"Yes! Yes! Let me bring you to my work station," said Eto. He excitedly brought Five to a separate working station. There, Five saw a large piece of cloth, covering a circular object.
The gnome felt Five's curiosity and impatience. He did not waste time and pulled the piece of cloth, revealing a small round robot. The robot was about 40 cm high. Its body was large and round. It had an old rusty appearance due to the dull color of the metal; clearly, the gnomes did not bother about the aesthetics.
"This is our fourth prototype, Alpha 4. I invite you to try to control it." Eto took out a metallic object and handed it to Five. It was a remote control!
Being familiar with the object, Five pressed a few buttons and the robot reacted. Its movements were clunky, but it nevertheless took a few steps forward and waved its hands. Every time it moved, a loud clanking sound would sound from its fat belly.
"The movements it can do are limited when controlled by the remote control. However, we are looking for ways to improve it. We know that at Tinyland, they have already developed Voice Recognition. Although we did have a look at the blueprints, the current grade of our profession is too low."
Five continued to play with Alpha 4 for a while. "Not bad. I am satisfied with it. Please look for ways to improve it. Can this be used for battle?"
"Not at the moment. It is mostly the goblins who focus on the battle side of Engineering. We will need a bit more time to incorporate weapons into it. However, it can already be used for manual tasks. I heard that you will be summoning Corrupted Servants soon. But we can do it like at Tinyland and use robots to do the work. They are cheap to make and will use less DP as they only consume a few Mana Crystals when operating."
Eto carefully put forward the positive points of the robot. Although it was weak and could not be used for battle yet, after undergoing some upgrades, it would be perfect to perform all manual tasks.
"Mmm... Alright. Please continue your work. If you need anything, you can ask Angela or Dreidus for it," answered Five.
'Using machines to replace manual workers. Looks like we are going through the industrial revolution. What a brilliant idea!'
By doing so, Five would save a lot of DP. According to the gnomes, Tinyland was mostly automated. Robots did everything but there was a huge downside to this system.
Robots could not be purchased in the dungeon shop. They were products of engineering and needed to be manually built. If a dungeon used exclusively robots to fight its enemies, once all the robots were destroyed, the dungeon would be completely defenseless. Therefore, the dungeon needed a massive crafting team to produce enough robots daily.
Making a robot would take a gnome about twelve hours of work. It represented an entire day as gnomes were not undead monsters; they needed to eat and sleep. Considering that thousands of monsters died every day in his dungeon, Five found it unreasonable to make a floor dedicated to them.
However, the fighting robots would have another use! The first thing that came to his mind when he saw it was how similar they were to an electronic pet! It was not unusual for games to have pets. There was even the Tamer profession which would allow the players to tame beasts and turn them into loyal companions.
But what if the small robot was controllable by voice and could fight to some extent. It did not need to deal a lot of damage, only enough to be relevant. Didn't the robot suddenly look very much like any regular pet? Once gnomes fixed its appearance, then it would make an excellent drop that would attract the players to his dungeon! The selling point was that anyone could own one; there was no need for specific professions or titles!
Five had always been looking for ways to attract players and now, he finally found it. The players were like customers, he needed to give them a reason to make them come back. One way to attract the players would be to summon a lot of monsters and make them weaker than normal to provide them with an excellent hunting ground. However, this method would cost him a lot of DP but with the robots, he was providing them with a unique drop!
"Thank you, Master. I promise that we will soon have a fully operational robot," exclaimed Eto.
Five nodded and left the workshop with Dreidus and Angela. They went to the latter's laboratory to have a quick look.
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Along the way, Five commented, "Looks like we need to invest a little bit more in this crafting team. Such a pity we do not have other monsters capable of crafting. None of the Nosferatu have any aptitude for any profession. Are there any undead monsters capable of crafting?"
Dreidus pondered for a moment. "Only societal monsters are able to craft. Among the true undead monsters, only the Bonesmen can craft. Coincidentally, they would also benefit from Dwarfism and practice engineering, but their technology mainly focuses on the use of bones."
As Five listened to the lich, he recalled the information about the Bonesmen. They were essentially a smaller version of skeletons who were able to think for themselves. They were the only societal monster among the Undead monsters.
"What about Necro Valley? How did the people there craft?" asked Five.
Dreidus sighed. "To be honest, even I have a profession. It's just that it is pointless to practice it now. I am a Necromancer."
"I already know that. What does it have to do with your profession?" asked Five with a confused expression.
"What I want to say is that Necromancer is both a class and a profession." Dreidus smirked at Five's confused expression and explained:
"Most people only know Necromancers because of their class. They can summon undead monsters to fight for them, similar to what summoners do. However, it is possible for us to upgrade the Undead Monsters and this is done by the Necromancer profession."
