20: Chapter 20: The Acolyte's Transformation, the Undead Lich Appears!

For the next two hours, Xu Qin did not travel too far.

The nearby strongholds had already been cleared out by him in the previous round.

The nearest one was over five kilometers away.

Leading his Undead Army, Xu Qin spent forty minutes traveling and broke through a Sand Jackal stronghold of over forty people.

He spent the remaining time picking up scraps along the way.

Warthogs, Sand Scorpions, vultures, Sand Rats...

Kill on sight, then leave immediately after.

Since there was a seven-fold settlement, the rewards for each battle were not insignificant.

Just consider it accumulating attempts.

"I'll make plans once the buildings are up."

Xu Qin glanced at the building countdown on the panel.

Hmm, it's about time.

"All troops, retreat."

The army turned around.

...

There were 15 minutes left until the Dark Altar was completed.

Xu Qin had already returned with his army.

The moment he stepped into the novice protection light shield.

He saw that two new buildings had appeared within his territory.

First was the Cursed Temple,

a black spire with eerie green ghost fire burning at the top.

The tower was covered in dense, flowing bone patterns that looked creepy.

Then there was the bone workshop,

a huge, semi-open workshop shed.

Of course, the other two buildings that had finished upgrading also changed.

The soul energy orb at the top of the soul hall had grown larger, and its rotation speed had increased significantly.

The entrance to the bone vault had widened, and the Underground Space was clearly deeper.

Four idle Acolytes stood neatly in the center of the plaza, waiting for instructions.

Xu Qin dismounted from his pig and walked straight to the bone workshop.

He opened the construction list.

[Bone Catapult]

Type: Ranged Siege Weapon

Attack Power: 80 (Physical - Fragmentation/Area of Effect)

Range: 150 meters

Attack Interval: 8 seconds

Health Points: 200

Trait: Area Attack (All targets within a 3-meter radius of the impact point take damage)

Construction Materials: Bone ×200, Stone ×150, Iron Ore ×50, Soul Energy ×500

Construction Time: 1 hour

[Bone Transport Cart]

Type: Logistics Equipment

Health Points: 100

Capacity: 48 slots of independent storage space

Trait: Auto-follow (Follows the specified Undead unit, no manual control required)

Construction Materials: Bone ×80, Wood ×60, Iron Ore ×20, Soul Energy ×200

Construction Time: 30 minutes

Forty-eight slots!

Independent storage space!

Auto-follow!

After reading the description of the Bone Transport Cart, Xu Qin's eyes widened.

His inventory only had thirty-two slots; every time he returned from an expedition, it was packed full, and he wished he could tie the skeletons onto the backs of his Skeleton Warthogs to carry them back.

"This thing..." Xu Qin swallowed, "is a mobile warehouse."

He glanced at the construction materials.

80 Bone, 60 Wood, 20 Iron Ore, 200 Soul Energy.

With his current resource reserves, building dozens of them would not be a problem.

But Xu Qin restrained his itching fingers.

No rush.

The level four Graveyard still needs to be upgraded.

Resources must be prioritized for core buildings.

The transport cart won't run away; it won't be too late to mass-produce them after upgrading the Graveyard.

"I'll build a whole row of them later."

Xu Qin patted the doorpost of the bone workshop.

He turned and walked to the front of the Cursed Temple.

He opened the functional interface of the Cursed Temple.

[Cursed Temple · Acolyte Transformation: Transforms an Acolyte into an "Undead Lich". The Undead Lich is a magic-type combat unit and does not count towards the Acolyte cap after transformation.]

[Transformation Cost: Meat ×100, Soul Energy ×200, Animal Hide ×20 (per person)]

[Undead Lich · Skill List]

[Wither Curse (Combat - Single Target): Casts a curse on the target, reducing its defense by 30%, attack speed by 20%, and movement speed by 25%. Duration: 12 seconds, Cooldown: 20 seconds. Mana Cost: 30]

[Undead Healing (Combat - Area of Effect): With self as the center, all friendly Undead units within an 8-meter radius recover 3 Health Points per second for 10 seconds. Cooldown: 25 seconds. Mana Cost: 40]

[Undead Transformation (Combat - Single Target): Directly transforms the corpses of killed living units on the battlefield into Undead units. Cooldown per transformation: 45 seconds. Mana Cost: 50]

[Undead Lich · Base Stats]

Attack Power: 18 (Magic - Shadow/Ranged)

Defense: 6

Health Points: 60

Mana: 200/200

Range: 15 meters

After reading the skill list, Xu Qin couldn't help but exclaim, "Yoho!"

Wither Curse reduces defense by 30%, attack speed, and movement speed.

Isn't this just a walking debuff machine?

The Minotaur chieftain's defense doubles to 26 when at low health?

Curse it once, 26 gets a 30% reduction, becoming 18.

The Undead Sand Jackal's claw strike will deal 13 damage; it won't be a chip-damage playstyle anymore.

Undead Healing is even more outrageous.

8-meter radius, 3 points per second, lasting 10 seconds.

An Undead Lich standing behind the pig herd using healing can restore 30 health points to all Skeleton Warthogs in range within ten seconds.

The Skeleton Warthog's total health is only 55.

In other words, once a heal covers them, the front line is basically fully restored.

And there's Undead Transformation...

Mid-battle, pulling up enemy corpses to fight back?

"Strong. It also saves the trouble of transporting them one by one to the Graveyard; just transform them right on the spot!"

Xu Qin couldn't wait to look at the transformation costs.

Each Acolyte requires 100 Meat, 200 Soul Energy, and 20 Animal Hide.

Xu Qin opened his inventory and glanced at his meat reserves.

Twelve thousand.

"..."

His Undead Army doesn't eat.

Aside from the few bites he takes himself, all this meat is just inventory.

Not to mention the animal hides, with thousands of them just piling up and collecting dust.

Xu Qin turned his head to look at the four Acolytes waiting in the plaza, then glanced at the two currently upgrading buildings.

"Currently, there are fifteen Acolytes; two are upgrading the altar and the furnace, so they can't be moved."

"The remaining thirteen..."

Xu Qin rubbed his hands together.

"Transform them all!"

The thirteen Acolytes received the order, lined up in a row, and walked toward the entrance of the Cursed Temple one by one.

The first one to walk in was Pig-head Acolyte No. 2.

Eerie green light engulfed it.

A low humming sound came from inside the temple, the bone patterns accelerated their flow, and the ghost fire at the top of the tower flared up sharply.

Fifteen seconds later.

A figure walked out from the exit on the other side of the temple.

Xu Qin looked closely.

Whoa.

Although the pig head hadn't changed, its aura was completely different from before.

The animal hide hood had turned into a grey-black robe with a hem that trailed on the ground, embroidered all over with dark purple runes.

In its left hand, it held a 1.5-meter-long bone staff, with a fist-sized skull at the top, and eerie green flames burning in its eye sockets and mouth.

The two tusks on the pig head were still there.

But after being paired with the robe and the bone staff...

It actually had a sense of eerie majesty.

"Pig-head Archmage." Xu Qin nodded, "Cool!"

Immediately after, the lizard-headed, snake-headed, bull-headed, and jackal-headed Acolytes walked into the temple one after another.