Capítulo 23: Iron ingots
Arthur folded his wings and landed, tossing the body of the Cloudwing Griffon aside.
Alex stretched out her small hand towards the towering Arthur and gave him a thumbs up. "Awesome!"
Looking at the griffin, which was about 10 feet long excluding its tail, Alex noted that its height ranged from about 6 feet to 7 feet. In comparison to Arthur, who was about 50 feet long, the griffin indeed seemed minuscule.
Alex planned to use the magic of her left eye to transform the griffin into bone beasts. This griffin was an excellent choice, given its level 7 status, surely stronger than Skeleton Warriors and Death Warriors.
In Alex's left pupil, a gray triangle appeared instantaneously, rotating to form a hexagram magic circle that emitted a faint blue light.
Beneath the griffin's corpse, a hexagram pattern identical to the one in Alex's eye emerged. A bony wing stretched out from the magic circle first, followed by the second wing, then the body and limbs all materialized.
The original griffin's body softened, likely having lost its bones, but fortunately, the flesh remained.
Alex observed the bone beast summoned from the Cloudwing Griffon's body. Its size was the same as before, but now it was all bones, which made it look much uglier.
"So there's not much change, huh? So it just extracts the bones and soul to form a new creature, turning it into an undead?" Alex wasn't really impressed, but what she cared about wasn't the appearance. Functionality was what mattered most to her; it didn't matter if it was ugly.
Up to now, apart from the bone dragon, Alex still thought all undead creatures were quite ugly.
[Bone Beast Griffin]
[Race: Undead Race]
[Loyalty: 100% (Never Betray)]
[Life Tier: Standard]
[Level: lv7 (Cannot be raised)]
[Health Points: Undead trait, immortal as long as the soul fire burns]
[Mana Points: 0]
[Strength: 38]
[Stamina: ∞]
[Agility: 43]
[Growth Limit: King Level]
With about 40 points in Strength and Agility, the lv7 bone beast griffin indeed had impressive attributes compared to other basic undead.
"Disassemble!"
The corpse was of no further use, so Alex chose to make the most of it.
[Congratulations, Lord, on successfully disassembling the lv7 Cloudwing Griffon corpse. You have obtained 50 food, 2 magic crystals, and 1 Essence Shard.]
Having secured an Essence Shard was a good outcome; it seemed Alex's previous records were correct that creatures above lv5 could drop Essence Shards.
She remembered that griffins were also capable of magic. After all, this was Eldoria, a continent home to a hundred thousand races. It was unrealistic for a high-level creature not to know magic.
However, after the transformation into undead, as a trade-off for gaining the undead trait and infinite stamina, it also lost all abilities it had in life.
As products of transformation and summoning, bone beasts having such attributes was already quite impressive. Any undead capable of flight was a good undead.
Alex also noticed a peculiar detail: all undead not summoned from the Barracks shared this oddity. Their levels were clearly locked and couldn't be upgraded, yet the dashboard still displayed their growth limits.
Could this indicate that these undead might have a chance to break through the level lock in the future?
Alex stored this question in her mind, knowing it would be answered later.
She recalled a feature introduced when constructing the Blackwater Altar yesterday.
[Feature3: Undead bathed in Blackwater will be enhanced and have a very low chance of changing their Life Tier (ineffective for Monarch level creatures and others).]
Alex's count of undead had now reached a staggering 1,232, including Arthur and the newly summoned bone beasts, totaling 1,234. All these undead, except for the griffin, had been enhanced by the Blackwater Altar.
The Blackwater Altar's enhancement had a very low chance of changing the Life Tier, and Alex hadn't noticed any changes yet, perhaps because all her luck was spent on Barracks draws.
Luck was indeed a mysterious and elusive thing. Some people might open a hundred game loot boxes and get nothing, while others might strike gold on their first try. Such is the unpredictable nature of luck.
Alex sent the Bone Beast Griffin into the Blackwater Altar for enhancement. Its attributes successfully increased by 6 points. The enhancement, like that of the skeletons, was a bone strengthening.
"Arthur, continue leveling up!" she commanded.
Alex sent Arthur away, and since the Bone Beast Griffin couldn't level up, it was naturally assigned by Alex to hunt various wild beasts outside the castle.
"Damn! I just remembered, the troops I summoned early yesterday morning—I forgot to send them to the Blackwater Altar for enhancement!"
Alex slapped her forehead, realizing she must have been too tired yesterday to forget such an important task.
Just as the Bone Beast Griffin was about to fly off, Alex quickly stopped it,
"Go bring back the gargoyle and those undead that haven't been through the Blackwater Altar."
Alex instructed the confused Bone Beast Griffin.
The Griffin shook its head, as if it understood what Alex was saying, but also as if it didn't quite get it. It spread its wings and flew towards the outside of the castle.
"Has anyone ever said that becoming undead also lowers IQ?"
"Or was this griffin just dumb to begin with?"
Well, it'll come back eventually, and the timing of the enhancement doesn't really matter.
Alex opened the trading post, curious to see how the food trading was going.
"Holy shit! Iron ingots!"
Alex could hardly believe her eyes; she actually saw iron ingots. She considered her development speed to be quite fast, not quite reaching T0 among the billions of Lords, but surely close to T0.5, right?
To this day, Alex was still clueless about iron ingots, having never seen them, let alone known where to get them. She guessed it might involve mining, but setting aside whether undead could mine, there had to be mines around her castle, right?
The territory of Alex's castle wasn't small, but there wasn't even a small hill in her domain, let alone a mountain.
The only mountain was that snowy mountain, a clearly dangerous area. For Alex, who was still in her novice phase, the snowy mountain was too much of a challenge.
The trading information for iron ingots was ridiculously expensive, even more extortionate than Alex herself.
[One iron ingot trades for eighty pieces of wood, two food items, or two magic crystals. One hundred iron ingots trade for one Essence Shard.]
The trading prices were set at four times the surplus compared to what big shots like Alex would normally pay, with one iron ingot directly exchanging for two magic crystals.
One hundred iron ingots for an Essence Shard?
What was this Lord thinking? Right now, iron ingots were as scarce as food on the first day, giving these Lords a false sense of security. By the time their castles reach level 9, they'll realize that the previously unseen iron ingots are suddenly required in massive quantities—ten thousand for upgrading to a town.
That's when they'll be truly shocked.
The value of ten thousand iron ingots versus one hundred Essence Shards is clear; Essence Shards remain the scarcest high-level resource. Alex wouldn't easily trade away her Essence Shards.
The trading post only shows the Lord who initiated the trade at the moment it's listed; afterwards, their name isn't displayed and you have to open the trade order to check.
Alex, feeling indignant and pouting, muttered, "Let's see which jerk managed to beat me to it!"
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