"It mostly consists of rituals. For example, I can give classes to the undead. I can turn all the skeletons in the labyrinth into warrior skeletons or archer skeletons. They are not available in the dungeon shop because just like the robot you just saw, they are a product of a profession. The products of advanced professions like Necromancer or Engineer cannot be purchased directly. "
"The problem is that Necromancers do not only require materials like the other professions, they also require living sacrifices. To evolve a simple skeleton into a Warrior Skeleton, it would require killing a living person and performing a ritual."
Five and Angela quietly listened to Dreidus' dull explanation. They were not aware of the existence of such a profession and would have never expected that Undead Monsters could actually be upgraded.
"Necro Valley specializes mostly in undead monsters but they also look into all Dark attribute monsters. For example, we can turn the Shades of the Labyrinth into Necroshades with the right sacrifices. Sometimes, we can also combine undead monsters. Death Knights can be naturally summoned but they can also be artificially made by combining a Skeleton, an Undying Steed and a regular armor."
"I know I should have told you about it before, but it would not have had much of an impact. There was no way for us to gather people to sacrifice and even if we can do it now, I am quite reluctant to perform this type of Necromancy."
Dreidus sighed as he finished his explanation. They had already arrived at Angela's laboratory and without asking for permission, he grabbed a seat and sat down with a tired expression.
"Looks like Necro Valley is really a powerful force. Fortunately, it is located quite far from here," said Five. He allowed Dreidus to recollect his thoughts before asking, "May I ask why you are reluctant to perform that Necromancy? It would be greatly beneficial to the dungeon."
The lich bitterly smiled. "There are two types of Undead. The first type consists of dead souls or creatures being summoned from the Purgatory or Hell. The second type consists of real living people being forcefully turned into Undead Monsters. Unfortunately, I form part of the second category."
"When we first met, I told you that there might be some dangers in the future. Necro Valley is powerful and that is because all of its higher-ups are immortals who trained for centuries. The truth is that they will still die and their body would still decay but they found a way to transfer their souls into someone else's body using necromantic rituals."
"I was just a clueless recruit who trained painfully to climb the ranks, but little did I know that I was just getting closer to my doom. It is the customs of Necro Valley that once a member reaches a certain level, his body would be purified and prepared for the passage of souls. My soul would be destroyed and replaced by one of the old monsters of Necro Valley."
"I escaped just before but unfortunately, the ritual had already started. I ran all the way to here and dug this cave. I knew I did not have long to live and, in the end, I cursed myself to prevent the soul transfer from happening. Even as my soul went to the purgatory, the elder of Necro Valley was unable to possess my body but, in the end, you called me back."
"They are naturally furious after losing one of the bodies for the elders. Very few people can climb high enough to become bodies worthy of being possessed and my escape probably ended up in the death of one of the elders. After having gone through the rituals myself, I am reluctant to force other people to go through the same process. I hope that you will understand."
Five listened to Dreidus' long explanation. It was the first time he was speaking for so long and was even letting out some emotions near the end. As far as he was aware, Dreidus would only be slightly more open when talking to Lyra, with everyone else, he would always use his dull expressionless tone.
"I understand Dreidus and as I said before, when time will come, we will protect you from them. It is fine if you do not want to do any necromancy on living people, but what about the dead? I've seen you turn two dead barbarians into living corpses without any qualms," asked Five.
"Messing with the dead is fine. I have been doing this my whole life. Even killing people is fine. As long as the ritual does not consist of turning living people into Undead, I am willing to perform necromancy. Upgrading our Undead would require living people and animals though but that is fine. We will need to massacre an entire village if you want to give classes to the Undead Monsters. That is part of the reason why Necromancers are feared; they tend to kill a lot of innocent people to upgrade their Undead. It would be unwise to kill the barbarian of the Musclewood tribe," answered Dreidus.
"Is the increase in power of the evolved monsters significant?" asked Five.
"I would say it increases their fighting power by 20% to 40% depending on which monster. It does not increase by a lot but for normal necromancers, it is a huge qualitative change. Necromancers do not have a dungeon core that allows them to summon an infinite number of undead monsters. They have to improve the quality of the few Undead they have available to be relevant."
Five nodded and suddenly realized something. "Is the reason you are telling me all of this because you want to help Lyra to evolve? As far as I am aware, she is already level 29 and is very close to leveling up. Level 30 is her level cap. Is your evolution able to raise it?"
"Although I did not do it intentionally, if I am to perform necromancy, I would indeed like to help Lyra evolve. She can turn into a Wailing Lady and raise her level cap."
'I see. I said I would stop summoning Dark Attribute Monsters for now but there is no harm in building an army this way,' thought Five. He paused for a moment before answering:
"I can summon humans for you to do it, but it would cost a huge amount of DP. I do not want to touch the barbarians. Decreasing their population would just be shooting ourselves in the foot. However, there are two ways to go around this. All the barbarian tribes should have some graveyards which should be a great place for you to summon more Undead. Alternatively, we can just wait a little bit. If I am not wrong, there should be a lot of barbarians inviting themselves to our dungeon soon."