Chapter 421 – The Forest Graveyard

Chapter 421 – The Forest Graveyard

“You call that smart? The blackdeath trees all moved aside, making noise, and it didn’t notice anything unusual at all or become the least bit alert!” Sylph said.

“Being able to understand verbal commands already counts as quite smart,” Vasida said. “Undead creatures with even lower sentience can only receive orders through the Death Servant link!”

“Then what level would egg fried rice be at? I think this skeleton warrior is a bit dim—not even as sharp as egg fried rice. Aren’t zombies supposed to have the lowest sentience among undead creatures?” Sylph asked curiously.

“Egg Fried Rice is an exception,” Vasida said.

“Generally speaking, ghost-type undead creatures with complete souls have far higher sentience than skeleton-types that only have soul fire and bones, and the skeleton clan in turn has much higher sentience than the zombie clan, which has no soul at all—just a corpse.

But egg fried rice was the second zombie my mother carefully cultivated using the same method, after she accidentally raised my father from a zombie into a fully souled and bodied member of the Corpse Clan.

And with my father’s help, it actually grew somewhat faster.

Although my mother didn’t develop it in a combat direction because of my birth, its sentience is already on par with an Intermediate skeleton.

Though that sentience is a bit lopsided—it only manifests in cooking.”

“Cultivating sentience in a zombie is no easy feat! I read inerta《The Birth of the Corpse Clan》that just getting a corpse to develop sentience takes at least a hundred years, let alone developing a complete soul and becoming a true member of the Corpse Clan,” Mo Lan said.

“That’s right!” Vasida said. “The skeleton clan has soul fire, so their sentience grows slightly easier than zombies, but it still requires time and sentience-enhancing materials.

This skeleton’s soul fire is already on the verge of advancing to Intermediate, but the quality of its bones is really rather poor, making it seem clumsy and frail. Otherwise, it would make a fine fighter!”

The skeleton warrior kept walking forward until it picked up a fresh Animated Blackdeath Tree stick. It hefted it a few times, tossed away its old one, and turned back with satisfaction.

“So it came out here to replace its weapon!” Vasida said with sudden realization.

Skeleton-type undead had incomplete souls, and zombie-type undead had no souls at all. With limited sentience came even more limited cognitive ability, resulting in rather simple behavioral patterns.

Combat was etched into the skeleton warrior’s meager soul fire. Its weapon had rotted away, so coming out to find a new replacement was perfectly normal.

The invisible flying carpet followed behind it, gradually venturing deeper into the Black Forest.

When the mist formed by Death Force shifted from gray to a dark grayish-black, the skeleton warrior finally stopped before a cemetery.

This was no longer the domain of necromantic and dark-element magical plants.

Even the blackdeath trees had been completely cleared away, leaving only ancient stumps behind.

In the cemetery, neatly squared, unmarked stone tablets stood in rows.

Behind each tablet was a long, deep pit, and in each pit lay a jet-black coffin.

Judging by the material, they were all made from blackdeath tree wood.

The skeleton warrior walked up to an open coffin, lay down inside, and pulled the lid shut over itself.

Among the other coffins, some were closed while others lay open.

From the southern edge of the cemetery came a rhythmic “thud! thud!” sound. The flying carpet followed the noise and found a group of skeletons swinging axes, felling trees.

The axes gleamed bright and sharp, the skeletons’ frames were sturdy and strong, and even the green cloth wrapped around their arms looked new.

Compared to the earlier skeleton warrior that seemed to have gone without maintenance for a long time, these skeletons’ bones were in much better condition.

A large swath of blackdeath trees nearby had already been felled, forming a sizable clearing. However, new blackdeath tree saplings were already growing in the clearing—each one planted right in front of the stump where an old tree had been cut down.

The flying carpet circled the clearing several times before spotting, through the dark grayish mist, two skeletons planting trees.

“Skeletons can plant trees too!” Sylph exclaimed in astonishment.

“There are all kinds of skeletons,” Vasida said dismissively. “Tree planters, lumberjacks, ones that use swords, ones that use clubs… Once their sentience is high enough, they can learn anything.”

“Then couldn’t I raise a bunch of skeletons to help me tend my plants?” Sylph suddenly developed a new perspective on skeletons among the undead.

“Only if you want to grow nothing but necromantic or dark-element plants,” Mo Lan said. “They’re planting blackdeath trees! Any other plant—just having its seed held by a skeleton—would be affected by the death aura on its body, let alone actually growing.”

Only then did Sylph reluctantly abandon her idea of raising skeleton farmers.

Where the clearing met the cemetery, there was a small wooden cabin.

Most of the felled blackdeath trees had been transported there and stacked outside the cabin.

Outside the cabin were another dozen or so skeletons—some planing wood, others nailing planks together.

Once a new coffin was completed, several skeletons would carry it over to the cemetery to replace a deteriorated coffin in one of the pits.

Mo Lan and the others observed the area around this graveyard for several days. The lumberjack skeletons and carpenter skeletons produced five coffins, replaced the rotted coffins for those skeletons in the cemetery, then lay back down in their own coffins.

Only the two tree-planting skeletons on the clearing south of the cemetery were still at work.

Once they had buried blackdeath tree seeds beside the newly created stumps from the lumberjack skeletons’ latest harvest, they too returned to the cemetery and lay down.

The entire graveyard fell completely silent—until a wild ghost wolf wandered into the cemetery grounds. At that moment, the coffin lids could no longer hold, and the skeletons poured out in full force.

A great battle between the ghost wolf and the skeletons erupted.

The four Sorceresses hidden on the flying carpet above watched the fight with excitement.

“Who do you think will win?” Sylph asked.

“The skeletons, obviously!” Vasida said. “Even though this low-level ghost wolf is a ghost-type undead creature with no physical form, making it hard for physical attacks to hurt it, there are two skeleton mages among the skeletons! A single death ray from either one could finish off this ghost wolf!”

“But judging by their soul fire, those two skeleton mages aren’t very high-level. Their casting wind-up might be rather long, and the other skeletons will probably take some losses,” Mo Lan added.

“The ghost wolf only has its spectral body to nourish soul fire—it has no corpse or bones. In this battle, there will be no winners,” Lilith said.

No sooner had Lilith finished speaking than several skeletons whose bones were badly decayed had their soul fire scattered on contact with the ghost wolf’s charge, and their bones collapsed to the ground in a heap.

The scattered soul fire was swallowed in one gulp by the ghost wolf.

The skeleton warrior Mo Lan’s group had been tracking earlier used its newly acquired Animated Blackdeath Tree stick to block the ghost wolf’s charge.

The stick carried Death Force, which could affect the ghost wolf to some degree.

Together with other skeleton warriors wielding similarly fresh Animated Blackdeath Tree sticks, it held off several waves of attacks before the skeleton mages finally managed to release their death rays.