Chapter Forty-Four: Becoming Undead

Liu Zong had seen quite a few bosses before, but he had never actually faced one in direct combat. The toughest enemies he had battled alone were only elite-level; the wind elemental before him, both in size and strength, exerted a tremendous pressure on him. Fortunately, the Storm Archipelago map was nearly depleted, unable to sustain creatures above level 1. Despite its imposing form, this wind elemental boss’s true power did not exceed that limit.

With this in mind, Liu Zong and his hastily assembled team of ten confronted the wind elemental boss head-on. At the very front charged Zhu Yan’s two junior disciples, followed by Zhu Yan herself and Xu Linlin; the rest trailed behind. This wasn’t a formal party—there were no designated tanks or healers. Everyone relied solely on their own combat instincts.

Luckily, Zhu Yan had briefed everyone beforehand: attack as you please, but only fall back to recover once you’ve lost two-thirds of your health. By her calculations, the boss’s area attacks were limited, incapable of striking everyone at once—at most, one or two players could be hit simultaneously. If two fell back, two others could immediately step in. As long as no one was taken out instantly, losses would be minimal.

Zhu Yan’s plan was sound and logical, but she had underestimated the tenacity of a level-0 boss. The battle dragged on for nearly thirty minutes before the wind elemental finally collapsed before them.

What left everyone speechless was that aside from a single Wind Elemental Heart, the boss dropped nothing else. In essence, no one else gained any reward from the fight. Fortunately, Zhu Yan’s reputation carried enough weight, and most players had already benefited from her generosity; so there were no complaints. Once they returned to the base at Pineshade Valley, everyone went about their own business.

In the following days, Liu Zong dutifully completed his daily quests. Apart from this, he spent only two hours practicing his spear skills, devoting the rest of his time entirely to perfecting the skill taught by the fortune-telling old woman.

By now, Liu Zong had largely figured out the optimal frequency and force for the vibrations; what remained was perfecting the composition of the materials to be infused.

He knew he still lacked important materials and couldn’t conduct proper experiments. His understanding of the Yin attribute was also too shallow; he had focused too much on the undead branch, though he knew Yin encompassed far more than just necromancy. This mission had revealed many of his shortcomings. He resolved that, after leaving, he would dedicate a full year to proper study before returning to deal with the sea dragon’s corpse.

Most of his original plans were now obsolete, particularly his construction blueprints. He realized he would also need to study materials science—and ideally, learn some alchemy as well.

Day by day passed like this. On the tenth day in the Storm Archipelago, Liu Zong noticed that Zhu Yan had finished her tasks ahead of schedule and had come to the site where he practiced his summoning ritual.

By this time, all the land surrounding the Pineshade Valley base had been tainted by negative energy. In places hidden from view, undead already wandered. Liu Zong stood at the same spot where he had first used the summoning rite. Compared to last time, the dust storm overhead now swirled with even more spectral faces—evidence that the influx of negative energy was drawing in souls.

Liu Zong waited there. At around three thirty in the afternoon, the enormous boar’s head once again crashed down from the skies, trailing a hail of sand and grit.

The Type-IV Seven Knights’ main control core looked vastly different now. Much of it was coated in black sand as if glued in place, refusing to fall away. Amid the grit, Liu Zong could see countless mechanical parts—some recognizable as items he had once handed in for daily quests, others mysterious or belonging to strange, ancient machines.

Surveying the transformed control core, Zhu Yan nodded in approval. She could tell that Liu Zong had been working hard; the core’s properties had completely changed.

Just as Liu Zong was about to jump onto the core, Zhu Yan stopped him.

“Wait a moment. I have a few things to add.”

He nodded and stepped aside. He could sense that the necromantic transformation of the main core was already at 99%. One more session of the summoning ritual would complete it, so there was no need to rush.

From her pocket, Zhu Yan produced a stack of cards—most containing various mechanical parts, some of which Liu Zong recognized as quest items he’d submitted to the base. There were also scorpion shells and animal bones—more earth-based than necromantic in nature. Liu Zong had no objections; he could certainly provide better materials, but that would cost money or time to gather, and since Zhu Yan had come prepared, he left it to her.

Once she tossed the materials into the sand, Zhu Yan jumped onto the main control core and inserted a few circuit-board-like objects. Only after all this did she nod at Liu Zong. “It’s ready. Begin the transformation.”

Without further questions, Liu Zong leaped atop the core and began the final summoning.

This time, as he channeled negative energy, he noticed it didn’t follow his direction, but instead spread outward along several energy lines from the core itself. Alarmed, he quickly documented the paths and patterns of these flows—realizing that what he could now observe of the Type-IV’s inner workings might never be revealed again.

The negative energy, injected by Liu Zong, radiated from the control core in all directions. Soon, the ground began to tremble. Buried parts slowly rose from the earth and gathered toward the core.

Before long, a colossal wild boar, its bones made of machine parts and its muscles of black sand, stood before Liu Zong and Zhu Yan.