Chapter 4: The Undead Construct Steed

After losing yet another half of his Iron-arm Corpses, Li Bin finally brought this grueling battle to an end. He didn’t bother to reorganize his troops, hurrying straight to the stone coffin. At this moment, the battle rewards within the stone coffin were slowly materializing. As the system notification chimed, Li Bin eagerly took stock of his generous gains.

The five thousand gold coins and three thousand gold’s worth of negative energy alone were enough to offset all his losses. Even more thrilling were a set of building blueprints and a level-six artifact. With the blueprints for the special structure, the Cypress House, Li Bin could now construct a base on his territory to produce Ghost Crows, forming his very own communications network.

The level-six artifact, the Heart of the Mount, was a treasure unique to the Mechanoid race. Players aligned with Mechanoids could use it to craft their own mounts. As a rare Necromancer who could use Mechanoid items, Li Bin’s mind was already racing—he began to imagine what his first mount would look like, what abilities it would have.

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Returning to the Graveyard Demon with his spoils, Li Bin instructed the Graveyard Demon to proceed along the pre-set route and begin construction of the special Cypress House. He himself retreated into his Necromancer’s Laboratory.

There, he directed his Will-o’-the-wisp slaves to drag away several corpses tossed into the corner, then settled into a chair to ponder the design of his new mount.

Initially, Li Bin had wanted to create a bone dragon or a skeletal horse as his mount. But he soon realized, with some frustration, that crafting a mechanical bone dragon would require at least a level-three Heart of the Mount and the corpse of a dragon. As for a skeletal horse, without riding skills, it would be impossible to control automatically, and lacking a shock-absorption system, the jolting alone would be enough to shake Li Bin apart.

Setting aside his excitement, Li Bin began to seriously research his new mount. Given his current abilities, he anticipated frequent use of Necromancer magic, so he needed a stable platform from which to safely cast spells.

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than the phantom of a five-meter long, two-and-a-half-meter wide bone plate appeared before him, with the shadow of a human figure upon it, performing spellcasting gestures.

Nodding, Li Bin mused, “I can’t stand the whole time, but I also can’t straddle such a wide plate. I need a chair.”

At his thought, a high-backed chair appeared on the rear half of the bone plate. Li Bin added, “The chair should be fixed to the plate, or else I’ll fall off.”

Sure enough, the high-backed chair instantly changed to match the bone plate, seemingly merging with it as one.

Li Bin continued to specify requirements for shock absorption, defense, and magic focus. Each condition he described caused the phantom mount to shift, until at last, the design was finalized.

The entire bone plate was divided into three sections: at the front, a triple-layered defense grid—capable of deploying a bone shield against physical attacks, an atmospheric barrier against ranged attacks, and a flame shield with counterattack capability. The middle section was Li Bin’s spellcasting platform, carved with a small magic-gathering array to boost his casting speed by 10%. At the rear was his seat—a high-backed bone chair firmly attached to the plate, which would always remain level no matter how the mount moved. Floating in front of the chair was a small tabletop for maps, ink, and brushes, allowing Li Bin to work while traveling.

To the right of the chair was a small socket for planting a battle standard, which Li Bin planned to upgrade with a flag stand in the future. The left side held a rack for weapons and spellbooks, within easy reach. Behind the chair was a compartment for communications equipment; for now, it simply held a perch for Ghost Crows, Falcons, and other messenger birds, but as Li Bin’s forces grew, he envisioned installing war drums and gongs to command his troops.

Satisfied with the mount’s appearance and equipment, Li Bin nodded. At that moment, the phantom vanished, and a blueprint slowly floated down before him. He picked up the design for the mount’s carapace, glanced at the system-generated resource requirements, and called out loudly, “Bring me five standard corpses, three units of gemstones, five units of mercury…”

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The mount’s exterior was relatively simple; once it was complete, Li Bin began working on the inner mechanisms. As he wasn’t a Mechanoid specialist, he couldn’t use the original plans directly; he had to adapt them into a half-mechanical, half-undead hybrid.

He soon found the perfect blueprint: a Constructed Scorpion with eight legs for maximum stability, pincers for offense, and a multi-jointed tail, which Li Bin intended to convert into a ranged weapon port.

Lacking the machine oil needed to animate the construct, he turned instead to mercury, the staple fluid of necromancy. He ordered his Will-o’-the-wisp slaves to bring twenty units of mercury.

He infused the mercury with poison, negative energy, and a squad of Will-o’-the-wisps, transforming it into a kind of quasi-biological blood.

Sturdy bone replaced the steel framework; corpse sinew served as transmission cables; muscle, hardened with special agents, substituted for the metallic protective layer; and the original metal shell was replaced by five layers of bone armor.

Once everything was assembled, Li Bin placed the level-six Heart of the Mount into the Constructed Scorpion’s chest. Normally, he would have inserted a soul stone to serve as the control core and filled it with machine oil. But as a necromancer, Li Bin chose otherwise: he forced five standard souls and two squads of Will-o’-the-wisps into the Heart, and substituted the necrotic mercury for the machine oil.

Finally, he installed the carapace onto the Constructed Scorpion. Now seven meters long, three meters wide, and two meters high, the Necroscourge Scorpion Mount was complete, as confirmed by a system prompt.

With the aid of its pincers, Li Bin mounted his newly christened Necroscourge Scorpion, settled into the high-backed chair, and relished a speed three times faster than usual, along with the pleasure of casting spells smoothly while on the move. He was certain that this kind of undead scorpion would become the favorite mount of all spell-casting necromancer heroes.

After a spin around the Graveyard Demon, Li Bin rode back to the Necromancer’s Laboratory, accompanied by the wide-eyed Dierdre and his loyal skeleton mage.

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From today, I’m going to be featured—prepare for a surge of good luck!

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