Building the Strongest Undead Empire from Scratch

Time: 23:59

In the final minute, the leaderboard began to flicker, capturing the undivided attention of all Lords watching the system's display. As the leaderboard stopped flickering and the refresh completed, the countdown for the last minute began.

Every Lord immediately focused on their own ranking. With just one minute left, there was no time to check the rankings of other Lords.

As expected, Alex remained in the top tier. Chi-Chi was still in the fifth tier, while Sophie had advanced to the third tier due to the emergence of her Commanding level troops.

Samson's previous boasts to his allies quickly backfired as he failed to make it to the top tier. Adding to his embarrassment, another Lord in their Alliance, [Earth Lord] from the Barren Plains, had ascended to the top tier.

[Earth Lord]: "Guys, I've made it to the top tier!"

Earth Lord shared his joy in the Alliance group chat, but at this moment, everyone was too preoccupied with their own rankings and rewards to respond.

Samson felt incredibly awkward, as if he had dug himself into a whole new level of embarrassment. The minute passed in a flash, and the leaderboard permanently disappeared from the system interface, turning gray. A new countdown appeared, indicating the time until the next leaderboard refresh.

At the same time, Alex received a message from the system.

[Congratulations on your final ranking in the top tier. You have received a special reward: Essence of Bloodline (Universal).]

Alex had a feeling that this was something similar to what was used in the Blackwater Altar, capable of enhancing her various abilities and possibly causing some unusual changes.

"Claim it!"

It was a good thing, so claiming it was the right move. Alex felt a surge of energy enter her body, similar to when she was enhanced at the Blackwater Altar, but this time the sensation was much more intense.

Alex's body trembled, which was a bit uncomfortable.

After five minutes, Alex took a deep breath. The overwhelming Essence of Bloodline had been fully absorbed by her body. The discomfort had passed, though her face was still flushed, and she felt weak.

[Congratulations, Lord, on successfully absorbing the Essence of Bloodline (Universal). You have awakened the Undead Queen's Right Eye. All attributes permanently increased by 15 points, Health Points and Mana Points permanently increased by 10 points.]

Just as she had suspected, a special change had occurred. Additionally, her mind was filled with a plethora of memories, not only about the newly appeared right eye but also enhancements to the magic of her left eye.

Since this reward was specific to Alex, her scythe received no benefits and thus underwent no special changes.

The Undead Queen's Left Eye, also known as the Eye of the Undead, previously mastered only summoning and dark magic. Now, it had gained curse, alchemy, and plague magics. Only curse and plague could be used directly for attack, while alchemy was about using magic and undead materials to concoct potions or dark items, which seemed of limited use.

These auxiliary tools were something a necromancer would handle in the future; it wasn't something a queen would do personally.

The dark magic was intermediate, summoning magic was third-tier, and the rest—alchemy, plague, and curse—were only first-tier, which were basically useless with only minor skills.

The Undead Queen's Right Eye, also known as the Eye of Magic, was not just about undead magic; mastering other types of magic was also essential.

Unlike the left eye, the right eye did not come with inherent skills but had the ability to record. Since other magics were not part of the inheritance, Alex needed to learn them herself; the right eye merely added a learning aid.

The Right Eye could record up to seven types of magic, allowing for the enhancement and fusion of recorded magics while also increasing their power and reducing Mana Points consumption. The magics recorded in the Right Eye could also be cast without chanting.

In simple terms, the Eye of the Undead helped enhance her own legacy, while the Eye of Magic helped enhance Alex's other abilities.

Alex went to her bedroom and looked at herself in the mirror. Her right eye had changed from its original blue to red!

She had heterochromia now...

Activating the ability of her right eye, it emitted a red light, and a hexagram magic circle appeared in her pupil, with symbols of fire and ice at two of its points, glowing red and blue respectively—representing the fire and frost magics she had just recorded.

She felt that if she recorded all types of magic, this hexagram might become multicolored.

Alex also activated her left eye, which emitted a blue light. Inside the pupil, a circular magic circle would change color depending on the magic she used; for example, black for dark and curse magics, gray for summoning, green for plague, and so on.

However, unless someone observed Alex's pupils closely, these subtle differences would go unnoticed.

Using both eyes simultaneously was a huge drain on her mental energy. She could distinctly feel that with both eyes open, the world around her seemed to slow down. Standing by the window, Alex could even see insects crawling on the ground outside her territory through the darkness.

With a blink, the glow disappeared, and her eyes returned to normal.

She couldn't just go to sleep yet; there were troops to summon, and she wanted to experience the effects of her newly enhanced magics.

Most importantly, Alex wanted to check on Sophie's situation, as she didn't even know where Sophie's castle was located.

Her plan was for Sophie to upgrade to a town level as soon as possible and build a Portal of Transit so that Alex could send Acolytes to help mine.

