Another World: When a Necromancer Possesses the Banner of Ten Thousand Souls

A brief silence followed, as if the system was processing and understanding the message. About a second later, a cold, rigid, mechanical message returned: "Much stronger, approximately more than doubled. Thank you for your blessing, Master."

Success! A rudimentary form of intelligence has truly emerged! Although it's not yet at the level of a human, and its level is unknown, this is undoubtedly a qualitative leap!

Li Xingyao's eyes flashed with a sharp light, and he immediately issued a more complex command: "Practice your skills!"

Without the slightest hesitation, the skeleton swordsman's soul fire flashed in his empty eye sockets, and he immediately sprang into action! His movements were fluid, precise, and swift! His steps were interlaced, his figure like the wind, and with each swing of his bone sword, he left behind chilling afterimages!

The thrusts are like a venomous snake spitting its tongue, swift as lightning; the slashes are like splitting mountains and shattering rocks, powerful and heavy; the parries, slashes, and blockes... the sword techniques flow smoothly and effortlessly, subtly conveying a simple, efficient, and deadly fighting style!

What surprised Li Xingyao even more was that the Skeleton Swordsman seemed to have suddenly mastered swordsmanship. Unlike before, when his moves were stiff and rigid, he was no longer like a strong man casually picking up a longsword to fight. Now, he was like a swordsman who had practiced swordsmanship.

Regardless of how much the attributes have improved, the progress in swordsmanship alone can increase combat power by at least 50%.

The improvement in intelligence seems to be mainly reflected in combat instincts and thinking, just like replacing the processor and algorithms of an old computer with a more advanced one, resulting in a qualitative leap in the speed and accuracy of processing instructions!

This means that in future battles, Li Xingyao will no longer need to micromanage every single command. He will only need to issue more general commands, and the commands will automatically complete the complex combat process! His command burden will be greatly reduced, and his combat efficiency will skyrocket!

A surge of ecstasy coursed through Li Xingyao's body, filling him with immense excitement. Without hesitation, he immediately turned his gaze to the skeleton hunter and the crocodile-skinned zombie standing solemnly beside him.

"continue!"

Li Xingyao looked at a skeleton hunter and then began to pour his soul power into its body.

The evolution of the Skeleton Hunter is equally impressive. Its skeleton has become lighter and more slender, with its arm and finger bones noticeably strengthened and stretched, as if its entire body has been reshaped.

The light from one hand gradually extended, eventually forming a longbow forged from white bones.

The bone spear on its back gradually shrank in the light, condensing into five arrows swirling with different elemental auras, one of which burned with pale, leaping bone fire, emitting a chillingly high temperature.

One was writhing in a gray-black death aura, like a venomous snake, exuding an aura that eroded life; another was covered in pale blue frost, radiating a chilling aura; another flickered with faint arcs of electricity, crackling and popping; and the last one was a rock-like earthy yellow, appearing heavy and weighty.

Skeleton Longbowmen!

The evolved Skeleton Longbowman can vaguely express the effects of arrows of different elements, including burning, corrosive, freezing, paralyzing, and critical strike. Arrows can be repeatedly summoned back to the arrowbox, requiring the user's own spiritual energy to replenish. Spiritual energy can regenerate on its own or by absorbing soul power.

The evolution of the crocodile-skinned zombie is more violent and direct, full of the aesthetics of biological power.

Its body swelled to 2.5 meters as if inflated, its muscles bulging and taut like coiled steel cables, brimming with explosive power.

The stratum corneum covering the body hardens and thickens, forming dense, dark green scales like a crocodile's carapace, layer upon layer, shimmering with a metallic luster, and the defense visibly increases.

The claws grew out of control, each one like a short-handled scimitar, gleaming coldly, the curve of the fingertips carrying a ferocious intent to tear everything apart.

The feedback was filled with pure violence and destructive desire, like a ferocious beast unleashed, eager to tear apart any living thing that appeared before it. But deep within this raging core, there was still an imprint of absolute obedience to Li Xingyao, the summoner.

It is now more like a heavy war machine designed to charge into battle and crush the enemy—the Tyrant Zombie!

After learning about the abilities of the evolved form, Li Xingyao was overjoyed, but after the initial elation came a pang of heartache.

The cold numbers were like ice water poured over his head. Li Xingyao calculated the soul power consumed by the evolution of the three undead creatures.

Watching the Soul Banner's soul power reserve plummet from 5754.5 to 5434.5 points, with the three undead consuming 320 soul power, the Skeleton Swordsman and Longbowman each consuming 100 soul power, and the Tyrant Zombie consuming 120 soul power, his heart skipped a beat. He immediately began to calmly calculate the subsequent costs.

Evolving a skeleton swordsman from scratch requires 150 soul power.

Evolving a skeleton longbowman from scratch requires 160 soul power.

Evolving a Tyrant Zombie from scratch requires 270 Soul Power!

This is just the cost per unit!

Li Xingyao looked at the remaining undead creatures in the undead space: 19 skeleton swordsmen staring at him expectantly (although they had no eyes), 9 silent skeleton hunters, and 19 crocodile-skinned zombies.

