Chapter 8: The Plan Begins

Seeing the armored man in such a state, Li Bin truly began to doubt whether his decision had been a mistake. But when he learned about the other skills from the armored man, he understood at last that these abilities were indeed designed for races like the Spiritual Mechanic and the Undead, who did not rely on morale.

Among these skills were ones that could convert morale into magical resistance, defense, or attack power, and even abilities that used morale to recruit troops.

To fully master these skills, Li Bin would need at least twenty days, so he invited the armored man to stay in the armory he was about to construct.

In his conversations with the armored man, Li Bin learned of his background. The man, named Ashley, had once been a Grand Mage of the Spiritual Mechanic race.

During one of his expeditions, he discovered a treasure guarded by an army of Elemental creatures. In order to steal the treasure, he sent his troops to attack the Elementals.

Unfortunately, his plan was uncovered at the last moment; when he obtained the treasure, the Elementals killed him with magic.

Yet his will to survive saved him in the end. He transferred his soul into the newly acquired treasure, the Steel Armor, and under the baptism of elemental magic, he became what he was now—a being of steel element.

His command skills and their peculiar branches came from another serendipitous encounter. Not long ago, he met an elder of the Spiritual Mechanic race, who offered him a quest. Ashley gladly accepted.

He had not expected the quest to be to teach Undead or Spiritual Mechanic players or heroes command skills and their branches, and he had to teach at least ten. If he failed, Ashley would be unable to accept any more quests.

Upon hearing this, Li Bin laughed heartily and said, “I must say, your quest is a Herculean task. Which player or hero these days doesn’t know that the Spiritual Mechanic race doesn’t need command skills? If it weren’t for someone like me, I doubt you’d ever complete it.”

“So, do you have any good ideas?” Ashley shot Li Bin a glance.

“Don’t tell them they must learn command skills. Simply tell them about some useful branches, such as the recruitment skill that increases weekly troop numbers...”

“But isn’t that deceiving them?”

“Does your final skill achieve this effect?” Li Bin replied, unconcerned.

“Of course it does... but...” Ashley still hesitated.

“Then that settles it,” Li Bin said with a smile. “If you really don’t want to do it this way, why not join my ranks? Perhaps you’ll find someone who agrees with your approach.”

In the end, Ashley did not join Li Bin. After teaching Li Bin and Terry the various branches of command skills, he departed.

By then, Li Bin’s armory was finished, so he paid no further attention to Ashley’s departure but instead vigorously promoted his new armory.

Li Bin’s armory specialized in automatic crossbow wagons—the Undead Crossbow Wagon and the Death Crossbow Wagon. These could move, aim, and fire crossbow bolts automatically, and came equipped with several skills, making them very popular among Spiritual Mechanic players.

The price was also low: a single crossbow wagon required only three to five corpses plus two hundred gold coins. Compared to the mid-tier crossbow wagons sold in the city for at least twenty-five hundred gold coins, his were far cheaper.

For players who spent their days battling monsters and leveling up, a few corpses were hardly a problem.

Soon, Li Bin’s armory was flooded with corpses. All corpses below level five were manufactured into Undead and Death Crossbow Wagons for sale, while those above level five were turned into standard corpses for research into new machinery. The most important ones, level eight corpses, were all transformed into Corpse Sorcerers under Li Bin’s Soul Cloak.

Of course, Li Bin’s current conversion rate was still very low. Despite the vast number of corpses and many days passing, he had only gained twenty-seven Corpse Sorcerers.

And upon obtaining these Corpse Sorcerers, Li Bin discovered they were not, as rumored among Undead players, magical units, but rather archers—attack and defense around fifteen, only one hundred hit points, moderate speed, unable to learn any magic, and could only use their charged staffs to launch poison and ice shots, with ten rounds per sorcerer.

When gathered, Corpse Sorcerers could cast Poison Wall and Ice Ring, but unlike Liches, they could not freely learn magic or control the battlefield. They were simply archers with magical attack methods.

With this knowledge, Li Bin naturally found a direction for improving the Corpse Sorcerers. He hid them in the research lab beneath his armory, waiting for an opportune moment.

One day, while Li Bin was working on a new unit in the lab, Carter came to him in secret. Seeing Carter’s expression, Li Bin realized his target had taken the bait.

He smiled and said, “Mr. Carter, what brings you here today?”

“Mr. Li, let’s speak plainly. I want to know, what’s the success rate for your Constructed Lich project?” With no one else around, Carter got straight to the point.

Li Bin smiled inwardly. It seemed Damon had already made his move. If it weren’t for major trouble, someone of Carter’s age wouldn’t be so anxious to prepare a backup plan.

Seeing Carter’s urgency, Li Bin replied unhurriedly, “The Constructed Lich is just an idea at this stage. I haven’t even begun the research, so I can’t say what the success rate will be. Besides, I suspect the Constructed Lich’s characteristics might differ from those of a true Lich.”

Hearing this, Carter seemed relieved. He said, “That’s fine. If you don’t mind, I’d like to join the research. That would surely increase our chances of success.”

Li Bin immediately produced a design blueprint—the overall schematic for the Constructed Lich. Its contents were far more comprehensive than the one he had previously shown Carter, and the calculations indicated a much higher success rate than a mage transforming into a common Lich.

“This is all I can do for now. Please see if there are any issues.”

Carter took the blueprint and studied it carefully. Finally, he said, “The design is excellent and the success rate is very high.”

Li Bin simply smiled, saying nothing more. In truth, this blueprint was modified from a mechanical mage design taken from the Gaga airship. All the calculation data was from that plan; he had merely added the Lich’s soul vessel design and remote control system to create the Constructed Lich blueprint.

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Ashley was provided by reader Bing Yue Ye Lian
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