Chapter 129: Power is Built with Money

Chapter 129: Power is Built with Money

Shadow Lake City.

Upon returning to the island city, Su Nan was surprised to find that the number of slaves in the lower district seemed to have increased significantly. On his way through the lower district, he saw five groups of dogmen and lizardmen, each carrying mining picks, being led by sphinxes out of the city.

Su Nan pondered this development.

He had barely returned to the study in Base 2 when Carolina rushed in.

"Master, you're back."

Carolina bowed respectfully.

Su Nan waved his hand casually and asked, "What's going on with those slaves outside?"

Carolina quickly explained, "I was just about to report on that."

"Kasham's insects have been raiding the nearby small tribes recently, and those tribes, unable to survive, have been migrating towards us. Since we have three more mines to develop, I decided to capture them and put them to work."

Carolina's tone was matter-of-fact. In the underground world, it was common for the strong to capture the weak as slaves. Food had once been a concern, but now with supplies from Flashing City, Carolina no longer hesitated to capture more slaves.

Su Nan nodded, realizing he would need to have Base 1 produce more clay golems to ensure the other three mines operated smoothly.

"So, the insect plague is coming soon?"

"Most likely," Carolina said solemnly. "Based on past patterns, it shouldn't be more than half a year."

She paused, then hesitantly added, "Master, should we contact Mathu and Osen? Dealing with the insect plague on our own might be too much."

"No rush. Let's see how Mathu and Osen react first."

Su Nan waved her off and turned to other matters.

"How much mithril do we have in the storeroom?"

"About three kilograms," Carolina replied without hesitation. As his competent assistant, she knew what Su Nan cared about most and had memorized all relevant data.

"Three kilograms, huh."

Su Nan frowned slightly. Crafting a single arcane automaton required at least sixteen kilograms of mithril. Even with the mithril accumulated from Base 1, they were still far short of the required amount.

"Are there any other silver veins nearby?"

Carolina thought for a moment. "Within a hundred kilometers of Shadow Lake City, only two silver veins have been discovered. We are already developing one, and the other is under Mathu's control."

Mathu, huh.

Su Nan's eyes flickered.

"Keep gathering mithril."

"Oh, and where is Amy?"

Carolina hesitated, glancing around with a peculiar expression. She had a feeling that Amy had been secretly watching her lately. Despite Amy's ability to teleport, Carolina, as a noble sphinx skilled in illusions, could still sense her presence.

If it were anyone else, Carolina might have suspected they were spying on her. But Amy, being a somewhat dimwitted magical pet, shouldn't have such intentions.

Who could be behind this?

It couldn't be Master; he has no reason to do so.

Could it be the apprentices at the base? They might be the only ones who could persuade Amy.

Her thoughts wandered, but her expression remained calm. "Lady Amy was here just a moment ago."

As if on cue, Amy suddenly appeared on Su Nan's shoulder.

"Meow, Su Nan, you're back! Why did you take so long? I missed you!"

"Things got a bit hectic, so I was delayed," Su Nan said with a smile, petting Amy's head, which made her purr contentedly. "But now that things on the surface are settled, I'll be staying here for a while."

"That's great, meow!"

Amy cheered, then seemed to remember something. She vanished and reappeared a few seconds later, holding a cloth bag in her mouth.

"Meow, this is a gift. I've been collecting some treasures recently," Amy mumbled.

"Thank you."

Su Nan smiled and took the bag, opening it to examine its contents. Inside were over a dozen items: spirit flowers, frostwood, hawk's eye agates—rare and valuable materials unique to the underground world.

Su Nan marveled at Amy's particle sensing ability, which made finding such rare materials in the underground world almost effortless.

"How about it, meow?" Amy asked eagerly, her eyes wide with anticipation, clearly hoping for praise.

Su Nan smiled. "I love the gift, thank you. I'll give you some Ice-cooled Mint later as a return gift."

