Chapter 271: Chapter 271: Unexpected, the Void of Loss

“You’ve discovered an Undead Relic, do you wish to explore?”

Lin Xiao turned his head, a clear light unrolled before him, with characters displaying on it.

Looking up, the dense fog formed by the overwhelming presence of Death churned near the edge of the city walls, and faint, elusive ghosts hovered in the mist, none crossing the line of the walls — whether they couldn’t or didn’t dare to, it was unclear.

“Now this is going to be fun, I’m a one-man show!”

More than a hundred subordinates, not one left alive inside, he now had no one under his command to aid his exploration.

There were too many ghosts inside, even a hero couldn’t withstand them all swarming at once.

Moreover, there was possibly a boss inside stronger than himself; he had managed to escape only because the boss hadn’t fully awoken. To dare re-enter now would be a death sentence.

Looking up, he saw a red moon in the center of the star-filled Vault of Heaven, but to the left and right of it, there were a blue moon and a normal white moon, each orbiting on a different trajectory.

Moonlight spilled onto Earth, allowing sight, but not clear enough to see the lush wilderness outside the city.

This ruined city had been abandoned for so long, with nothing able to survive inside due to the presence of the undead’s aura of death, but it was a different story outside. The city was now engulfed by a flourishing jungle — to leave, one would have to traverse this dense wilderness.

Traveling through the jungle in this dangerous Relic World during midnight was honestly quite risky.

But it was not wise to stay put; who knows whether these undead could really not come out. If the boss within the ruins fully awoke and could leave, then that would be disastrous.

So, Lin Xiao gritted his teeth and decided to leave this dangerous place as soon as possible.

He took one last look at his hazardous birthplace, etching it into his memory for future exploration should his strength increase, then turned and left the ruins without looking back, diving into the lush jungle.

Not long after he disappeared into the jungle, a strong will at the center of the city ruins finally awoke completely. A thick azure beam shot up from the heart of the city, and a soul-piercing howl faintly echoed. The dense fog that had been lingering on the edges of the city expanded abruptly with the roar, stretching out hundreds of meters all at once to where it finally halted at the edge of the forest.

In the jungle, Lin Xiao randomly picked a direction and dashed off. Even beasts of the Sixth Level Transcendent didn’t have time to react to his speed.

The wilderness didn’t seem to harbor any Fierce Beasts that were too strong, being mostly ordinary beasts. Initially worried, he later felt relieved as he encountered no danger along the way.

He ran blindly, not knowing how far, feeling sufficiently distant from the city ruins and having faced no danger in the jungle, he slowed his pace a little.

Before long, he found a giant tree tens of meters tall and climbed up after kicking away an unknown beast coiling at its base, deciding to stop there temporarily.

It was past midnight by the time he rested on the tree for a few hours; the sky began to brighten at dawn.

Once the sky was completely bright, he climbed to the top of the tree and looked around. The Undead Ruins were no longer visible, but in the other direction lay nothing but the endless primal jungle with trees taller than the last. In the far distance, he spotted several ancient trees that appeared to be hundreds of meters tall.

“This….”

He had run the wrong way, heading deeper into the forest, while the exit lay on the other side of the city ruins.

This was quite the predicament.

No choice but to turn back.

Fortunately, he hadn’t gone far—it was a good thing that he had stopped to rest that night, or else he would have been doomed if he had blindly rushed on all night.

When he returned, he didn’t avoid the ruins, guessing that the undead concealed within wouldn’t come out during the day, only at night.

Before long, Lin Xiao was back in front of the city ruins and saw that the dense fog inside indeed had disappeared, and the ruins were again teeming with roving Skeleton Undead.

“This…?”

Suddenly, Lin Xiao’s eyes brightened, he kicked over a tree thick as an arm to pull out a branch and charged in, smashing a Skeleton rack to pieces with his stick.

The Undead were refreshable; he immediately thought of grinding for points.

Without anything else in mind, he decided to first grind ten thousand points to upgrade his Hero Level to First Level and become an official Hero.

Within the Ruins of Myriad world, a Level Zero Hero had no functions— whether it was Hero Strategic Spell, Nest Slot, Hero Talent, or Hero Storage Space, all needed to be upgraded to First Level to be unlocked.

This setting made it clear that a Level Zero Hero was merely a Hero Apprentice, not an official Hero.

Grinding Undead by himself was indeed slow, but there was no rush—after all, with daily respawns, he could grind as much as possible. Ordinary Skeletons and Zombies were so weak that as long as he wasn’t foolish enough to endure without fleeing, they couldn’t surround and kill him.

Moreover, after he had grinded over a hundred Skeletons, another Fragment dropped, which he combined with the three Skeleton Card Fragments he had before to form a complete Skeleton Card, promptly summoning a hundred Skeletons and increasing his efficiency exponentially.

After spending roughly half a day, Lin Xiao cleared all the Undead in the ruins, accumulating slightly over a thousand Points and five Skeleton Card Fragments, enough to assemble another Skeleton Card.

