Bone Warriors

Not bad—my first casting succeeded!

Huo Ling looked at the skeleton before him, green soul fire swaying within its skull, and could not help but praise it.

"Rise."

With a slight stir of his mental power, he issued a command.

The skeleton rose to its feet at the command.

Although this skeleton had been successfully created through magic, the corpse used to make it had been of poor quality. Even with Huo Ling's spell, this skeleton was only at the low-level apprentice rank.

Strictly speaking, whether it could even defeat a Night Walker was debatable.

But that was no great problem. This skeleton could continue to grow stronger.

Huo Ling then recovered some mana and cast his fifth spell.

Bone Armament

After casting it, he placed his hand on the skeleton's skull and infused the spell runes into its soul fire.

Once the spell ended, Huo Ling withdrew his hand.

"Go absorb the corpse and arm yourself." Huo Ling issued the command through his mental power.

"By your command, my lord!"

The skeleton's jaw opened and closed soundlessly. It then walked over to another corpse and pressed its hand bones against the Night Walker's skull.

As soul power surged, the skeleton before him extracted the soul essence within the Night Walker's body.

This was an innate talent of undead creatures. They could strengthen their soul fire by absorbing the soul essence within corpses.

As the skeleton absorbed the soul essence, the soul fire in its skull swayed even more fiercely.

Then, not only the corpse's soul essence, but also the essence of its flesh and bones was continuously absorbed by the skeleton.

More than ten minutes later, the skeleton finally finished absorbing the corpse before it, leaving only a little grayish-white bone dust behind.

After absorbing the corpse's soul essence and the essence of its flesh and bones, the skeleton had visibly grown a little stronger.

What was more, using the bone essence it had absorbed, it condensed a bone battle saber for itself.

Huo Ling walked over, pinched the bone battle saber, and tested its strength.

For now, the saber was not very durable, about as tough as ordinary bone. But this was only the beginning. The skeleton could continue absorbing corpses to strengthen itself.

He gave the skeleton an order to keep absorbing the remaining corpses and strengthen itself. If there were no corpses left, it was to kill the other Night Walkers in this building and continue absorbing them.

Huo Ling, meanwhile, left the building and went to another building nearby.

The skeleton was far too slow at absorbing corpse essence. One corpse took more than ten minutes, and he could not wait that long.

He needed to keep making more skeletons to speed up his accumulation.

Before long, another skeleton appeared before Huo Ling. He smiled faintly and ordered it to absorb and evolve.

At that moment, a tiny point of light leaped dozens of meters from the neighboring building and flew straight toward Huo Ling.

Seeing this, Huo Ling could not help but rejoice. It seemed that Night Walkers killed by the skeletons also had a chance to yield potential points. Very good.

Over the course of the morning, Huo Ling created five Bone Warriors. These weak undead creatures also continued killing Night Walkers and absorbing essence to strengthen themselves.

By nightfall, Huo Ling brought the five Bone Warriors back to his lair.

These Bone Warriors were now utterly different from when they had first been created.

All five Bone Warriors had reached the peak of the apprentice rank. Through the attribute panel, Huo Ling could also inspect their attributes.

Bone Warrior

Name: Bone Warrior

Bloodline: Undead Bone Clan

Rank: Tier Zero Apprentice Warrior

Strength: 9.5

Constitution: 7

Agility: 6

Soul Power: 9

Skill: Basic Bone Warrior Combat Techniques

In terms of strength, they were no less formidable than those apprentice combat professionals at the peak of the apprentice rank.

But aside from strength, these Bone Warriors were rather lacking in constitution and agility.

Still, that could not be helped. Relatively speaking, Bone Warriors were still the cannon fodder type of combat force.

These attributes had already reached the limit of the apprentice rank. To improve them further, they needed to advance to the Black Iron rank.

Compared with Bone Warriors, the apprentice combat professionals at the schools possessed much stronger attributes.

Generally speaking, for these apprentice combat professionals to advance to the Black Iron rank, at least one of their three major attributes—strength, constitution, and agility—needed to reach 10.

Some talented and ambitious people would even suppress their urge to advance, waiting until all three attributes had reached 10 before beginning their advancement.

Only then could their bodies receive greater improvements after advancing.

However, there was no need for Huo Ling's Bone Warriors to suppress their rank. Their attributes could no longer increase through ordinary means.

Advancement was their only choice. Of course, advancing Bone Warriors was not so easy either.

By Huo Ling's estimation, for these Bone Warriors to break through to the Black Iron rank, they would need to slaughter and devour at least four or five hundred Night Walkers.

Strengthening the Bone Warriors was a long and arduous road.

But for now, these Bone Warriors' combat power could still provide Huo Ling with some help.

After a day of slaughter and growth, the five Bone Warriors were no longer bare skeletons.

They were now clad in armor. This blackish-gray bone armor was the work of Bone Armament.

The Bone Warriors condensed the bone essence they absorbed into their own weapons and armor. This armor already possessed decent defensive power.

If armor forged by other creatures had been placed on the skeletons, it would certainly have hung loose and rattled about, since Bone Warriors had no flesh.

But this armor had grown from the Bone Warriors' own bodies, with plenty of hollow bones supporting it from within.

These hollow bones not only kept the armor stable, but also provided some shock absorption against enemy attacks. It was quite good.

Of the five Bone Warriors, three were sword-and-shield soldiers, holding bone sabers in one hand and bone shields in the other.

The other two were spear-and-shield soldiers, each holding a shield in one hand and a four-meter-long bone spear in the other.

The five Bone Warriors also carried four bone short spears on their backs.

These were the Bone Warriors' means of ranged attack. Since they were Bone Warriors, they had no way of making bowstrings from bone.

And buying bows or crossbows for Bone Warriors to use was not worth it either.

So, throwing short spears was a good means of ranged attack.

With the Bone Warriors' strength and the aid of soul power, these thrown short spears possessed considerable attack power as well.

The short spears' attack power could reach 7–9 degrees.

With these bone soldiers protecting him, Huo Ling's combat strength rose greatly. He could cast offensive spells far more calmly.