This realization quietly took root in Vill-V's heart. The smile on her face was like a ray of morning light, bright and warm.
alt=Vill-V/
Level 2 and Making Up His Mind
When the kindergarten's melodious dismissal bell rang,
Emma stood at the kindergarten entrance, waiting for her precious son.
She had hoped Moros would run out of the school gates happily like the other children and throw himself into her arms.
However, when Moros slowly walked out of the gates, Emma was surprised to see him waving goodbye to an unusual little girl.
She was a little girl with two-toned hair, whose distinctive coloring made her especially eye-catching among the crowd.
Emma stood quietly to one side and did not immediately step forward to interrupt them.
She watched Moros interact with the little girl, feeling quite pleased inside.
This had been her original purpose in sending Moros to kindergarten—to help him open up and form friendships with others.
As his mother, Emma knew her son was unique.
He was somewhat distant from children his own age, but that did not mean Moros had no emotional needs.
Little Moros needed friends, people with whom he could share joy and bear pain!
Therefore, Emma was overjoyed when she saw Moros make a friend.
On the way home, Emma asked her precious son,
"Little Moros, did you get along well with that two-toned-haired girl today?"
"Yes, Mom. Her name is Vill-V. We're friends."
Hearing this, Emma was quite surprised. She knew just how high her son's standards were when it came to friends.
At the very least, none of the children in their neighborhood had been able to become Moros's friend.
"Mm, as long as you're happy."
Surprised as she was, Emma had no intention of interfering with her child's social life.
She merely smiled and stroked Moros's head, then took him aboard the private car parked in a space by the intersection.
Ever since meeting Vill-V, Moros no longer regarded attending kindergarten as something he reluctantly did to avoid disappointing his mother.
He began to genuinely look forward to kindergarten life, to every day he could spend with Vill-V.
Under such circumstances, the friendship between Moros and Vill-V naturally grew deeper by the day.
They played, studied, and shared each other's joys and sorrows.
However, Moros did not completely immerse himself in happiness.
He knew full well the responsibilities he bore and the challenges that lay ahead, so he never relaxed his demands on himself.
Moros voluntarily increased the intensity of his daily study of magic knowledge and meditation, striving to improve his strength.
He understood that only the strong could have the right to choose in that age marching toward ruin.
If he did not want to regret it in the future, he had to push himself now.
Though the high-intensity studying and meditation left Moros exhausted, they also brought him generous experience rewards.
In just six days, Moros filled the last portion of his experience bar.
Level up! Life Force increased... Mana +1 Please choose a skill: Attack / Dark Magic / Enlightenment
Recovering from the exhilaration brought by his increased Life Force, Moros began analyzing the pros and cons of the three options.
The first to be ruled out was Attack.
A mere 5% attack boost, and one limited to melee combat at that, was not worth wasting a precious Hero Template skill slot on.
For an ordinary-quality hero, there were only six Hero Template skill slots, and Moros was naturally no exception.
Furthermore, the Necromancer class itself came with Necromancy.
In other words, Moros only had five Hero Template skill slots that he could truly arrange himself.
Therefore, he had to choose his skills carefully to avoid wasting those precious slots.
Of course, skills learned through self-study were not restricted by Hero Template skill slots.
But the difficulty involved was another matter entirely.
Between Dark Magic and Enlightenment, Moros hesitated for a long time before ultimately choosing the latter.
As a Necromancer, he would have to choose both of those skills sooner or later.
But there were priorities to everything.
Given Moros's current situation, Enlightenment, a skill capable of increasing his growth rate, was what he needed most right now.
As Moros's thoughts shifted, the skill Enlightenment appeared in his Hero Template skill slots.
Enlightenment: Increases the experience gained by the hero and raises Mana as the hero levels up.
The activation of Enlightenment left Moros ecstatic.
What Enlightenment brought was not merely a boost to his growth rate.
At the same time the skill activated, it also infused Moros with a great deal of knowledge related to it.
After only a cursory glance, Moros found quite a few useful pieces of knowledge and secret arts among them.
A method of replacing sleep with meditation, training methods to improve the brain's computational ability, recipes for special magical incense that increased meditation efficiency...
Although the knowledge imparted to Moros by beginner Enlightenment was relatively superficial, it was already exceedingly precious for a level 2 supernatural being.
If this had been Ashan World, magic knowledge of this level would have been enough to make an apprentice mage risk his life.
What a huge profit!
Filled with excitement, Moros entered his Demiplane in person for the first time.
He had delayed for a full three years. After learning that the world he lived in was the Pre-Collapse Civilization destroyed by Finality in Honkai Impact 3rd, Moros had made up his mind to begin conquering the wilderness structures scattered throughout the Demiplane.
Reality was different from a game. Heroes leading troops into battle did not have damage immunity.
Taking that into consideration, Moros had never stepped outside Graveyard City during the past three years.
Now that Moros had reached level 2, his Life Force had risen to the level of an ordinary adult.
