Someone from Vinesmoore Family would come today. Ever since citizens knew the other three bandit groups were wiped out, the city became chaotic. Green Crops’ executives were busy taking care of this matter.
Eren had to assist Don in welcoming the noble from Vinesmoore. They waited outside of the village. A carriage approached and stopped before them. Two men came out.
Eren’s eyes widened when he saw the first person. He had white hair and jellyfish tattoo on his right cheek. “Johan Ashker?”
Johan was surprised too. “You are from the Coffin Sect.”
The purple-haired man beside Johan glanced at him. “Someone you know, Mr. Ashker?”
Don clapped his hands. “It seems you are all acquaintance. Let’s go inside. Comes, Young Master Vinesmoore.”
Joeri Vinesmoore bowed. “Don’t be so formal to me, Sir. It is unbefitting of bandits. Where are the other three leaders?”
Don coughed. “I—we wiped them. Revenge thing. I will explain later. You don’t have to worry much, Young Master. Your goods are alright. By the way, who is this young master?”
Joeri chuckled. “As long as my goods are fine.” He opened his arm toward Johan. “Everyone, this man is rank seven favored, Johan Ashker.”
Don frowned. “Ashker Family? The Church of Enlightenment? I am sorry, Young Master. We can’t let people from the church come in.”
Joeri rubbed his clean chin. “I will respect your choice, but I don’t see any person from the church here.”
Johan clenched his fist and explained, “I abandoned the church.”
Eren gasped. Johan was so proud of being a member of the church. “What have you become?”
Johan clucked. “Not your business.”
Joeri folded his hands on the back and walked inside calmly. “The Church of Enlightenment let out a decree for all members. They have to go war against the Alliance. The participants have to die.”
Eren snorted. “I see. You value your life more. I am disgusted with the church, but they are better people than you. The female knight who accompanied me in the necropolis was a good person too.”
“Amanises. That is her name!”
Don intercepted Johan as he would follow Joeri. “You have to be blindfolded and chained just in case. I don’t trust you a bit.”
……
Inside the base, Don told Joeri the story he made up. The young master didn’t appear to care. He was listening for courtesy sake.
Don led him outside to the place where he stored all goods that would be sold to Joeri. Eren followed from behind as he held the rope that bound Johan.
“Why did you abandon the church?”
The blindfolded Johan grinned. “Why did you ask? It isn’t like we are close.”
Eren looked up and sighed. “I admired Amanises. She was the first person from the church that I respected. When I badmouthed you, she defended you. She talked about you would lead your subordinates to the glorious death. Why didn’t you die?”
Johan was silent for a while before replying, “I am greedy. Sure I want glorious death, but I want people to remember me.”
Eren shook his head as he pulled Johan’s rope. He couldn’t sympathize with magus way of thinking at all, even he didn’t understand his friend Allen.
All goods were piled up in the center. Joeri’s smile was blooming. He looked at Don. “I approve of you as this village’s sole leader. I will note my father about this. Ah, let me give you a congratulation gift. What do you want?”
Don clapped and bowed. “Thank you, Young Master. I want you to give me the strength potion’s recipe.”
Joeri nodded. “Fine, I will give you a manual on how to become an alchemist as a bonus.”
“Young master is generous.”
Joeri waved his hands. “This is an investment. I hope you will keep a good relationship with the Alliance in the future. Let’s forget about the past.”
Don couldn’t help but chuckle. He had relieved his hatred. It was the right choice to move on. “This man is glad to receive such an invitation.”
Joeri shook Don’s hand. “It is nice to work with a reasonable person like you, Mr. Sandino, no Lord Sandino. O advice from me. Don’t become the Alliance member before the church is annihilated. Now that our business is done, I have to go.”
……
Joeri left the village with many horses to carry his goods. He was calm inside the carriage, not worrying people would rob him. He looked at the woods beside the village.
“You keep staring at the woods. Is there something special about it?”
Joeri smiled and replied calmly, “Deep inside the woods lies an ancient magus’s grave.”
Johan remembered the Nether Necropolis and his body tensed up. “Don’t tell me there is treasure inside of it?”
Joeri nodded. “Was. The Alliance made sure to take them all. By the way, what is your preparation to advance to the next realm?”
“So, you prepared yourself to advance. Do you want to surrender from the favored tournament?”
Joeri chortled. “I guess you haven’t heard of it even though you are the son of the pope. Your church, the Alliance, the Empire, and the Link Temple agreed people who advanced to the magic foundation realm in the last five years could participate in the favored tournament.”
“I see.”
“Are you not interested?”
Johan grinned. “I admit I can never advance in my body.”
“That’s why your goal is different from the usual magus. Then, this news may take your interest. The Kobold King will move to this continent until the favored tournament ends. Mr. President is eager to have a negotiation with him regarding the advancement of the magic core realm.”
