Carlos waited at the stairway's end. The moment the black beetle appeared, his great sword swung.
Slash! Under 4 points of strength, the white spiritual equipment great sword easily pierced the black beetle's hard shell, killing it in one hit.
[Spirit Quality +0.1]
Spirit Quality was like 'experience.' Carlos's status panel now read Spirituality 1 (0.1/1000 Spirit Quality). One black beetle provided 0.1 Spirit Quality—Carlos needed to kill a full 10,000 to advance one spirituality level.
Even at Carlos's instant-kill efficiency, it would take over a month.
For those who could barely kill black beetles only in teams, it would take one to two years to advance 1 spirituality point.
"Skeleton Revival!"
The Skeleton Revival symbol flashed in Carlos's mind as pale energy enveloped the black beetle's corpse.
With eerie creaking sounds, a pale skeleton soldier holding a bone blade stood up.
"Using the black beetle's corpse and bones as raw materials, catalyzed by Death Herald energy, remaking it into a humanoid skeleton soldier—truly standardized mass production."
The Death Herald skill Skeleton Revival always produced identical skeleton soldiers regardless of what creature's corpse was used. The corpse merely provided bone energy.
After summoning the skeleton soldier, Carlos automatically activated his summoning space—where skills stored skeleton soldiers.
[Skeleton Soldier]
[Health: 10 (Constitution × 50)]
[Strength: 0.3]
[Constitution: 0.2]
[Speed: 0.1]
"So weak!"
The skeleton soldier only had 0.3 strength points. Even the weakest Dark Mist monster, black beetles, had 1 strength point. Truly cannon fodder among cannon fodder.
After summoning the skeleton soldier, Carlos felt a soul connection linking him to it. He tried controlling it—it could attack independently but couldn't understand complex commands.
"Alright, time for the next step."
Carlos drew his bow again, luring another black beetle. Swinging his great sword under 4 points of strength, bone-breaking sounds rang out.
"Crack!" "Crack!"...
The black beetle had no resistance. Its twelve thick limbs were severed, black insect blood spurting from the stumps, leaving only a torso writhing on the stone surface, its life force rapidly fading.
"Attack!"
Carlos commanded the skeleton soldier. The skeleton soldier creaked as it swung its broken bone blade, chopping at the black beetle again and again.
The nearly dead black beetle was finally killed after several chops from the skeleton soldier.
[Spirit Quality +0.1]
The moment the black beetle died, Carlos gained another 0.1 Spirit Quality. 9,998 more kills until spirituality advancement.
Simultaneously, in Carlos's perception, a wisp of pale death energy drifted from the black beetle's body, absorbed by the skeleton soldier's soul fire, strengthening it slightly.
"First step of skeleton soldier evolution path—feasible!"
In this world, skills were one of the important components of combat power. Besides using skill points for continuous upgrades, they could also evolve.
Evolution could cause amazing transformations and greatly increase combat power.
For example, Blood Snake Princess's arms that transformed into pythons evolved from the most common snake-person transformation, granting her terrifying power to dominate high-tier opponents. Unfortunately, she met the even more abnormal sister Iris and was forced to abandon an arm to escape.
But evolution was extremely difficult. Most Psionics would never possess an evolved skill.
Evolution of summoned creatures like skeleton soldiers was even harder. First, you had to ensure the summoned creature didn't die while continuously killing to accumulate enough death energy.
Once a skeleton soldier died, a newly revived one from a corpse would be a completely new individual, requiring starting from zero.
"Besides evolution being difficult, most importantly, even evolved ordinary skeletons aren't that impressive—still far weaker than same-level opponents. Compared to precious revival slots, it's not worth it."
Even in late game, ordinary Death Heralds' skeleton soldiers often served as cannon fodder and bait in teams, constantly consumed and constantly summoned.
If you deliberately protected skeleton soldiers, it meant some revival slots would be permanently occupied, losing the true advantage of Skeleton Revival.
Because with enough corpses and psionic energy, you could continuously use corpses to fill in for fallen skeletons, killing endlessly, slowly wearing down enemies. This was the mainstream of Death Herald summoning branches.
"But all this will change in my hands!"
Under his helmet, Carlos's heart surged with excitement.
No one in this world understood skeleton soldier evolution better than him.
Ordinary skeleton evolution was nothing more than first evolution elite skeleton soldiers, second evolution skeleton warriors—essentially still shameful among same-level opponents.
In his past life, Death Herald players passionate about exploration, through countless evolution experiments, developed path after path for skeleton soldier evolution.
For example, skeleton soldiers combined with various energies—flame skeleton soldiers, frost skeleton soldiers—in special environments were several times stronger than skeleton warriors.
Or shield-armored skeleton soldiers specialized in defense, standing firm in large army battles.
With numerous powerful evolution paths, the Death Herald pathway's summoning branch became a player favorite, once occupying ninety percent of Death Herald pathway players.
Most terrifyingly, in mid-to-late game, top Death Herald players developed an ultimate evolution path: Undead Armored Knights.
Undead Armored Knights evolved through this path wore top-tier undead equipment with terrifying power and amazing speed. Each possessed shocking strength to crush same-level Psionics, comparable to Dark Mist bosses.
Especially when formed into Undead Armored Knight legions, their legion-level charges on large battlefields were nearly invincible, crushing everything in their path.
With this Undead Armored Knight legion, the Death Herald pathway's summoning branch once single-handedly opposed all other factions.
"Undead Armored Knight legions are powerful, but the resources needed for evolution are extremely precious.
That legion back then required cooperation from all top Death Herald players, each training one, to successfully form."
Because of this, the terrifyingly invincible Undead Armored Knight legion never belonged to individuals but to the entire faction.
Carlos felt somewhat overwhelmed thinking about the various precious resources each Undead Armored Knight required.
"Fortunately, I was reborn early enough. This world's various secrets haven't been discovered yet. I have sufficient time and opportunity to make it manifest!"
Carlos's eyes flashed with burning passion, then returned to calm.
"Fantasy complete, time to begin evolution's first step!"
Drawing his bow, another black beetle was lured over. Carlos chopped it to near death, then the skeleton soldier finished it.
Carlos gained 0.1 Spirit Quality, the skeleton soldier absorbed a wisp of death energy, strengthening itself...
Luring the third black beetle...
Luring the fourth black beetle...
...
"The thousandth black beetle!"
The skeleton soldier skillfully killed another near-death black beetle, absorbing a wisp of death energy.