Chapter 44: Growing Force

The curse marks remained for few seconds before vanishing. As long as Kyle didn't become too much more powerful than Dera or no powerful being helped him, he would remain being at the lich's mercy

Caizher just ignored the two and rested so that he will be back at his peak condition. A few hours passed with nothing that uneventful happening

There are some enemies that entered the convenience store but with Dera's new found strength, she easily killed the creatures that entered their resting area

This also helped Kyle as he had new puppets now. The man can control seven puppets at a time but it was just the basic control. It was like he's giving the corpse some intellect

For example, he will order the seven puppets to attack, the puppets would then make simple attacks using their bodies or mana. But for the puppets to use proper skills, Kyle needs to properly focus on them and he can only control two at a time at that state

The puppets also didn't need to be controlled by Kyle for 24/7. He can use mana stones as 'batteries' and his soul power to give them very little intellect

On the man's side were three tigers and four dogs with different elements and abilities

After a few hours of resting, Caizher finally fully recovered. All of his darkness was more than 50% destroyed before but in just a few hours, he immediately recovered from his peak condition

"Follow me!" Caizher said to the two and they obediently followed him with Kyle's puppets moving mechanically behind them

While killing the enemies along the way, their party reached the entrance to the dungeon. "I want you two to team up and kill the monsters around this city while also building a base here. I want to monopolize this dungeon but of course, if someone asked for it nicely, let them enter"

Caizher isn't that selfish of a person. As long as the people that will enter the dungeon won't harbor evil thoughts, he will just let them. Even if they do, then Caizher will kill them and took their treasures

Caizher is really planning in growing his own force since he has the "[Monarch of Dark Creatures]". It would be a waste if he doesn't use it. However, he's not really the leader type. If he became the humans' leader, it will affect his freedom

Those humans have their own selfish thoughts and will only view him as their protector. However, if Caizher grew a force of dark creatures that will only listen to him then things would be different

When Caizher made tens of dark goblins before, those goblins did the hunting work for him and provided him with mana stones. If it is just fighting, Caizher would gladly do it but on other things, he would be too lazy. Besides, Caizher needs a lot of resources to replenish his dark energies. He won't have time for his cultivation if he just hunts and hunts

"Of course, I don't expect you two to do it in a short time, I just want people to start building my base" Caizher continued

"Master, with my summoned skeletons, we will have a bit of labor force but the problem is the materials" Dera said and Caizher nodded his head. He really doesn't have any materials to let his force make his base

"Do you have any ideas? How does people make buildings on your realm?" Caizher can't possibly expect Dera to make buildings like the ones that earthlings made. But since she came from a 'fantasy world' then their buildings might be built differently

"Well..uh..my kind mostly made some sort of a castle like things but I don't think master will like that" Dera learned before that her master is a citizen of this realm and she saw how different the architectures here

"Well, I don't really care much about appearances but I also don't want to make it too creepy" a castle made by a lich, just how creepy would that be?

"Then uh... I saw some trees around and if I enchant it, they would almost be as durable as metal but there is one problem that I don't know how to solve" The two listened and Caizher urged for her to continue

"M-my abilities are limited and it will take a long time to enchant many woods as I have limited mana. I can summon skeleton mages but I needs to continuously supply mana for them to remain here. Skeletons mages are different from skeleton warriors and even with my new strength, it will used up a lot of mana just to summon six of them"

When Caizher fought her, Dera only summoned skeleton mages when she saw how powerful the man is. Even then, she only summoned three of them and even if Caizher didn't immediately defeat them that time, it won't take long before Dera used up all of her mana and the skeletons mages will return on their own realm

"Is there any way to help with that? Can't you make skeleton mages that won't need any summoning?" Caizher asked to try his luck

"Master, making skeleton mages is hard. Even the me before only has enough essence of darkness to remain a lich, I cannot bestow even just a drop to other creatures. I first need to give a normal skeleton some essence of darkness so that their intellect will rose. After that, the skeletons still need to learn how to use spells. Using mana will take months to grow their intellect and even items that will help them are very limited. The other way is letting them grow on their own but that will take months or even years" Dera might be a Lich but not everything in this world free

She's also just at the Servant Rank, creatures at this level are called servants because of their weak strength. If she surpassed the Servant Rank then she would be able to have an easier time making skeleton mages

"Essence of Darkness? Then what if I give them some of mine? Will that speed up things?" Although it would be troublesome, but Caizher needs to prepare for his future

Being on solo would have a lot of disadvantages in a world where the strong can do anything they want. To raise his strength and be able to focus on his cultivation, Caizher needs a force that will provide him with resources!

