Undead Mage: I Have a Skeleton Clone

Chapter 777 - 500: Full Set of Enchantments, Explosive Power!

This incredibly powerful Magic Staff, exclusive to Undead Mages, was, as Su Xinyan put it, far stronger than the blue Magic Staff she had used at the Silver rank. It was not even that much weaker than the purple rare-grade staff she currently wielded. This was the limit of Fang Zhou’s current capabilities—not just the limit of his crafting skills, but also the limit of what his soul could bear. Until he broke through to the Silver tier, he likely wouldn’t be able to handle any more powerful equipment.

In terms of equipment, besides the significant acquisition of the Soul Shattering Bone Staff, Fang Zhou had also spent a large number of contribution points and a great deal of Soul Power to improve his Enchantment and Alchemy skills. This was, of course, so he could add suitable Enchantments to his full set of eight pieces of equipment. His weapon, the Soul Shattering Bone Staff, was enhanced with the Magic Enchantment, which had the simple but practical effect of slightly increasing the effectiveness of all his magic skills. The Dusk Robe was imbued with the Legion Enchantment, slightly increasing the attack and Defense of his Undead Summoned Creatures. After being reforged and enhanced with Negative Energy resources, the Radiant Mage set had transformed into the Siren’s Elegy Mage set, offering far greater bonuses to Negative Energy magic than the generic Radiant Mage set ever could. For the six pieces of this new set, Fang Zhou selected six different Enchantments: Mana Recovery rate, Mana limit, Magic Critical Strike probability, Magic Critical Strike damage, Magic Combo Probability, and Shield generation upon kill. These six powerful Enchantments made him even more formidable!

Another noteworthy achievement was that Instructor Su Xinyan had successfully extracted the Bronze-grade Undead Attribute material, Yin Soul Sand—one of the Heavenly and Earthly Treasures Fang Zhou desperately needed—from the Skeleton Mage’s Ice Coffin he had brought back. This solved one of his most pressing problems. After all, the Potential Potion for a Bronze-tier Undead Mage required three different Undead-Attribute Heavenly and Earthly Treasures. Now that he had the Yin Soul Sand, he only needed to find the other two.

Within the system for Professionals on Blue Star, Potential Potions served two key functions. The first was to help Professionals with insufficient Talent break through tier bottlenecks and advance smoothly, a function that became increasingly critical at higher Tiers. The second was to act as a reinforcement agent, greatly enhancing a Professional’s affinity for their Profession and its corresponding Attribute energy.

In this regard, Fang Zhou’s own Talent was a double-edged sword. With his monstrous aptitude, as long as his Spirit Attribute was high enough, he could ignore the tier bottleneck and break through to Silver directly, even without consuming the Bronze-tier Potential Potion. However, skipping the Potential Potion meant missing out on a readily available, comprehensive power-up. From his experience with the Apprentice- and Black-Iron-tier Potential Potions, he knew they provided massive, across-the-board improvements to his mana recovery speed, mana capacity, number of summoned creatures, magic power, and spell duration.

At his current level of strength, every small step forward required considerable effort. Therefore, the Potential Potion for each tier was crucial and could not be missed. From this perspective, the rapid growth of his Spirit Attribute actually shortened the time he had to accumulate resources. He thought about his instructor, Su Xinyan. Even with her renowned talent as an Undead Mage—considered the second-best in the world—she had remained at the Bronze tier for a full five years. That five-year period had given her and her backer, Principal Su Tiankuo, ample time to gather resources, saving her from the time crunch Fang Zhou now faced.

These were, of course, his own private realizations, which he had never shared with anyone. Otherwise, his "happy problem" of advancing too quickly would drive even Instructor Su Xinyan to a complete breakdown if she found out.

...

A month later, at the Sea City Military Academy, Fang Zhou was practicing with his Undead Summoning Array in the Undead Mage Research Project Group’s facility when a sudden War Summon Order shattered the rare moment of tranquility. It was a call to arms for the entire graduating class.

"Attention all graduating students of Sea City Military Academy: War Summon Order ’Sweep the Beastmen’ has been activated."

"The Sea City Military Academy has received a distress call from the Beast Fighting City military base. Large-scale movements of the Beastman Tribes have been detected, severely disrupting production at nearby resource bases. We are now recruiting all Professionals of Upper Black Iron tier and above to travel to Beast Fighting City and eliminate the invading Beastman raider teams. Mission Rewards: Large amount of contribution points, large amount of military merit, and access to the exchange privileges at the Beast Fighting City military base."

Fang Zhou’s eyes brightened with interest as he scanned the brief mission description. His strength had hit a bottleneck recently, as he had finally finished digesting all the spoils from his exploration of the Naraku Civilization’s Mage Tomb and the sweep of the Fierce Beast Mountain Range. He had been waiting for a major battle to test just how much his combat power had grown.

He was, however, a little surprised. When he had left Beast Fighting City a few months ago, the area had been peaceful and prosperous. Back then, he had even been wondering when he could save up enough Magic Stones to exchange for a Spirit Beast Ranch or a Spirit Plant Garden there. That would be a steady stream of profit, a surefire investment. He hadn’t expected it to be invaded by Beastmen again after just a few months. It hasn’t even been that long since the cross-world invasion by the Demon Worshipers! This place truly is a trial ground; one wave falls, and another rises.

Then again, Fang Zhou had known since his first visit that Beast Fighting City was situated in a perilous location. On one side lay the boundless Fierce Beast Mountain Range, and on the other, the powerful and primitive Beastman Tribes. The city’s military and its Adventurers had to periodically exert immense effort to defend against beast tides and Beastman invasions from both fronts. With this in mind, Fang Zhou opened his personal terminal. He sent a few messages to Lieutenant Colonel Shen Zhongyun at the Beast Fighting City military base, as well as the three leaders of the Flame Medal Adventurer Group, to ask about the current situation. Beast Fighting City was located in an interdimensional space where Blue Star and the Mythical World converged, making real-time communication with Blue Star difficult through normal channels. Still, if they replied to his messages, it would provide him with valuable information to work with.

With a snap of his fingers, Fang Zhou recalled the hundreds of Undead Summoned Creatures into his summoning Tomb and headed for the Sea City Military Academy’s task office. He figured he could get more specific intelligence regarding the Beastman invasion there. He needed to carefully assess the enemy’s strength and numbers to properly evaluate the risks involved.

Sure enough, at the task office, Fang Zhou gathered the information he wanted from the graduating students and instructors who had come after hearing the news. This Beastman commotion was different from the norm. Generally, the Beastmen near Beast Fighting City had been cowed by the Longxia Federation’s military and had retreated far to the north. They would only venture south to raid for winter supplies during the autumn and winter. This time, however, the Beastman raiding parties had arrived unusually early and in far greater numbers. Caught off guard, the plantations near Beast Fighting City had suffered significant losses. Despite this, the risk of the ’Sweep the Beastmen’ mission was not considered very high; it was merely an ordinary trial for the graduating class.

Given that the students’ strength ranged from Upper Black Iron to Lower Bronze, most of them had already trained in Beast Fighting City and the Fierce Beast Mountain Range before. They were not intimidated by a battle of this level. Once they understood the mission requirements, everyone began to sign up enthusiastically. As the newly minted number one Seed Student, Fang Zhou naturally received many invitations to join teams, but he declined them all.