Ghost Knight King's Dungeon Project

Chapter 66 [Plow and Sword]

"Planting a rusty copper tree?" Garden craftswoman Gwyneth Halder, holding a rotten root ball, gazed at the tall, dark copper figure in front of her from the shade of the underground fungal wood.

Having spent a long time among her fellow demons, she no longer needed to disguise herself. The deep blue scales on her cheeks had fully grown, and the complete scales shone with a clear, deep blue luster, like sapphires.

“Yes,” Samael nodded. “To be precise, it’s about iteratively cultivating the rust-copper tree… Does it have seeds? Or is there anything like seeds?”

“Yes,” Gwyneth pondered. “However, plants like the rust-copper tree usually reproduce quite slowly. But do you need to plant rust-copper trees? I remember there are still many rust-copper trees on the ground.”

“I need to cultivate a… special biological structure,” Samael replied. “Based on the rusted copper tree, through multiple psionic circuit infiltrations, to cultivate a robust subspecies of plant necromancy.”

"Based on the information I currently have, it is necessary to repeatedly permeate the tree species with loops and iterate multiple times, which should eventually lead to a stable biological morphology."

He recalled the description of the Arklay cycle process.

[The Arklay Cycle is a product of the intersection of Level 7 Psionics and Level 9 Artificial Life Science.]

[By repeatedly infiltrating biological embryos through psionic circuits, a stable and clear psionic record is formed from the pre-set biological form, instincts, and natural attributes, and locked and fixed in the biological genes. This record is then passed down through generations to create intelligent tool species.]

Psychic circuits... have repeatedly infiltrated biological embryos...

The name of the auxiliary device used to create the undead is... [Circuit Permeator]...

He flipped through the UI interface.

【Loop Permeator (Accessory Equipment)】

[Used to infiltrate complex psionic circuit templates into biological materials.]

[Current preset penetration template: Psionic Construct Circuit (Insufficient permissions, cannot be changed at this time)]

[Psionic Construct Circuit Template: A default template for general-purpose automated engineering machinery, widely applicable to various biological materials, highly versatile, lacking intelligence and special attributes. Commonly used to create inexpensive biological minions.]

Although the Arklay Cycle technology is not yet unlocked, based on Samael's analysis of these texts and principles, the operating principle may be to repeatedly permeate biological embryos through loops and then iterate and cultivate them multiple times to create a stable population.

Its own [Circuit Permeator] is a fixed [Psionic Construct Circuit], which is the template of the necromancer. It has no intelligence and is just a cheap engineering mechanical circuit.

If you were to perform infiltration and iterative operations on the seeds of the rusty copper tree, you could probably only generate a kind of unintelligent bioengineering machine that is half-necromantic and half-plant, but that would be enough.

By repeatedly permeating the seeds of the Bronze Tree with a pre-set psionic circuit, and then breeding the Bronze Trees for multiple generations, it might eventually be possible to create a strong, mindless undead—a Bronze Treeman that can move and has military value.

“I can create a humus material that can be used to plant the rusted copper tree, which will accelerate its growth and reproduction, enhance its adaptability to psionic circuits, and speed up the cultivation of the undead rusted copper tree,” Samael said. “Perhaps you can provide assistance, Miss Halder.”

“Necromancers…the Rusty Copper Tree?” Gwyneth seemed somewhat surprised. “You…you want to create new life? That’s a great authority that only the gods possess.”

“Hmm?...No, that’s just a new kind of necromancer, using a necromancer construct template to infiltrate.” Samael paused for a moment. “You can think of it as a moving plant-machine. Like necromancers—necromancers are like machines welded together from flesh and blood, while the Rust Copper Treants have simply replaced the flesh and blood material with plants and humus.”

“I will not create warm life, that would be too cruel. I only produce cold machines—to accomplish my projects.”

“Understood.” Gwyneth nodded. “Gardeners can use psionic signals to accelerate crop growth. We can use this method to speed up the growth and iteration of the rust copper tree seeds, shortening the time from germination, growth, and new seed production from several years to several months or even several weeks. However, this may lead to malnutrition.”

“It’s alright,” Samael replied. “The degraded humus should be able to replenish some of our nutritional needs. Let’s give it a try—I’ve cleared a secluded clearing in the Rust Copper Forest, guarded by three or four armored undead, where the degraded humus is piled up—I’ll leave these matters to you.”

“Leave it to me,” Gwyneth nodded.

Samael sidestepped past the gardener and headed toward a small workshop of molten stone in the distance.

He pushed open the wooden door. The lantern-shaped glowing grass balls behind the door illuminated the entire small workshop. Archie Yewell sat at the table opposite the door, sketching the subsequent architectural designs on paper with charcoal.

He wasn't wearing a hat, and two black, horny protrusions with spiral patterns had appeared on either side of his head—the base of his horns.

Although the lack of psionic energy at birth degrades the exiles' physique, making them relatively weaker than higher demons, even degraded demons possess healing abilities sufficient to allow their shed scales and sawed-off horns to regrow.