If all evolve...

19 * 100 Soul Power = 1900 Soul Power.

9 * 100 Soul Power = 900 Soul Power.

19 * 120 Soul Power = 2280 Soul Power.

Total: 1900 + 900 + 228 = 5080 Soul Power!

That's not all! Li Xingyao's ideal undead legion is currently composed of 50 swordsmen, 30 longbowmen, and 30 tyrants!

This means he needs to re-evolve an additional 30 swordsmen, 20 longbowmen, and 10 tyrants! This requires a massive amount of soul power to summon the basic undead and carry out the evolution!

Li Xingyao suddenly felt a bit overwhelmed.

Currently, the cost of evolving a Skeleton Swordsman from scratch has reached 150 Soul Power. The cost for a Skeleton Longbowman to evolve from scratch is 160 Soul Power. Finally, the cost for a Tyrant Zombie to evolve from scratch is the highest, at 270 Soul Power.

He needs to invest another 10400 soul power.

Li Xingyao then extended his goal further. If he were to fill the current undead space completely (I forgot to mention earlier, 1 star energy = 1 square meter of undead space), he would need at least 3000 of these units! The required soul power would be astronomical! A rough calculation shows that the final required soul power would likely approach five million! This doesn't even include the soul power consumption needed to maintain their high-intensity combat!

A tremendous sense of powerlessness instantly gripped Li Xingyao, making it almost impossible for him to breathe.

The Banner of Ten Thousand Souls truly lives up to its reputation as a sacred artifact of the demonic path, and necromancers are hardly a righteous profession either. The combination of these two truly requires a massive amount of souls to build up combat power! The scale of soul power consumption is like a bottomless abyss, far exceeding his current ability to acquire it!

At this rate, even if he spent all his time in the slaughterhouse sucking souls, he wouldn't know how long it would take to fill this hole!

"I'm not raising the dead... I'm raising a gold-devouring beast... no, a soul-devouring beast!" Li Xingyao shook his head with a wry smile, feeling as if he were looking at a bottomless pit that could never be filled. He even absurdly thought that if this trend continued, wouldn't he really become the kind of death god in mythology who needed to harvest the souls of billions of living beings?

Shaking his head, Li Xingyao forcibly dismissed those unrealistic, slightly terrifying thoughts. Looking at the remaining 5434.5 points of soul power in the Myriad Soul Banner, he hesitated like a miser eyeing his last gold coin, wondering whether to continue evolving.

This soul power is enough to evolve these three types of undead once more. Based on their current feedback of their abilities, their combat strength should now exceed the late-stage intermediate level and approach or have already reached the early-stage advanced level. Compared to their previous early-stage intermediate level strength, this is a qualitative improvement.

Should we concentrate resources to create a few more elite units, or continue accumulating more?

Li Xingyao decided to first communicate more thoroughly with the evolved undead to understand their needs and limitations before making a decision. He concentrated and asked one of the skeleton swordsmen, "Is it possible to evolve again? What conditions are required?"

Another brief silence followed, as if a complex assessment was underway. A few seconds later, the skeleton swordsman's thoughts transmitted: "It's possible...it needs more energy...about three times..."

Three times! Li Xingyao's heart sank. This meant that the next evolution might require 300 soul power or even more! Moreover, as the undead level increased, the required soul power would likely increase exponentially! This was simply a bottomless pit that devoured soul power!

He then tried to communicate with the skeleton longbowman, asking about the details of the magic arrows, but the feedback he received was lengthy and complex.

Bone Arrows have the effect of burning objects and souls, and are especially effective against living beings; Death Arrows have the property of eroding armor and life force; Frost Arrows can significantly slow down targets, and can even freeze targets with continuous attacks.

Lightning arrows deal the highest damage and inflict paralysis. In certain environments, the presence of electrical charges can increase the damage multiplier. Rock arrows have the highest mass; if the arrow's mass is greater than the target's mass when attacking, it can knock the target back.

The Tyrant Zombie's reaction is more direct and brutal, as if its brain is filled with muscles. Its claw attacks have armor-piercing and tearing effects; if the target is wearing armor, the armor-piercing effect will be triggered after being attacked.

If the body is attacked, the wounds will be difficult to heal and will bleed continuously. While its scales provide sufficient defense to withstand physical attacks of the same level, it is less resistant to energy attacks, especially fire and lightning.

All of this gave Li Xingyao a clearer understanding of the combat power of the undead summons. The evolved undead not only experienced a qualitative leap in strength, but more importantly, they all possessed their own abilities and characteristics to varying degrees.

This also makes them, in terms of physical attributes, elemental attributes, and skill effects, become or approach advanced professionals.

Just as Li Xingyao was immersed in the wondrous experience of the undead evolution, his personal terminal suddenly emitted a rapid and distinctive vibration alert—it was a communication request from Lin Wei. This caller ID was a special alert he had set for his sugar daddy.

Li Xingyao was startled and subconsciously raised his hand to look. The screen clearly showed the caller ID: Lin Wei.