Sacrificial Formation

Green beamed with delight. He had never expected rescuing Penny this time to bring him such tremendous benefits. At the same time, he gained a rough understanding of the Psychic Energy contained within Apprentice or Apprentice-level supernatural beings.

For example, that evil god's priest had been at the peak of the Advanced Apprentice Priest level. Killing him had yielded 600 points of Psychic Energy. Jike and Jones were both Intermediate Apprentices, containing between one and two hundred points of Psychic Energy, while Les and Old Bill were merely Junior Apprentices who had just entered the field, each possessing roughly thirty or forty points.

However, after his excitement faded, Green took another look at the cost of constructing new buildings or upgrading the crypt in the Graveyard, and his expression darkened again. He sighed. He was still a penniless pauper after all—without a thousand points of Psychic Energy, he could barely do anything!

The Abandoned Tower that could produce ghosts cost 2,000 points of Psychic Energy just to unlock, while upgrading the crypt required 1,500.

Green suddenly felt fortunate. Although the Graveyard had been dilapidated when it appeared, it had retained the Town Hall and a fully upgraded cemetery. Otherwise, constructing and upgrading the cemetery in the early stages alone would have bankrupted him.

Putting his many thoughts aside for the moment, Green withdrew from the Graveyard and began summarizing the lessons from this battle.

In the battle, he had lost a total of three Ghouls. Compared with what he had gained, that loss was negligible. Still, Green had noticed something amiss: he himself was far too weak. This was a common failing among mages. Just as that evil god's priest had disregarded everything to launch a decapitation attack on Green at the start, the Ghouls and Gun Skeleton Soldiers alone could not stop him. Apart from Bone Spikes, Green himself was hardly any stronger than an ordinary person.

Looking closely, the fact that he had managed to ambush and kill that evil god's priest this time had involved quite a bit of luck.

It was easy to identify the problem, but not so easy to solve it. Based on his past experience, most mages had two ways of dealing with their own frailty. One was to practice defensive magic, such as the Energy Shield of an evocation mage, the Ice Shield of a water mage, or the Earth Rampart of an earth mage. Necromancers also had two similar second-circle spells: Bone Shield and Skeletal Armor. The other was to rely on a mount. By subduing a supernatural creature and forming a contract with it, one could use the mount's high agility to evade enemy attacks, or rely on the mount's powerful melee ability to drive back enemies attempting to attack the mage himself. This was why high-level light mages always appeared riding unicorns bathed in holy light, while the high-level Necromancers who struck terror into people's hearts always stood atop the heads of Bone Dragons.

For Green, however, both methods were water from afar that could not put out a fire nearby. He knew neither of the standard defensive spells for Necromancers, Bone Shield and Skeletal Armor, and Doctor Wilkins did not have them either. The Mages Association did, but acquiring them required a great deal of money and merit within the association. Money would be easy enough to solve—he could borrow it from Vincent—but merit within the Mages Association could only be accumulated slowly by completing the tasks issued by the association.

As for a mount, Green wanted one too, but where could he find a supernatural creature with high agility and formidable strength?

Green rubbed his temples and cast aside the many impractical thoughts in his mind. Rather than dwelling on all that nonsense, it would be more practical to increase his strength as quickly as possible. Then he looked toward the wall the evil god's priest had smashed through. He had been too distracted by the fierce battle to pay attention to what lay beyond it, but now he faintly caught a strong smell of blood drifting from that direction.

"What a heavy stench of blood. What's going on?" Green frowned and walked closer to the hole. When he looked inside and saw the scene in the room beyond, he could not help freezing for a moment.

It was a room of more than thirty square meters. Four braziers burned in the four corners, illuminating the tightly sealed, windowless room until it was brilliantly bright.

At the center of the room was a magic formation more than three meters across. Its red lines looked especially mysterious in the flickering firelight. What shocked Green most, however, was what lay neatly arranged at the center of the formation: three people—or, more precisely, the naked corpses of three female Elves. The three Elves had died horrific deaths. They had apparently been disemboweled while still alive, their hearts, livers, spleens, lungs, and kidneys removed and placed at specific positions on the formation.

