Groomash was moving through the jungle of the fifth stage. Because of his patron, he was now part of the undead faction in this tutorial. He had been hunting day and night since his arrival in the fifth stage. Now, he was more powerful than ever, reaching almost level 76. Very soon, he would meet with the leaders of the undead faction present in this tutorial. The reason he hadn’t met them sooner was the sheer size of the fifth stage.

The other stages were also vast, but here one could walk for days without encountering another survivor. One reason might be that most were still in the lower stages, but he doubted that this would change much. According to his patron, the only ones missing were the humans and a few orcs, while almost all elves and vampires were here. Some of the weaker vampires had stayed on the fourth stage to slow down the humans before teleporting to the fifth stage.

He emerged from the jungle’s undergrowth and soon found himself standing in front of a massive black castle. How strong could those undead be? Groomash wondered as he stepped closer. A man jumped down from the wall and landed in front of him. His face had already begun to rot, and his right arm was heavily bandaged.

“You must be Groomash,” the man said with a calm voice.

Groomash nearly had to step back, feeling the power radiating from the man, particularly from his right arm. The wind grew stronger, kicking up more and more sand due to the creature’s presence.

“Yes, I am Groomash,” Groomash nodded, trying to hold himself steady.

“Good, follow me. I will introduce you to your new team,” the man continued, turning around.

After walking through seemingly endless corridors, they entered a large chamber. In the center sat a woman and a vampire clad in black armor.

“These are Lucius and Cathrin, your new teammates,” the man introduced them.

“What is our mission?” Groomash asked after a slight bow to his new team. He hated being submissive, but he had no choice.

“We’re helping to map out the fifth stage and set traps for the humans,” Lucius said, standing up ready to go.

“I don’t have any skill suited for creating traps,” Groomash added in confusion.

“No need; I’ll handle most of that,” Cathrin smiled with sinister intent. “You just bring me some beast corpses.”

<–

Thalion had been working day and night for the past four days on his soul, more precisely, on his soul core. Following the instructions in his manual, he had formed the core. If he could connect the last 15 spirit veins, which were tightly wrapped around it, the core would activate. If it worked, his spirit body would be flooded with power; if not, it would be torn apart, and he’d have to start over. There was even a chance it could damage his real body, but these were all assumptions in the end.

Thalion took a deep breath. Normally, his pounding heart would distract him, but in this world, it only gave him power. After a final glance at the construct, he began connecting the spirit veins. With each connection, the pressure on the core increased, and when he finally connected the last spirit vein, a rush of energy surged through his spirit body, filling his soul with power.

It had worked! The soul core, positioned in the center of his head, released power that flowed through his body along his spirit veins. Thalion emerged from his deep meditation and cast a few skills. The speed at which he could conjure mana barriers had nearly doubled, as had the efficiency of his blood-related skills. His mana recovery had also skyrocketed—it took only seconds for his mana pool to fully restore, even after casting multiple strong mana barriers. He couldn’t wait to get outside and test his limits by using mist form. But first, he had to check his messages.

To avoid interruptions while progressing, he had placed the tokens and communication crystals aside. There were quite a few messages from Lucan, asking how many slave cuffs he needed and sharing ideas for future projects. Being far ahead in soul cultivation, he could start crafting armor for his human form. Thalion wouldn’t make much more progress in his soul cultivation now, as the next milestones would take far more time than he currently had. Hopefully, it would be enough to dominate an outsider.

He also had messages from the alchemists, saying they had worked on plants with high mana affinity, but he didn’t have time for that now. He sent a thank you note to the alchemists for their great work and informed everyone that they would travel to the mountains tomorrow and needed the strongest 150 fighters ready.

With organization tasks complete, he entered Lucan’s shop. There were even more smiths here than in Kael’s base, but no wonder—he had close to 8,000 citizens. With no other base nearby, most survivors had no choice but to join his. Although it might have caused chaos, thanks to Michael and Garrick, who both worked hard to help, a small guard had been established, keeping murder to a minimum. The positive side was that Garrick had purchased extremely large houses, each holding over 600 people.

From the outside, they looked no bigger than an inn, but inside, they were enormous by comparison. However, he would still need to buy additional houses if the current rate of new arrivals continued.

“Hey, good to see you again,” Lucan said as Thalion entered. “Have you decided how many cuffs you need?”

“Creating them was more difficult than I expected,” Lucan continued with a bit of sweat running down his face.

