85: Chapter 85: Mastering the Essence of Specialization!

Xu Qin ordered the excavation to begin.

The 40 Elite Troglodytes swarmed out, diving into the collapsed area.

Their digging speed was absurdly fast.

Thousands of bone claws tore through the mud, sand, and rubble; dust billowed and debris churned above the collapsed area.

Twenty minutes.

The first tunnel was broken through.

Forty-five minutes.

All eight tunnels were cleared.

One hour later...

The 13,000 buried Undead Army soldiers crawled out from the mud and sand one after another.

Their bodies were coated in thick dust, and their bone joints were packed with rubble.

Yet, not a single one had perished.

Xu Qin stood at the edge of the Floating City, looking down.

The dust-covered Undead Army lined up and returned to their positions.

Although some of the Stitched Bone Beasts still had pebbles stuck in their bone joints.

"It really has to be the Undead," Xu Qin sighed with emotion.

If it were any other living race buried alive a dozen meters underground...

it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say they would have been wiped out within minutes.

But the Undead had no such issues; they didn't even think there was anything wrong with being buried in the earth.

They just needed to wait quietly in the soil for their master to come and dig them out.

"But having said that..."

Xu Qin rubbed his chin.

"If I hadn't casually wiped out that Troglodyte lord back then and obtained this batch of Troglodyte remains, today would definitely not have been this easy."

The Troglodytes' racial talent was digging tunnels.

Other units could dig too, but their efficiency was more than ten times worse.

Timing, geography, and human effort—none could be lacking.

After the army returned to their positions, Xu Qin didn't rush to continue excavating the mineral vein.

The appearance of the giant beast remains had changed his priorities.

"Tian Ming."

"I am here."

"Split the troops into two groups. You take 1,500 Troglodytes and take charge of mining the fourteen giant beast remains."

"The remaining Troglodytes will continue to mine the eternal source crystals."

"Send all the Sand Rats out to monitor the mineral vein for any new guardians spawning."

"The whole army is to prepare for battle."

"Yes, Master."

Tian Ming accepted the order and left.

Xu Qin returned to the Lords Hall and sat on his bone throne, closing his eyes to rest.

The Undead didn't need to sleep.

But he was human.

Continuous combat combined with high-intensity command meant his eyelids were already fighting to stay open.

"Set an alarm... wake me up in six hours."

He left an instruction for Tian Ming: only wake him up if there was an emergency, and handle all other matters independently.

Then, Xu Qin leaned back against the bone throne and fell into a deep sleep.

Six hours later.

Xu Qin was awakened by the notification sound from the command panel.

He rubbed his eyes and immediately opened the resource panel.

The eternal source crystals were about to hit 10,000.

Looking over at the giant beast remains, Tian Ming's report had already been transmitted back to the panel.

"Master, the first giant beast remains have finished being mined."

"A single set of remains yielded a total of 4,217 units of Source Essence."

"Based on this calculation, the total output for the fourteen remains will be approximately 60,000 units."

Seeing this number, all of Xu Qin's sleepiness instantly vanished.

Sixty thousand!

He had calculated before that the city-wide eternal source crystal upgrade would require 500,000 to 600,000 eternal source crystals.

But Source Essence was different.

It was a high-purity material condensed from the bodies of legendary-grade magical beasts. It could be used directly for the Floating City's eternal source crystal upgrade and could significantly shorten the upgrade progress.

Xu Qin opened the upgrade interface and tried inserting the Source Essence into the material slot for "Energy Zone · eternal source crystal Upgrade".

Ding!

[Legendary-grade auxiliary material detected: Source Essence!]

[Do you wish to replace a portion of the eternal source crystals with Source Essence?]

[Replacement ratio: 1 unit of Source Essence = 5 units of eternal source crystals]

Xu Qin's sleepiness vanished instantly.

One to five!

That meant the 60,000 units of Source Essence were equal to 300,000 eternal source crystals!

Plus the 9,000-plus eternal source crystals he already had...

"What am I waiting for? Energy Zone, upgrade first!" Xu Qin impatiently clicked confirm.

[Energy Zone · eternal source crystal Upgrade initiated!]

[Estimated completion time: 6 hours]

Once the Energy Zone was upgraded, the soul energy output would immediately increase fivefold.

