Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Chapter 1268: Greatest Hegemon of Sorcerous Mana

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When Skullius first created [Infinite Sword God] by combining a collection of skills, its unique, compound nature - how it had multiple sword styles packed into it – had prompted the guidance field to advise Skullius to make it into a Hidden Class.

(A/N: Refer to Ch.991)

The Hybrid Warmoth, after learning that that was still an option for the skill an hour ago with his alter memories, had immediately decided that [Infinite Sword God: Primordial Sword] would work better in the hands of Pherdanta.

Before, when the Unlimited Stars were simply the Unlimited, she had been the only one to not have a Hidden Class. Hers was an Advanced Swordsman Class that allowed her to seamlessly merge two or more swords to create a single, unique one provided that she fully understood the properties of all the swords. The Class also had the added quirk that made living things oblivious to Pherdanta's existence until she interacted with them.

Even though Pherdanta had grown so much with just this, Skullius knew she would be much better off with a Hidden Class, especially one of the calibre he was granting her right now. Pherdanta instantly felt the skill sink into her. She was alarmed and amazed at the same time. She hadn't expected to receive a skill on top of Skullius' two swords.

The two swords were already artefacts she had considered exceedingly unique, not to mention extremely dangerous. She had never seen them in action, but when Serenity had explained all of the possessed Skullius' abilities and weapons to her master within the Timemould Mirror Box, Skullius had shared all that information with the Unlimited Stars as well, just in case.

Pherdanta felt that the skill her master was giving her was likely the same one Skullius had explained to them before.

She barely managed to contain her excitement. She was eager to protect her image as the Commander of the Stark Troops.

The Stark Constellation on her forehead sparked furiously.

Skullius smiled. He felt Pherdanta's intense gratitude and joy.

'Thank goodness giving skills isn't so hard for me anymore,' he thought. 'The old me would have been stuck with all these skills better suited for my subordinates.'

With [Wealth of Spoils], Skullius had never been able to give skills freely to anything other than objects. But after his experience in the battle across the Central Boundary, and his battle against a master of souls like Actuass, he learned to imprint skills on the soul rather than on the body. As the body learned from the soul, it would quickly learn the information of the soul - in this case, skills.

In the last two months, Skullius had discovered that the more compatible a skill was with the receiver, the quicker the body of said receiver extracted the skill and branded it on itself; the longest it had taken for a compatible skill to be branded to a yearning body from a soul was two hours!

'Pherdanta should be able to use it soon,' he thought, 'but then again...'

Skullius did something else while he was still in contact with Pherdanta.

'I might not be as efficient with Exora Amras yet, but I can still cheat as much as I want with mana!'

With a grin, Skullius activated [Greatest Hegemon of Sorcerous Mana]!

Right then, his massive golden core thrummed so vibrantly that everyone saw it glowing from the depths of his Mortal Ruin armour!

Pherdanta was stricken aghast. The sheer volume of gold quality mana in that core was staggering, and in the next instant, she felt a strand of that mana rush to connect with her mana cores!

Skullius didn't stop with Pherdanta. A second later, strands of mana from his core had connected to the mana cores of all the Unlimited Stars and the Stark Troops!

Kintar was especially flabbergasted. Asides from Skullius, she had the best understanding of mana out of everyone here as a True Myth Mage. What Skullius went on to do after attaching his core to everyone else's left her muttering expletives in disbelief.

'No way!'

As a result of Skullius' intense training regiments and experimenting, all of his subordinates now possessed at least two mana cores, most of which were meticulously edited by Skullius himself.

As he activated his Supreme skill, the Stark Troops with blue cores found them vigorously bursting with power and becoming dark purple mana cores with more than double the value of mana than their previous ones. Those who had purple mana cores found themselves with light gold mana cores that held the same numerical values of mana as value!

Gasps and shrieks rang out in the Empyrean Hatcher!

How in the world was this possible?!

With [Greatest Hegemon of Sorcerous Mana], Skullius had such fine control over mana that with his own as a conduit, he could influence ambient mana and that which was stored inside external mana cores as he pleased.

Skullius could change the nature of someone else's Refinery (in a core) simply by whisking his own mana into their core; he could add properties to the mana itself or remove them; he could improve the reserve capacity of mana cores; he could invigorate all natures of mana, forcing them to condense and improve in quality, as he was doing now!

The mana from all creatures in his range also became submissive to Skullius, and with a thought, he could have it divulge all of its user's secrets; mana was, after all, what activated skills and such.

This is why and how Skullius was determining who to not grant too big of a boost in mana quality and quantity, and who to bless recklessly.

Skullius did the latter with the Unlimited Stars. He had applied [Unbound] more freely with them on their stats and mana cores before, which was why some of them had recurring stats

like Kintar, for instance.

(A/N: Refer to Ch.1241.)

All the Unlimited Stars had purple cores. With their own powerful mana manipulation skills, it wouldn't have been too difficult for them to condense their mana and enrich it to gold quality, but they would only be able to do that in Aigas, where mana was abundant. Thus, Skullius did it for them.

On top of granting them golden cores, he increased the capacity of their cores tenfold!

Such a thing wouldn't be a detriment to the Unlimited Stars, he judged.

Once again, the Stark Troops were left stumped.

They were shielded from adverse influences by the Stark Constellation; their souls,

particularly.

Their bodies were reinforced by the Intemperable Shell, a makeshift Immortal Physique.

And now, they had tremendous reserves of mana to use for attacks? Pherdanta nearly faltered when she felt the mana cores within her blaze in gold.

Her physical qualities instantly became far more formidable than before.

Withholding tears, she grabbed the swords still suspended in the air, waiting for her to claim.

"I... We will not disappoint you, Master! Even in death, we will serve!" she cried passionately.

At once, all the other Stark Troops chanted the same, their bodies radiating with vicious volumes of mana. A fire was lit in them that even they didn't know could burn so fiercely. Even Timmit was chanting, giddy about the recent boons. Bubbles joined him in his jubilance.

Skullius smiled.

Thirty-nine minutes later, he began walking towards the exit of the Empyrean Hatcher,

Beyrmir following after him. His Troops made way.

Midway, Skullius beckoned Elita and Kintar to him.

When the latter reached him, he grabbed her head and simultaneously performed two actions:

he used a Creed to duplicate [Greatest Hegemon of Sorcerous Mana], and gifted the copy to

Kintar.

The short, wide-faced woman felt the skill swim through her at once.

Skullius gave a chuckle and said:

"Make sure you cheat as best as you can out there."

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