Seeing the troubled expressions on the faces of several players ahead of him, Singo couldn't help but chuckle inwardly.
*Good thing I came prepared.*
He patted the bulging pouch at his waist. It held well over a thousand gold coins—a sum he could comfortably produce as a dragonblood viscount receiving dividends from the military-industrial group.
Out of the queue of several dozen people, a few whose pockets were too light slunk away dejectedly, accelerating his progress considerably.
Wanglingqishi, standing at the very front, reluctantly handed over his coins and hurried into the Undead Research Institute with his body bag slung over his shoulder.
Magxi swept up the gold and nodded courteously to the waiting crowd outside. "Please do not fret, everyone. Kindly wait outside for just a moment."
"No need to worry. Director Orestes works very quickly."
Sure enough, before long, Wanglingqishi walked out looking thoroughly pleased with himself, clutching an Undead Retainer Lease Contract. Humming a tune under the expectant gazes of the onlookers, he summoned a ravishing, long-haired female ghost.
"Holy crap, that fast?!"
"That undead retainer... is actually kind of hot."
"Are you serious, bro?"
"I'm so jealous—why didn't I think of summoning a waifu?!"
"Get a grip, you degenerate!"
"That's supposed to be a combat companion!"
Next, the renowned necromancer player Yuzhongchengchi paid his gold and eagerly walked inside.
A few minutes later, the next conversion was already finished.
"Heh heh..."
"Allow me to open your eyes, gentlemen."
Yuzhongchengchi adjusted his silver-rimmed glasses, tipped the brim of his hat, and strode out of the institute.
Behind him marched three imposing undead skeletons of distinct shapes and sizes: the "Big Three" from the Three Great Houses of the North.
One gripped a sharp longsword, one held a spear high, and one hefted a heavy warhammer.
All three were ancestors Yuzhongchengchi had dragged straight from their coffins. Carefully selected, they had been celebrated fighters and paladins in life; even in death, each boasted a Challenge Rating as high as 6—virtually equivalent to three mini-bosses.
Working together in concert, bolstered by the necromancer's buffing spells, their combat strength skyrocketed.
The spectating players turned green with envy.
"When's it going to be my turn?!"
"Damn, that's awesome..."
"I want to raise undead retainers too!"
"That's it! Starting today, I'm respeccing into a summoner build!"
Watching Yuzhongchengchi walk away, Singo's expression grew solemn. *His lineup is dangerously strong in this current patch. Definitely an opponent to watch out for.*
Several more players entered one after another.
"Oh my..."
"Who's still stuck waiting in line?"
Before long, Langlibaitiao also emerged with a squad of undead skeletons from the Bosque ancestors. Clutching his lease contract, he swaggered past Singo with a showoff's grin.
"You get three summons a day, and you're wasting one just to flex?"
Singo shook his head with a laugh.
Finally, it was his turn.
Without hesitation, Singo handed five gold coins to Magxi at the door. Under the researcher's cordial smile, he dragged the putrid half-giant corpse, swarming with flies, into the facility.
*So this is the Undead Research Institute?*
*It's a bit different from what I imagined.*
In Singo's mind, this place should have been a realm of the dead choked with cobwebs and littered with bones. Instead, it truly looked like a modern research laboratory.
Neat rows of electric lamps, clean and orderly corridors, and clear directional signs on the walls made that abundantly clear.
Even the bloodstains left behind by the corpse he dragged along were automatically purged by cleaning cantrips woven into the corridor walls.
Singo looked toward the heavy iron door at the end of the hallway. Seeing the skull insignia emblazoned upon it, he finally sensed a trace of the aura of death.
*Let's see what this 'Soul Dirge' is all about, then,*
he thought.
Singo pressed his hand against the skull, and the heavy iron door swung slowly open.
"Lord Orestes, I'm here for an undead conversion."
"Enter."
The voice was low and raspy.
Yet Singo distinctly picked up an overwhelming sense of—exhaustion.
It sounded just like the half-dead drone of a corporate wage slave forced to pull endless all-nighters.
Had his ears deceived him?
This was a legendary lich!
A master of the undead! An insidious, cruel immortal wielding endless esoteric mysteries!
Singo couldn't resist looking up, and the title floating above the figure's head was unmistakable.
[Soul Dirge - Orestes]
[Faction: Cinder Empire]
[Affiliation: Undead Research Institute]
[Challenge Rating: ???]
The lich sat behind an ordinary office desk, draped in tattered robes. The soulfire within his eye sockets burned exceptionally dim, though the skeletal scepter resting on the rack beside him remained genuinely terrifying.
His withered, skeletal hand gripped a bone pen, tirelessly scratching away on documents stacked across the desk.
Singo found it hard to describe the vibe.
