From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 669 Skull Pillar
The spirit messengers from the Land of Bliss are wondrous beings. Although they are collectively called spirit messengers, these mythical creatures do not actually have a very uniform appearance.

They could be large cats with wings and bodies that resembled enchanting smoke, or slender elves. Apart from having beautiful voices, it was really difficult to distinguish them from other creatures of Elysium based on their appearance.

However, these spirit messengers, like the angels from the Seven Heavens, belong to the Celestial Race in a broader sense, only differing in the way they use their power.

What the Spirit Envoys are best known for is the courtyard that appears alongside them.

In the Fairy Wilderness of Faerûn, the fairies are divided into two factions: the Joyful Court and the Wrathful Court. Meanwhile, in the Elysium of Grallion, each spirit servant has their own courtyard where they and their followers can play, perform, or laugh together.

The Elysium Hill, which suddenly appeared outside the City of Favor and faced Ivy's Spirit Tower, is believed to be Illinika's own garden.

This information was personally verified by Aiwu, the Carnival Dragon who came from the Land of Bliss.

Thus, naturally, this newly appeared courtyard was given a name that matched the Free Order Knights stationed there: Free Order Courtyard.

After the courtyard was named, the members of the Knights were as excited as ever, but the lich Zecharias, who lived across the street, was not so happy.

Compared to the angels, who were his mortal enemies, the unrestrained power of the spirit messenger evoked a sense of physical disgust in this lich. Even though he didn't possess anything that could be described as a physical body.

However, after being sternly warned by Ivy, he decided to temporarily give in and coexist peacefully with the troublemakers on the other side.

Of course, Ivy knew very well what kind of people the chaotic and benevolent Knights of Freedom were. They would take action simply because they didn't like something. Living across the street from a lich, it was almost impossible not to have a conflict.

Therefore, before warning Zecharias, Ivy also warned all members of the Free Order Knights: all undead creatures in the City of Favor are under his control, and to offend these creatures is to challenge his personal authority.

However, Ivy was pessimistic about the effectiveness of such a warning. With a carnival dragon leading the way who dared to play pranks on the Golden Dragon Lord, who knew how long it would take before they started thinking about giving the Temple of Death a more vibrant color.

Moreover, threats and similar methods are even less effective.

The people are not afraid of death, so why threaten them with death?

Which of those who dare to come to the front lines of the holy war is afraid of death?
If someone were to truly cross Ivy's bottom line, he would likely have to resort to extreme measures to quell the restless hearts of the Knights of Freedom.

I hope that day doesn't come too soon.

Zecarius, now living in the Temple of Death, is no longer confined to the snow globe, but his range of movement hasn't increased significantly.

However, having lived in the basement of the New Sanctuary for a hundred years, the lich had long been accustomed to this reclusive lifestyle.

Not to mention that his current residence is a magnificent crypt, no longer the dilapidated hilltop church of the past.

“Not bad.” Zecarius, clad in the robes of a Crusader Battle Mage, surveyed the interior of the Death Temple, a hint of excitement lurking in his arrogant voice. “This is far more spacious than my private chamber. However, having a genius lich like me manage this temple is still a waste of resources. Our focus should be on necromancy that can kill demons, and on more powerful undead creatures.”

"So?" Ivy sensed that Zecarius had something else to say.

“Therefore, I intend to create a new kind of undead, a skull pillar. It will be responsible for assisting the Lord of Death in managing this temple, and those… worldly matters.” A pale red aura flickered in Zecharias’s eye sockets, and his pale yellow jawline parted, as if he were smiling.

"Skull pillar? Tell me more about it." Ivy raised an eyebrow. Judging from Zecarius's behavior, he seemed very proud of being able to create such undead creatures.

Just as Ivy explored the wisdom of constructs, many famous archmages also used magic to create a personal assistant.

These assistants are usually bound to their magic towers, responsible for managing all the magic and facilities within the towers, and providing convenience for their masters.

This act of imbuing the magic tower with intelligence is considered the creation of a tower spirit.

The skull pillar that Zechariah mentioned seems to be an undead version of a tower spirit, since the Death Temple beneath their feet is a spirit tower, that is, the lich's mage tower.

“I will create skull pillars from the heads of intelligent and wise individuals, who can once again contribute to the Holy War, free from the constraints of the flesh, serving you wholeheartedly. And most importantly, the skull pillars will possess the knowledge and experience within all these heads. Therefore, their advice will often be wise and beneficial, perfectly ensuring order within the Spirit Tower.” Zechariah briefly described his concept for creating skull pillars, slightly raising his chin, awaiting the expected praise.

Ivy immediately understood what Zecarius meant.

In simple terms, the skull pillar is a server-like undead creature, and the skull placed on it acts as a hard drive for storing data. By using necromancy to create a simple unified mind, the experience and knowledge stored on these hard drives can be flexibly accessed, thus turning it into a very advantageous undead assistant.

It's a very novel idea, and it's not technically complicated to implement.

Ivy also preserved the skull of Voldemort, whom she had killed. It contained a wealth of knowledge and experience in dark magic, and Ivy used that skull to recreate another chattering undead creature—the Shattered Mouth Skull.

Moreover, this mutilated skull, which Ivy affectionately calls "Tom," is even taking Ivy's Defense Against the Dark Arts class at Streihaven.

Zecarius's approach was essentially to string together a series of fragmented skulls, then unify them into a single consciousness, creating an alternative tower spirit for the Temple of Death. "A good idea," Ivy nodded in approval. "Go for it."

