Salvage Excavation

Kurd City was not afraid of the murloc gathering at all. In fact, Audrey organized a hunting competition, selecting a group of Skeleton Archers to compete in killing efficiency.

Batch after batch of murlocs were lured in by the scent of blood, only to fall beneath the bone arrows of the Skeleton Archers.

The Skeleton Archers never lacked arrows; they all possessed the Bone Hyperplasia Trait, and the hyperplastic bone matter would be smelted into bone arrows.

The Skeleton Archers were all Hoarder Rats, stockpiling quiver after quiver of bone arrows in their dwellings.

After each battle, they would recover the bone arrows, refurbish them, and reuse them in a cycle.

Aside from their own stockpiles, the Logistics Skeleton Blacksmiths responsible for war preparations would craft bone arrows from broken remains and smelt metal to make iron arrows.

In the Armory on Kurd City's walls, large quantities of General Bone Arrows and Refined Iron Arrows were stored.

Needless to say, the bone arrows derived from the Skeleton Archers themselves were the most comfortable to use. Under normal circumstances, the Skeleton Archers would prioritize their Origin Bone Arrows.

The scent of blood outside Kurd City's walls grew heavier and heavier, eventually attracting Transcendental Murlocs.

A year ago, those two first-stage Transcendental Murlocs had nearly killed Medivh and Audrey.

A year later, first-stage Transcendental Murlocs didn't even have a chance to approach Kurd City.

The Bone Spirit Rangers and Bone Spirit Assassins joined the competition, and those few Transcendental Murlocs fell within minutes.

The scent of Transcendental Murloc blood spread, dousing the vengeful murlocs like a bucket of ice water.

Just like a year ago, the murlocs actively avoided the tough nuts that could slay Transcendental Murlocs.

After those Transcendental Murlocs died, no more murlocs attacked Kurd City.

The hunting competition ended, and Audrey distributed rewards to the winning Skeleton Archers.

The cemetery skeletons cleaned up the murloc corpses, processed them specially, and hauled them to the Underground Palace for storage.

This rainy-season pastime came to a perfect close.

During the rainy season, there were no other dangers besides the murlocs.

Beneath the curtain of rain, Kurd City developed quietly, growing deeper in foundation day by day.

In the blink of an eye, the rainy season, which had lasted over half a month, ended.

Kurd City's water conservancy projects had withstood the test, with no flooding in the urban or farmland districts.

The Square Pond Reservoirs in several reservoir districts were filled to capacity.

If drought weather followed, these deep square ponds could release water to irrigate the Farmland District and Livestock District, mitigating the impact of drought on agriculture and animal husbandry.

"Moo!"

Under the clear sky, the Big-Horned Ox Magic Beast trudged with heavy steps into the Blood Donation Field in the Livestock District.

After a period of rest and recovery, the Big-Horned Ox Magic Beast had regained its health and resumed periodic blood donations.

Moderate bloodletting would not affect the Magic Beast's growth.

After donating blood, the Big-Horned Ox Magic Beast cheerfully dragged several carts of high-quality fodder back home.

Bathed in the blood of the Big-Horned Ox Magic Beast, two more Skeleton Rangers awakened Bone Spirit Power and advanced to first-stage low rank.

Kurd City already had enough melee Transcendental Skeletons, so Medivh prioritized using Magic Beast blood to nurture ranged output units.

During the rainy season, Kurd City's construction never stopped. The walls of the Livestock District, Graveyard District, and West Reservoir District were raised to sixteen meters high.

In the five zones of the second nine-grid, the walls rose from five meters to eight meters, and the Armory District within the urban area was built.

As for the High Tower Castle where Medivh lived, the above-ground structures saw little change, but construction continued underground.

Beneath the entire Castle District, three underground levels had already been excavated, storing the bones and various supplies Medivh used daily.

Over the past month, Medivh had not slacked off in his work of resurrecting skeletons.

