79

- Dodo POV -

"Hey Dodo, have you figured out teleporting yet." Master Nova calls out from the side of the table as I pocket the gem Paglio fell asleep with. quickly stuffing it in my secret storage ring I make my way over to the table.

"Yes! I learned it the other day after you left. want me to show you?" Nova shakes his head as he continues to draw on the bones that are piled up on the table.

"No you don't need to show me, can you just teleport over to the mine we visited before and check on the Taurens? they were checking on a metal that I mined up and didn't understand fully. they also should have a few storage devices filled with smelted ore, give this to the leader and he will hand it over." I grab the badge and pocket it in my not secret storage ring.

"Is that all?" he looks up and hums.

"Let the Tauren leader know that I will soon have a spot set aside for them to live outside of the mountain." I teleport out after getting confirmation.

----

"Hello there." I mimic Master Nova's favorite greeting and the Tauren looks down at me.

"Who are you supposed to be?" taking out the badge his eyes light up with recognition and he motions to follow. "So your here to pick up the ingots?"

"Along with some other things." he nods and we enter a room full of Tauren's smelting ore.

"Chief, this guy is here for the ingots, he's got Nova's badge." a slightly bigger Tauren turns around and looks down at me.

"Here." he tosses over the storage devices and I catch them.

"Do you have an update on the metal that Nova handed over for you to look into?" he blows air from his nostrils and slaps his arm in frustration.

"No, nothing has come from our tests but we haven't given up." a fire lights in his eyes, burning brighter than the surrounding flames that are melting down ore.

"Ok, Nova also said it would be soon that he will have a spot prepared for you on the outside." he waves me off and I teleport back, maybe Nova will reward me for finishing so fast.

----

- Nova POV -

"I am back!" I noticed, hard to not detect you when you don't even bother to regulate your energy.

"You get the ingots?" he tosses the storage devices over and I put them in my inventory, kind of broken to double down on space storage like that. "Good job Dodo, any update on the metal?"

"None, he didn't seem too interested in the land as well." Poor guys, I dropped off the metal since there renowned as some of the best smiths, and I thought they might make progress with it. seems I underestimated it, Athena's blade hasn't dulled or chipped even with her daily practice with it.

"Oh well, you're free for now." he bounces off in a hurry, I wonder if Paglio will even notice he was robbed by the time he wakes up?

"This also doesn't work..." Guradam tries again to activate an enchanted skeleton, the goal is a superior fodder troop that will take a real investment to put down. something to send in as a bulky front line, the damage won't be high but they should take a good beating before giving out.

"Anything, in particular, holding you back?" he got a test one to work on some rat bones, only a few enchantments though. any bigger skeletons take much more work to manually enchant and also don't want to stay together as they should.

"The demonic energy works very similarly to dark power when trying to start the process up, but when it comes to supporting them for a longer period they just collapse way too soon. I gave it the energy to last at least a few hours but it drops in a few minutes." he reassembles the skeleton and tries again.

"Have you thought that maybe the way it retains the energy should change? the who system of reanimated honestly would be revised since you're using new fuel." the light in his eyes glows brightly as he pulls out the book I gave him.

"Hmm, where is it? ah, here!" he walks around and I set down the last bone I am going to help with, I needed to have a model of each type we are making and then I can automate it with an assembly line of sorts.

"That could be expensive, but it also could improve the overall power and cause the defenses to be stronger than the original estimate." he points to a page showing an undead heart, the idea is to give the Skelton a core-like a slime and have it supply the power instead of a layer of energy just clinging to the bones.

"I originally wanted to use this for the terror knights, but a lesser version can be used in the skeletons so that there is a better source to draw for the enchantments to continue to run. maybe even a semi-intelligent auto-response command that will have the defenses powered down when not using them?"

He mumbles as he turns to a clean sheet and begins scribbling madly, a black crystal core could work as a container. the coins themself come from the crystal ore and then are shaped and contain a good bit of energy themselves. makes sense that the currency is also used to empower people in this world that is obsessed with strength.

