Chapter 130: The Mysterious Meeting and Research

Watching Lando depart with profuse thanks, Loriel’s smile faded. After standing silent for a long while, he turned and headed toward the upper levels of the library.

The Central Academy’s library operated on a tiered access system: the higher the level, the more precious the books, and correspondingly, the greater the authority required to enter.

When Loriel reached the library’s highest, fifth floor, there was no one else in sight. He approached a bookshelf against the wall, closed his eyes, and sensed his surroundings for a moment. Once he had confirmed that no one was nearby, he took down one of the books, opened it to a certain page, and drew a few marks across it before returning it to its original place.

Faint, eerie light began to radiate from the book, slowly spreading across the entire bookshelf. Then the bookshelf seemed to transform into an illusion, and Loriel simply stepped through it.

Beyond it lay a spacious secret chamber. Three of its walls were covered in ancient, weathered reliefs that seemed to depict scattered fragments of certain events. On the western wall, however, there was only a vague human silhouette carved into its center.

A round table stood in the middle of the chamber. A crystal orb floated above its exact center, its radiance illuminating the entire room. Ten sinister bone chairs were arranged around the table in a circle.

Nine of them were already occupied.

Closest to the western wall sat a young man dressed in a black robe. He was handsome and bright, wearing a sunny smile utterly out of place in the gloomy chamber. He was none other than Prince Jigger.

The other eight were all dressed in gray robes, their hoods pulled low over their faces as though they feared being recognized.

By the time Loriel entered the chamber, he too was concealed beneath a gray robe, indistinguishable from the others.

Prince Jigger smiled. “You’re late.”

Loriel replied calmly, “I ran into a minor matter.”

“Oh? That junior student you’ve been observing lately? It seems you think highly of him.”

“Yes. Every time I see him, I’m reminded of my former self—just as ignorant and… innocent.”

“What? Are you dissatisfied with your life now?”

“Of course… not!” Loriel lightly gathered his robe. “I’m very satisfied with everything I have now!”

Prince Jigger chuckled. “All right, enough idle chatter. I summoned everyone here because we have a troublesome matter on our hands. Something has gone wrong in the south. Someone is attacking our strongholds, and the leader is rather unusual. We need to send an expert to deal with it. What do you all think? Oh, and one more thing—I want him alive…”

* * *

After leaving the library, Lando returned directly to his dormitory. The shot had already been fired; now all he had to do was let the bullet fly for a while.

Once back in his room, he did not rest. Instead, he opened his mindscape, and a grassland emerged before him.

Lando touched the black bracelet around his wrist. Albert had given it to him after he enrolled. Its purpose was to store undead creatures, and it was considered one of the benefits available to Awakened.

Lando released the bone beast. The creature appeared and silently came to stand beside him, waiting for his command.

Based on the knowledge he had acquired recently, although the undead creature before him was called a bone beast, the term itself referred to a broad category. Most non-humanoid skeletal undead creatures could be classified as bone beasts.

The one Lando had subdued had most likely been a bear-like creature in life. After becoming undead, its flesh had been completely corrupted by the power of death, while its bones had undergone massive growth under the influence of that same power. This was one of the defining traits of bone beasts.

By contrast, there was another kind of undead whose flesh was not corrupted by the power of death after dying. Instead, it absorbed that power, causing the body to become even stronger while retaining a considerable portion of the special abilities it had possessed in life.

Such undead creatures were known as zombies.

Lando’s purpose in summoning the bone beast was simple: he wanted to test the results of his studies over the past few days.

He raised a hand slightly. Runes formed from the power of death appeared before him. Since this was his mindscape, accomplishing such a thing was relatively easy.

The runes flew and spiraled around him one after another before plunging into the bone beast’s body. This was actually a rather clumsy method of screening. Without the mindscape, merely completing this step would have required a considerable amount of time and effort.

Before long, the runes formed from the power of death dissipated one after another within the bone beast’s body. This did not exceed Lando’s expectations. Without pausing, he began condensing another batch of runes.

Poor bone beast. Though it was suffering intensely, it still had to remain perfectly still under its master’s command, appearing somewhat helpless.

As one basic rune after another flashed past, Lando’s eyes suddenly lit up. After entering the bone beast’s body, one of the runes did not dissipate. Instead, replenished by the creature’s power of death, it connected with that power.

After Lando had tested every basic rune he had studied during this period on the bone beast, three runes were floating within its body.

Now came the true main event.

Lando first recalled the records in the books, then used the three runes within the bone beast as a foundation to construct the corresponding spells: **Might**, **Giant Growth**, and **Toughness**.

All three spells had been expanded from those three runes. Once imprinted upon the bone beast, they caused surging death energy to begin churning around it, enveloping its entire body.

The bone beast, originally three meters tall, slowly began to grow. It stopped only after reaching roughly five meters.

When the power of death dispersed, the bone beast had undergone a complete transformation. Its body had become enormous, while its bones were thicker and more durable. Sinister spikes had grown from its joints, and the aura it emanated was more than twice as powerful as before.

Although Lando had learned **Might**, **Giant Growth**, and **Toughness** from the books, Little Gray had optimized them through calculation. The effectiveness of each spell had been increased by at least thirty percent over its original foundation, resulting in the bone beast’s extraordinary enhancement.

Lando was very satisfied with the experiment. He paid no attention to the bone beast, whose intelligence seemed to have improved along with its strength and which was now enthusiastically displaying its abilities before its master.

At that moment, Lando’s mind was filled entirely with plans for improving the sentinel golem.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of the basic runes he had learned here were related to the death element. Those alone were clearly insufficient.

Lando let out a long breath and temporarily set aside his design for the new sentinel golem. He carefully examined the transformed bone beast.

Originally, its strength had seemed to lie somewhere between the second and third ranks. Although it had not yet undergone any specific testing, Little Gray’s calculations indicated that it now possessed approximately fourth-rank strength. It could at least be considered acceptable cannon fodder.

Through this period of reading and gathering information, Little Gray had also completed an initial assessment of Lando’s strength in this world.

The assault-type sentinel golem possessed strength above the sixth rank, though a single one could not contend with a seventh-rank opponent. If Lando fully revealed his own strength, he could deal with eighth-rank opponents as well. Ninth-rank opponents were uncertain, but escaping would certainly not be a problem. As for legendary beings, their strength was difficult to estimate.

Of course, all of this was based on Little Gray’s calculations from the information currently available. The actual situation would only become clear once he encountered such opponents himself.

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