Building the Strongest Undead Empire from Scratch

Chapter 87: Acolyte

Alex opened the trading post to check the current market prices, and she was taken aback by what she saw.

Just as she had guessed, after the beast tide, the weaker Lords had perished, and those who survived had amassed a great deal of resources.

Some of the slightly stronger Lords had even begun promoting their troops to Commanding level, and with these Lords forming alliances, the circulation of resources had become more widespread.

Previously, a standard piece of equipment could sell for ten magic crystals each, but in just half a day, the price had plummeted to five magic crystals per item. Alex and Sophie still had over 20,000 standard pieces of equipment unsold. This was a significant loss...

Conversely, as the Lords' Commanding level troops increased, the demand for Commanding level equipment rose, making it more expensive than before.

The price of a single piece of Commanding level equipment had jumped from 500 to 1,000 magic crystals, and that wasn't even the price for sets, which were even more costly.

The materials for forging standard equipment had been figured out by some Lords in the World Chat, leading to more Lords being able to forge their own gear.

This caused the price of animal hides to rise to 1 magic crystal per piece, and wild boar tusks, essential for standard equipment, had increased to 2 magic crystals each.

The cost to produce a standard piece of equipment had reached 3 magic crystals, while the selling price was only 5 magic crystals. The profit margin had shrunk to just 2 magic crystals, a far cry from before.

Alex decided not to focus on equipment sales anymore; the profits were no longer sufficient for her and Sophie to share. If Sophie wanted to continue, she could handle it herself.

Alex listed over a thousand pieces of animal hide on the trading post, exchanging them one-for-one for magic crystals. However, Alex wasn't in need of magic crystals right now; her Warehouse still held over 80,000. What she really needed was stone.

While wood could be sourced by sending undead to the edges of the Dark Forest, where trees were abundant, stone was more problematic.

Although Sophie had plenty of stone, her dwarves had suffered losses during the beast tide and were busy forging equipment and processing iron ingots, leaving no spare hands for stone mining.

Alex planned to sell a few pieces of Commanding level equipment to acquire some stone as a reserve. Once Sophie upgraded her town, perhaps they could use the Portal of Transit to send troops to her location, significantly speeding up the process.

Just as Alex was about to list the items, she hesitated.

The wolf claw weapons were too recognizable. If she listed them, the other two Lords might recognize them and realize that Hamburger was Alex. Then, all the Lords would know her troops were undead capable of infinite summoning.

She couldn't sell the wolf claws, but she could sell the human general's armor set. The other two Lords hadn't seen this equipment.

Alex started calculating the exchange rate; currently, one magic crystal could buy about three pieces of stone. The four pieces of Commanding level equipment from the armor set should be worth at least 6,000 magic crystals.

Although the set was originally Monarch level and couldn't be repaired, its attributes were much stronger than a typical Commanding level set.

Only 18,000 stones?

"No, that's too little. Let's make it an even 30,000."

This time, Alex was smarter. With such a powerful Commanding level set, she set it up for piece-by-piece trading.

She didn't give Lords who had the resources but were still deliberating any chance because if they hesitated even slightly, one of the pieces might be sold, and they would lose the set bonus.

Alex chose to list the items and didn't bother checking the World Chat. Less than ten seconds later, she received a system notification.

[Congratulations, Lord, on successfully trading the Fearless Set (4/4) for 30k stone.]

"Wow!" Alex hadn't expected the armor set to sell so quickly.

She gave the remaining four pieces of Commanding level wolf claw equipment, two each, to Chi-Chi and Sophie.

Alex also warned Chi-Chi not to sell them carelessly, as Chi-Chi had once openly admitted in the World Chat channel that she was a subject of Hamburger. If she sold the equipment, Alex's identity would still be exposed.

[King Kong]: "Thank you, Miss Alex!"

[QuartzStriker]: "Thank you, Big Shot! I really appreciate your generosity!"

Alex casually responded to them and got down to serious business, upgrading the Barracks.

[Upgrade Barracks Requirements: 16k magic crystals, 160 Essence Shards]

"Upgrade."

[Undead Crystal: lv10 (Unique Barracks)]

[Ten-level Barracks can summon: skeletons, zombies, specters, death conquerors, gargoyles, bone dragons, ghost dragons, zombie titans, necromancers, liches—ten major troops (random thirty), with an extremely low chance of summoning a Race King.]

[Unlock special fixed unit: Acolyte]

[Note: Every day, ten Acolytes will appear alongside other troops summoned by the Lord, not occupying other troops' summoning slots. However, they cannot be obtained through other summoning methods.]

"Acolyte, what kind of troops are these?" Alex hadn't heard of such a unit among the undead before.

The level 10 Barracks looked no different from before, except for the addition of this Acolyte unit. Unlike the castle, which entered a new tier after reaching level 9, the Barracks did not.

Just then, Alex heard a noise from the Barracks and turned to look. She saw ten figures in black-gray robes, with red decorations on their sleeves and shoulders, wearing black masks, and holding daggers.

From their partially visible faces, Alex could tell they were almost indistinguishable from humans, more so than necromancers.

"Greetings, respected Queen," the ten figures knelt and spoke, their voices not much different from humans.

"Rise," Alex commanded, sensing they must have some special function, otherwise they wouldn't be unlocked only at level 10 Barracks.

[Acolyte]

[Race: undead race]

[Loyalty: 100% (Never Betray)]

[Life Tier: Standard]

[Level: lv1 (can be upgraded by killing enemies)]

[Health Points: 80]

[Mana Points: 20]

[Strength: 6]

[Stamina: 10]

[Agility: 5]

[Growth Limit: Commanding level]

[Active Skill: Shadow Form]

[Passive Skill: Resource Gathering]

Shadow Form: Transforms into a shadow for rapid movement; cannot attack while in shadow form.

Resource Gathering: Increases the speed of gathering various resources by 20%.

They had health and stamina, a growth limit of Commanding level, and two skills.

At first glance, impressive, but upon closer inspection, Alex realized they were essentially worker units.

With health and stamina, it indicated they were not pure undead but living beings, likely humans. This meant they couldn't be enhanced at the Blackwater Altar, as they would simply die.

Well, they were essentially workers and scouts combined.