Spirit Tower

Cautiously, Yuan Ming ran inside the blue dome; and stared at his undead minions. With nothing to do, they wandered around the Necropolis, but didn't leave the blue dome. He wondered if they had free-will or intelligence…

Yuan Ming's knowledge was based on hearsay and rumors, they had no real basis on reality; but he didn't have any other source to rely on for information either.

When he was still a child, he heard from his seniors that many beasts don't have intelligence beyond crude cleverness. The ones that do have intelligence however, don't easily show their faces to humans. They form clans and create internal hierarchies. He heard that many could even talk, just only in a few limited languages.

After all, each and every empire had their own culture, language; even if their language wasn't different their dialects were dissimilar. So he couldn't guarantee that every beast could speak the same language.

Putting that matter aside, Yuan Ming walked towards a bull-like undead resting on the ground and lightly touched it. His mind willed the bull to snap its connection with his soul, and instantly the red light in its eyes disappeared.

One peculiar thing about the undead under his command was that they still had life-essence in their body, something he didn't except from the dead. After all, it was in the essence's name; he expected something called life-essence to disappear from something dead. Along with that, their body lacked any other type of essence.

A strange hunger filled his heart as he ripped off the bull's head and devoured it in a few bites. Eventually, the entire beast disappeared into his stomach as if it never existed.

'Rotten flesh doesn't taste that bad! I thought it'd stink. Now, to see what'll happen…it'll be nice if I can absorb powers from lower-ranked beasts, ' thought Yuan Ming as he carefully looked at his body. The effects from devouring the other beasts were still there: the scales were transparent and thus very difficult to see, while the increased muscle mass and body length from eating the gorilla was still there.

Yuan Ming waited for a few minutes, but was disappointed when nothing happened. Looks like he couldn't exploit his abilities to devour random animals and turn into a celestial overnight… which was kind of an idiotic thought, now that he wondered about it.

Maybe the beast had nothing he could devour? That's kind of interesting!

Yuan Ming shook his head and looked at the other undead, who had been staring at him since he started eating their companion. He could read, or at most, sense their emotions; none of them showed any feelings for the dead bull. Which was nice, as he wouldn't have to worry about a rebellion due to 'cannibalism'.

He wondered what'd happen if some intelligent beast or, possibly, human saw these beasts and ran away to their empires to spread rumors. After all, the beasts under his control looked dead, smelled dead and had a suspicious Palace floating over the heads. He didn't want to deal with those intolerable humans again, he had to find a way to hide the beasts.

Yuan Ming closed his eyes and searched within his memories; especially those that contained knowledge about summoning formations. There had to be something that he could use to hide them…!

'Spirit Tower…'

'Eternal Dungeon… '

'Glor'dok Slaughterhouse…what the….'

'Yin Pond….Yang Pond…what the hell is this s**t…'

'Ah, finally, something I can use. Sorgron Burrow…'

Yuan Ming went underneath the Necropolis, where the rot was the strongest, and carved a small circle the diameter of a meter and wrote a few symbols inside. When the formation started to glow red, Yuan Ming commanded two beasts into the formation and watched them dissolve into the formation.

Turns out, his guess was right. The formation opened up as a rift replaced it; only two Rank 1 Beasts were required for a Sorgron Burrow.

The rift opened and instantly collapsed; leaving a gaping hole that lead underground. The hole however, wasn't exposed as a blue webbed surface covered it.

Yet, Yuan Ming was shocked when he saw a rune fly out from the hole and stand still on the air. The rune might be unrecognizable for anyone, but he recognized it to be written in the language of the dead

—0/20—

He stared at it, and ordered a snake beast into the hole. After hearing his command, it swiftly slid down the hole and the webbed cover and disappeared under the earth.

—1/20—

'So that's what this is! It measures how much undead I can fit inside! '

Using his connection with the snake, Yuan Ming ordered it come back to the surface. He looked at the hole and saw the snake appear from it.

'What an useful tool! I can use this as an ambush…and hide the undead using this. I wonder if I can enter…but oh well. '

Yuan Ming had thirty or forty beasts left after he sacrificed a dozen or so to summon the Necropolis. So to fit them all, he had to build another Sorgron Burrow.

He quickly formed a summoning formation next to the Sorgron Burrow and summoned another one. This time, he sent all of his beasts inside.

With the entire blue dome cleared, Yuan Ming felt alone once again, but this time, his army wasn't dead, it was instead moved underground.

Now that he thought about it, how about summoning a few defense-type structures?

Yuan Ming nodded and ordered a few beasts out of the burrows. He then ran behind the Necropolis, towards the river and began forming a circle at the edge of the dome. This time, the circle was a bit big: it was three-meters in terms of diameter.

The structure he was building was called 'Spirit Tower', the formation he saw earlier in his memories. It was categorized as a defense-type structure, so he thought he'd build one.

Soon, he finished writing the necessary symbols on the formation. After that, the writings began to glow red as he ordered his undead into the formation.

One. Two. Three. Four….

Fourteen, fifteen…

Only after he sacrificed twenty beasts did the rift appear; meaning that a single tower took twenty Rank 1 Beasts as sacrifice…

Originally, Yuan Ming thought he'd use a few beasts to summon five or so Spirit Towers and surround the Necropolis with it. He… didn't really think that a single tower would need that many sacrifices.

Nonetheless, Yuan Ming didn't really care. He could easily infect another hundred beasts and none would notice. After all, this wasn't human territory. No one was there to fret over the disappearance of some meagre Rank 1 Beasts.

Slowly, materials and wisps of smoke rose from the rift and started to merge into a tall structure.

A few moments later, the rift disappeared as a purple tower appeared in its place. Its height was two-meters and towered over Yuan Ming. A few writings were etched on its jagged body; which was a result of it being covered in sharp bones.

The tower had no entrance, nor did have any ladder or helm. It only had a few open windows.

"Hraaaaaa…!"

A deep voice escaped the tower as wisps of smoke started to come out from its windows.