Eternal Swordmaster
Chapter 616 - 611 Change 1

Chapter 616: Chapter 611 Change 1

The Iron Man was the ultimate limit of the mud monster, evolving three times from mud monster, to clay man, to stone man, and finally Iron Man.

Lin Xin recorded it in his mind.

"Go out of the city and try it on a void imp," he said.

"Yes." The Iron Man now possessed basic intelligence and could respond verbally.

He clanked and clanked, striding towards the outskirts of the city, soon disappearing into the vast snowy wind.

Lin Xin didn’t bother with him and walked over to the Mountain Spirit Dwarf’s military building.

Similarly, deep underground in the dwarf’s home, there was a giant black sphere continuously splitting into small spheres.

If Lin Xin’s expertise in Formation Talismans weren’t astounding, he would not have discovered the deep secrets hidden within.

These Soul Spheres were actually hidden deep within countless Formation Talisman symbols, with a lot of misleading and confusing elements serving as cover.

"Since it can directly enhance the evolutionary path of the soldiers, I wonder if it can directly upgrade the military buildings as well," he pondered.

Thinking of this, Lin Xin reached out and pressed his hand on the round column atop the dwarf’s home.

Attribute points slowly transferred.

Buzz!

Suddenly, the entire military building vibrated.

The Soul Sphere quickly strengthened, but the results did not develop in a favorable direction.

The surrounding rune system of the dwarf’s home started to break like snapping tape, with lines densely breaking apart.

Bang!

The entire military building collapsed.

The once intact dwarf’s home turned into a collapsed ruin of messy rubble in an instant. But a certain kind of essence scattered within, seeping into the bodies of the dwarves present.

Lin Xin’s expression shifted, and he sighed.

"Ruined... What a pity."

He shook his head slightly, realizing that one should not tamper lightly with the core Soul Sphere of a military building, else it leads to an outright collapse.

Now, he could not rely on the dwarves and would have to wait a year to return and purchase a new military building.

Lin Xin issued a command in his mind for the surrounding dwarves to swarm over and deal with the now-collapsed dwarf’s home.

But these dwarves had lost the potential for evolution and could not find a place to rest. They could only maintain their current state.

"Come here," he said.

Lin Xin had an idea and signaled a dwarf to come over.

He placed his hand on the dwarf’s head, his hair messy like green weeds, jumbled like a chicken’s nest.

Ten points of average attribute enhancement transferred over.

The dwarf suddenly let out a low roar, his whole body trembling.

His skin started to turn white and harden, as if soaked in water. The beards on his face and hairs on his head began to turn white and grow longer.

His hammer in hand grew larger, and the contours of his muscles became more defined.

About several seconds later, the Mountain Spirit Dwarf ceased changing, turning into a fierce warrior clad in stone armor, wielding a giant stone hammer.

"A ferocious Mountain Spirit, and directly a Ninth Grade at that," Lin Xin was pleased, noting that the evolutionary leaps vary widely among different species. The destruction of the military building had unexpectedly distributed the Soul Sphere among the other soldiers.

"Another one," he said.

He continued pressing his hands on the ferocious Mountain Spirit.

Powerful attribute points kept transferring steadily, ten by ten.

The white beard of the ferocious Mountain Spirit grew longer, and with a crackling sound from his back, he suddenly grew two more arms that grabbed the ground, forming two new stone hammers in his hands.

After about five seconds of transferring, the ferocious Mountain Spirit stopped evolving, transforming into a four-armed dwarf with white bearded war hammers.

"Is this a Rune Inscribed Dwarf!?"

Lin Xin was taken aback.

This type of dwarf was no ordinary being, belonging to the Second Rank of soldiers, and very few in number, only cultivated in small amounts by some of the Great Cultivators.

He hadn’t expected them to appear here.

The primary use of the Rune Inscribed Dwarves wasn’t for combat, but for inscribing Rune Arrays.

They could also undertake forging skills. With enough in number, they could massively forge a variety of rune-inscribed Magic Artifacts.

Though they had a flaw where every clan of Rune Inscribed Dwarves could only master forging one type of Magic Artifact, this was still an extremely valuable and terrifying quality in the world of cultivators.

This also represented the ultimate evolutionary form of the dwarf lineage.

"Unexpected indeed!"

Lin Xin’s heart uplifted.

This was guaranteed to be an advanced craftsman in the future.

He evolved all the remaining thirty-six Mountain Spirit Dwarves into Rune Inscribed Dwarves.

Then, he had the mud monsters that came out evolved into Iron Men, sending them out to search for void imps.

Time slowly passed, the mud pool recalibrated under Lin Xin’s adjustments, restoring its original balance, but the production rate of mud monsters was reduced to one every two days.

After all, more Soul Spheres had to be divided.

One by one, the mud monsters emerged and were quickly turned into Iron Men.

Then, Lin Xin dispatched them to sweep the void imps.

***************

Three days later...

Bang!

A void imp crazily clawed at an Iron Man, leaving only a white scratch, but it was then seized by the Iron Man and brutally smashed into the ground.

Boom!

The void imp was instantly smashed into a pulp, dead beyond dead.

Lin Xin hovered in mid-air behind, watching the Iron Man face off against the twenty-third Void monster.

The current Iron Man was incredibly strong, mainly because its defensive power and strength were astonishing. It was a perfect nemesis for Void monsters that had high attack power but weak defenses.

