The twenty-first floor of the dungeon.
Li Xiuman and his adorable, charming, utterly rotted, and foul-smelling servants lined up in an orderly row like primary schoolers on a field trip, passing through the passageway between the twentieth and twenty-first floors.
Li Xiuman, however, looked back at the passageway with deep reluctance.
His beloved palanquin was too large, preventing it from passing through the passage.
So he had no choice but to leave it behind on the other side.
Damn it. He had drawn out so many of his own bones and spent ages using Bone Hyperplasia to craft that cherished bone palanquin.
Pulling out all those bones had left him feeling faint even now.
To think he had to abandon it before he could even ride in it more than a few times.
“Clack, clack~”
The gnoll zombie beside him seemed to sense Li Xiuman's gloomy mood and shuffled closer, attempting to comfort him.
Staring at the ugly, rotting, reeking face of the gnoll zombie, Li Xiuman's already sour mood grew even worse.
Though it was admittedly a bit bizarre for a skeleton to call a zombie ugly.
Still, some people actually liked skeletons.
A gnoll zombie wasn't even liked by its own master.
“Keep moving.”
Adjusting his mood, Li Xiuman had the gnolls surround him as guards and continued deeper into the sweltering dungeon depths.
Unlike White Bear City—where lava dominated after the twentieth floor and pitch-black rocks floated like islands on top of the molten lava—Iron River City had far less lava, which flowed between the dark rocks like winding rivers.
The monsters inhabiting this area were red-skinned goblins.
[Name] Flame Goblin
[Race] Unique Variant Goblin
[Level] Lv. 21
[Class] Monster Fire Mage
[Status] Healthy
[Skills] Fire Magic Lv. 3, Fire Resistance Lv. 3, Muscle Strengthening Lv. 2, Skin Hardening Lv. 2, Swiftness Lv. 1, Great Strength Lv. 1, Self-Healing Lv. 1
[Description] A unique variant goblin living in lava regions. Possesses a stronger fire affinity than ordinary goblins, and its level cap breaks past the racial limits of goblins. Highly dangerous.
This single goblin had charged straight into Li Xiuman's zombie army, turning the Eldest Thief—who had stayed by Li Xiuman's side the longest—into hero fragments.
Li Xiuman was deeply saddened.
So he stripped the Eldest Thief's equipment off and put it onto this newly recruited goblin.
The Eldest Thief was dead, but his will lived on.
His legacy would be passed down through this equipment from generation to generation.
After that, Li Xiuman wandered around the floor, partly wanting to harvest rare materials, and partly to upgrade his zombie army.
By the time he finished roaming the floor, half of Li Xiuman's zombie army had been replaced with red-skinned goblins.
Among them, the ones with the Fire Mage class retained their Fire Magic Lv. 3 even after becoming zombies.
Leading his newly minted zombie army, Li Xiuman descended to the twenty-second floor.
He finally found the material he was looking for.
Pink-melt talc.
A magical ore that appeared grayish-white on the surface.
After refining, it yielded pink-melt talc powder.
Once melted, that powder became pink-melt stone.
Pink-melt stone boasted excellent magic conductivity and malleability, presenting a white shade with a hint of pink. Because of these properties, it was commonly used to construct the outer layer of magic sword hilts.
However, due to its color, adventurers despised it, and later, when people mistook it for human skin wrapped around sword hilts, it became even more reviled.
Because so many disliked it, merchants stopped selling it altogether.
The material was difficult to mine, requiring a massive amount of ore just to extract a small quantity. Combined with its rarity and unpopularity, nobody bothered to mine and sell this stuff anymore.
But Li Xiuman didn't mind.
This material perfectly met his needs.
Its magic conductivity, malleability, and color satisfied every single one of Li Xiuman's requirements.
His Number Zero was finally going to get its own skin.
How should he design its appearance?
As Li Xiuman mined, he pondered how to design Number Zero's look.
After making a round on the twenty-second floor, he mined a fair amount of pink-melt talc.
But considering that this pink-melt talc still needed two rounds of processing to produce pink-melt stone, the remaining quantity after two refinements might not be very much.
So he needed to collect more.
Besides pink-melt talc, Li Xiuman also gathered a good amount of other rare ores.
They should be worth a decent amount of gold coins with Kuntu.
On the twenty-third floor, he continued mining pink-melt talc.
At this point, Li Xiuman's zombie army had been entirely replaced with goblins.
A uniform sea of red-skinned goblins—it finally looked far less chaotic than the previous mix of gnolls and goblins.
As for the gnoll corpses...
Those cruel questions were far too sharp for Li Xiuman to confront.
In short, they had been properly tossed into the molten lava without leaving a single trace behind.
After all, a Necromancer—a class that toyed with corpses—was very likely a taboo class.
Li Xiuman wouldn't make an amateurish mistake like leaving corpses behind for people to discover traces of undead reanimation.
But right now, Li Xiuman was fully capable of making a rookie mistake like stepping into a trap while trying to pick up a gold coin.
So if some kind soul set up a gold coin trap in front of him right now, he would dive onto it without a second thought.
It had already been a week since he entered the dungeon, which meant the time to pick up his custom blade had arrived.
He so badly wanted to see his beloved sword.
Was Kuntu taking good care of his sword? Was his sword being mistreated? Were the other swords in the blacksmith shop bullying his sword? Was his sword covered properly with a blanket at night? Did it kick off the covers in its sleep?
Nobody besides Kuntu was touching his sword, right?
Absolutely no NTR!
Just thinking about it made him feel intensely anxious.
No, he couldn't keep thinking like this, or his mind was going to break.
A day later.
The twenty-fourth floor.
“Killing you will be just enough to level me up.”
Standing amidst his army of zombie goblins, Li Xiuman raised his wand and aimed it at the massive goblin ahead.
Over two meters tall, beneath its leather clothing were massive, stone-hard muscles, and it held a bone club in its hand.
Its bright red skin looked as though it had been flayed.
It had long ears and a gold ring pierced through its prominent hooked nose.
Piercing through the skin on its forehead was a pair of massive horns.
A pitch-black iron crown rested atop its bald head—crude, yet symbolizing its noble status.
Surrounding it was a horde of goblins, constantly snarling in Li Xiuman's direction.
[Name] Goblin King
[Race] Unique Variant Goblin
[Level] Lv. 30
[Class] Unique Variant: King
[Status] Healthy, Enraged
[Skills] Fire Magic Lv. 3, Clubmanship Lv. 3, Great Strength Lv. 3, Fire Resistance Lv. 3, Resilience Lv. 2, Skin Hardening Lv. 2, Muscle Strengthening Lv. 2, Self-Healing Lv. 2, Swiftness Lv. 2, Close Combat Lv. 2, Hard Bone Lv. 1, Elemental Resistance Lv. 1
[Description] The king of goblins and master of flame. A unique variant monster of the dungeon. Violent and dangerous, a born leader of goblins. Extremely dangerous.
Rate on N.U.
