novelraw Chapter 679 - 453: Tomb of Corpses Upgraded, Unlocking New Undead Units!
Chapter 679 - 453: Tomb of Corpses Upgraded, Unlocking New Undead Units!
In this region, the Black Iron Fierce Beasts rarely moved in large groups, at most forming large families of a dozen or so.
This made it particularly easy for the Fierce Tiger Team to hunt. They often solved most of the battles themselves without even needing Fang Zhou to act. This left Fang Zhou feeling somewhat idle, and he spent most of his time watching the other members work hard, shooting their arrows and hunting. Other times, they would lie in ambush for half a day, find some Fierce Beasts, and then simply shoot them down and harvest the materials.
But even though Fang Zhou hadn’t done much work, he took a thirty-percent share of the team’s profits, which made some of the members unhappy.
Unlike other teams, the Fierce Tiger Team’s goal was simple: to hunt low-tier Black Iron Fierce Beasts. They were already very familiar with hunting these beasts, including their teamwork, so having a Mage didn’t actually make much of a difference.
Now, there was just as much work, but the money they each received was less. Anyone would feel unhappy about that. This sentiment reached a peak when they returned to Beast Fighting City to settle their accounts.
A Wanderer, after receiving his share of the hunt’s proceeds, muttered softly, "Why is it so little?"
Another Forest Wanderer overheard, glanced at Fang Zhou, and said casually, "We worked so hard to earn just this much. Look at him; he did nothing, yet took more than both of us combined."
He said this quite loudly, and almost everyone on the team heard it.
The atmosphere at that moment became rather strange.
The other team members were not unaware of the benefits of having a Mage. At the very least, they could relax a lot more during their night watch. The usual dangers they might encounter had also lessened on this hunt, but people only care about what’s right in front of them. As a mature team, they wouldn’t have any major issues even without a Mage.
The others didn’t say anything, but they thought the same way. They were now watching with cold detachment to see how Qiu Xingyao would handle the situation.
"You guys!"
Qiu Xingyao’s expression turned ugly. After all, it had been his idea as the captain to recruit Fang Zhou, and he was the one who had set the salary conditions.
"It seems the team isn’t particularly welcoming to me."
Fang Zhou didn’t mind. After this hunt, he had gained a basic understanding of the situation in the Fierce Beast Mountain Range. With an army of undead creatures that were skilled in both offense and defense, summonable at any time, he was essentially a one-man team. Having teammates was not particularly important to him.
Looking at Qiu Xingyao’s unpleasant expression, Fang Zhou patted him on the shoulder and took the initiative. "Captain Qiu, I’ll quit. That way, I won’t put you in a difficult position. For this hunt, I won’t take anything besides the contribution points."
Then Fang Zhou turned and left.
"Fang Zhou!" Qiu Xingyao reached out, wanting to stop him, but he didn’t know how to persuade him to stay.
Someone beside him put an arm around his shoulder and said softly, "Captain, let him go. Our small team can’t keep someone like him."
Qiu Xingyao’s mouth hung open uselessly, but he couldn’t get a single word out. He wanted to expand his team, but his old teammates weren’t keen on it. Their main goal was to steadily earn Magic Stones. No matter how large the team grew, the money they received wouldn’t increase, while the risks very well might.
Torn between the Mage he had high hopes for and his well-coordinated old comrades, Qiu Xingyao was at a loss for words.
Soon, Fang Zhou calmly packed his things and walked out of the Fierce Tiger Team’s hall.
「...」
Leaving the Fierce Tiger Team, Fang Zhou suffered no losses. To be honest, the team’s atmosphere had become somewhat awkward after he joined. The twenty-plus days of this hunt had served as a way to walk Fang Zhou through the process and familiarize him with the environment.
Given Fang Zhou’s combat ability, which was far superior to others of the same tier and made him a one-man army, he figured that going alone in the future wouldn’t pose any issue.
Even though Fang Zhou gave up his share of the spoils, which would have amounted to two or three hundred Magic Stones, it was of no consequence. He hadn’t done much work, after all, yet still received nearly two hundred contribution points.
After finding an inn in the city, Fang Zhou opened his Portable Concentration Meditation Array and entered a state of deep meditation. This wasn’t because he’d had a sudden flash of inspiration, but because his Corpse Clone had made a new discovery. Since his main body was in the very safe Beast Fighting City, Fang Zhou took the opportunity to focus his attention and investigate the findings from the other side.