“Can you make over 200 before the system shop arrives?” Thalion asked deep in thought.

“What! How many do you want to enslave?” Lucan exclaimed in shock.

“None, I just need their credits for an extremely expensive item in the system shop,” Thalion explained. He didn’t like it one bit himself, but there was no way around it.

“Well, they won’t like that. Do you have a plan?” Lucan asked, sounding worried.

“Yeah, I’ve got a plan,” Thalion nodded. “So now, let’s get back to crafting.”

“Finally, like the old times!” Lucan laughed, and soon they were both working on their projects, giving each other pointers here and there. Okay, it was mostly Lucan helping him out—except when Thalion started to use his blood in the crafting process.

He was currently working on the shoulder plates, and if everything went well, he would soon be finished. He only needed to apply runes to strengthen the material overnight. They both had a lot of fun that evening. Thalion finished his shoulder plates, while Lucan completed four swords and a staff. Lucan left shortly before nightfall, while Thalion continued working on the gloves and breastplate. He planned to place crystals in all of them, as he had done with his sword. The morning came faster than expected, as Thalion was completely absorbed in his work.

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He met the fighters at the gate, with Garrick, Michael, and Kalderk as their leaders.

“It is time,” Thalion said, activating the building crystal for the Skywarden Bastion.

They all watched as the flying ship slowly appeared in midair, as it gradually transferred into this reality from a different dimension. The next two days they would spend over the mountains were crucial for his plan to demand every single credit in the base for his own reserve. Thalion had already finished the speech he would give, but for it to work, the impression had to be right—the image of a ruthless warrior. He wouldn’t give them a chance to say no when he claimed their credits.

The ship that appeared before him was massive. The notion that it could fit only one hundred people and fifty passengers must have been a joke; without any spatial manipulation, it could easily hold over 300 people. Did they measure the space for giants, or what? The ship was over 100 meters long, with magic circles and some magic cannons scattered across the deck. It might be a bit difficult to operate, with three giant masts and ropes everywhere—this could be very interesting, Thalion thought in amusement.

“Everyone on deck! We’ve got some crystals to gather,” Thalion shouted to the fighters gathering around the ship. “And bring in some extra people—we’ve got room for a few more.”

The survivors did as he commanded, and soon they were all on board. Thalion kept his mask on so no one could read his expression. He hoped it would help in creating the image of a ruthless figher. Soon, another 50 fighters joined them, and it was time to figure out how to operate this thing. Golden runes covered every surface of the ship, and the steering wheel could even be pulled back… That was not normal.

“Hoist the sails, ye scurvy dogs!” Thalion bellowed, his mana-amplified voice rumbling like thunder across the deck. “Let’s give the wind something to fight! I want every inch of canvas catching air!”

This was just Thalion trying to look cool while shifting all the work to the others. He had no idea what would happen when the sails were hoisted. The crew slowly began their work.

“I think we gotta pull that rope,” one man said, pointing in one of the many robes hanging from the main mast.

“No, it’s not even connected to the sail!” an archer exclaimed.

“Why do we even need sails? The ship is already flying,” a mage interjected with annoyance.

“I think I got it,” a woman said, starting to climb a rope hanging from the mast in the middle.

It only took a few minutes for the sails to be hoisted, but with the new standard, where everyone could effortlessly shoot up the rigging in seconds, it felt like an eternity. The three giant sails had white runes on them that hummed with power, and a moment later, the ship shot through the sky. Good thing Thalion had pulled the steering wheel back from the start.

It almost gave him a heart attack but left him feeling more powerful than ever. It was a bit of a gamble, because if pulling the wheel meant going down, the great flagship would be lying in pieces on the earth, which wouldn’t leave a good expression.

Thalion was sure that, without their newfound powers, half of his crew would have been blasted off the now fast moving ship. Within seconds, they were already hundreds of meters in the air—definitely faster than a porsche on the first hundred meters.

After they were two kilometers up, he pushed the steering wheel into a neutral position, and they now shot toward the mountains.

“Ye call that speed?” Thalion barked at the still-shocked crew with a chuckle. “I’ve seen barnacles move faster! Into the rigging, ye lazy lot! Get them ropes tight, or I’ll feed ye to the sea myself!”

This was, of course, completely improvised but worked very well, as most were now working on the sails, pulling ropes here and there to catch more wind.

Thalion grabbed the wheel with one hand, laughing as the wind filled the sails. “That’s it, boys! Now let’s see if the sea can catch us!”

