Mila
Given Sensory Domain was in the shape of a sphere and gave an absolute view of everything within that sphere, including everything underground, it was one of the best treasure finding skills in existence, and, while the conversion wasn’t perfect, the radius of the E rank Sensory Domain skill in meters was about equivalent to a cultivator’s effective Aura stat divided by 12. This then made the radius of Aalam’s domain about 1.86 kilometers, and Mila’s about 1.13 kilometers, which was huge.
Since the start of the round, Aalam had been running around at max speed in his instance of the first battle map of the War of the Chosen, only getting distracted for a bit when he needed to save Diana, and, as soon as she’d been able to get out of her camp, Mila had done the same.
It hadn’t taken them long to confirm the two maps were exactly the same, with the exact same hidden resources—which, according to Nana Xara, was a common occurrence in early rounds—so, from then on, they’d deliberately not covered the same area while searching.
Aalam moved a lot faster than Mila, what with his Agility stat being almost an entire order of magnitude higher and him making up for not having a movement skill with a pair of artifact boots he made early on, while his domain was inherently larger due to his higher Aura stat as well, but Mila had an unfair advantage which made her almost as efficient as him when using Sensory Domain to search for crafting materials. She had the Phantasmic Doppelgängers skill.
Each doppelgänger created by the skill could use Sensory Domain with her full Perception stat and 66% of her Aura, and, given the skill was Heroic grade, her doppelgängers could be made quite far away. Then, given her doppelgängers could also use her Phantasmic Doppelgängers skill, while they wouldn’t allow her to increase the total number of doppelgängers she could create, each doppelgänger did allow her to extend the range of where she could create a new doppelgänger, and that made a big difference.
As she ran through the forest while stealthed, sixteen doppelgängers, eight in a line to her left and eight in a line to her right, ran stealthed as well, and they were all using Sensory Domain.
Aalam’s effective search width was roughly 3.7 kilometers, double the radius of his domain, as he ran through the forest, but Mila’s effective search width was 26.3 kilometers, so, even though Aalam moved nearly ten times faster, Mila was able to search almost the same total area during the same time period.
And the two of them together found a lot of materials.
Under each of the 128 clearings was a vein of E rank Inferior to Rare grade metallic ores and spread seemingly randomly around the forest underground were veins of Rare to Legendary grade ores as well. Some of the trees in the forest were also magical, Mila and Aalam both finding a lot which could be cut down for Inferior or Common grade wood, and Mila even found one seemingly random Heroic grade tree which, in Aalam’s instance, she quickly sent Diana to go harvest.
There were other types of crafting materials as well, ponds of mystic water, several seemingly recent skeletons of what seemed to be D rank monsters, and so much more.
Part of the design of the stage was definitely based around resource gathering, but Sensory Domain was a bit of a cheat and would only grow to be more so as Aalam and Mila’s stats improved.
As it was, after the seven days their armies were allowed in the stage, they’d covered about 35% of the stage’s available surface area, the forest in the stage a closed off minor dimension, and Aalam’s side had a rather huge harvest of Epic grade or higher materials, most of which almost no other army could have found.
Also, while Aalam was running around searching for materials using two of his minds, occasionally harvesting some materials himself, his other five minds had focused on crafting, his abilities as a psychic crafter proving incredibly useful for crafting on the move.
Out of the small amount of Heroic and Legendary grade metals they were able to find, he made a Heroic grade greatsword and armor set for Brom and a Heroic grade shield to complement Isaiah’s spear. And, out of the materials from the Heroic grade tree, he made three Heroic grade light armor sets for Diana, Nitya, and Irena.
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At the same time, Isaiah’s new spear, after Isaiah headed into the enemy camp and stabbed all the most powerful of the undead as they were unconscious and dying, had absorbed enough undeath energy to evolve into an Epic grade artifact. But this was just based on the Epic grade Living Amber Titanium it was made from advancing to Legendary grade Unliving Amber Titanium, not a true upgrade of what the spear could do.
