Many people assumed that when it came to legendary beings, they were legendary from the tip of every hair down to their toenails.
In reality, that wasn't the case at all. Scraping a bit of bone dust off Anbaixiu wouldn't cure a hundred ailments, nor would turning it into bone meal to feed a dog promote the hound into a high-tier undead. At most, it would poison the dog to death and cause it to rot especially fast.
If that was true of undead, the same went for undead of other classes.
Back during his adventuring days, Anbaixiu had heard a joke from veteran adventurers: a legendary warrior got drunk, had his kidney harvested by a drow rogue, and had it sold to an ogre. The ogre remarked that for all the fuss about a legendary kidney, it wasn't even as chewy as the ordinary human kidneys he'd eaten before.
Whether the story was true or not was anyone's guess, but it served as a cautionary tale for all adventurers: never assume a high level makes you invincible; countless ways to die are waiting for you in this world.
Returning to the point at hand, a legendary undead body did not require a legendary ghost to match it. The true crux lay in the soul's strength and the "spells" mastered by that soul.
Anbaixiu's Simulated Soul could have corresponding spells prepared in advance. Just like the mercury soul puppet's Polymorph, Anbaixiu had woven it directly into the soul, turning it into the creature's instinct.
There were many kinds of undead. For beings like zombies and skeletons, what they needed were combat-oriented abilities; things like Haste or a fear aura could all be customized.
Specific requirements would require seeing the fabricated undead body before fine-tuning could take place. All Anbaixiu could do right now was wrap up preliminary preparations as quickly as possible—such as preparing for the soul strength.
An ordinary human soul had a strength of roughly eighty to one hundred and thirty po. This po was a unit Anbaixiu had defined himself. A strength of one hundred po was akin to having one hundred attribute points. Whether they were allocated to reflexes, willpower, multitasking, or spellcasting ability was entirely flexible; the total points were fixed, so investing in one area meant sacrificing another.
The material cost for an ordinary human soul was roughly forty to fifty copper coins. Rose of Decay's undead puppet was likely a melee-oriented type, so the soul's attribute allocation should lean toward a warrior's build.
Of course, he couldn't actually fleece his client with an ordinary soul. After all, it was meant for war; if something went wrong, Rose of Decay would come back seeking revenge in a heartbeat.
Therefore, Anbaixiu planned to create a soul with a strength of around ten thousand po. Even if a bone dragon were crafted, a soul of that strength would be more than enough to control its body.
Such a high-strength soul wasn't as simple as multiplying the material cost by a hundred; the crafting expenses scaled exponentially. Anbaixiu had quoted ten million gold coins, with one million being material costs and the remaining nine million being his labor fee.
Now that the labor fee had become nineteen million, Anbaixiu felt obligated to deliver an even better product.
Anbaixiu retrieved a massive heap of materials from his private space and organized them into categories: magical plants, metal ores, and numerous gemstones of various sizes.
These items originally had nothing to do with souls. Yet when Anbaixiu picked up a ruby, the hard gem dissolved into rainbow-like fragments, which he then rolled and kneaded into a shimmering, luminous thread.
Gemstones, ores, magical plants—all kinds of materials were rubbed into these iridescent threads and woven together by Anbaixiu, gradually forming a jellyfish hovering in midair.
The slender tentacles were actually threads that had not yet been fully woven, swaying loosely in the air.
The foundation of this Simulated Soul was complete. But from this very moment, it became an "undead," and dark magic began to coalesce around it.
Unlike mercury soul puppets, whose souls were "living" and harbored no dark magic within them.
If he wanted to create an even stronger "living" soul, Anbaixiu's quote of ten million would have been a losing deal.
The remaining threads were reserved for allocating points to the soul, as well as establishing its personality. All high-tier undead possessed their own distinct personalities; mindless zombies that could only howl and crave flesh were the absolute bottom rung of the undead.
If you wanted an undead skilled in combat, you had to endow it with a combat-oriented personality rather than simply writing in a few command lines, which would only make it rigid. Only by gaining self-awareness could this soul continually evolve in its designated profession.
The little fellows Anbaixiu raised were the same way: their ability to learn and think could not be restricted, and an independent personality was intimately linked to thought.
This detail had to be discussed with Rose of Decay; Anbaixiu couldn't just decide it according to his own whims.
Fortunately, Rose of Decay did not keep Anbaixiu waiting long.
Rose of Decay had visited previously, and the teleportation array remained in the castle, so arriving this time took only a few minutes.
The Undead Queen had not changed at all, remaining an exquisitely elegant beauty. However, she was not alone this time. Over a dozen drow elves accompanied her, carrying an unspeakably revolting mass of flesh and blood.
This mass of flesh appeared about as tall as Gareth, roughly four to five meters, but bore no human shape whatsoever. It looked more like a fleshy egg piled together from countless bones and bloody flesh.
Fascia and white bone formed the shell of the fleshy egg, with purplish-red blood constantly seeping from stitched-together wounds. Upon closer inspection, numerous blood vessels extended from the egg, connected to the numb-faced drow elves, seemingly draining their blood without pause.