Normally, exiles without a permanent home would constantly peel off their regenerating scales and polish away their newly grown horns and roots to maintain their disguise and blend into the habitable world as humans. But now, in the dungeon, in the world of demons, such self-mutilating and painful disguises are no longer necessary among their own kind.

“Good morning, boss.” Archie looked up. “The blueprints for the siege ballista you mentioned earlier are in your basement workshop.”

"Good morning, Yachi." With heavy metallic footsteps, Samael stood in front of the table, his massive bronze body blocking the warm orange light from the glowing grass ball.

“I want to make some changes to your underground city—to transform it into a truly sustainable underground colony, rather than a one-off environmental modification device.” The bronze gauntlet slammed onto the table.

"Although I've been very busy lately, I'm still trying to find some information from my knowledge base, and I have indeed found some important content."

Yachi held the pen and looked up at him.

“Regarding psionic energy,” Samael said, “I think your method of directly throwing enchanted materials into the ecosystem and letting them rot and decompose to increase the psionic energy in the environment is somewhat inefficient—or rather, extremely inefficient.”

“After I returned from the surface last night, I scanned a complete ecological food chain in the insect maze and calculated all night. I found that if we rely on the food chain for material decomposition and psionic energy transfer, each link will lose about 30% of the psionic energy—it is converted into heat, chemical energy and biokinetic energy, but it is not all effective.”

"5.35 units of psionic energy, after passing through one food chain, will become 3.75 units, and after passing through another food chain, it will become 2.62 units. This loss becomes useless biological heat energy, which is consumed by the ineffective hunting actions of the monsters in the ecosystem."

"Even burning enchanted materials as fuel will consume a large amount of psionic energy—the loss rate can be as high as 60%!"

“Uh…yeah, but we don’t have any other way to process psionic energy.” Archie stared blankly. “So, are we just going to eat all the demonized materials ourselves? We can’t possibly eat them all.”

"Introducing the [Psionic Extractor]." Samael placed a blueprint on Archie's table.

Yaqi leaned over and looked at the complex circuits and structures on the blueprints.

"It has an extraction efficiency of up to 99.9% for psionic energy from materials and will create a solid psionic energy crystal. When placed in the air, the psionic energy crystal will slowly release psionic energy into the surrounding environment at a constant rate, with 100% efficiency and no loss whatsoever—and demons can eat it directly."

“Based on our estimates, 20 grams of psionic crystals can keep a small dungeon running for a week. 0.01 grams of psionic crystals can supply a demon’s health needs for a month,” Samael explained wearily. “From now on, we won’t need to use the primitive method of ecological decomposition to obtain psionic energy anymore.”

"Oh, there's such a good thing?" Archie exclaimed in surprise.

“The materials needed include Nether Bronze, Bloodsteel, and Witch Gold—give me the Nether Bronze portion,” Samael said.

"What is Bloodsteel?" Archie asked, examining the blueprints.

“It’s a special kind of enchanted metal… The Erdrik Empire seems to be using it to manufacture weapons,” Samael replied. “The smelting of Bloodsteel requires iron ore, which I’ll get my hands on soon. Once we have the iron ore, we’ll build a new smelting workshop on the mine and mass-produce Bloodsteel. We’ll talk again then.” “You just need to figure out how to create the witch metal components and circuits on this. Leave everything else to me—we still have plenty of Erdrik gold coins left, so feel free to use them.”

“No problem.” Yachi nodded.

Samael turned and pushed open the door, preparing to leave.

“Boss, you look a bit haggard. You’ve been running around non-stop, fighting on the surface while simultaneously calculating, observing, and conducting research underground,” Archie said from behind. “There’s no need to be so anxious for now; our psionic energy is still sufficient.”

“I want to build a better world,” Samuelton paused, “so much so that I can’t wait.”

With the [Necromancer Cultivation Project] and [Psionic Extractor Manufacturing Project] completed, he quickly left the dungeon, passed through the tunnel, and, surrounded by two sword-and-shield knights guarding the dungeon entrance, entered his knight's tomb.

Beneath the Knight's Tomb lies a vast underground storage chamber, where the colossal rotting corpse army slumbers. This monster, created by him by binding together over thirty rotting corpse demons, occupies nine command helmet positions and possesses both destructive power and intimidation.

Behemoth units move slowly and require a certain amount of time to hibernate and recharge after each use.

Around the behemoth of the Corpse Legion were piles of pre-prepared Nether Bronze armor plates, auxiliary components, and giant siege weapons, including Nether Bronze arthropods and power wheels to aid in accelerating movement, massive Nether Bronze ballistae, and huge war drums for intimidation and command.

The nine giant-like corpse knights above held different weapons on their upper bodies: large shields, spears, crossbows, battle axes, halberds, greatswords, and warhammers. The various weapons exuded an oppressive aura.

The undead carried off massive pieces of dark bronze armor and attached them to the behemoth, while Samael extended his gauntlets to firmly weld the dark bronze armor pieces and weapons to the undead behemoth's rotting flesh.

Everything was proceeding smoothly, like a tank maintenance crew repairing and maintaining a weapon of war.

After completing the maintenance and equipping of the war undead behemoth, Samael passed through the doorway next to the underground tomb and found a swollen, tanned corpse hanging from the wall of another tomb with chains of necromancer.

