Chapter 170: Another Round of Questioning
Aldrich spent the next hour strategizing about how he would clear the Trial
Quests. He had no idea whether the quests were still the exact same now that
the Death Lord had taken over, but it was still a good idea to prepare.
With how strong Aldrich was now, especially with Okeanos under his
command, he should have no issue clearing the Trial Quests available to him.
Only the last one might be difficult as it involved fighting a powerful boss
known as Dark Eye Deimos, a level 50+ warlock whose mastery of demonic
summoning made for an incredibly difficult army vs army challenge.
Demons would clash with undead, and demons on average were much stronger
than the average undead.
It was a test for a Legion Necromancer to effectively leverage the might of their
numbers properly against strong individuals. But a challenge that Aldrich
could easily surpass considering he was far, far stronger than what a player
character of his level should have been like with his forbidden Lich
transformation.
What Aldrich anticipated most about that quest, though, was obtaining Dark
Eye Deimos as an undead. Normally, in Elden World, it was impossible to raise
boss monsters, but Fler'Gan already disproved this.
Raising Dark Eye Deimos meant Aldrich could have access to Demonic
Summoning, and that was something that could massively boost him. Demons
were not mortal creatures. They, especially stronger ones, were more like
forces of nature that embodied primal sins.
Because Demons were more like aspects and not truly flesh and blood
creatures, it was impossible to fully put them down permanently without some
form of holy magic.
And where was the holy magic in the real world? Where were the priests and
paladins?
In the real world, Demons might as well be unstoppable immortal monsters.
Heroes and weapons could break their bones, blast off their limbs, or even turn
them into nothing but scattered atoms, but none of that mattered.
So long as a Demon's Spiritual Core remained stable, they would always,
always reform.
And Aldrich also wondered about the Demons. Did they have more knowledge
about the Elden World reality? None of Aldrich's current Elden World undead
seemed to have a good idea of how and why they had been transported to this
different reality.
But perhaps the Demons were different.
Another important goal Aldrich had for the Trial Quests were ingredients.
Ingredients for Fler'Gan to use for his experimentations and for a special
concoction that Aldrich had requested him to make once he was in a safe and
secure space with Casimir.
Aldrich could just easily [Mist Phase] out of any prison he was in, as though
Null containment hampered his telepathic links, it did not seem to stop
magic-based teleportation. Like that, he could go to the Nexus, get his
ingredients, transfer them over to Fler'Gan, and transfer back to his cell.
Before Aldrich's hearing, he would get back to Fler'Gan for his commissioned
goods. Just something to make it easier for the people running the hearing to
make Aldrich's words a little more convincing.
Granted, if he could convince the hearing by himself, he would not resort to
using it.
Now, for what Aldrich could already do. He had thirty levels of [Dark Wisdom]
to spread around among his units, but he was not yet entirely sure who to give
them to. [Dark Wisdom] seemingly only allowed units to increase their levels
to a set 'maximum potential’, and it could not increase the levels of units ahead
of Aldrich already.
Thus, [Dark Wisdom] was best used on units that were currently weak but had
good potential to grow stronger. The biggest targets for this that came into
Aldrich's mind were the Alters under him. Dynamite Girl, the Geist, and Portal
Girl all had incredible potential to grow stronger.
(Dark Wisdom] would accelerate that even further.
But there were other good candidates, too. Like Chiros and his knights or
Fler'Gan or the variant mini bosses he had taken over. The Blackwater students
were also excellent candidates as they were all in the A class because of their
high potential.
Ace, especially, was known as someone that had the potential to surpass Seth
Solar when he got older and developed and matured his powers more.
It was a difficult choice, and one Aldrich would ponder over for quite some
time.
In the meanwhile, he made the easier decision to choose where the stats from
his level ups went.
In total, Aldrich had leveled up twice from 42 to 44 over the night. Almost
three times, too, but the experience limiter on the fishmen had kicked in just
before he could break through to level 45.
This gave him 10 stat points to distribute, and he just pumped them all into
attunement.
{+10 to Attunement, increased to +20 with affinity bonuses]
(Attunement: 245 > 265]
{Inner Circle Limit: 49 > 53]
(Outer Circle Limit: 245 > 265]
There was no doubt that by now, Aldrich's single greatest stat was Attunement.
Of course, that did not mean he could neglect his other stats, especially Magic
and Perception, but Attunement was by and large the best stat to dump into.
A faint green aura shimmered over Aldrich as the power from his levels flowed
into him, lighting up the dark insides of the Null Box for a moment.
A few minutes after Aldrich's stat distribution, something somewhat
surprising happened. The wall opposite to Aldrich slid open just barely enough
for Aldrich to get a peek outside. Light from the insides of the transport carrier
streamed into the dark innards of the Null Box, struggling and failing to
overpower the blacklight of the Null Ore.
Aldrich did not move. He just sat there and stared ahead. There, in the tiny
space opened up by the wall, stood a man decked out in military uniform and
beret. Only a portion of his face containing a single red eye was visible, but the
look on that eye made it clear enough that the face it belonged to was not
smiling at Aldrich.
"[had a feeling I had visitors on this private jet ride of mine," said Aldrich. "So
you got bored, did you? I was wondering when I would start getting
questioned."
".." The man did not respond to Aldrich.
"Silence is it?" said Aldrich. "Are you trying to intimidate me? Because if so, you
can go ahead and close that door again. I don't need to waste my time with
you.."