Recently, he had found no suitable ancient battlefield to excavate, so his spell materials came from the bones of ordinary Residential District ruins.

He resurrected 312 Grey Bone Skeletons, 208 White Bone Skeletons, and 136 Green Bone Skeletons.

This batch of skeletons consisted mainly of farmers, warriors, and hunters, along with logistics skeletons such as cooks, butchers, blacksmiths, tanners, and craftsmen.

"Lord Medivh, a flash flood has torn open the earth. While patrolling, we discovered a place that looks like an ancient battlefield."

As Medivh was sunbathing on the terrace, a Spirit Cat Skeleton Warlock who had been out on patrol stepped forward to report.

Transcendental Skeletons possessed high intelligence. Among them, the Spirit Cat Skeleton Warlock, Minotaur Skeleton Shaman, and Human Skeleton Mage, with their strong spiritual power, could vibrate the air to produce precise speech.

Under Suixin's Voice of the Soul teachings, the Spirit Cat Warlock and Minotaur Shaman had both learned human language and could converse with Medivh without barriers.

"Take me to see it!"

The moment he heard the words "ancient battlefield," Medivh perked up instantly.

He leaped to his feet and told the Spirit Cat Warlock to lead the way.

After riding for some time, Medivh arrived at a wasteland that had been washed out by water.

Scattered across that wasteland were many disorganized bones. Medivh released his spiritual power to inspect them—they were all bones with a history of two hundred and eighty-two years.

With so many bones all dying in the same year, it was clearly an ancient battlefield.

Looking at the scattered bones washed apart across the wasteland, Medivh's face showed a pained expression.

When he smelted skeletal components, he couldn't afford missing arms or legs.

For these bones scattered by the flood, it was difficult to find all the body parts and restore them.

Just restoring the skeleton frame was fine—Medivh had done this work in his past life and had plenty of patience and experience.

But he feared some skeletal parts had been washed away by the mountain torrents; even his most skilled craftsmanship couldn't restore them then.

"Start from here!"

Without time to lament, Medivh immediately threw himself into salvage excavation, lest the bones, now in a changed burial environment, suffer further damage.

That patch of wasteland soon became lively. Thousands of skeletons carefully dug through the muddy ground, excavating one skeleton after another buried in the silt and sand.

If any roving thugs in the wilderness stumbled upon such a bizarre scene, they'd probably question their own sanity, thinking they were having a nightmare.

"What a great place!"

As the excavation deepened, Medivh harvested dozens of Transcendental Skeletons from humans and other races.

The bones unearthed from the wasteland were mainly human skeletons and orc skeletons.

Unsurprisingly, the Gewalt Federation's army and the Orc Kingdom's army had once fought a battle here.

Medivh had the skeletons continue digging while he smelted Transcendental Skeletons in a temporary camp tent.

His mental energy had long reached the threshold for advancement; he needed a major feedback from the Spring of Time to trigger a qualitative transformation.

One by one, Transcendental Skeletons melted and condensed under his mana into Transcendental Skeleton components. Among them, human Transcendent skeletons yielded Knight and Mage Skeleton components, while orc Transcendent skeletons yielded Orc Berserker and Orc Prophet Skeleton components.

Each time he revived a new type of skeleton, the difficulty was at its peak.

Reviving magical Transcendental Skeletons was harder than other types of Transcendental Skeletons.

Medivh had a feeling that his opportunity to advance to a full mage lay in reviving the Orc Prophet Skeleton.

Over the next several days, after smelting over a hundred Transcendental Skeletons, he finally assembled a complete set of Orc Prophet Skeleton components.

Calming his excited heart, Medivh adjusted his mental energy and mana to their peak states, then took out the Orc Prophet Skeleton components to assemble and revive.

During this assembly and revival, the phenomenon of sweating profusely—absent for a long time—reappeared.

In his utter concentration, the Orc Skeleton Prophet stood up, brandishing its Bone Staff.