158: Chapter 158 [Soul of the Blade Beetle]

He turned off communications.

Xu Qin opened the sub-city management panel again and switched to Winter City.

The reporting interface of the Winter Sovereign popped up.

[Current status of Winter City:]

[City Lord: Winter Sovereign (Level 58)]

[Garrison: 120,000]

[Construction progress: Frost Barracks LV.8, Frost Crystal Altar LV.7, Frozen City Wall LV.9...]

[Resource output: Operating normally]

Xu Qin switched to Yongyuan City again.

Thirty thousand Troglodytes were gathering as usual, and the resource teleportation platform outputted steadily every hour.

He switched to Guling Holy City again.

One hundred thousand garrison troops were in place, and the bone pythons patrolled normally.

"Not bad."

The dozen or so sub-cities were all operating normally, and the Winter Sovereign had managed the construction in an orderly manner.

Xu Qin closed the panel and walked towards the Combat Readiness Platform.

Next, he was going to produce troops on a large scale!

After this battle with Klax, Xu Qin discovered a problem.

Although the pure self-detonating skeleton sea tactic was useful, it had obvious flaws.

When encountering hero-level units with high attack and wide-area AOE,

low-health bones would be wiped out before they could even get close.

No matter how high the self-detonation damage was, you had to die right in front of the target first.

Although Klax's twenty heroes were eventually worn to death,

the process also consumed nearly 180,000 bones.

Moreover, this was because Klax didn't fight all out and was too cowardly.

What if the opponent had a hero with high area-of-effect damage?

"Therefore, the frontal legion cannot be skimped on."

Xu Qin walked up to the Resurrection Platform and opened the treasury.

Adding up the various bones stored previously, the total was still over three million.

Xu Qin selected twelve iron-spined lizard skeletons and threw them into the Resurrection Platform.

Hum!

Bone Fusion was activated.

Ten seconds later.

A four-meter-tall Stitched Bone Beast stood up from the platform.

Xu Qin looked at the unit attributes.

[Stitched Bone Beast (Iron-Spined Type)]

[Attack Power: 680]

[Defense: 420]

[Health Points: 12,000]

[Trait: Iron Spine Shield (Passive) Reduces physical damage taken from the front by 35%.]

Not bad.

120,000 health, 35% damage reduction from the front, and it could still explode for 84,000 damage upon death in battle.

It could advance to attack or retreat to explode.

"Let's make 30,000 of them first."

Xu Qin began batch operations.

The Resurrection Platform operated at full power.

Purple light flickered endlessly.

Stitched Bone Beasts, one after another, lined up and walked down the Combat Readiness Platform, forming formations in the open space of the Boundless Domain.

While making Bone Beasts, Xu Qin pondered.

These Bone Beasts do not need to be enhanced with Ore Spirit.

Their purpose was to rush up and self-detonate; there was no need to enhance them.

Enhancements should still be reserved for older troop types.

"With these 30,000 iron-spined Bone Beasts fighting the front line, matched with the self-detonating skeleton sea for harvesting..."

Xu Qin looked at the increasingly dense Bone Beast phalanx beneath the Combat Readiness Platform,

and nodded with satisfaction.

Now, Xu Qin finally had time to process other spoils of war.

He opened his inventory and looked at [Blade Beetle Clan Lord Skeleton × 22].

"These are all Klax's bones."

Xu Qin took out a skeleton and placed it on the Resurrection Platform.

Hum...

The Resurrection Platform lit up,

but the next second,

it dimmed again.

[Cannot resurrect!]

[Reason: This skeleton is a "Lord-grade" unit remain and does not belong to the category of convertible troops. Lord-grade skeletons cannot undergo undead conversion through conventional Resurrection Platforms.]

"As expected."

Xu Qin wasn't too disappointed.

It would be a miracle if Lord-grade skeletons could be resurrected directly.

"Then take it for Hetero-smelting."

He took the skeleton down from the Resurrection Platform and turned to walk towards the myriad race spirit furnace in the Forging Area.

