Chương 26: B1 | Chapter 23

Aidan After making another two or so dozen voidlings using cores I scavenged from the lizardkin who died during the war, I turn my attention towards my general voidling. The first one I gave my blood to. And when I look at him, I can't help but feel a strange instinctual feeling telling me that I can improve him by giving him a better core to eat now that I've reached Bronze Tier. But I can only do it once during Bronze Tier.

So I should wait until I get a higher level Bronze Tier core to increase the quality and level of the general. The voidling creation process seems to be a lot easier and take up less mana now that I'm Bronze Tier. But that's probably because these voidlings are all just Iron Tier voidlings. They'll probably be pretty weak when fighting against Bronze Tier monsters and people.

Anyway, after finishing with the voidling creation, which seems to end up with slightly more sapient voidlings this time around as they sometimes move on their own instead of having to be ordered to, I go ahead and focus on the System Messages their creation gave me. [Basic Level 14 Voidling has been created. Appropriate source mana has been allocated.] [Basic Level 15 Voidling has been created. Appropriate source mana has been allocated.] [Basic Level 14 Voidling has been created. Appropriate source mana has been allocated.] … [Basic Level 16 Voidling has been created. Appropriate source mana has been allocated.] [Basic Level 17 Voidling has been created. Appropriate source mana has been allocated.] … [Basic Level 19 Voidling has been created. Appropriate source mana has been allocated.] [Basic Level 22 Voidling has been created. Appropriate source mana has been allocated.] [User's Profession, Void Creator, has reached level 27. User's stats have risen by the following amounts: +1 Mind, +1 Soul, +1 Free Point.] It's a shame that all of those voidlings I created only leveled me up once, but it's fine. Also, I just remembered the free points. So I should allocate all of those. I open my status before quickly finding some new plus buttons located next to each stat. Making it obvious what they're for. And since I currently have three free points, I decide to just even out my stats a little bit.

It's bothered me for a while that my Physical and Magic stats are lower than my Mind and Soul stats. So I distribute two points to Physical for now and one to Magic. With plans to put the next free point I obtain into Magic as well. Then I completely focus on the large tower as thunder crashes once more. The tower is not incredibly tall. Probably around five floors at a brief estimate. Albeit taller floors. And it has some parts on the outside of the tower that look like paths to traverse the tower.

Like balconies with platforms and the like around the outer wall leading to other balconies. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. What catches my attention the most, though, isn't any of that. It's the sight of strange eye birds. And I mean that literally. When I identify them, they're called eye birds, and they're level thirty. They're pretty much eyeballs with seven wings. Why seven and not eight? I don't know. And it's bothering me.

Two wings on the middle sides of their body. Two on the top right and top left. And two on the bottom right and bottom left. Then just one random left or right wing – varies depending on the eye bird – on top of their head like an antenna. It looks so bizarre. I also seem to be far enough away that they don't notice me. So I ignore them for now as I lead all my four or so dozen voidlings into the tower.

And the first thing I see when I enter the tower are numerous silhouettes made out of the same black energy I'm always emitting by the looks of it. My first thought is that they might be voidlings. But I don't get the feeling that they're in the hierarchy when I look at them, and when I identify them, they aren't named voidlings. They're golems. [Level 28 Void Golem] I'm guessing golems aren't considered void creatures? Even if they're made through void mana.

The golems all look like they're suits of armor made out of the same black mist emitting from my body. Made out of void mana. And they're all just scattered through the long corridor of the tower's first floor standing alert at the sides of the corridor. That said, there is one problem here. And it's not the void golem's level. Although that's a problem too. The main problem is the fact that this wide open floor has at least three dozen void golems in it.

All of whom are at the bottom of Bronze Tier in power like this one. This is the first floor of the tower, and it already has this many monsters in it? The hell? I grit my teeth before seeing all of the void golems beginning to make creaking movements before turning their gazes towards me. Then they all manifest blades made out of void mana in their hands and charge at me and my voidlings in an orderly fashion.

I order the voidlings to charge and destroy the void golems, making all of the pitch black wolf-sized ants charge to clash with the void golems. But, as expected considering their levels, the void golems easily begin to overwhelm to voidlings. So I run to join them before slashing my claws through one of the void golems. Only to find it rather… ineffective… against the void golems. I grit my teeth before activating Void Pit when one of the other void golems tries swinging his void mana blade towards my back.

Then I find a much more pleasant surprise in the form of the mana blade being devoured along with the void golem's arm that's holding it when they make contact with the Void Pit. With me absorbing massive amounts of mana in the process. Even more mana than I used to activate the skill in the first place. Huh. Well this is a nice surprise. The void golems seem to be smart enough to realize the threat I pose after seeing my Void Pit skill. Because they all begin ignoring my voidlings to charge at me immediately.

I order the voidlings to fall back and funnel the void golems to me. Making the surviving voidlings move back away from the void golems to join up with me. Then they put themselves in the way between me and the void golems, letting me target the void golems just a few at a time while I repeatedly use Void Pit over and over again. And each use of Void Pit rips a large chunk of the void golems' bodies out and feeds me the mana in them.

The only regret I have about this, other than feeling a little sad at seeing my voidlings dying, is that I'm not getting any source mana from the void golems. Except the ones that die. Maybe the source mana is entirely in their mana cores? Either way, I gradually kill the rest of the void golems at the cost of about half of my voidlings. With half of the remaining voidlings showing major injuries. The bright side is that my general is still largely unharmed.

I take a deep breath before letting it out while looking out over the remnants of the battlefield. Which pretty much consists of a bunch of voidling corpses, along with numerous mana cores covering the ground. After a brief pang of sadness for the dead voidlings, a thought comes to mind. At which point I move up to the voidlings bodies before realizing that their minds and souls aren't destroyed just yet.

Their souls are fading, and their minds are going with them, but if I just repair their bodies and put in some source mana… I go ahead and begin acting on my current thoughts, dragging a mana core from one of the void golems over to do so, and I manage to completely restore one of the voidlings within a minute. And all it cost was some of the source mana in the mana core. A mana core that has a shockingly large amount of source mana in it. I guess these really are both their main bodies and their mana cores.

After a brief pause, I go ahead and begin restoring a bunch of the voidlings one after another. All while ignoring the System Messages I've been getting as I do so. Until I finish restoring the last one, using up probably a fifth of the void golems' mana cores in the process. And my army is back. It also cost a lot less of my mana than making new voidlings would, since I wasn't making them from scratch but just repairing them. Nice.