Dera's eyes almost rolled at hearing Caizher's words. Give the normal skeletons essence of darkness? It sounds so absurd that Dera believe she's hearing things wrong

"M-master, please don't waste such precious essence!" Dera is almost hysterical now as she's afraid that Caizher will really give essence to normal skeletons

"I told you to not worry about the consumption. I have a lot!" Caizher said confidently. He swallowed a lot of mana stones before thanks to his force providing it to him

If only his body can use all of his dark energies, he would surely be able to overpower all creatures on earth!

Dera has a complicated expression on her face. She doesn't want precious energies to be wasted on normal skeletons but she also cannot disobey Caizher

"Since he said that it is fine, just let him" Kyle decided to help the woman in a rather complicated situation but all he got is a fierce stare

"Ignorant human! You just don't know how precious the essence of darkness is! If you know it, you won't dare say something like that!" Dera raged and Kyle can only lower his head like a puppy that is being scolded

Caizher can even see imaginary tails being tuck between the man's legs. Even then, he agreed with Kyle. He doesn't like much nonsense and Dera should just do what he wants

"Let us not waste any time and summon your skeletons" Caizher impatiently said and without a choice, Dera can only summon three normal skeletons

Aside from their numbers and the fact that Dera can summon tens or even a hundred of them, these skeletons actually don't offer much strength. But with a Lich assisting from the back, it was hard for a single person to kill all of the skeletons that Dera can summon

Dera watched in horror as Caizher walked towards the skeletons and put his hand on top of the skeleton's head. Caizher channeled his dark energies to the skeleton and it was greedily swallowed by the soul fire inside its eyes

However, everyone can see how much the skeleton's body was trembling. Although it doesn't have any expression as it only has bones on the face, they can still feel that it was currently in pain

Even the soul fire greedily swallowing the dark energies were trembling. After some time, Caizher stopped channeling his dark energies as he judged that the skeleton won't be able to take more

The skeleton then kneeled in front of Caizher. With the essence of darkness, it now has a certain level of intellect.

Caizher and Kyle were surprise that the skeleton actually kneeled. Seems like Caizher's dark energies were really mystical!

He did the same for the other two skeletons. Every essence of darkness that Caizher uses brought great pain on Dera's chest. For her, it was a very big loss!

Her heart was already in pain because of these three skeletons but Caizher actually ordered her to summon more

Thus, Dera can only pitifully summon three more skeletons that were all bestowed dark energies by Caizher. The man can still corrupt a few but decided not to. In case that something will happen, he wants to be able to use his dark energies

"I'll enter the dungeon now; I will order one of my slaves to come here every time I have some free time to give essence of darkness to the skeletons"

Dera's already aching heart ache even more as Caizher would continue his reckless actions. "I-It will take some time for the skeletons to learn the basic enchantment, master. But I'll try my best to teach them well"

These skeletons were given precious energies, Dera don't want it to go to waste and intended to foster all the skeletons into proper mages

"Alright, there are a lot of trees inside the dungeon. Maybe it can be cut and brought here. But I don't know though, I haven't tried it before" After saying this, Caizher turned his back and waved his hand before entering the dungeon, leaving the two by themselves

As Kyle is only alone with Dera now, the man can't help but blush again. However, Dera looked at him coldly. Very different at the respectful look that the woman gave to Caizher

"What are you doing just standing there? Kill the creatures around! I need to teach these damned skeletons that they were given something too precious for them!"

Kyle became an outlet that Dera used to vent out her frustrations. The man almost cried on the spot and nod his head before walking away

With a low spirit, Kyle explore around the City with his puppets trailing behind and in front of him, in just a few minutes, he encountered a horde of twenty fallens

This time, Kyle manually controlled his puppets to fights."[Puppet Style: Puppet Control I!]"

Blue mana threads formed on the tip of Kyle's fingers that connected to his seven puppets. While moving his hand around, Kyle controlled his puppets and used them to attack

He might be a bit timid but he's also powerful on his own. The seven puppets pounced on the fallens and used their strong teeth to bite down on the enemies while the others used their paws to smack it on the fallens

Kyle focused his attention on one of the lions causing the other puppet's movements to slow down. "[Puppet Style: Puppet Control II!]"

That specific lion opened its mouth and sprayed water on all of the fallens causing their bodies to be drenched. Kyle let go of his control on that one and focused on another lion

"[Puppet Style: Puppet Control II!]" He used the same skill but in another lion this time. The lion opened its mouth and streak of lightning flew out from it

With the fallens having wet bodies, the lightning was very effective on them and their bodies released a burning smell. Their bodies were charred thanks to the combination of water and lightning attacks