This is the acid-exploding necromancer he found deep in the swamp border region after defeating Prange, while the enemy was still replenishing their forces. It was not controlled by Prange's helmet implant and was still in a wild state.

[Biological Structure Material Testing: Unstable Fermentation Vesicle]

[Unstable fermentation vesicles collect humus and eutrophic water from the surrounding environment, absorb, agitate, filter, and enrich microorganisms, cultivating microbial colonies within themselves. After polarization treatment, they generate flammable and explosive fermentation products (containing gas and liquid), usually acidic, which accelerate infection and decay.]

[It needs an acid-resistant biological structure to support it; otherwise, it will be corroded and burned by the byproducts.]

The database has been updated.

[Burn to the "Artificial Life Sciences - Biological Structure Materials" content library]

The self-destructing undead's body was bulging and bloated, completely unrecognizable as human. It was swollen like a mass of fermenting pus and flesh, its rotten black leathery skin stretched taut by the acid within. Four or five messy limbs squeezed out from between the pus and flesh, barely reaching the ground.

A small opening was made in its body, and a copper pipe was inserted. The fermenting necrotic acid flowing out was then diverted into a large barrel next to it, which was filled with mushrooms. This was a method of processing necrotic acid, where the loose, porous flesh of the fungi absorbed the acid, making the explosive, potion-like acid more stable.

On the nearby molten stone workbench are harpoon guns, artificial parasitic ghouls, acid bombs, and the remains of tanners captured during the previous battle with Prange, which are used to reverse engineer Prange's technology.

The technology isn't too advanced; with a little effort, it's easy to reverse engineer and manufacture. Samael can now basically replicate Prange's acid bomb technology, but the acid undead are few in number and usually deep in the swamp. Currently, he's just trying his luck to find one that Prange hasn't captured.

Although the technical difficulty of replicating it wasn't high, Planger's innovative ability was remarkable; his ideas on killing and torture were hard to imitate. Perhaps he had even more ingenious ideas for necromantic byproducts, Samael thought.

In a sense, Prange was also a genius.

After the acid draining from the necromantic sac in the self-destructing swamp was complete, Samael picked up a large barrel filled with deteriorating humus and poured it into the necromantic swollen body through a large funnel of dark bronze, initiating a new round of fermentation.

The yield of acid from a single exploding necromancer is not very high; it is estimated that it can be extracted once every two days, with each extraction yielding only about one liter.

In the corner of the tomb, there were two or three corroded remains of rotting corpses, their bodies swollen and disfigured. However, without the tough, leathery skin of tanned corpses, their bodies could not withstand the necrotic acid products of the [Unstable Fermentation Bladder].

Samael had selected several suitable necromancers and artificially added biological structural materials called "unstable fermentation sacs" in hopes of increasing fermentation yield—but they were corroded by the acid after fermenting halfway through and began to leak, making the entire workshop smell terrible, and ultimately no high-quality necromancer acid was obtained.

They probably need skin like swamp undead—they've been soaking in swamp water for so long that it's developed a tanned leather-like effect. Only tough, acid- and corrosion-resistant skin can withstand the fermentation process of the sour slurry.

Based on the equipment level of Prange's tanners, it is estimated that there are about fifty acid necromancers in Prange's tomb, continuously providing him with a constant stream of unstable explosive acid necromancer material.

Allies, behemoths, specialized combat units, acid bombs, large siege weapons, the Witch Gold Knight Sword... Samael silently calculated, his fingers slowly clenching his gauntlet, making a slight clicking sound of metal colliding.

What's still missing?

He stared at the life-and-death creature of the Prange on the table, lost in thought. This thing would occupy a command position in the civil war, but it had no corresponding combat capability. That was why Prange lost.

He slowly gazed at the few rotting corpse demons, then passed through another door and entered another room.

Seven or eight burly, robust skeleton warriors stood in the room, their bodies constructed from thick skeletons and rocks, their rough surfaces speckled with smooth, bronze-colored spots, and their joints entwined with the roots of rusted bronze trees. The rusted bronze tree roots trailing from their shoulders cascaded down their backs, forming tattered cloaks.

They wore bell-shaped helmets, carried heavy hammers and spears and tower shields, and their tall and robust bodies were almost identical to those of Samael.

Samael was deep in thought.

Rahador, Ansba, and Prange each gave him some inspiration for artificial necromancy.

Rahador's skill in fusing flesh and blood with the corpse demons allowed him to create a colossal army of corpse beasts.

Ansba's method of creating skeleton warriors allowed him to begin testing methods for cultivating undead rusted copper tree people.

However, the artificial parasitic undead in Planger are actually the most interesting. These small undead can burrow into the flesh and blood bodies of large undead and wreak havoc.

If these techniques were combined... Samael pondered.

He controlled the bell-shaped helmet rotten root ball in a distant land and spoke to his ally, Ansba.

"How are the combat skills?" he asked. "Are they easy to use?"

“That’s exactly what I need.” Ansba replied a few seconds later, “Ready?”

“Let’s begin,” Samael said.

(End of this chapter)