喜淘淘

Abel spent the whole day making more potions. He didn’t do anything else until he had used up half of the ingredients. After he was done, he took the other half and left them inside Akara’s tent.

It was getting late. As Abel came to his room, he sat on the floor, piled with meditation, and began his daily meditation practice. He took out his magic circle and activated it with an intermediate magic gemstone.

Before he’s even started his meditation, Abel could feel endless waves of mana drawing towards him from all angles. In fact, it was so abundant that they existed in physical forms, like tidal waves that were moving about. He was like a small island in the midst of the ocean, and the waves just kept hitting his body.

Abel took out a fresh crystal core from his private storage box and threw it into his own mouth. There were eight fresh crystal cores left. He had access to the entire squad’s supply, but he still couldn’t get enough of it over the past few days.

Luckily for him, the progress he was making with his meditation was actually quite fast. As he did some math after his session, he figured that if he had 30 fresh crystal cores, and was doing his training in a mana-filled environment like this area, he could rank up in a very short amount of time. If he did one meditation session a day, he could become a rank four wizard by next month.

Abel really wanted to stay in the Double Moon Forest now. There were plenty of fresh crystal cores over there. Also, when he did become an official wizard, he might just build a magic tower inside the Dark World. As dangerous as that sounded, the mana here was just so much thicker than the other places.

The next morning, Abel rode Black Wind to teleport at a waypoint. He wanted to bring Black Wind with him to the Cold Plain, which was the one location he could travel via the waypoint.

And here they were. Black Wind wasn’t quite used to the cold at the Cold Plain, so as soon as they arrived, it started scratching its nose with its paws.

“Let’s go find Rib Bone, Black Wind!” Abel shouted as loudly as he could. He wanted to relieve the stress that he had piled up in the Dark World.

Inside Bloor Moor, there were two armored knights standing next to each other. They had swords in their right and a shield in their left. Every time they fought, they performed their moves like properly trained knights. If no one had said so, it would be very hard to tell that they were skeletons summoned from another world.

As blue light began to flash out of Rib Bone no. 1’s body, about ten or so fallen began to slow down their attacks. These fallen had just lost the chance to protect their master, the fallen shaman, who was too busy reviving the defeated fallen.

So Rib Bone no. 1 was responsible for fighting off the fallen, and Rib Bone no. 2 was responsible for finishing the fight. After being strengthened by the “powered potion,” no. 1 became much stronger than no. 2. While no. 2 was trying to hold down the fallen shaman, no. 1 had already killed most of the summoned fallens.

While the two skeletons were in the middle of a bloodbath, a “charged bolt” was fired from over the distance. As it landed on the ground, a zapping sound came and knocked down all the remaining fallen. After that, a bunch of dark shadows flew towards the Horadric Cube inside Abel’s hand.

“Rib Bone!” Abel called out as all the fallen have been defeated. After hearing Abel, Rib Bone no. 1 ran towards him and stopped beside Black Wind. It was like a servant welcoming its master’s return.

Rib Bone no. 2 was a different case. Since there weren’t any enemies left, it just stood there without doing anything. As it turned out, the “power potion” and the “soul enhancing potion” collected from the corpsefire could strengthen not just the thickness of a skeleton’s bones, but also how intelligent its mind was.

Whether it was its fight capability or its intelligence, Rib Bone no. 1 was performing much better than Rib Bone no. 2. Theoretically speaking, there shouldn’t be a difference between the two. That, however, has changed.

Abel had left Rib Bone no. 1 and no. 2 inside Bloor Moor this entire time. Eight days had passed in the outside world, which meant that 160 days have passed since they were last summoned. After fighting so long without taking any rest, his “resurrection of skeletons” spell was now upgraded to rank four. The improvements were shown like this:

Resurrection of skeletons

Description: Revive a skeleton from a dead creature’s corpse. Gain control over it as it fights for you.

Mana cost: 9

Skeletons count: 3

Damage: 1-2

Defense point: 65

Health: 31

Current skill level: 4

Progress till next level: 1017/30150

Judging from the attribute that Rib Bone was given, it’s defensive ability had far surpassed Abel without his combat qi armor. And it’s wasn’t just defensive ability against physical attacks. Rib Bone was very resistant against magic, too. In terms of offensive capability, it was no different from a mini-sized knight’s head commander.

While checking the attribute of his spells, Abel noticed a cross on the icon that represented the “resurrection of skeletons” spells. Apparently, one of his skeleton summons was canceled. Would the same skeleton be summoned next time? He wasn’t actually sure of that.

He needed to experiment. Obviously, Abel wasn’t going to do anything to mess with Rib Bone no. 1. After choosing no. 2 to be his guinea pig, Abel canceled his summoning of it in his skill tree.

Suddenly, a black hole appeared next Rib Bone no. 2. After being sucked into another dimension, Rib Bone no. 2 disappeared from Abel’s sight.

“I forgot to take off the armor and weapons!” Abel cursed as he focused his power of Will on the skeleton icons. He didn’t actually need the corpses to call back the skeletons that were summoned.

Abell summoned a skeleton once more. As the same black hole emerged, a skeleton with sword, shield, and armor was spat out from it.

Rats! With sweat dripping down from his face, Abel looked at the Rib Bone no. 2 he just summoned. He didn’t actually have to go find the skeletons. He could just summon them to where he was at!

After canceling the summoning of the two Rib Bones, Abel rode Black Wind back the Cold Plain.

After entering the Cold Plain, Abel summoned Rib Bone no. 1 and no. 2 again. With the sword of Victory in his hands, he readied himself for the upcoming battle.

Soon later, a few hundred grey-skinned, fully-armored spearwomen charged towards Abel with their spears.

Before Abel has made any moves, Rib Bone no. 2 was already charging at the front line before him. Abel recognized them. These women used to be warriors from the Rogue’s Encampment but were turned into corrupt spearwomen after being in contact with devils.

Despite having lost their sanity, these corrupt spearwomen were still quite skilled in their attacks. They were a bigger threat than the fallen, actually. Unlike the timid fallen, surrender was not an option for them. Their sole purpose of existence was to attack, attack, and attack until all of their enemies were dead.

Rib Bone no. 2 was doing pretty well. As its sword slashed at the first spearwoman, the icing effect of its ice magic sword began to slow down her entire body’s movement. Four other spearwomen attacked while it was doing this. As it repelled the attacks with its shield, three out of the four spears were blocked, leaving one having struck it from the side.

Rib Bone no. 2 froze on the spot. Abel could see it clearly. Like all creatures from the underworld, whatever target they hit would slow down their movements. Rib Bone no. 2 was no exception. As it became slower and slower, it just eventually stopped moving.

Within an instance, more spears penetrated through Rib Bone no. 1’s body. It paused even more after each attack, and eventually, it just stopped making any defensive movement. It just became a sandbag. After a few mere seconds, it was crushed into a bunch of ashes, and all the magic armor, shield, and sword it equipped fell on the ground.