This was practically... a wage slave among liches. Completely devoid of any menacing aura, reeking through and through of going through the motions.
Orestes paused his pen and urged impatiently, "Do you want the conversion or not? Hurry it up."
"Right, of course."
Singo hastily cast aside his stray thoughts, stepped forward, and opened the store interface to browse quickly.
[Lich's Rental Shop]
[Base Prices:]
[Skeleton: 5 Gold, 350 XP]
[Mummy: 5 Gold, 350 XP]
[Ghost: 20 Gold, 950 XP]
[Wight: 100 Gold, 1,550 XP]
[Wraith: 100 Gold, 1,550 XP]
[Undead Skeleton: 100 Gold, 1,550 XP]
[...]
[Death Knight: 12,500 Gold, 75,000 XP]
[Lich: ??? Requirements Unknown]
[Please offer the item you wish to convert.]
The special options further down, such as Death Knight and Lich, were clearly not intended for current players.
He skipped past them without another glance. Since he had brought an intact corpse, a wight—capable of turning the creatures it killed into zombies—was the optimal choice.
"Lord Orestes, I want to convert a wight."
He untied the heavy body bag, exposing the bloated, foul-smelling corpse of the half-giant.
The lich cast a sideways glance and stated flatly, "A classed half-giant costs extra."
A new trade prompt popped up immediately.
[Soul Dirge - Orestes has proposed a new trade.]
[Half-Giant Wight Leader: 800 Gold, 5,500 XP]
[Accept trade? Yes / No]
"This..."
Even Singo felt a sharp pang of heartache.
This amount of gold and experience would drain nearly several months of his savings; even he had to hesitate.
"Make it quick," Orestes urged testily.
Swayed by the temptation of an enormous power boost, Singo gritted his teeth and clicked confirm on the interface, then handed over the bulging coin pouch.
"My lord, please proceed with the conversion."
"Very well."
Orestes lifted his skeletal scepter and pointed it practicedly at the bloated, putrid corpse of the half-giant.
At once, guttural snarls resonated through the room.
A gray mist of negative energy engulfed the entire body, and faint eerie lights flickered within its dark eyes. Finally, it slowly rose to its feet.
A wight nearly three meters tall, caked in filthy, rotting flesh, yet still radiating the formidable physical might it had possessed in life.
[Half-Giant Wight Leader]
[Challenge Rating: 7 (3,100 XP)]
Orestes retrieved a blank scroll from a cabinet, scribbled across it at the desk, and casually tossed it before Singo.
"Finished."
"For the Cinder Empire."
He recited the iconic imperial slogan, though hearing it from the mouth of a lich sounded downright bizarre.
"For the Cinder Empire."
Singo thudded his right fist against his chest in return.
Inwardly, he couldn't help marveling: *A lich loyal to the empire. Now that's something you don't see every day.*
Still, his attention quickly snapped back to his newly converted wight, and a grin spread across his face.
*Incredible... It really is a boss-tier retainer!*
Singo departed with the scroll, while the half-giant wight remained under the Undead Research Institute's control.
After all, players were merely renting; ownership belonged to the imperial authorities—or more accurately, to the Emperor himself. Or rather, the Dragon himself.
"Just how much longer must these days go on...?"
Watching the heavy door slowly swing shut, Orestes let out a profound sigh.
Converting the undead was truly exhausting labor.
Still, every time he converted an undead minion for these "Starfallen," he felt a surge of refined, soul-like energy pour into his body, allowing him to sustain his phylactery.
Perhaps this was indeed a path toward true immortality.
"Tsk..."
"I suppose I should thank my master."
The utterly spent lich sighed in resignation. But footsteps echoed outside once more; the next player seeking an undead conversion was already on the way.
By now, hundreds—if not thousands—of players were queued outside the Undead Research Institute.
What Orestes did not know, however, was that in order to keep the lich's power in check, Cassius had imposed a staggering ninety percent cut on all the experience he earned.
Soon, news of the Undead Research Institute spread across the forums, and those top-tier retainers comparable to dungeon bosses drove countless players green with envy.
Thus, a raging "Corpse Rush" erupted across the Empire, popularly dubbed the "Great Excavation Movement."
More than a hundred thousand players roamed throughout imperial lands, digging up graves, scouring ancient ruins, and even unearthing slain enemies from the dirt, leaving the native populace utterly dumbfounded.
The remains of a high-tier fighter could fetch an exorbitant price of hundreds of gold coins on the black market, and plenty of cash-strapped locals went so far as to dig up their own ancestral graves to sell to the players.
At the same time, specialized industries such as coffin manufacturing and embalming flourished, giving rise to several "emerging enterprises."
Across the empire, bizarre rumors began to spread that "the Starfallen love to eat old bones" and that "nothing pleases them more than aged skeletons."
Chapter 410