When the spear entered back into Aalam’s hands, however, and a few Heroic grade materials were added into its design, Aalam managed to transform the weapon into what was almost undoubtedly the most powerful artifact he’d ever created, Aalam still waiting to advance the Left Hand of the Runescribe to E rank in the real world.
Order Unto Undeath (E-Heroic) [Growth]
An artifact designed by the Heavenly Spark Soul King that has absorbed the power of undeath so as to bring death to the living. Anyone injured by this weapon will be poisoned by the energies of undeath in the form of a deadly plague and, after his or her death, will rise again as an undead absolutely loyal to the wielder of this weapon. Should anyone with a strong positive bond with the new undead be within a range of 117 kilometers when the undead rises, he or she too shall then be infected by the undeath plague and rise again as a servant of the wielder of this weapon upon his or her death.
This weapon can further grow in power by absorbing undeath energy, even from the undead it itself creates.
Effects: Conductivity, Undeath Absorption, Undeath Plague, Lord of the Undead
Requirements: The Heavenly Spark Soul King or one of his servants
With a runic design making use of the high amounts of undeath energy held within the Unliving Amber Titanium, Aalam’s Law Pupae of Bonds and Order, and a modified plague Aalam stored within the weapon and magically made subservient to the spear, Isaiah’s new weapon effectively gave him the power of a particularly talented Lich King. And the scariest part was the karmic magic which would allow the magical plague to infect any of a victim’s nearby friends as well, slowly draining their energy and turning them into new vectors of the undead plague if they died.
Aalam, even with his Law Pupa of Bonds, normally wouldn’t be able to create such magic as the nature of his psyforce, qi, and mana just wouldn’t allow it, but Mila was special for an E rank and her resources didn’t have any such restriction. Given they were close enough to transfer resources if they both used their Laws to strengthen their bond, Aalam was then able to use Mila’s resources to create the required runes.
The coolest thing of all, however, was that the weapon could still grow in power, able to advance to Fabled grade should it absorb enough death energy. And, given any undead raised through the spear would not be able to leave the battle instance they were created in, there was absolutely no reason not to take the strengthened undeath energy from them before each stage would end, so Order Unto Undeath would almost certainly rise to Fabled grade should they last long enough in the War of the Chosen.
After making the Heroic grade artifacts, Aalam then focused on making high grade spatial storage rings to hold all the other materials they’d collected, creating two Heroic grade spatial storage rings, one for himself and another for Diana, along with four Legendary grade spatial storage rings for Isaiah, Nitya, Irena, and Brom. Then he made seven more Epic grade spatial storage rings for Brom’s other commanders and sixteen Rare grade spatial storage rings for those in the army dealing with logistics.
After that he created a set of 24 rings which would allow for long distance telepathy between 24 individuals, one of which went to Diana and another to Irena, the rest given to Brom to distribute. And then he made a set of two rings which would allow Nitya, the one member of their group who didn’t have a lord or servant line skill, to talk with Diana.
Finally, he spent the rest of his time turning the large amount of Epic grade metals they’d gathered, ones which were useless for space element artifacts, into Legendary grade weapons for the Bronze Legion, quickly turning most of the Bronze Legion into absolute fans even though he was only able to finish a couple hundred within the seven days.
Meanwhile, in Mila’s instance, the Violet Mountain Sect’s army was still fighting against the dwarves, unable to completely wipe them out like Aalam’s plague had allowed the Bronze Legion to do in theirs. So this meant Mila had to keep checking in to the Violet Mountain Sect’s main camp.
During the time she was running and searching, however, she did manage, by temporarily shadowing Aalam’s Triforce Construction skill instead of Telekinesis, to craft a pebble-sized piece of a Heroic grade material perfect for space element artifacts into a Legendary grade spatial storage artifact without changing its appearance, which she could then hide in her pocket. And, by the end of the stage, that spatial storage rock was absolutely full of Legendary and Heroic grade materials she could give to Aalam if they ever ended up in the same instance.
More important than that, however, she hunted multiple of the dwarves herself, using Evil Eyes to fill them with lust when they were in her aura and then Telekinesis to kill them before they even knew she was around. So, by the end of the stage Aalam’s Soul Laboratory had enough souls inside to feed them both for months.