He threw in a Blade Beetle Clan Lord skeleton.

He also took out a Dark Energy Core from the treasury and threw it in together.

Two materials from different races met the conditions for Hetero-smelting.

Hum!

The spirit furnace vibrated violently.

Dark green and black energies collided and fused violently within the furnace cavity.

Ding!

[Hetero-smelting successful!]

[Obtained: Blade Beetle Soul Essence × 1]

Xu Qin picked it up to look.

[Blade Beetle Soul Essence]

[Quality: Epic (Purple)]

[Type: Troop Enhancement Material]

[Effect: After being used on any undead troop, permanently grants the passive "Carapace Resonance" (when taking physical attacks, reflects 8% of the damage back to the attacker).]

[Remarks: Can only be used once per unit. Cannot be stacked.]

After reading it, Xu Qin raised an eyebrow.

8% damage reflection?

Just looking at this number, it didn't seem like much.

But what if it was used on a Stitched Bone Beast?

When the opponent slashed over, they would first suffer the reduction from the Bone Beast's high defense, dealing a few dozen points of damage, and then they would still have to take 8% reflection.

After the Stitched Bone Beast was beaten to death, there was also the self-detonation of Wraith Fury.

"Both damage reflection and self-detonation..."

Xu Qin couldn't help laughing and saying,

"Good stuff."

He threw the remaining 21 Blade Beetle Clan Lord skeletons, along with Dark Energy Cores, into the spirit furnace one by one.

Two minutes later.

Ding!

[Obtained: Blade Beetle Soul Essence × 21]

Adding the first one, a total of 22 pieces.

Xu Qin took out 9 pieces and directly gave them to nine heroes such as Tian Ming and Longgu.

The remaining 13 pieces were all put away by Xu Qin into the treasury.

"Tie Ge will also have to contribute in the future, and it will be just right to reward them with these."

After dealing with the skeletons, Xu Qin opened the next section of his inventory.

[Territory Building Blueprint × 66]

Sixty-six sheets.

Xu Qin opened them one by one to check.

The first one.

[Insect Nest Shield Tower · Mod (Rare)]

[Effect: Centered on the building, within a 50-meter radius, friendly units are immune to ranged damage. Durability: 8,000.]

Xu Qin raised an eyebrow.

Isn't this the thing Klax used to block dragon breath?

"Build."

The second one.

[Spine-Riven Anti-Air Tower (Rare)]

[Attack Power: 12,000 (Magic - Penetration)]

[Trait: Locks onto flying units, ignores evasion. Range: 800 meters.]

Xu Qin's eyes lit up.

This thing was much stronger than his Floating Bone Whistle.

The third one.

[High-Order Magic Iron Refining Workshop (Rare)]

[Effect: Refines high-order magic iron ore into finely cast magic iron ingots, improving the quality of forging output.]

Xu Qin entered the three blueprints into the command panel one by one.

Ding!

[Insect Nest Shield Tower · Mod has been entered into the building list!]

[Spine-Riven Anti-Air Tower has been entered into the building list!]

[High-Order Magic Iron Refining Workshop has been entered into the building list!]

After entry was complete, he flipped through the remaining sixty-three sheets.

They were all duplicates.

Twenty-one copies of each of the three blueprints.

"Keep them." Xu Qin stuffed the blueprints back into the treasury, "They might be useful in the future."

Next was construction.

Xu Qin opened the building list and glanced at the required materials.

The shield tower required high-order magic iron ingots and soul energy.

The anti-air tower's requirements were similar,

and the refining workshop was actually cheaper, able to be done purely with basic materials.

The problem arose.

Who would build them?

Troglodytes only knew how to mine. Bone Beasts only knew how to fight.

Xu Qin scrolled down the troop list, and his gaze stopped on a name that hadn't been called upon for a long time.

Acolyte.

This primary troop was now entirely used to convert Liches,

and other than that, they had been on standby at the Combat Readiness Platform.

"I still have to count on the old folks..."

Xu Qin dispatched all two hundred and forty-seven of them.

"Start construction!"