The evil aura emanating from the fleshy egg threatened to taint the entire castle.
Anbaixiu hastily unfolded a barrier, enveloping the terrifying egg of flesh. Otherwise, the other materials in his castle would be contaminated. This was the inconvenient side of the undead: dark power continually corroded everything around it.
Under normal circumstances, Anbaixiu had to carefully contain his dark magic from leaking out; otherwise, he wouldn't be able to conduct any experiments at all.
While Anbaixiu stared at the fleshy egg in astonishment, Rose of Decay gazed at the suspended jellyfish and marveled, "This ability of yours is truly breathtaking."
Transforming lifeless, inanimate matter into a soul—even if only an undead one—sounded like an authority belonging solely to the gods.
"It pales in comparison to yours, Lady Rose. Just a modest little trick to earn a living."
Anbaixiu wasn't merely being modest. Rose of Decay's legendary boon was Death Gaze. While useless against the undead, it was utterly absurd against living beings. Regardless of race, any living creature would be transformed into an undead under her gaze.
It ignored shields and resistances. Moreover, this Death Gaze didn't refer to literal eyesight—undead didn't rely on eyes to perceive the world anyway. It was actually Rose of Decay's sensory perception; any living being locked onto by her senses would be relentlessly transformed into an undead.
Last time, even Ryan's Supreme Arbiter had been forced to turn himself into gas just to temporarily grant himself immunity from Rose of Decay's transformation, with none of his magical gear offering any protection whatsoever.
Anbaixiu surmised that unless the Silvermoon Knight could fell Rose of Decay in a single sword strike, he was doomed; his decrepit body couldn't withstand Death Gaze for more than a few seconds. Rose of Decay might even be able to take the old man out if she struck first, though the risk would be exceedingly high.
A legendary boon wasn't about quantity. Anbaixiu possessed so many legendary boons, yet the only one practical in actual combat was the Golden Throne; his other abilities were more akin to support.
Rose of Decay offered Anbaixiu a slight smile and said, "Let's dispense with formalities. Let me share my thoughts with you first..."
And so, the two legendary liches began discussing a sinister undead-creation plan inside the laboratory.
According to Rose of Decay, this fleshy egg contained the corpses of three legendary orcs. Anbaixiu did not press into how she had gotten her hands on them, but earnestly inquired about the traits of the three bodies.
A barbarian, a champion, and a monk.
Orcs truly favored tall, tough classes. A barbarian went without saying—the most fitting class for an orc. A champion was an advanced class for fighters, another pure brute who unleashed slaughter on the battlefield with a greatsword. The last, the monk, was of the Way of the Open Hand, all about brutal, bone-crunching strikes.
Anbaixiu was someone who knew quality when he saw it. He told Rose of Decay, "Fine goods indeed. With these three legendary classes, the true essence lies in their physical bodies. If crafted into an abomination, it could easily attain the legendary rank."
Rose of Decay shook her head. "No, not an abomination. If possible, I want him to be a Death Knight."
This request baffled Anbaixiu.
"Lady Rose, you're an expert in creating undead yourself. Surely you know that these two types of undead are entirely different things? An abomination can be sewn together from any arbitrary corpses, but a Death Knight evolves from a single corpse. The two are completely distinct. Even if I help you shape the corpses into a humanoid form, that would still merely be a humanoid abomination, not a Death Knight."
The varieties of undead might seem haphazard, but each had its own distinct traits.
Take an abomination: a flesh-stitched monstrosity that inherently possessed an abomination's devouring ability upon creation, capable of repairing itself after taking damage simply by slapping flesh and gore onto its wounds. A Death Knight lacked such talent, but possessed the ability to summon a mount from an alternate plane—something an abomination could never learn.
Abilities had nothing to do with physical form. Even if a Death Knight grew fat enough to resemble an abomination, he still wouldn't gain an abomination's abilities. Just as other undead couldn't create phylacteries—a technique unique to liches that other legendary undead could never learn.
"I know it is difficult, but you need not worry about the body. You only need to handle the soul," Rose of Decay said firmly.
Anbaixiu pondered for a moment and asked, "Lady Rose, what you desire is a powerful subordinate who possesses high mobility and can carry out missions alone, correct?"
Rose of Decay smiled. "Indeed. You really do understand me, guessing it right away."
Anbaixiu thought to himself that this had nothing to do with understanding her; if a Death Knight held any absolute advantage over an abomination, it was mobility.
"Then, do you have any requirements regarding personality?" Anbaixiu asked.
"As long as loyalty is guaranteed, any personality will do."
"In that case, I will retain only the most basic sanity. As for personality, Lady Rose, you can nurture it yourself. Don't worry, it won't take long—in about three to five days, external influences will shape a personality of its own," Anbaixiu said.
"Good. It's settled, then."
Rose of Decay cared little for such fine details; Anbaixiu was free to arrange it however he liked. It was merely a subordinate meant for dealing with enemies—personality mattered little.
Chapter 241