead Realm. But an individual like Fang Zhou, who possessed a head full of war strategies yet chose to linger and fight in a low-level Undead region, was truly one of a kind.

Thus, several more Zombie Lords met a tragic end. Perhaps even at the moment of their deaths, they could never have imagined how the world had changed so much. When did low-level Undead wars start involving various war machines, let alone combined arms tactics with cavalry, shield bearers, spearmen, and archers?

That’s right, unit combinations. Amazed by the terrifying impact of cavalry units, Fang Zhou had begun frantically training his Corpse Knights.

All Soul Fires that had no effect on Fang Zhou, no matter who they were obtained from, were to be absorbed by these Corpse Knights. And what did the Corpse Knights need to do? They needed to do nothing but stand still and wait to absorb the powerful Soul Fire sent from various directions, striving to evolve as quickly as possible.

In this way, Fang Zhou unleashed a storm of blood across the Wasteland of Strife. After sweeping through three Zombie territories, Fang Zhou absorbed the Soul Fires of some of the more powerful Zombie Lords and Mutated Zombies, providing all the rest to his Corpse Knights.

As a result, over the past two months, Fang Zhou had acquired 3,000 Bronze Upper rank Corpse Knights.

It wasn’t that Fang Zhou didn’t want to expand their numbers further, but the production efficiency of the Corpse Pasture simply couldn’t keep up. Coupled with the constant battles within the Tomb Territory, Fang Zhou hadn’t had the spare energy to travel to the Chiguo Plain to capture more Undead Beast mounts. Every territorial war resulted in the loss of some Corpse Knights who charged into the fray. Under such attrition, managing to amass 3,000 Corpse Knights was already a remarkable feat.

In addition, the number of Bronze Middle, Bronze Lower, and even Black Iron Upper rank Tomb Undead was countless, totaling over 80,000.

More importantly, a new functional building named the War Factory had been added to the Corpse Tomb. As its name suggested, the War Factory was the place where Fang Zhou researched Undead war machines. Due to the limitations of his own power, the quantity and quality of his Tomb army could not be significantly increased in a short period.

There was an old saying in Longxia: "A craftsman must first sharpen his tools if he is to do his work well."

The skillful Fang Zhou decided to focus on the research and production of war machines as the key to increasing his strength. After numerous trials in actual combat, he developed his first powerful war machine: the Soul Silence War Drum.

Thinking of this, Fang Zhou looked at his attribute panel. A new skill had been added to the Clone’s Skills Bar.

[Soul Silence Brand] (Bronze, Instinct): Consumes a large amount of Death Energy to apply the Soul Silence state to oneself. Greatly increases damage dealt to Spirit Body creatures and significantly reduces their ability to evade attacks. The magnitude of the increase, duration, and other effects are determined by the Spirit Attribute.

The straightforward skill description made it clear this was a special attack skill targeting Undead Spirit Body creatures like Ghosts. This was also Fang Zhou’s most significant gain from his long hours of diligent research.

Thanks to his main body continuously analyzing the soul fragments of Vladimir, the Naraku remnant soul, and with the strong support of the Undead Mage research group, Fang Zhou had made great progress in his deductions of the Undead Mage’s Soul Series Skill Tree. After consuming a great amount of Soul Power to enhance the proficiency of several Soul Series Skills to the Instinct level, he followed the skill recommendations from Instructor Su Xinyan and Master Sandro. This finally allowed him to successfully derive the state-enhancing skill, Soul Silence Brand, for his Clone.

The skill consumed a large amount of Death Energy, but its effect was extraordinarily powerful. Firstly, it increased Fang Zhou’s damage to Ghosts. Secondly, it lowered the Ghosts’ ability to evade his attacks. This two-pronged approach guaranteed that Fang Zhou would become a Ghost Slayer, feared by all Ghosts.

This was also made possible by the vast array of Skill Materials in the Human Alliance’s Skill Library. After all, in the Era of Myth, Spirit Body creatures, while rare, were not limited to just Ghosts. For example, the notorious Soul Judge Demon, one of the most infamous Abyssal Demons, was a type of Spirit Body creature. After suffering greatly at their hands, the pioneering Professionals of the Human Alliance had developed many skills to effectively scout, control, and attack Spirit Body creatures by drawing upon their own Profession’s powers.

After consuming a great deal of Soul Power and entering a prolonged Burst of Inspiration state, Fang Zhou finally absorbed the essence of these Spiritual Body Special Attack Skills. By combining this with the Undead Mage Soul Series Skill Tree his main body had mastered, he tailor-made the Soul Silence Brand skill for his Clone.

Furthermore, after investing heavily once again to raise the Soul Silence Brand’s Skill Proficiency to the Instinct level, his mastery over it rose to a whole new plane. With the building bonuses from the [Research Laboratory] and [War Factory] in the Corpse Tomb, Fang Zhou successfully expanded his personal [Soul Silence Brand] skill into the war machine, the [Soul Silence War Drum].

Although the effect was greatly reduced, the area of effect for the buff was increased tremendously.