"Whatever works best, now that we have the different presets of skeleton troop enchanted I can make the auto assemblers, and then you can add the cores and whatever else you want to get them running." seeing he is ignoring me as he is too caught up I decide to sneak off, he asked for help and I helped. but after an hour and a half of writing those tedious runes, it's time to stretch for a bit.

----

"So the medusa tribe that was in this swamp was at war with the lamp spirits from the alchemy civilization." I fly around the swamp that is near the white feather estate and scan for medusas. it wouldn't be bad to outright find a lamp spirit but I doubt it, the lamp spirits are a living creation of alchemy and are stationed at the buried city of alchemy. as things are they should still be underground mining crystals for powering the alchemy city and haven't come to the surface to fight the medusas yet. they will eventually be forced to the surface to find energy resources since the crystal dragon takes over the mine after crystal valley gets destroyed.

Since that hasn't happened yet then they haven't been pushed out, I will have to find them based on where the medusas are in the swamp. it was near a plant called the blood fruit or something like that. the fruit lets the medusas get pregnant and have kids and they cant without it. it's different from the medusas in my mines since they have a fountain of life that gives them legs to have sex and get pregnant the old fashion way.

Soon I detect over two hundred Medusas and even more are appearing in my senses the closer I get. detecting the strongest in the area I notice she is peak demon emperor and am surprised. I don't remember what her level should be but this is higher than I was expecting.

Feeling a bit incentivized to promote to demon overlord since I am confronted by a demon emperor. not that I think that she can beat me or anything, just a reason to do what I have been putting off for a while. after gaining the ability to teleport to all of the stores in all the cities in the demon world my sin has skyrocketed. that and the fat amount I got from the artifacts also helped close the gap and finally have enough.

[ Confirm purchase - Tier up - 1000000 sin ]

[ total = 1000000 sin ]

"Confirm."

[ Congratulations on promoting to demon overlord - rolling ability wheel! ]

[ Ability drawn - Vapula - Power of Lions ]

"..."

Damn.

Well, I can't be mad with all my good pulls thus far, plus I have enough to work with as is.

But still...

"Oh well." I descend from the sky and let my new full demonic power unleash and pressured the medusas down onto the ground. I am definitely not bullying them because Gacha gave me lion power when there isn't a single lion in this world.

"Who is it!" the strongest Medusa roars as her face is then smashed into the mud.

"Your new Leader! conform to my desires and rise higher than ever possible before, or resist and die in the mud like dogs." I am starting to feel better already, the dread they are putting off really lets some of the salt wash away.

Oh, I should probably let them up so they can talk back, and maybe wash off the mud so they don't look so pitiful.

----

"So we will all have the opportunity to eat one of these devil fruits in time? and you have a fountain of life for us to reproduce without the blood snake fruit?" I nod and toss out a few more devil fruit, I will probably give a few pawn pieces so they will be the ' leaders ' of the common medusas. there are two more fountains of life in the mine where the old occupants died from the Beelzebub incident. they can have one to themselves and leaves me one to use for personal use.

"Yep, just all of you swear to obey my commands and I also will promise to never send you to certain death or trample on your dignity. but if some horrible end-of-world scenario ever some's around you will have to help regardless of personal risk since we are all on the same ship. so to speak." she snorts in response.

"What are the chances of a world-ending disaster appearing? we will swear to follow you and you will help us get stronger and reproduce easier so it's a good deal." I smile kindly on the outside while laughing manically on the inside, if only they knew.

----

After looking high and low for the entrance to a cave I finally detect a giant metal structure underground. I burrow straight down to it and prepare to defend in case the lamp spirits want to attack.

I sent the medusas to the mine with a few teleports and since they're out of the way I can press on in capturing the Alchemy kingdom. the purpose of this place is that the alchemy people physically built their alchemy kingdom to replace kingdomization. they don't cultivate up to become god's rank, they just build their kingdom to mimic the real thing, it's not as strong and has downsides but still, there is no reason to not claim the place if I can.

The original owner is dead and has set a trap to override the soul of the person who passes the test. but with God-eating mask and demon shield, he will just bounce off of me. I pass the only requirement to take the test which is to be able to speak to the lamp spirits, and if I can understand a medusa hissing as words then I am confident I can speak to the lamps.