Being limited by iron ingots was not ideal.

...

Besides obtaining the Eye of Magic, Alex had also leveled up. Upon checking, she indeed found that she had leveled up twice. This was quite surprising, especially since all top-tier Lords had received the same reward.

It seemed that Lords below the top tier would only fall further behind.

[Lord: Alex]

[Power: lv5 Commanding level (can be increased by personal and troops' kills)]

[Territory Level: lv1 town]

[Troops: undead race]

[Equipment: Grim Reaper's Scythe, Ring of Space]

[Health Points: 350]

[Mana Points: 180]

[Strength: 103]

[Stamina: 97]

[Agility: 101]

With the attribute enhancements from the Eye of Magic and the two-level increase, Alex's attributes had significantly improved.

Now at the same level as Ice Cream, if she encountered that level 6 Frost Werewolf again, Alex was confident she could defeat it alone.

Alex sent a message to Sophie, asking if she had gone to bed yet.

[QuartzStriker]: "Not yet."

[Hamburger]: "Have you summoned your troops?"

[QuartzStriker]: "No, the dwarves need to rest at night. They won't work if summoned now, and they might even demand a midnight snack, so I usually summon them in the morning."

Alex checked Sophie's Barracks level on the system dashboard; it was already level 7, four levels higher than before, and the Essence Shards from the beast tide were probably almost used up.

Alex opened the description of her Barracks.

[lv7 Dwarf Crystal: Can summon dwarf race's warriors and artisans, randomly forty units, initial level raised to lv3.]

Alex sent Sophie 480 Essence Shards. As for magic crystals, Sophie surely had enough and didn't need Alex to worry about them; the only thing lacking was Essence Shards. Based on Alex's estimation, it would be difficult for Sophie to obtain Essence Shards after the beast tide.

[Hamburger]: "Upgrade your Barracks to level 10, then focus on mining iron ore. Upgrade your town as soon as possible and build a Portal of Transit."

Sophie was pleasantly surprised; Alex had just given her nearly five hundred Essence Shards, exactly enough to upgrade to level 10 Barracks.

Although Sophie didn't know what a Portal of Transit was, she understood it was a key structure that could only be unlocked by reaching town level.

Sophie's Warehouse currently held four thousand iron ingots. With the dwarves working at full capacity, it would take about two days to upgrade the town.

[QuartzStriker]: "Okay, thank you so much for your generous support, Big Shot!"

Sophie upgraded her Barracks to level 10, increasing the number of dwarves summoned to fifty, with an initial level of lv5.

[Hamburger]: "By the way, where is your castle located?"

Alex almost forgot to ask this crucial information. Sophie's castle housed native dwarves, so she must know its location.

[QuartzStriker]: "My castle is in the White Rock Mountains on the Arsen continent, not far from the border of the Dwarf Kingdom."

She wasn't on the Eldoria continent?

That made sense. With so many Lords transported from Earth to this world, how could they all be on one continent?

Alex suddenly remembered what Greenbean had said: apart from Divine beings, no creature could cross continents on its own.

But considering the Holy Court, which had a presence on seven continents, Alex didn't believe they lacked the ability to traverse continents.

Once Sophie upgraded her castle, would Alex be able to use the Portal of Transit to cross from the Eldoria continent to the Arsen continent?

A journey across an entire continent?

After ending the conversation with Sophie, Alex began summoning troops. Before summoning, she used her resources to upgrade her Barracks by two more levels, spending a total of 55k magic crystals and 550 Essence Shards.

This nearly depleted the Essence Shards and magic crystals in her Warehouse, leaving only 8k magic crystals and 170 Essence Shards.

Sure enough, the two-level upgrade to the Barracks unlocked the troops Destroyer and Ghoul, which Alex should have anticipated.

"Ah well, they had to be unlocked sooner or later."

Alex sighed, but before starting, she habitually placed her hand on her breast to increase her 'luck value.'

At this moment, Alex began summoning troops. Fortunately, the lucky Alex once again summoned a zombie titan, seven necromancers, and two bone dragons.

Ten Acolytes also appeared beside the Barracks.

As more troops were unlocked, the chances of summoning ordinary skeletons decreased, and most Skeleton Soldiers were now summoned by the necromancers.

Then, Alex experimented with her newly enhanced magic outside the castle. She discovered that using her right eye seemed to create a zone with a radius of about 500 yards where she could manipulate fire elements at will. The magic was incredibly powerful, nearly twice as effective as before.

Alex was delighted and tested the Frost Magic with similar results.

She really wanted to record dark magic and others in her right eye, but unfortunately, those magics belonged to the left eye and couldn't be recorded.

After some experiments, Alex had a basic understanding of her newly enhanced powers. She returned to the castle, finally ready to rest.