"Living Quicksilver Solution?"
Ambrose tapped his own skull. He'd heard of the alchemical potion. It was a defective byproduct of the Alchemists' Council's recent new slime cultivation project.
The council had been frustrated by their lack of new creations in recent years, which made the arrogant alchemists quite anxious. After all, in their eyes, mages, warlocks, and even gods were nothing compared to the flasks and beakers in their hands.
They were lost in the grand delusion that alchemy could create anything, even attempting to create a true god a few hundred years ago. They forgot, however, that the God of Alchemy actually existed.
The deity could not tolerate such an act of blasphemy and delivered a failure so profound that the arrogant alchemists would never forget it.
The god-crafting project was a complete disaster. Furthermore, the God of Alchemy cursed all alchemists, ensuring that none could ever again draw inspiration from his divine power.
For two hundred years, not a single new potion formula emerged from the great City of Alchemy, Alchemia. It wasn't until seventy years ago that the current president of the Alchemists' Council finally broke the divine seal and created a new formula, saving Alchemia from a slow collapse.
This president was a legendary figure himself. He broke the god's curse, saved the City of Alchemy, and reformed its laws. He opened the city to talent of all races and nationalities and offered a wide range of affordable potions as a public service. The city quickly attracted a flood of talent and, over several decades, was reborn.
Ambrose had moved to the City of Alchemy in recent decades, and it was only because of its tolerant atmosphere that he'd dared to undergo his transformation into a lich there.
But as the legendary president grew old and retreated from the public eye, the alchemists started playing with fire again. They were once more obsessed with creating species that did not exist, one of which was the metal slime.
Without the guidance of their genius president, the experiments failed repeatedly. The resulting "metal slimes" were little more than piles of slime corpses, so they rebranded the byproduct as Living Quicksilver Solution, useful only for melting and breaking down metals.
Their other bizarre new-species experiments also failed one after another. The City of Alchemy wasted vast resources, plunging it into a severe financial crisis. With the economy in decline, the elves of the Silvermoon High Court were quick to kick them while they were down, drastically increasing the price of potion ingredients and exacerbating Alchemia’s fiscal woes.
The result was the bankruptcy of numerous potion-related industries. Even an undead creature like Ambrose was affected, with his various investments turning sour, leaving him in a full-blown financial crisis.
Damn those High Elves!
Ambrose cursed them again before replying in the Codex of the Undead.
[Tiga Ultraman: You need this for an experiment? I heard the solution is a failed product. All the slimes mercurized by it lost their vital activity.]
[Crown of the Headless Knight: I know, but the solution retains the slime's 'eat anything' trait. I have a special situation here and need it to dispose of some metallic junk.]
[Tiga Ultraman: A secret stash of money?]
[Crown of the Headless Knight: What secret stash? By the Goddess of Undeath, don't you go spreading baseless rumors!]
[Withered Rose: Sounds like a secret stash to me. Why would an undead being get married in the first place? And to a Bone Dragon, no less.]
[Crown of the Headless Knight: You people don't understand the joys of marriage. Enough chatter. Brother Tiga, can you get it or not? I'll even cover the portal fees.]
[Tiga Ultraman: I can try, but it'll probably be expensive. The Alchemists' Council is trying to cut costs and boost profits every way they can. They've even jacked up the price of this failed product, probably trying to recoup some of their losses.]
[Crown of the Headless Knight: Twenty thousand gold coins for a vial. I can give you half as a deposit.]
An image slowly appeared on the yellowed parchment—a rare magical ingredient known as Dragonbone Vine.
Legend had it that this vine would only grow on a legendary Bone Dragon that had slumbered for a century. It was an essential catalyst for many high-level potions.
As the image grew clearer, the Dragonbone Vine materialized from the page, becoming a physical object. It was one of the unique functions of the Codex of the Undead: small items could be teleported to specific recipients.
The Headless Knight fellow really put his money where his mouth was. No wonder he married a Bone Dragon; the dowry must have been substantial. With the High Elves constantly inflating potion prices, this Dragonbone Vine was worth at least twelve thousand gold coins. He’d overpaid the deposit. The secret stash this guy was hiding must be huge.
"To hell with those damned High Elves! I'll tear down your Silvermoon High Court one day!"
Ambrose cursed again, then replied to his fellow lich. "I'll place the order now. It should arrive in five days at the most."
Closing the Codex, Ambrose immediately focused his magic, conjuring a magical raven.
Such a minor spell was child's play for a Legendary spellcaster.
The raven had a single purpose: to carry a letter with his purchase order into the City of Alchemy. In a few days, a merchant caravan would deliver the Living Quicksilver Solution to his castle.
Life as a mage was just that convenient.
After writing the purchase order, however, Ambrose retrieved a pile of skeletal materials from a cabinet, preparing to continue his experiments.
"Hmph. Discriminate against the undead, will they? I'll show them. My research is absolutely sound."
With a wave of his hand, a neatly assembled skeleton was disassembled by an invisible force, breaking down into a pile of individual bones.
The bones floated around Ambrose as he sank into thought.
Skeletons were clumsy because the structure of the human skeleton was incredibly complex, and death inflicted tremendous trauma on the human soul.
Every novice necromancer went through this stage, creating undead with low-quality souls, resulting in clumsy movements. A skeleton created this way was like a moron piloting a Gundam; it would take years of practice to precisely control every single joint.
That was why most wild undead needed a great deal of time to master their bodies, which Ambrose considered a pointless endeavor. The soul was a computer with limited processing power. Wasting resources on maintaining balance was bound to result in clumsy movements.
"Why must a skeleton be humanoid? Why must it walk on two feet? Wouldn't four wheels be much simpler?"
Bipedal locomotion was an inherently inefficient design. Intelligent life had only evolved to walk upright to free up their hands for tool use, but the motion itself was incredibly difficult. Even a living human child needed about a year to learn to toddle and might still be unable to run without falling after four or five years.
But if you were already undead, why obsess over whether you had two legs or eight?
If the base form was inherently stable, you wouldn't need to worry about falling. The processing power saved on balance could be dedicated to other actions, which would naturally be performed better. If you further restricted those actions to simple, repetitive, discrete movements, the soul's job would become even easier.
Ambrose unrolled several scrolls. On them were his meticulously designed new skeleton models. Originally, these designs were meant to be published in Legendary Incantations, to be discussed and researched with fellow necromancers.
Now, Ambrose could only build them according to his initial plans.
He already had plenty of housekeeping skeletons in the castle, but to impress his undead colleagues, Ambrose needed to create a skeleton warrior that was cheaper but more combat-effective.
"Traditional skeleton warriors can only fight with melee weapons..."
Ambrose began to carefully sort the bones, assembling them like parts of a machine. Then he took out a glass jar and retrieved a translucent orb of light from within.
This was a Simulated Soul. He could not only create souls from nothing but also modify them. The processing power of this soul was far too low to control an entire skeleton, but if it only needed to control one or two joints, it could handle the task with ease. All it needed was a little modification...
As Ambrose was busy at work, a sudden scream echoed from outside the castle. He immediately dropped the bone in his hand. The soulfire in his eye sockets coalesced, like human pupils constricting.
His magical traps had been triggered. Someone had breached his castle through unconventional means.