With half a day left, I wasn’t idle; I led my Skeleton underlings to build a simple shelter out of debris outside the city ruins’ perimeter wall, and then we began to carefully explore the ruins.

I was also curious where those ghosts that appear at night were hiding: could there be an underground dungeon beneath these ruins, or…

But after choosing a spot to dig through the piled-up rubble, I dug all the way down to the hard ground below and found nothing but a large number of broken white bones.

However, as the evening fog began to rise, I noticed that these shattered bones began to change; a faint Death aura slowly seeped from the bones, and a multitude of ghostly shadows rose from the crevices beneath the rubble.

I quickly retreated outside the city, coolly observing the ghosts confined within the fog inside the city walls and the powerful Death Will that was gradually awakening.

I wanted to see what this Death Will truly was, whether it was a powerful ghost or some other form of Undead.

But the moment the Death Will fully awoke, the grey fog rapidly expanded, and the overwhelming swarm of ghosts engulfed me.

“Damn it all!”

I tumbled and scrambled into the jungle, plunging into a clump of vines and felt the cold intent behind me staring intently at me, wiping a head full of cold sweat.

My underlings…

Had all died again.

Then, I naturally ran further away to build a nest in the jungle and waited for daylight.

The next day, when I returned to the ruins, sure enough, the wasteland was filled with Skeleton Zombies once more. I took out a Skeleton Card and summoned a hundred Skeletons to continue grinding monsters.

In the days that followed, I conscientiously farmed points, killing all the Undead in the ruins daily before honestly leading my underlings away from the ruins into the jungle, without any interest in further exploration.

It wasn’t clear whether the Undead in the ruins were part of a monster­spawning mechanism or replenished from somewhere else, but no matter how many I killed each day, they were refreshed in equal numbers, an endless stream.

After grinding non-stop for twelve days, I finally amassed the ten thousand Points needed for upgrading the Summoning Core, then added ten thousand Gold, a hundred units of wood, and minerals to upgrade the Hero Core to First Level.

“Your Hero Core has been upgraded to First Level, Strategy attribute +1, population limit raised to 1000, Nest Slot opened, now having three, Hero Talent unlocked, Hero Ranking unlocked, Power Ranking unlocked.”

“Scanning Hero Talents   ”

“Detecting the Strength held by the True Body, you have the following Hero Talent options. Please make your selection within sixty seconds, or a random choice will be made.”

“One: King of Murloc, you can promote any Murloc Soldiers to Level 3 Small Fishman Soldiers, and for every Hero Level you gain, all attributes of the Murloc Soldiers you command increase by +1.”

“Two: King of Goblin, you can promote any Goblin Soldiers to Level 3 Wise Goblins and can consume Rare Resource Gems to promote Wise Goblins or Elite Goblins to Fifth Level Wise Goblin Mage. With every Hero Level you gain, all attributes of the Goblin Soldiers you command increase by +1.”

“Three: King of Naga, you can consume certain Rare Resource Gems and Crystals to promote any fourth level or above humanoid elite soldiers to Sixth Level Asura Naga, and for every Hero Level you gain, all attributes of the Asura Naga Soldiers you command increase by +2.”

“Four: Master of Creation, your commanded soldiers gain +200% Battle Experience, resource cost for promotion -50%, your command limit +100%. You can lead mixed troops without reducing morale or causing negative states.”

“Five: The Master of Truth, every Hero Level gained, all attributes of all soldiers you command increase by +1, your commanded soldiers gain +100% Battle Experience, and you can use a large amount of resources to upgrade elite soldiers above to heroes; the lower the elite soldier’s Strength, the higher the cost.”

“This…”

These Hero Talents are pretty awesome.

All extracted from the power system that I control – Small Fishman, Wise Goblins, Asura Naga, Law of Creation, Rule of Truth. Grey Dwarf might have had minor adjustments so was not included.

Of the five options, I can only choose one, and I fell into deep thought.

But after serious contemplation, I realized I had no choice but to select the talent of The Master of Truth.

The reason was simple, I was preparing to condense the Truth Divine Position, and thus every action must serve this purpose. This journey to the Ruins of Myriad was vitally important for my growth, so I had to prioritize the Truth Divine Position, even if the others seemed stronger.

“The Master of Truth!”

With a thought, four of the talents faded, leaving only the glowing aura of The Master of Truth shining brighter and brighter until it merged as a golden light into my body. Instantly, I felt… the change in my underlings.

The remaining forty or so Skeletons all gained a point in Constitution, Strength, and Agility under the amplification of the talent.

With a Skeleton’s Strength, a single point increase was quite substantial.

Additionally, I took out all the accumulated Skeleton Card Fragments from the past twelve days. In total, there were thirty-three pieces, which could be combined into eight complete ones. Together, that made eight hundred Skeletons, which I summoned all at once.

In total, eight hundred and forty-one Skeletons was quite a formidable number; they formed a densely packed circle around me, and with the boost from the Strategy attribute, they were quite formidable.