A First Rank creature exhibited Second Rank capabilities.

"Next wave." Lin Xin instructed.

The Iron Man began moving slowly, heading towards a new cluster of red dots in the distance.

Suddenly, Lin Xin’s expression changed—he sensed something was amiss.

"All Iron Men, return to the city! Rune Inscribed Dwarfs, back to the fortress, defend with all your might!"

He couldn’t issue more commands; he hastily flew towards the city walls.

As he swept across the snowy ground below, he quickly returned to the corner of the city wall, landed in front of the Snow Ice Fortress, and walked inside.

Soon, the groups of Iron Men and Rune Inscribed Dwarfs were returning, entering the soccer field-sized Snow Ice Fortress.

Lin Xin stood at the entrance, gazing at the outer sky.

The sky gradually darkened; the originally pale light swiftly turned into a dense cloud cover, and countless gray-black specks fell from the sky like locusts, heading towards the fortress.

Each of these gray-black specks was a Void monster.

They opened their mouths wide to reveal sharp fangs and spread their limbs to crazily dive down.

Thud, thud, thud!

Numerous Void monsters landed on the snowy ground, creating pits of varying sizes.

"Slaughter!"

At Lin Xin’s command, thirty-eight Iron Men clanked forward to the gate of the fortress.

Six Iron Men, each over four meters tall and two meters wide, stood side by side, perfectly blocking the fortress’ gate.

Thirty-eight Iron Men, divided into six teams, rushed forward in layers.

Bang!

An Iron Man brutally punched a Void monster, immediately causing it to burst open, blood flowing inexorably.

Instantly, five more Void monsters crazily pounced, scratching frenziedly at the Iron Man, sparking fire and creating a grating crasping sound that was extremely unpleasant to the ears.

Whoosh!

Another Void monster tried to charge into the fortress but was pressed to the ground mid-air by an Iron Man.

With a thunderous muted sound, the monster was smashed brutally in half.

However, the Iron Man that struck was also entangled by numerous Void monsters.

Six Iron Men, although they blocked the narrow passage perfectly, were tightly entangled by the Void monsters, unable to retreat.

Clang!

The second team of six Iron Men also charged forward, followed by the third team.

Eighteen Iron Men surrounded the fortress entrance, forming a semi-circular defense line, keeping numerous Void monsters outside.

The fortress’s walls were surrounded by more monsters attempting to dig through with their claws, but to no avail. The Rune Inscribed Dwarfs had been frantically inscribing the simplified hardening formation talismans taught by Lin Xin.

With their strength not exceeding Ninth Grade, these monsters couldn’t break through the wall in a short time.

Lin Xin stood at the entrance of the fortress, the semi-circular formation outside fully manned by three teams of Iron Men, with three more teams ready to back them up anytime.

Iron filings flew off the Iron Men, mixed with even more Void monster flesh and blood.

He looked outward; the sky was filled with densely packed Void monsters, uncountably numerous.

Two hours passed quickly.

Lin Xin acted, swapping out the first three teams of Iron Men for the fresh forces from the back.

The battle returned to its initial state, and any monsters that slipped through were quickly hammered to death by the Rune Inscribed Dwarfs guarding inside the fortress.

The second-rank Rune Inscribed Dwarfs were also known for their strength and were not to be underestimated.

The sky periodically filled with countless plunging Void monsters; the Iron Men continually killed Void monsters, their bodies also covered with dense scratches and dents.

Bang!

Finally, an Iron Man couldn’t withstand the pressure and fell, its limbs instantly seized and viciously torn into pieces by a swarm of Void monsters.

Pristine Sword Qi suddenly whizzed by, splitting dozens of Void monsters in half in an instant, killing them outright.

Lin Xin was a step too late in taking action.

His expression turned grim—these Iron Men were immensely strong, with incredible defensive power, and yet among the thirty-eight, one had died. It was a pity; the battle was too chaotic.

However, fortunately, the changing aura coming from the mud pit brought some comfort to his heart.

He glanced at his attribute panel.

Lin Sherie—Attack 8102, Defense 8102, Evasion 8102, Constitution 8102, Free Attribute Points 1048.

"Initially, there were only thirty-eight free attribute points, now there are forty-eight, which means these Void monsters have been killed by the Iron Men by nearly a thousand?"

Lin Xin quickly walked over to the mud pit.

Seemingly having absorbed the essence of the Void monsters killed by the Iron Men, the mud pit’s color had now turned a blood-like crimson red.

Inside, countless runes swiftly condensed, forming a vast, intricate network. Then, a bizarre, mysterious force suddenly separated from the Soul Sphere, flowing into this network of veins formed by runes like blood.

The entire mud pit solidified with a roar and then slowly surged upward, forming a five-meter-tall brass-colored pyramid.

Clang!

A muffled thud of footsteps came from the pyramid’s entrance.

Emerging was a three-meter-tall Mud Man covered in soil, an evolved form of the Mud Monster Lin Xin had seen at the first level.

He thought for a moment and placed his hand on the Mud Man.

Hum!

After three quick evolutions, the Mud Man completely transformed.

Stone Man, Iron Man, and then incredibly, it could still ascend!

The Iron Man’s body shone with a silvery-white metallic luster. Its height soared to four meters, transforming into a four-meter-tall metal giant radiating a silvery-white glow.