Lu Jun was somewhat speechless at the enormous workload he had calculated.
As expected, even with the Death Sovereign talent, attempting to refine a Monarch-level undead while still at the Basic Tier was nothing but a pipe dream.
He began thinking about ways to speed up the process and quickly thought of the effect of the Basic-Tier, Second Level undead magic, Undead Containment.
By communicating with the Dark Plane, one could occupy a dedicated undead space used to raise undead, store spirit essences, hold corpses, and nourish contracted dead spirits.
This ability was extremely necessary for undead mages. Otherwise, after awakening undead, having them follow around without a proper place to store them was inconvenient and often criticized.
Moreover, it was precisely from Basic -Tier Level Two that undead mages gained the ability to mentally contract undead, rather than temporarily awakening them only during battle, allowing for long-term cultivation of undead subordinates.
The blood-soaked crimson array diagrams released by the Ancient Capital's Fang Valley and the Egyptian team members were essentially used to summon contracted undead.
The undead space was vast—no matter how enormous the bodies or how numerous the undead, all could be accommodated.
However, most undead mages had limited contract slots and finite resources, so they would usually select only a few undead with potential and cultivate them as their main force.
Lu Jun closed his eyes and communicated with the Death Stardust. His vision blurred as he entered a space filled entirely with blood-red hues. After sensing it carefully, he fell silent.
At the Basic Tier, the number of undead contracts he could sign already exceeded a hundred, with no upper limit on containment. It was hard to imagine—once he reached the Super-Tier, using contracted units as the backbone and revived undead as support, wouldn't that mean becoming an army unto himself?!
"Terrifying. In terms of group combat effectiveness, it's even more outstanding than the Summoning system. My path is correct."
Lu Jun stroked his chin. The Summoning and Undead systems both belonged to magic types that relied on large-scale tactics, and their functions somewhat overlapped.
Thus, he leaned toward shaping the Summoning system into one that cultivated a single powerful individual, while the Undead system would serve as expendable cannon-fodder in mass tactics.
Of course, his Death system was this abnormal only because of the Calamity Talent. The Summoning system itself wasn't accurately defined as purely group combat—that would be a biased view.
Strictly speaking, among the four Summoning spells, only the High-Tier Beast Horde Summoning was truly group-oriented. In sheer numbers, it clearly couldn't compare to the endless undead. Powerful single summoned beasts were the most orthodox path.
Lu Jun came back to his senses and walked to the corpse of the Serpent Monarch. He began controlling the stars, a mass of pitch-black soul fire igniting in his hand before he suddenly slammed it onto the hard snake scales.
Buzz—buzz—buzz!
Instantly, centered on the dark flames in Lu Jun's palm, countless tiny tadpole-like black runes spread out, covering the entire body of the Sea Serpent Monarch's corpse.
The contract was formed!
Lu Jun faintly sensed that the corpse before him was gradually "coming alive," being nourished by the Nether Qi overflowing from the undead space.
Seeing this, he nodded in satisfaction. With the enhancement of his two major talents, his contract slots were already numerous—giving one to the Serpent Monarch was absolutely worth it.
Aside from the undead space accelerating the corpse's transformation into an undead, Nether Qi Tempering could also do the job, but at the cost of burning spirit essences.
Spirit essences were something he already found insufficient, so naturally he wouldn't waste them on merely awakening undead—strengthening undead was even more out of the question.
Since the path was already set, the Death system was meant for stockpiling cannon fodder. There was no need for the same level of refinement as the Summoning system.
Lu Jun's playstyle wasn't like that of ordinary undead mages who focused on cultivating a few undead. With that time and those resources, it was better to kill demons and convert them instead. Thus, making the Summoning system focus on group combat was flawed, and specializing the Undead system was equally mistaken.
"So from now on, I'm basically offering a full-service package—killing, arson, and corpse collection?"
His expression turned strange. The Metal system collected spirit essences, the Psychic system searched souls, and the Undead system stored corpses—an enemy's value was squeezed completely dry.
Over the next few days, Lu Jun patiently cast Necromantic Revival countless times on the Serpent Monarch's corpse. Just like the Life system, the passive effect of Death Sovereign allowed him to generate death energy at an extremely fast rate.
Although the progress bar was still despair-inducing, he didn't mind, treating it as a form of training.