“However, there’s another problem: the raw materials for making the skull pillars.” Zecarius revealed a slightly malicious smile. “I still have some heads of former apprentices stored in my private basement. While they were certainly intelligent, they could hardly be called wise. The potential of a skull pillar depends on the raw materials used to make it. Without the heads of truly wise individuals, even with my skills, the skull pillars I can create will still be mediocre.” Fortunately, the temple cemetery in this city contains the remains of many heroes from the First Holy War, quite a few of whom are qualified to be raw materials for skull pillars.

No matter how virtuous a lich was in life, once the lich transformation ritual is completed, they will undoubtedly lean towards evil.

Zechariah, the one who perished, was a fervent Crusader warrior in life, but after becoming a lich, he turned into a degenerate man constantly contemplating blasphemy. Had he not sworn a magical oath before completing his transformation, he would likely have long since become a scourge shaking the Kingdom of Montevi.
Ivy coldly stared at the lich who was trying to test his moral limits: "Too narrow-minded, Zechariah. Your skills are not perfect, and the heroes the Crusaders buried in the graveyard are not qualified raw materials."

Ivy raised his palm, and murky, ominous necromancy magic began to gather around him. The next moment, the pale green flames flickered briefly before turning into a dense black mass.

Zecarius looked closely and realized that it was not a leaping shadow, but a ball of black flame that exuded an ominous and terrifying aura.

"Gah gah gah..." A chilling laugh echoed in the empty hall of the Temple of Death. A skull engulfed in black flames detached from Ivy's hand and floated in the glow of necromancy. "My wicked master, what do you want from your lowest servant? I was just in class!"

Ivy ignored Tom and turned to Zecarius, whose expression was frozen, and said, “This is the head of a wizard, filled with blasphemous black magic. He was just a step away from creating a lich from nothing. He even prepared seven items similar to phylacteries for himself. After I killed him, I preserved the knowledge of black magic in his head and made it into the undead you see before me.”

“If your skills are advanced enough, Zecarius, you should be able to devise a way to improve the Skull Pillar.” Ivy waved her hand again, turning Voldemort’s head, which was burning with fierce flames, into a puff of smoke and sending it back to Strider’s Defense Against the Dark Arts class. “What you’re creating isn’t a rigid undead assistant, but a monster that can improve by utilizing the knowledge within the enemy’s brain. As more heads are added to the Skull Pillar, it should also be able to improve itself. Not like a rigid piece of pottery, which, once it sets and cools down, completely loses its potential for improvement.”

"What..." The lich stared wide-eyed, unable to believe that his proud creation had received such a evaluation. He came to his senses and defended himself, "Of course, the skull pillar still has room for improvement... but do you know how much time and effort that will take? We have more important things to do!"

"Can't you even handle this little thing? Zecarius? I thought you were some kind of reclusive genius. Now it seems you're nothing special." Ivy used a worker management method called UFO, then summoned the Grimoire of Destruction, tore off a page and handed it to Zecarius. "Well, it seems I'll have to offer you some help."

Even though Zechariah was an emotionless lich, he couldn't suppress his anger at such open contempt. However, what bothered him even more was that he couldn't beat the guy in front of him.

So, after being treated to a meal at KFC, Magic Old Ze had no choice but to grab the parchment that floated in front of him and read it fiercely: "...Construct Cluster Mind?"

The concept of "cluster mind" is one coined by Ivy herself. It originates from a very common creature: the ant on the ground.

As a highly social species, ants can perceive the outside world through pheromones transmitted between individuals and then make collective decisions.

Individual ants can hardly be considered intelligent, but when they appear as nests or colonies, the intelligence exhibited by the entire colony increases with the size of the colony, reaching a level of intelligence comparable to that of a human infant.

Based on this, Ivy began research on construct cluster minds, aiming to achieve the evolution of minds by increasing the number of constructs that can interconnect information.

However, this idea remains in the theoretical stage. Although it can solve the problem of information exchange between cluster components, it is difficult to integrate them together and produce positive improvements.

The prototype cluster constructs all exhibited indescribable stupidity, much like encountering a road rage patient stuck in traffic during a holiday.

However, if we don't require each individual in the cluster to have a certain level of intelligence, but simply use them as a database, wouldn't that coincide with Zecharias's concept of skull pillars?
The only difference is that necromancy can easily plunder the knowledge in the minds of the living, while constructs must be personally infused by Ivy one by one.

The method to solve the skull pillar problem by relying on the collective mind of the constructs is very simple. It is to use necromancy to create an undead knowledge base that can communicate with each other, while the mind of the skull pillar itself needs to be built separately, instead of integrating many heads together to share a single consciousness.

With Zecarius's talent, he naturally understood Ivy's meaning immediately.

Silently grinding his teeth, Zecarius carefully put away the parchment and said in a somber tone, "I will finish my work and use my apprentices to create a rudimentary version of the skull pillar... When the experiment is complete, I will inform you to come and... provide guidance."

“Very good, I hope I don’t have to wait too long.” Ivy nodded in satisfaction at Zecarius’s temporary submissiveness, then turned and left to prepare for the next task.

The troubles facing the Holy Army of Jueze City now go far beyond those listed by Erabes.

The missing scouts, the red dragon that attacked the supply convoy, the possible appearance of mythical demons, and the imminent arrival of a demon army.

Since the demon Daranzand was personally defeated by Ivy, the demon army within the World's Lament area has been quite well-behaved for a few days.

But recently, scouts have reported that a new demonic army has set out from the city of Iz, deep within the World's Sorrow, and is heading towards the city of Favor.

It is said that the demons leading them are generals under Descarri, Cholerazad.

At this critical juncture, improving the Crusaders' frontal combat capabilities is the most important thing for Ivy.

To this end, Ivy has designed a complete plan to train and enhance the strength of the various legions of the Crusader.

Besides military equipment and personnel, Ivy would certainly not give up its advantage—its broad vision from outside the world.

(End of this chapter)