Chapter 72 - Landscape
However, this method of summoning undead had one very fatal flaw: time.
If you summon the undead from the ectopic surface, there would be a time limit in which its presence could stay on the Ark Continent. This time limit depended on the level of the Necromancer and the level of the dark creature that was summoned.
Theoretically, with strong enough magic, you would be able to summon a high level undead and keep it on the Ark Continent for a long time. But most of the time limits were short.
There was an exception. If you summon a powerful dark creature, as long as you were willing to pay some vitality, then you could keep that creature on the Ark Continent for a longer period of time. But generally, Necromancers didn't want to use such a method to summon high level undead from the ectopic surface. That was because the higher the level of the creature, the more vitality was needed. If you wanted it to stay on the Ark Continent long term, then you were just being reckless.
The other method that Necromancers could use was the same one that the Immortal mercenary group used, creating your own undead.
As long as the mage killed the person or spirit beast, he could turn it into an undead. However, this wasn't really suitable because turning anything into an undead would reduce its level by a lot.
It was precisely because of this that those who were monitoring Zhao were surprised. If that undead was summoned from the ectopic surface, then it should have gone back by now.
Looking at the combat ability of Alien, they could only judge that it had great strength. So if this undead was artificially created, then how high was its level before it got killed? They were all confused.
A mage, under normal circumstances, could only produce low-level undead. If they wanted to make advanced undead, then they would have to pay the cost of their vitality. If that black mage was able to make such an advanced green undead, then why was he still alive?
The Ark Continent was big, but there weren't many places that could produce undead. In fact, there were only two notoriously, fierce places in the entire Continent that could generate their own undead: Carrion Swamp and Deep Magic. These places were two of the five forbidden areas. In the past century, no one has ever made it out alive from those two places, and in the last thousand years, those who did make it out alive died within the next five years.
For this reason, the Carrion Swamp and Deep Magic became off limits. No adventurers went there, because no one wanted to die.
This was also the reason why Zhao blatantly left his undead outside. He had appeared in Montenegro Fortress, and someone could connect that together with the carrion swamp. So Zhao would be known as the black mage crazy enough to go into the swamp, which would not tie him to Adam's identity.
The next day, Zhao's advancing speed wasn't very fast. It could even be said that he was slow, but Zhao deliberately did this. If they wanted cooperation with the Markey company, then they would certainly have to work with someone that they could trust, and the most appropriate person was Laura. However, she had not yet come back from Montenegro Fortress, so Zhao would get to Casa city before her. But it wasn't a big deal. They didn't worry about it and just slowly moved forward.
While they were moving slowly, Green had already gone ahead to Casa city. Right now, the person who was riding on the undead's head while wearing Green's full body armor was one of the slaves.
Green had gone to Casa city to buy a small estate and do some preparatory work. With all eyes focused on Zhao, when Green did these things, it didn't attract anyone's attention.
Of course, even without Green, Zhao wasn't lost since a map was drawn for him, which included the terrain and other roads. His understanding of this world was too little, but he wanted to know more about the surroundings around his home. However, right now he had to focus on his lack of security. With Green not here, Zhao had to be more careful. He was afraid that someone would be tempted to attack them, since now they only had Meirin to fight, so their fighting strength had been cut down by nearly half.
But in fact, Zhao was just thinking too much. With his identity as a black mage that no one dared to doubt, no one would even try to tease him, especially when they saw that undead.
It could only be said that Zhao underestimated the deterrent that black mages have against ordinary mercenaries and adventurers. They would rather offend a powerful warrior than a black mage. If you offended a warrior, then he would just kill you. But if you offended a black mage, you would most likely be tortured to death, then become an undead that would fight for them forever.
Adventurers and mercenaries weren't afraid of death, but they would rather have their bodies eaten by spirit beasts than to become an undead.
For this reason, they didn't want to risk offending a black mage, especially one that could summon something with that much strength.
Although Zhao wasn't moving very fast, he still attracted the attention of the entire Purcell Duchy. Whether they encountered a caravan on the road or an ordinary pedestrian, they attracted a lot of attention, even if for no other reason than the rumors about their fight with the Immortal mercenary group.
The Immortal mercenary group was very famous, to the point where no one dared to offend their existence. And now they had heard that Zhao went to battle against the Immortal mercenary group, yet weren't killed by them. This aroused a lot of people's attention.
No one thought that Zhao had actually seized the whole group. In their opinion, it was impossible for the Immortal mercenary group to be defeated. They had come out unharmed many times from many battles. Even when they fought against the Xinya clan, and were almost destroyed, they still came out of it with hardly any losses in power. So even if Zhao was strong in combat, no one believed that he could catch up to the undead mercenary group's strength.
Now everyone was paying attention to Zhao to see when the Immortal mercenary group would retaliate.
But everyone was significantly let down. Zhao was just going on his way peacefully, with the Immortal mercenary group seemingly absent. Zhao didn't face any trouble, which was so unlike the style of the Immortal mercenary group.
So under the eyes of everyone in the principality of Purcell, Zhao was leisurely heading to Casa city without any rush, almost becoming part of the landscape. They were all confused.
But to achieve his goals, Zhao had to keep all eyes on him, and for no one to pay attention to the Buda clan. Also, he didn't want anyone to pay attention to the fact that outside Casa city, in a small manor on a small mountain, a hundred gold coins was being exchanged.
This small manor was originally built by a businessman, on a remote hill in the mountains outside of Casa city. It was a barren hill, unable to grow anything. The only thing commendable about it was that the estate was built around a spa.
Obviously, the businessman wanted to build this small estate as a hot spring where you could take a vacation. But unfortunately, he later went bankrupt. Because the estate was too remote, no one was willing to buy it. When Green found out about this, he immediately put down one hundred gold coins to buy it.
Translator Notes: This chapter was MTLed by Trung and edited by theno1fan. Please leave a comment if you've spotted anything that looks wrong.