…….
Allen climbed a rocky hill. As he reached the top, he looked around for a spacious place. Unfortunately, he could only see trees.
Allen sighed. “People haven’t cut any tree for wood yet? My remaining minions are only thirty. It will take a lot of time, but it can’t be helped.”
He summoned all his remaining minions from the undead tower and ordered them to cut the trees. He turned back and realized a grave lied before him. He noticed an entrance with a broken door behind it.
“This is the tomb of Harvest King. They had explored this place. But, it is not wrong to check it out.”
Allen entered the entrance and passed stairs that led to the underground. The place itself was quite spacious. He estimated it to be as large as Don’s house.
“There is nothing. What did I expect? I get an idea of what I have to do in the future after looking at this tomb. I will find a suitable place to make a dungeon in the future. For now, I will focus on establishing a temporary base.”
Allen went outside and sat beside the grave. While waiting for his minions to make a spacious area, he took out several souls and absorbed them into his soul cage. He refined them all into renegade spirits.
Allen opened one eye to look at a minion’s vision. They were still cutting trees. He focused on his soul cage again.
Black mist coiled around the new renegade spirits. As times passed, most turned into renegade ghosts. Those who failed were free.
Allen opened his eyes again. He smiled. “This result is satisfying.”
He realized it was already night. He came down the hill and approached his minions. They had made a spacious area enough.
Allen ordered them to stay away. With the undead tower on his palm, he recited a spell.
The undead tower shook and flew from his hand. It landed in the center of the spacious area and enlarged.
Allen looked up. The tower was three times larger than the surrounding trees. He frowned. Even though this place was deep in the woods, he was afraid someone would notice this tall building. Moreover, there was this shining orb floating above it.
“If I remember correctly, I have recorded a certain dark spell that can be used to conceal the surroundings in a small radius. It can be used as spell formation to conceal a large area too if it is performed by many dark magus. I have to find a way to make my minions learning mana absorption technique.”
The door of the tower opened. Allen entered it while he ordered his minions to scout the surroundings.
The first floor was a room that contained coffins, resources, and souls. He went upstairs to the second floor. It was an empty room.
Allen headed to the third floor. It was empty too, but there was a podium in the center. He noticed a thick book on it too.
Allen flipped the book and read the title, “The Undead Tower Manual.”
The first page was a table of contents as he had expected. He read the introduction of this tower.
“This tower is a magical treasure of the spirit domain realm. Spirit domain realm? Is that a realm above the magic core realm? Arkor the Necromancer was the first owner of this tower.
“I have to supply this tower with mana stones or souls before it experiences an outage. I don’t know what it means yet, but I can find it out by reading more.
“I can change the interior of this tower automatically as long as I sacrifice enough materials to the orb above the tower. This is handy. Finally, it turns out this tower has a concealment device. I have to go to the fourth floor.”
As Allen reached the fourth floor, he immediately approached a floating purple gem in the middle of the room. Suddenly, the gem emitted light before he could react.
As Allen blinked his eyes and adjusted his vision, a familiar screen appeared before him. If his system was blue, this one had the purple color.
Recognizing the new master of the undead tower
Undead Tower
Grade: Spirit Domain Realm Treasure
Fuels: 259/300.000
Soul Storage: 0/300.000
Mana Storage: 0/300.000
Item Storage: 0/300.000
Corpse Storage: 0/300.000
Owner: Allen Vos
Features:
Allen read the features. He could sacrifice soul and mana as fuels just by saying. He could do it to store mana, item, soul, and corpse too. The limitation was he couldn’t store living beings and undead.
Allen activated the concealment feature as soon as he glanced at it. Afterward, he touched the clairvoyance feature.
Allen’s vision was linked with the orb above the tower. He could see from far and from every angle. From outsider vision, this tower was invisible. There was an invisible sphere that surrounded the tower.
Allen stopped using clairvoyance. He sighed when he saw the fuels had decreased.
Allen checked other features too such as attack mode and editing interior.
After he finished with familiarizing himself with the features, Allen stored all souls and items on the first floor. They vanished, but he knew the orb above the tower had absorbed them. Only coffins that contained high realm minions remained.
“According to the book, it is better to use souls as fuel. The orb above the tower absorbed knowledge from souls it has absorbed. I can sacrifice fuels to gain that knowledge.”
Allen touched the knowledge list feature. He scrolled the purple screen and found something that caught his interest.
Trains Humanoid Undead to Learn Mana Absorption Technique
Grade: Mana Condensation Realm
Fuel Cost: 100
“It is so expensive!” Allen complained. “It can’t be helped. I need it. I purchase them.”
After he said that, the purple gem emitted light. Suddenly, a lot of information flowed inside his mind.