In addition, seeing that there were still leftover Servant-level spirit essences in the White Tiger Pendant, Lu Jun didn't hesitate at all and decisively seven spirit essences into the Death Stardust.
The Death system advanced to Level Four, greatly expanding both spell effects and mana capacity, and significantly speeding up the refinement of the Serpent Sovereign.
Level Four Necromantic Revival was called Flesh Stitching, an extremely interesting ability that allowed the arbitrary splicing and combination of flesh and corpses, possessing limitless potential.
Creatures such as Corpse Ministers, Abominations, and the Monarch-level Mountain of Corpses originated from this. Many undead mages stitched together parts from various demons to create flawless chimera monsters.
After all, life required "movement" and logic, whereas undead did not.
However, Basic Tier Necromantic Revival also had its shortcomings. It targeted only the physical body. For the even rarer and more difficult-to-create spectral undead, it was powerless, requiring the Intermediate Tier undead magic Soul Summoning.
Necromantic Revival and Soul Summoning, these two foundational abilities, were enough for an undead mage to progress all the way to Forbidden Curse.
Just as Lu Jun thought he would need to spend a long time steadily creating a Monarch-level undead subordinate, a sudden change occurred…
Inside the White Tiger Pendant, above the blood-red marshland, a vast expanse of noble and dreamlike purple lake water began to churn and tremble. As if it had sensed something, it actually surged out of the pendant of its own accord.
Splash—!
Lu Jun was slightly startled. He saw that within the black Death stardust, above the Ancient King's armor, a resplendent purple waterfall descended.
Countless purple droplets swirled within the stardust, eventually condensing into a single purple crystal—smooth and translucent, with complex and exquisite patterns spreading across its surface, resembling a strange insect.
It looked both like the ancient Nine Continents jade cicada, and like the sacred scarab of ancient Egypt.
Both were objects symbolizing death. The former was placed in the mouths of nobles during burial rites, while the latter was a companion relic unique to the pyramids.
The jade insect emblem, about the size of a palm, contained within it an entire lake's worth of the Fountain of the Pharaoh.
That's right—the purple holy water was the Fountain of the Pharaoh. It was something he had plundered from the Egyptian team's supreme treasure, combined with what he obtained after killing Izisha, finally amassing such a quantity.
Originally, Lu Jun had planned to find a reliable magic equipment master to refine it into a supreme artifact.
He never expected that, under the assistance of the Death stardust and the Ancient King's armor, it would spontaneously condense into a dedicated Death-system magic artifact.
"This is absolutely a supreme treasure on par with the Triangular Dimensional Mirror."
Lu Jun was both shocked and delighted. He did not possess many magic tools, because most same-tier equipment was of little use to him. Up to now, he only had two—each one a true supreme treasure, worthy of being called a divine artifact.
He decided to name this purple jade insect the Death Emblem, to be worn on his chest at all times.
Buzz—buzz—buzz!
Lu Jun once again released Necromantic Revival. A blazing mass of dark soul fire ignited in his hand. At its core, a thread of annihilating gray intent seeped out, while a ring of purple radiance wrapped around the outside, making it look extraordinarily extraordinary.
When the deathly radiance fell upon the serpent's corpse, the progress accelerated dramatically. Its effectiveness increased by dozens of times, instantly transforming nearly one-tenth of the body into undead matter.
The flesh of a section of the serpent's tail turned into a crystalline, black-jade-like transparent texture. On closer inspection, countless dark soul flames were slowly burning within, forming a complete structure.
The Fountain of the Pharaoh itself could accelerate undead awakening. Refined into the Death Emblem, the magic tool naturally inherited the same effect.
And the functions of the Death Emblem were far from limited to this alone. It possessed even deeper abilities that could only be activated once the Death system reached Super-Tier.
After all, this was something personally crafted through the power of the Ancient King's Armor. The Qin Empire had once mastered extremely formidable magic equipment forging techniques.
Lu Jun used Necromantic Revival ten times in one breath. Finally, under his expectant gaze, the serpent's corpse suddenly opened a pair of enormous, eerie serpent eyes.
For additional chapters
Versatile mage {40 chapters}
Douluo Dalu:This Soul Master is to Weird {30 Chapters}
Fairy Tail{30 Chapters}
Patreon. Com/ALLISWELL123