Although he had not seen those three Elves at the auction house, Green was almost certain that these three corpses belonged to them. In a small city like Landon City, the odds of six female Elves appearing at the same time were practically nonexistent.

"These Elves really did die after disappearing from Baron Lonanks's household. Were they used as sacrifices in some ritual? Is this a formation for summoning a Void Yin Spirit? Did it fail?" Green pondered silently. He did not approach rashly. Instead, he sent a Skeleton Soldier into the magic formation to carry the Elves' corpses out. Then he tentatively reached out and touched one of them, only to discover that there was not a trace of Psychic Energy within any of the three corpses.

Elves were the children of the forest. They were naturally gifted with magical constitutions and were a long-lived race, living for an average of a thousand years. It was impossible for their corpses to contain no Psychic Energy after death. In fact, for an instant, Green had even felt a flicker of anticipation. If the Elves' corpses contained Psychic Energy, they would surely hold more than the evil god's priest.

Unfortunately, after touching them and finding not the slightest trace of Psychic Energy within their bodies, Green was bitterly disappointed—but he had already figured out the reason. The people of the Tower of Yin Spirits had gone to such lengths to sacrifice three Elves most likely to offer up the vast quantities of Psychic Energy within them to the Void Yin Spirit they worshiped.

"Then why was there no reaction after sacrificing three Elves just now? The Void Yin Spirit worshiped by the Tower of Yin Spirits should certainly have responded upon receiving the offerings. Or was the ritual interrupted just now because of Penny—or me? No wonder that big priest went berserk and smashed through the wall." Green speculated to himself. He recalled most of the Skeleton Soldiers, leaving only two behind to stand guard against any sudden developments.

Around seven or eight minutes later, the whistle of a police wagon approached from afar. Soon after, Penny led a large group of police officers and two local Anomalies Bureau personnel from Landon City, dressed in black trench coats, as they surged inside. This was the truth in the saying that a great reward would bring forth brave men. The city government had offered a huge bounty to find the people from the Tower of Yin Spirits, so when the police—and even the Anomalies Bureau personnel—heard Penny's call for help, they all rushed over as if injected with stimulants, without considering that their opponents were supernatural beings. If Green had not already finished the battle, of all those who charged in, only the two Anomalies Bureau personnel would probably have had a chance to escape with their lives.

"Green, are you all right?" Penny asked with concern. She did not press him about where the people from the Tower of Yin Spirits had gone, asking first whether he had been injured.

"Don't worry, I'm fine~" Green replied with a warm smile. However, after becoming a Necromancer, his body had undergone further Lichification, causing his pupils to take on a greenish hue. When he smiled, he looked somewhat strange.

Only then did Penny remember the enemy who had nearly killed her. She swept her gaze around the area, but found no corpses, and asked curiously, "Where are the corpses of those people? And what about the last one who charged in? Did he escape?"

"Of course I dealt with the corpses myself. Don't forget, I'm a Necromancer." Green answered calmly, "I killed the last one too. Unfortunately, his corpse was contaminated by Yin Spirit power. Otherwise, it would have made a fine Zombie puppet."

Penny froze when she heard this. Her eyes widened as she stared at Green. She had seen the force with which that beastlike giant had smashed through the wall—a powerful being capable of wiping out an entire army. Yet Green had casually said he had killed it right in front of her. Was she still dreaming, or was Green boasting without even bothering to draft a plausible lie?

Although it was hard to believe, Penny soon became certain that Green was not joking. She was utterly shocked and grew even more curious about him. She had always possessed exceptional talent, and with her beautiful appearance, both her classmates and teachers at the Knight Academy had praised her as one of the best in her year. Compared with Green, a fellow clansman who had always kept his abilities hidden, this so-called genius Apprentice Knight of hers was practically a joke.

At that thought, Penny's face flushed. She fell silent awkwardly, unsure what to say.

At that moment, the patrol captain leading the group and the two Anomalies Bureau personnel came over and questioned them for a while. After learning that Green was a Necromancer Apprentice who also held the title of baronet, they did not make things difficult for him. After merely going through the motions, they sent Green and Penny home.