「...」
Under the Blood Moon, in the Corpse Hills.
After mastering the authority of corpses, Fang Zhou came to a deeper understanding of the true nature of the Undead Realm. He was now able to faintly sense that the blood moon overhead was merely an illusory projection.
Shaking his head, Fang Zhou looked at his clone’s attribute panel.
[Clone] Corpse Knight Lord
[Tier] Bronze Middle-rank
[Attributes] Strength 520, Constitution 500, Agility 480, Spirit 410
[Equipment] Skeleton Long Spear +3 (Level 3 White Bone Stone *3), Poisonous Skeleton Armor +3 (Level 3 White Bone Stone *3), Yellow Springs Nightmare +3 (Level 3 Nether Stone *3)
[Marvel] Berserker Mark (Purple)
[Skills] Corpse Lord (Bronze, Instinct), Corpse Armor (Bronze, Instinct), Corrosive Poison Incarnation (Bronze, Instinct), Deadly Strike (Bronze, Mastery), Death Energy Slash (Bronze, Mastery), Death Tornado (Bronze, Mastery), Death Charge (Bronze, Mastery), Death Weapon Specialization (Bronze, Mastery), Death Block (Bronze, Mastery), Death Battle Cry (Bronze, Mastery), Death Energy Shield (Bronze, Mastery), Death Stance (Bronze, Mastery), Death Roar (Bronze, Mastery), Death Stomp (Bronze, Mastery)
[Authority] Corpse Tomb (Faint)
Core Building: [Lord’s Hall] *1
Resource Buildings: [Well of Souls] *3, [Blood and Flesh Mother Tree] *3, [Skeleton Mine] *3
Unit Buildings: [Burial Ground] *1, [Corpse Pit] *1, [Corpse Hero Transformation Pool] *1, [Corpse Rider’s Tomb] *1
Functional Buildings: [Token House] *1, [Personal Guard Camp] *1, [Corpse Transformation Altar] *1, [Undead Teleportation Array] *1
[Apostles] 56
[Troops]
Corpse Knights *100 (Middle-rank Bronze)
Corpse Guards *377 (Upper-rank Black Iron)
Corpse Centurions *4
Corpse Chiliarchs *47
Corpse Centurions *477
Corpse Warriors *47,700 (Upper-rank Black Iron)
Compared to before, after this period of hunting and assimilation, Fang Zhou’s strength attribute had officially broken through the 500-point mark. This also meant his rank had naturally advanced to Bronze Middle-rank.
Of course, that wasn’t the most important part. Compared to the growth in his attributes, the earth-shattering improvement to Fang Zhou’s combat power was more reflected in his skills. His skills, which originally covered various elements like attack, defense, movement, control, and buffs, had all been upgraded to the Bronze Tier after he consumed a massive amount of resources during this period. It was safe to say that Fang Zhou’s personal strength had been pushed to its current limit.
Furthermore, Fang Zhou had also made significant progress with his Corpse Tomb. He had already scrounged up a large amount of resources from the Corpse Hills to construct and perfect the initial buildings unlocked by his Corpse authority. Resource-generating buildings like the Blood and Flesh Mother Tree, Skeleton Mine, and Well of Souls had all been maxed out. This provided Fang Zhou with a considerable daily income of Soul Power and corpse-related resources.
After maxing out the resource-generating buildings, Fang Zhou naturally constructed the remaining unit-production buildings, like the Corpse Pit and Burial Ground. With the addition of the Personal Guard Camp and Token House, two buildings granted by the Blood Moon Blessing, Fang Zhou’s Corpse Tomb could now be considered a small, self-sustaining territory.
Furthermore, his personal attributes also dictated his military capacity. Fang Zhou’s average score across his four attributes now exceeded 477 points. Consequently, he possessed an enslavement quota of 477 Middle-rank Bronze undead creatures. However, it was impossible to find so many high-tier undead creatures naturally in the Corpse Hills. Therefore, Fang Zhou had to turn to the Undead Transformation Altar, attempting to use himself as a template to synthesize and create new evolutionary paths from the Skeleton Series and Zombie Series undead.