Chapter 230: The little skeleton’s faction!
Taken aback, Han Shuo stared dumbly at the tall, thin zombie warrior. His eyes roved over the little skeleton and earth elite zombie, finally asking with surprise. “One of ours? One of yours?”
Nodding, the little skeleton and the earth elite zombie seemed a bit proud. Their empty hands gestured at Han Shuo as a flood of messages bombarded Han Shuo like electromagnetic waves.
After he’d taken a while to sort through the information, his heart was filled with astonishment as he looked incredulously at the two fellows. “You mean, you have your own minions and domain in the other dimension?”
The two of them puffed out their chests at the same time with supremely proud expressions. They looked like they were guffawing with laughter as they nodded. Han Shuo had obviously hit the spot.
On the other side, Gilbert looked at Han Shuo communicating slowly with the dark creatures and also felt it to be incredible when he understood what was going on. He couldn’t help but go “Eh?” to express his astonishment.
After he recovered from his surprise, Han Shuo’s thoughts spun as he couldn’t help but laugh heartily, “Not bad, not bad, both of you’ve done well!”
With Han Shuo’s current knowledge of necromancy, he knew that as he continuously improved, he would eventually be able to directly surpass the limits of space one day and descend upon that miraculous dimension alongside the little skeleton and the earth elite zombie. Furthermore, if Han Shuo reached the level of a Magister necromancer, he could even use large-scale teleportation formations to directly connect the two dimensions and teleport personnel. In that case, if the little skeleton and the earth elite zombie developed a powerful faction in the other dimension, they would be able to completely share resources when Han Shuo’s necromancy reached a certain level. The possibilities caused Han Shuo to become very excited.
The little skeleton and the earth elite zombie were both beyond happy at hearing Han Shuo’s praise. The little skeleton pointed at the zombie warrior that he’d been supporting, and then pointed at the hole beside him, gesticulating Han Shuo to use this zombie warrior to refine into a wood elite zombie.
Han Shuo nodded and gave a faint smile to show that he understood. He waved towards the little skeleton and signaled him to drop the tall and thin zombie warrior into the hole.
When the little skeleton and the earth elite zombie carried the zombie warrior to the hole, the little skeleton placed it down, then looked up at it. Purple light continuously shone out from the purple eye, as if he was giving some sort of orders to the zombie warrior.
After a while, the little skeleton went on its tiptoes and comically tapped on the zombie warrior’s shoulders, seemingly telling it to “work hard”, just like a general encouraging its subordinates. It was as if the tall and thin zombie only had the intelligence to obey. After receiving the orders of the purple eye, the zombie warrior nodded stiffly, understanding the little skeleton’s meaning and jumped down into the hole. It laid down in the hole in a docile manner and looked at Han Shuo, waiting for his next action.
Seeing that everything was set, Han Shuo took a deep breath, and familiarly dropped two droplets of blood essence onto the zombie warrior, then cast a Dark Seal spell, gaining a deeper connection with the zombie warrior.
After that, Han Shuo crossed his legs and sat down. He gave an order to the earth elite zombie, then sent out rays of black light from his hand into the prone zombie warrior.
After receiving Han Shuo’s orders, the earth elite zombie dove into the soil, disappearing instantly like an eel. With the efficiency and speed of an earth dragon swimming around, it quickly filled in the forty nine holes, returning the area back to its former even plane.
When Han Shuo’s final seals landed on the body of that thin and tall zombie warrior, the surrounding soil of the hole quickly flowed over his body, covering it as if guided by some sort of power. Then, the earth elite zombie rose up back up and dusted off its hands with a relaxed expression.
“Spirit power of wood, listen to my commands and immediately take your place!” Han Shuo formed two hand seals as he thundered, sending a cloud of black light into the tall, thin zombie.
Suddenly, the forty-nine holes that have been filled and flattened rose up. Natural, green strings gradually linked up together into a dense net, as if woven by spiders. The thin and tall zombie warrior’s hiding place was at the center of this net.
In the blink of an eye, thick earth energy all gathered towards the center, as if linked by the green bonds. From afar, it looked like little streams flowing towards the river in the middle, resulting in a strong visual impact for spectators.
While this happened, some of the thick weeds further way were gradually wilting. Even the largest of the ancient trees, filled with powerful branches, slowly changed at a rate visible to the human eye due to the loss of earth energy. Everything was being absorbed by the thin and tall zombie warrior at the center. In order to create him, all the vegetation in the surroundings had to wilt.
“This, this is amazing! Master, how did you do it? Gilbert couldn’t help but exclaim as he stared at the enormous changes around him.
“All of the plants around the place of extreme wood need to spit back out all the wood qi they absorbed over the years. The day that the wood elite zombie forms is the day they fully wilt and die. Survival of the fittest. Only the most superior survive in this kind of environment, that’s their fate!” Han Shuo said cruelly.
Gilbert looked around and then stared at the earth elite zombie and the little skeleton, “What do we do now?”
“Nothing much, we’ll leave and take a walk around the forest trolls’ residence. With the protection of the forest troll warriors, there shouldn’t be anything untoward. The changes in this area will become more obvious with the advent of time. I’ll instruct the forest trolls not to bother about this.”
“When the zombie absorbs all of the wood qi here and transforms into an wood elite zombie, he will naturally contact me and I’ll come to wake him!” Han Shuo said faintly.