“What sea should catch us? We’re in the sky,” a man muttered, sitting on the mainmast.

“Almost a third of the crew are women, but he doesn’t address us at all,” a woman sighed in disappointment.

Well, that comment hadn’t worked as well as he’d hoped, Thalion thought as he heard the whispered complaints.

In the end, everything went smoothly as they traveled at an incredible speed. The only question was how to stop the ship. Thalion tried to look relaxed, even sat down for some meditation. But internally, his panic grew with every passing hour, as he still hadn’t found the brakes. Why weren’t there any instructions with the ship? The only solution he could see was to take in the sails.

After three hours of travel, they could see the wind crystals in the distance. After lowering two of the three sails, the ship slowed down immensely. At this speed, it should be easy to maneuver between the crystals. The alchemists had replicated Zyra’s runes and provided them to everyone on board so they could gather as many crystals as possible.

“Listen up! We will slowly pass through the wind crystals, killing every beast that guards them,” Thalion’s voice thundered. “We’ll start at this level and gradually work our way up.”

“This ship is new, so if there’s even one scratch on it, we’ll be having a different conversation after the hunt,” Thalion continued his voice emplyfied by mana and his conviction. “NOW MOVE!”

Everyone sprang into action; some groups jumped off the ship to gather weakly guarded crystals.

It was much easier than he’d expected—the ship’s firepower was from another world, which meant that every beast was blasted without a chance of survival. Within the first half-hour, they’d gathered over 20 crystals. There had been a shift in the power hierarchy since the two eagles that had ruled over the largest crystals were gone. In their place was a giant jellyfish.

Thalion stood in a magic circle, unleashing devastation on every flying beast that came near. They even had people collecting the corpses and draining them of blood. This was fun, he thought. Just standing on the magic circle, shooting beasts felt refreshing. He didn’t have to steer the ship since, even when crystals appeared in front of them, they were gathered before the ship could ram into them.

Thalion worked on his blood control and his flamethrower, which now easily covered a distance of 30 meters. Once, a swarm of weak insects partly got past the guards due to their sheer numbers, but one blood harvest later, they all died from blood loss while the sanguine thorn hummed in delight. His soul cultivation had helped immensely in applying mental pressure, which was essential for skills like blood harvest, where the target could resist, rendering the skill useless.

The skill was completely broken if his mental strength ruled supreme; the target had no way to defend themselves and usually died soon after. There were likely other ways to protect against blood harvest, but so far, he hadn’t encountered one.

They continued killing beasts and gathering materials. Thalion used most of the time to work on his fire skills. In theory, it should be possible to do the same with fire as with his blood, but condensing fire felt completely different.

This was perhaps due to his deep connection to blood he got from the sanguine thorn. His goal was to use fire in different ways, like powerful fire spears he could throw at enemies, but for now, he had only managed to intensify his flamethrower. Changing a spell with one’s own will was always challenging—easier now with his strengthened soul, but still difficult.

Thalion still struggled to find the right timing to impose his will on his only fire skill. When the fireball was almost formed, it was too late to change it, and attempting it too early caused the spell to collapse. The only way to adjust was to rely on instinct, like he and Sylas had done back in his room.

Once a variant of the skill had been learned, replicating it was easier, like with his flamethrower. Thalion didn’t attempt too much, though, as he was being watched, and failing repeatedly might harm his powerful leader image.

“It is time to enter the higher layers since our warm-up is finished,” Thalion announced almost six hours later and pulled the steering wheel, causing the ship to gain altitude.

So far, the creatures they’d fought were around level 55, but on the next layer, beasts would be nearly ten levels higher. This time, they reeled in more sails to slow their speed, allowing more time to kill the beasts, which were now a lot tougher than before. Many of the beasts had long-range attacks, shooting feathers or spitting acid, making it more challenging to defeat them.

Good thing the ship’s mana shields were strong and easily blocked most attacks, while the material the ship was made from was too sturdy for any flying creature to damage. Some turtles attempted to tackle it from beneath, but they couldn’t even leave a scratch before a team of hunters dispatched them. Michael was among the group leaders who descended on the turtles, eagerly killing them—to the dismay of Garrick, who couldn’t do much in the air as he lacked a flying skill.

Garrick primarily activated war arrays and commanded the fighters so no one was in danger of losing their life. They had now spent almost the entire day hunting, and not a single survivor had been lost—which was remarkable. Some had been seriously injured, but the healers were quick to intervene and save their lives.

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