Chapter 16: The Soul-Suppressing Tower

After securing two units, Mande led his men off to patrol the ramparts. He had understood his role from the very beginning: to command sufficient troops and guard the walls of the Underworld Palace.

As Mande prepared to depart with his soldiers, Liu Zhi couldn't help but ask, "Are those troops enough? Do you need me to organize more for you?"

Mande turned his head to look at Liu Zhi. "You don't think I'm the only one guarding this city, do you? I don't have that kind of ability. My men and I are a mobile force; holding the walls still requires the soldiers on the parapets, the archers in the towers, and the piranhas in the moat."

With that, Mande quickly led his troops away. Before leaving, he offered a piece of advice: "It isn't as simple as just training soldiers and calling them a combat squad. Those soldiers need to fight together for a time before they can truly become a cohesive unit."

Liu Zhi was not surprised by this. If combat squads were that easy to form, he wouldn't have just learned of the concept now.

Liu Zhi glanced at the Fate-Weaving Spider Woman, who was still swaying nearby. "Make the arrangements. Organize the skeletons into groups of sixty and prepare them for scouting."

The Spider Woman seemed poised to speak, but Liu Zhi’s attention had already shifted to the remaining items.

There were only three things left to process: a model that looked like an obelisk, which was the architectural blueprint for the Underworld Palace; a group of zombie models that looked like miners, representing the residents of the palace; and finally, something resembling a finger bone, which was the promised random novice talent.

Liu Zhi picked up the novice talent and his expression turned strange.

[Shadow Perception (Talent): Grants extraordinary sensitivity to shadows, providing a natural aptitude for shadow stealth, shadow manipulation, and related arts.]

Looking at this talent, Liu Zhi muttered, "Does this mean if the Blademaster path doesn't work out, I'm supposed to switch to being a rogue?"

He didn't activate the talent, setting it aside instead. Since he couldn't use it, he could find a way to trade it for something he could actually employ. With so many players both inside and outside the game, there were bound to be good opportunities waiting for him.

Putting that thought aside, Liu Zhi focused on the golden, obelisk-like model. To his surprise, it was a Soul-Suppressing Tower.

[Soul-Suppressing Tower Blueprint: Core building for an Undead City. Level cap: 9. Usage limit: 9 times. Can be built at a designated location.]

[Soul-Suppressing Tower: As a core structure of an Undead City, this tower and the Soul-Calling Tower are known as the Twin Core Towers. Every undead city must possess one of the two. The Soul-Calling Tower increases attraction to nearby wandering souls and boosts the success rate of soul-calling or other necromantic spells. The Soul-Suppressing Tower, however, provides protection to the undead, preventing them from dissipating into the air, while also suppressing them to ensure their loyalty.]

"Excellent. This is truly excellent."

Liu Zhi stood up in excitement. With a wave of his hand, a green, thirty-meter-tall phantom of an obelisk appeared at a specific location within the Underworld Palace.

Reflecting on the layout of the palace, he recalled his plan to divide the grounds in two using the original site of the pyramid as a marker. He placed the obelisk precisely along the line he had drawn.

The moment it was placed, an obelisk constructed of black marble "grew" from the ground.

The base was a ten-by-ten-meter platform, carved with various patterns. Liu Zhi noticed that beyond the many skeletons and roses, the carvings depicted his own "stories": killing the Murloc Prophet at sea, eliminating the Perkin expedition team on the road, his challenge before the Feathered Serpent, defeating the demon in the pyramid, and slaying Katler within the Underworld Palace.

Liu Zhi felt a bit embarrassed by this, but it was a fine memento nonetheless. After circling the tower, he turned his attention to the final item.

[Miner Zombie Squad: A squad of zombies trained as miners. They can be assigned to work in any mine—including but not limited to iron, gold, or crystal mines—to increase extraction speed.]

Reading the description, Liu Zhi was speechless. "A mining squad isn't much use if you don't give me a mine to go with it."

After organizing his various belongings, he tucked away the universal currency. Including what he had obtained from opening packs in the game, he now possessed 9,800 units. Without knowing the cost of living in the game, he couldn't tell if he was wealthy or a pauper.

Thinking this, Liu Zhi headed toward the Water-Deprived Lake. He had noticed during his last visit that the lake and the skeleton of the giant serpent had been brought back, which gave him some peace of mind.

His goal for this trip, beyond opening his rewards, was to learn how to create an Underworld ecosystem.

This was essential. According to the requirements of an Underworld ecosystem, he first had to plant appropriate flora and then introduce the corresponding fauna into the Underworld Palace.

Initially, the most suitable plant for him would have been the Namuda tree obtained in the game; it was a perfect match for serpent creatures. Liu Zhi could easily imagine the scene and impact of unleashing hundreds of giant serpents. Furthermore, the people of the Golden City had achieved this by altering the snakes' diet to fruit. Liu Zhi believed that with the divinity of the Feathered Serpent he possessed, he could do the same.

However, he abandoned the idea. Aside from the resources and time required to raise a giant serpent, the planting requirements for the Namuda were a headache—it had to be grown atop a waterfall.

Liu Zhi had no way to find a waterfall.

Instead, his thoughts drifted to the aquatic plants in the Water-Deprived Lake. Since the rain he had summoned previously, the lake was no longer lacking water. It was filled with twisted aquatic weeds, and the mummies and gold buried in the lakebed remained hidden behind them.

He had yet to test whether these weeds were living plants or merely phantoms brought by the strange, wandering energies of the Underworld. Now, he had to take them seriously. His plan was to use these aquatic plants as a foundation, raising murlocs to act as the tree-bound spirits of the weeds—the first step in building his Underworld ecosystem.