At this moment, he could no longer suppress his urge to lead troops out and conquer wilderness structures.
Moros knew very well that the Pre-Collapse Civilization had not actually held out for very long against the Honkai disasters.
From the Third Great Collapse, which marked the emergence of the Honkai, to Finality destroying the world, there would not be more than ten years in total.
That amount of time was far from generous for a mage's cultivation.
To gain the ability to control his own fate in the future, Moros had to take certain risks now.
Stepping into the city ruins that had been utterly transformed over the past three years—no, Graveyard City was perhaps a more fitting name now—Moros headed straight for the Tavern.
Although no heroes would visit the Tavern within the Demiplane, the intelligence it could provide had not been discounted in the slightest.
Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated. To obtain intelligence on the monster troops occupying wilderness resource structures, spending some gold was worthwhile.
After spending several hundred gold coins, Moros easily obtained information on the garrisons of every basic resource structure within a day's journey of Graveyard City.
After reading through the intelligence he had purchased from the Tavern, Moros gained a fairly thorough understanding of the enemies he would face.
It seemed impossible to finish everything in a single battle...
Thinking this, Moros pushed open the Tavern doors and headed toward the Blacksmith.
Assembling the Troops and Capturing the Lumber Mill
Buying war machines other than the Medical Tent from the Blacksmith truly cost three times as much, but Moros did not care in the slightest. He decisively paid 7,250 gold coins and acquired three battlefield tools.
Compared to the importance of capturing resource structures, those gold coins were negligible in his eyes.
After upgrading the Village Hall into the Town Hall, Moros's daily gold income had risen from 500 gold coins to 1,000.
It was precisely this leap in income that allowed him to spend so lavishly now.
Ballista: Developed from the crossbow, the powerful ballista could launch attacks over extreme distances.
Medical Tent: The first-aid tent was an extremely valuable tool for any military branch—wounded soldiers or creatures could be brought here for treatment.
Ammunition Cart: Ammunition carts fully loaded with arrows of every specification and size could be found in the supply trains of any well-equipped army.
After storing the three war machines with his Hero Template, Moros strode out of the Blacksmith and headed toward the four troop recruitment structures rising within Graveyard City.
Boneyard, Crypt, Ruined Tower, and Vampire Mansion.
Before this, apart from the small number of Skeletons and Zombies recruited to clear the city ruins, Moros had not recruited any other undead soldiers.
As the master of the Demiplane, Moros knew very well that there were no true enemies within this Demiplane created by some great existence.
Even if those monster troops occupied wilderness structures, they would not launch attacks against his territory.
Under such circumstances, Moros naturally had no need to recruit Undead Troops.
But now, the situation had changed.
To conquer the basic resource structures closest to Graveyard City, Moros needed to build a decent undead army.
Through the intelligence he had bought from the Tavern, Moros had already learned the details of the monster troops occupying the Lumber Mill and Ore Pit.
They were not the laughable squads of several dozen men found in games.
The reason Moros had been able to restrain his urges until today was that none of the monster troops occupying those basic resource structures numbered fewer than a thousand.
Of course, that was also because Moros had allowed them to occupy the wilderness structures for too long.
Had it been when he had first become lord, the scale of those monster troops would not have been much greater than in the game.
As all the gold he had accumulated over the past three years was emptied out, a massive undead army gathered before Moros.
3,120 Skeleton Archers;
1,980 Zombies;
855 Ghosts;
175 Vampires.
Taking the advantage of a first strike into account, an undead army of this scale could already defeat a fully armed brigade-level armored unit head-on.
Holding such a powerful army in his hands, Moros was filled with lofty ambition.
He believed that this time, he would surely sweep away the enemy troops occupying the target wilderness structures and lay a solid foundation for Graveyard City's future development.
Following the Demiplane map's guidance, Moros rode in a carriage pulled by Skeleton Warhorses, leading the massive undead army toward the target of this expedition.
The Lumber Mill closest to Graveyard City.
I did not dare take risks before, so I allowed you to exist. But now, you should become nourishment for my growth as well!
Gazing at the Lumber Mill occupied by several thousand Peasants and over a hundred Conscripts in the distance, Moros excitedly ordered the undead army to begin deploying into formation.
Since his side held the numerical advantage, Moros naturally intended to make full use of it.
Therefore, following the military formation knowledge he had learned at the Mage Guild, he arranged his troops to bring out their maximum combat strength.
The efficiency of undead troops needed no questioning.
Under Moros's command, the undead army swiftly spread out, forming an attacking front that symbolized death.
If Ghosts and Vampires had not been able to fly, this battlefield surrounding the Lumber Mill likely could not have accommodated the clash between the two armies, which totaled more than ten thousand troops.
Given the size of the undead army commanded by Moros, the monster troops of Peasants and Conscripts spotted them as soon as the battle formation unfolded.
For an ordinary army, facing such a massive enemy force would inevitably lead to panic.
Before you continue