At that point, the Floating City would never have to worry about energy again.

"I'll plan for the remaining essence once all the giant beast remains have been mined."

Xu Qin closed the panel and walked out of the Lords Hall.

Six more hours passed.

The level 6 upgrades for each zone were completed one after another.

Ding!

[Hall of Valor upgrade complete! Level: 6]

[New feature unlocked: Hero Mastery!]

[Description: The level 6 Hall of Valor opens the "Hero Mastery" system.]

[Hero Mastery: Heroes of Epic quality and above can activate a mastery path. Depending on the hero's combat style and racial characteristics, they will gain unique mastery enhancements. Once mastery is activated, the hero will gain a qualitative leap in a certain field.]

[Activation requirements: Consume 50,000 soul energy + 2,000 magic crystal fragments + Hero Level 20]

Over 700,000 soul energy and 2,000 magic crystal fragments?

Does this even count as a requirement?

Tian Ming is level 32, Shadow is level 27—I can use it easily!

But Xu Qin didn't act immediately.

Just as he saw the activation requirements, another thought popped into his head.

"Since Source Essence can be used as a universal auxiliary material..."

"What if I stuff the essence into the mastery materials?"

"Anyway, it can be used for hero enhancement too..."

Xu Qin directly opened Tian Ming's mastery interface and, in addition to the standard materials, added extra Source Essence.

Ding!

[Source Essence addition limit reached: 800 units.]

[Massive amount of legendary-grade auxiliary material injection detected! Mastery quality will be significantly improved!]

"Good." Xu Qin called Tian Ming over.

"Stand in front of the Hall of Valor obelisk."

"Yes, Master."

Tian Ming floated directly beneath the obelisk.

Xu Qin clicked [Activate Mastery].

Hum!

The entire Hall of Valor erupted with orange light.

Tian Ming's body was enveloped by the pillar of light, and the gems on his Nether Crown flashed wildly.

30 seconds later, the light dissipated.

Ding!

[Hero "Tian Ming" mastery activated successfully!]

[Mastery Path: Undead Overlord]

[Mastery Effects:]

[1. Command Expansion: Command limit increased by an additional 2,000. Tian Ming's current command limit has been increased to 5,500.]

[2. Legion of the Dead · Enhancement: Single-time conversion limit increased from 55 bodies to 120 bodies. Conversion speed increased by 100%.]

[3. Death Domain Lord (Passive · Mastery Exclusive): Within a 50-meter radius around Tian Ming, all friendly Undead units gain +8% Attack and +8% Defense. Enemy living units suffer continuous soul suppression, reducing their Attack by 15% and Movement Speed by 20%.]

[4. soul energy Link (Passive · Mastery Exclusive): Tian Ming can remotely link to the Floating City's energy core and directly draw upon the Floating City's soul energy on the battlefield to recharge his own mana. Mana will never be depleted.]

"Holy crap!" Xu Qin exclaimed aloud after reading it.

"Infinite mana?"

And it even has the Death Domain Lord unique passive?

"Tian Ming, you aren't planning on usurping the throne, are you?"

Tian Ming hurriedly bowed, saying in a steady tone: "Tian Ming will forever serve the Master."

The color of his soul fire changed from ghostly blue to deep purple.

"Haha! Just kidding! Why are you panicking?"

Next was Shadow.

The same process, maxing out with 800 units of essence.

Clicked activate.

The orange light erupted again.

30 seconds later.

Ding!

[Hero "Shadow" mastery activated successfully!]

[Mastery Path: Void Walker]

[Mastery Effects:]

[1. Shadow Clone (Active · Mastery Exclusive): Splits off a Shadow Clone with the same attributes as the original body, lasting 30 seconds. The clone can independently execute decapitation missions, and its death does not affect the original body. Cooldown: 120 seconds.]

[2. Void Body (Passive · Mastery Exclusive): When receiving fatal damage, automatically enter a Void state for 2 seconds, during which all damage is negated. Triggers once per battle.]

[3. Assassination Mastery: The execution threshold for critical strikes increased from 35% to 50%. Shadow Leap cooldown reduced to 6 seconds.]

"Good grief!" Xu Qin said while looking at the panel, "50% execution threshold?"