He left with the little skeleton and Gilbert, heading for the forest trolls’ village, arriving after half a day’s travel.
When Han Shuo arrived with the little skeleton, they were greeted by the atmosphere of a holiday. As their protector, the little skeleton was viewed as the materialization of the great god Datara in this world. The successful raid last time and Han Shuo’s large supply of living necessities had made the forest trolls trust Han Shuo more and more.
The old forest troll priest presented himself in front of Han Shuo after a short while, kneeling down and kowtowing in front of Han Shuo and the little skeleton.
“Hello, how have things been lately?” Han Shuo asked with a faint smile after telling the priest to rise.
“Thanks to your noble and wonderful guidance, we have enough rations to weather the winter. No merchants are willing to pass through the Dark Forest in the cold of winter, so we’re all resting in the village and haven’t gone out to hunt!” The old priest responded respectfully and appeared quite at ease.
Nodding, Han Shuo said warmly, “Good. Train some more warriors and priest for the tribe this winter. Train them well, they’ll be put to good use when spring comes again!”
“We promise to listen to the liaison’s orders and train the children well! The old priest nodded and promised.
“Mm, send some more warriors to protect the sacred ground. The great god Datara will be resting within for a while. No one is to enter the sacred ground without my orders. All abnormal occurrences within the sacred ground are because of the great Datara. Don’t be surprised.”
Han Shuo knew that the formation of the wood elite zombie would cause the area to change. He notified the forest trolls beforehand just in case, so that they wouldn’t disrupt Han Shuo’s plans.
“Don’t worry, we’ll do as the liaison says and guard the area well!” The old priest didn’t ask why before promising confidently. He appeared quite at ease when he didn’t have to worry about daily life.
“Alright, if I have further orders, I may come myself or send this fellow. Heh heh, I think you must know who he is?” Han Shuo smiled and pointed to Gilbert behind him.
“Of course, this is the strong Mister Dark Dragon, the humble servant of the liaison!” The old priest had been with Han Shuo on his trip to the underground cave last time, and knew everything about how the dark dragon had formed a contract with Han Shuo. He naturally understood where Gilbert had come from.
When he’d thoroughly gone over all that was to be done, Han Shuo didn’t tarry and left the forest troll village. After he sent the little skeleton back to his old home, Han Shuo rode on Gilbert and headed further into the depths of the Dark Forest.
There was a mysterious tribe in the furthest depths of the Dark Forest, full of very powerful and terrifying existences. Of course, in such a place, there would naturally be more ferocious magical beasts, mystical plants, as well as some natural treasures that only appeared in legends.
Han Shuo had wanted to refine some pills, so he wanted to try his luck in the depths of the Dark Forest, in hopes of finding some mystical grass in order to replenish some of his basic materials.
After flying for a while, Gilbert took the initiative to let Han Shuo down. He actually muttered with a hint of fear, “This Dark Forest really isn’t right, just now, I felt like my back grow cold, as if something treated me as prey. It’s too unbelievable!”
“Your feeling should be right, I too felt a very powerful aura that locked onto the two of us just now. However, I wasn’t able to find out what sort of powerful aura it was, or where it came from. It looks like the Dark Forest is truly beyond mysterious. Let’s not fly in the sky anymore, so that we don’t attract the attention of some powerful beings!”
When Han Shuo felt that powerful aura, he immediately sent out the three yin demons to scout. However, he was unable to determine where the aura came from. After the three yin demons had completed one scouting run, they weren’t able to find any irregularities. However, that didn’t leave Han Shuo at ease, but rather made him even more cautious.
What was surprising was that the depths of the Dark Forest didn’t seem to be affected by the cold winter. The freezing air gradually disappeared as the two of them ventured deeper, while the surrounding temperature gradually rose. Indeed, it bore similarities to the place of extreme wood. Here, the thick and dense trees reached for the sky. There were springs along the way as they walked in, several of them decorated with white mist rising out of them.
Thanks to the vision from the yin demons, Han Shuo saw all sorts of fierce, high level creatures along the way. Harpies, deepwater pythons, frost eagles, medusas, manticores… all of these rare creatures continued to appear in the yin demon’s vision. Sometimes, he even spotted more than one together.
These high level creatures were hard to see on the outskirts of the Dark Forest. There was often only one of these high level creatures in a large area. Most adventurers would evade them if they bumped into them, deathly afraid of being attacked by them.
However, they’d turned into the most common of existences within the depths of the Dark Forest. There were even many exotic plants growing in specific places, ones that Han Shuo had never heard of or seen. There were enormous flowers growing on these strange fauna.
Han Shuo saw through the yin demons that a giant flower bend when a windblade wolf passed by, ensnaring the wolf with its stamens. The thick stem moved like a neck, as it chewed and swallowed the wolf. The wolf was quickly digested amidst a thick pool of blood, and not even the bones were spat out.
There were some strange looking plants with leaves like human hands. They also had the same frightening destructive power. As soon as magical creatures approached them, they would be entangled by their thick branches and be strangled to death.
“Follow me closely. Danger lurks everywhere within the Dark Forest. No wonder Trunks kept reminding me that although the gains were great in the forest, one might lose their life at any time!” Han Shuo spoke calmly to Gilbert, and cautiously moved forward.
However, even though he spoke those warning words, he was actually the one who lost his cool right after, sprinting towards something with a face full of glee.