Amy's eyes lit up, and she almost drooled.

The Ice-cooled Mint she had tasted from Su Nan was the most delicious of all. It was like the ultimate flavor, as if many Ice-cooled Mints were condensed into one.

One flower could keep her happy for a whole day!

"Then hurry up, meow! I'll wait right here!" Amy urged excitedly.

Su Nan nodded with a smile and gave Carolina a meaningful look, signaling her to prepare some Ice-cooled Mint.

Carolina glanced at Amy with a hint of resentment, feeling that she was less important than a cat.

After synthesizing some Ice-cooled Mint to calm Amy down, Su Nan headed to the puppet factory and released the Elite Dual-blade Spider.

In several battles against the Starfire Cult, the Elite Dual-blade Spider had proven its worth. Its combat strength was on par with a Hidden Dragon whose draconic bloodline concentration had reached 28%.

As Su Nan's strength grew, he began to uncover more and more secrets, and the opponents he faced became increasingly powerful.

Puppets like the Stone Golem and Dual-blade Spider were effective against ordinary knights, but they were no match for more formidable enemies, not even as cannon fodder.

Even advanced puppets like the Elite Stone Golem and Steel Golem, which were Tier 1 Legendary puppets, were becoming less effective.

Thus, Su Nan felt it was necessary to create more advanced golems for the future.

He had three options.

The first was the Elite Dual-blade Spider.

The Elite Dual-blade Spider had already proven its combat capabilities. This swift puppet was particularly useful against agile enemies.

According to his instructions before he left, both Base 1 and Base 2 had accumulated a large amount of tungsten steel, which was perfect for forging Dual-blade Spiders.

Su Nan estimated he could synthesize three to four Elite Dual-blade Spiders.

The second option was to create higher-tier Stone Golems.

Since forging Steel Golems required Micro Soul Crystals, and there was no stable supply yet, it was not feasible to mass-produce them. Therefore, he had to settle for Stone Golems.

At least Su Nan had a steady supply of gems.

Before coming to Shadow Lake City, he had visited Base 1 to check on the insect nest. During his absence, Carolina had regularly delivered the split catalytic nutrients to Base 1, where the apprentices fed the Gem Bugs.

The number of Gem Bugs had increased to eighteen, and the annual gem production had risen to over six hundred.

In addition, he regularly purchased gems from the Firefox Guild, ensuring a steady supply of materials.

The cost of synthesizing a Tier 2 Legendary Stone Golem was relatively low, around 20,000 gold coins.

Even with the addition of the Enchanted Weapon technology, the cost would only be slightly over 20,000 gold coins, which was less than that of a higher-tier Dual-blade Spider.

In terms of combat power, the Stone Golem was slightly inferior to the higher-tier Dual-blade Spider but excelled in frontal assaults.

The third option was to forge even higher-tier golems.

Auregnis' experimental notes contained the design for a Mithril Golem.

The Mithril Golem is a Tier 3 Legendary golem, with combat strength surpassing many third-year wizard apprentices.

Roses had been helpless against the Mithril Golem and had to seek Su Nan's help to resolve the situation.

Even Su Nan, at the time, had to use his full Magic Pattern Core power to barely injure the Mithril Golem.

Now, with his enhanced strength, he would still need to exert considerable effort to defeat one.

If he had fifty to sixty Mithril Golems, Su Nan felt he could walk around the Starlight Continent with confidence.

"However, forging a Mithril Golem is quite challenging."

Even among various types of golems, the Mithril Golem ranks in the middle, with a high difficulty in forging.

A Level 4 Puppet Forging skill was only barely sufficient; Level 5 was considered the standard.

Su Nan opened his interface and checked.

Due to his long-term mass production of golems, his Puppet Forging skill was now two-thirds complete, needing only a few thousand more points of proficiency to reach Level 5.

The skill requirement was not a problem; he would meet it soon.

The key was still the materials.

The primary material for a Mithril Golem was enchanted mithril, a product of mithril that had undergone enchantment. A single Mithril Golem required about fourteen to fifteen tons of enchanted mithril. Add to that various gems, rare materials, silver, and gold, and the total cost would be around fifty thousand gold coins.

"Fortunately, I recently made a significant profit from the Starfire Cult, which should be enough to forge a Mithril Golem."

Su Nan estimated that it would take him one to two years to refine fourteen to fifteen tons of enchanted mithril on his own. However, if he assigned the task to the apprentices at Base 1, it should be completed in about two to three months. The process of refining enchanted mithril was not particularly difficult, similar to enchanting weapons, and many of the apprentices at the base were already capable of handling it independently.

With this in mind, Su Nan noted it down and planned to implement it as soon as he returned to Base 1. For now, he began refining the Dual-blade Spiders.

It took him over a month and a half to refine all the tungsten steel from both bases into Dual-blade Spiders, ultimately synthesizing four Elite Dual-blade Spiders. Including the one he already had, Su Nan now possessed five Tier 2 Legendary puppets.

However, he did not stop there and began further experimentation.

"The Dual-blade Spiders are agile, but they also have a significant weakness: they can't fly."

"Against Legendary Knights, they are effective, but if they face a wizard apprentice who knows Levitation or has a flying magic item, they become sitting ducks."

To address this weakness, Su Nan ultimately decided to permanently enchant the Dual-blade Spiders with Levitation. This idea came from the design of the arcane automaton, which allowed any puppet to permanently cast spells and gain spellcasting abilities. However, the arcane automaton could do this because it was made primarily of gems and mithril, which Su Nan was reluctant to use at this stage.

So, he came up with an alternative solution: to use the method of creating magic items to add spellcasting abilities to the Dual-blade Spiders. This involved adding a spell-storing magic item to the Dual-blade Spiders. Since the spiders lacked mental energy, another form of energy was needed to activate the magic item and cast spells. Su Nan ultimately chose to use magic stones.

The resulting Elite Dual-blade Spiders gained the ability to fly after casting Levitation, at the cost of consuming one lower-grade magic stone per hour. For other wizard apprentices, this would be an astonishingly high cost, as using precious magic stones just to grant flight was both extravagant and impractical. However, Su Nan had an abundance of magic stones and could produce them cheaply and in large quantities. What was a valuable resource for others was merely a cheap and abundant energy source for him.

The cost of permanently enchanting a Tier 2 spell, such as Levitation, added about three hundred gold coins to the total cost. Considering the likelihood of facing Kasham's insect swarm, Su Nan also added a large-area damage spell, Crushing Sound, a flexibility-enhancing spell, Lightness, a body-strengthening spell, Toughness, and a strength-enhancing spell, Might.

In the end, the cost of a single Elite Dual-blade Spider exceeded twenty-three thousand gold coins, and the total cost for five of them was over one hundred and ten thousand gold coins. This did not include the cost of magic stones during combat.

"Third-year wizard apprentices typically have abilities ranging from Level 1 to Level 4 spells."

"The combat strength of an Elite Dual-blade Spider is roughly equivalent to that of a mid-level third-year wizard apprentice."

"Exchanging eleven thousand gold coins for the combat power of five third-year wizard apprentices is a good deal."

Su Nan nodded in approval. He planned to synthesize a few more Tier 2 Legendary Stone Golems to be well-prepared. Additionally, he would manufacture a batch of Amulet of Protection and Ring of Catastrophe for defense.

Since he was already producing puppets that cost over twenty thousand gold coins, a batch of low-grade magic items was not a significant additional expense. However, this meant that the mining income from Shadow Lake City over the next few months would be entirely invested in this endeavor. It was fortunate that three new mines had been recently developed, or he would not have been able to sustain such heavy spending.

"Power is built with money."

Su Nan couldn't help but sigh.

(End of Chapter)

Chapter end