Chapter 72: The Cores

Chapter 72: The Cores Carlos’s spiritual energy surged as he called forth all his skeleton guards and started barking out orders. "Every two guards team up to take down the Stone Box Monsters hiding inside these wind-carved columns! Each team handles just one at a time. One guard’s job is chopping down the wind-carved columns. The moment that Stone Box Monster breaks free from the stone, the other guard immediately tosses gold powder on it to make the thing expose its weak spot! Then you strike fast and nail the exposed core in one clean hit!" Stone Box Monsters were creatures with a serious addiction to heavy metals and anything that sparkled. Gold powder especially drove them wild—once it touched them, they’d go crazy trying to use it to spruce up their stone box shells. During this makeover frenzy, they’d naturally leave their vital spots wide open. Following Carlos’s orders, twenty-two skeleton guards with gold powder pouches strapped to their waists split into eleven teams and charged toward the forest of wind-carved columns below. At the same time, Carlos spread his Crimson Gold Feathered Serpent Wings and took to the air to oversee the whole operation and make sure nothing went sideways. Once the eleven teams of skeleton guards had spread out nice and wide throughout the wind-carved column forest, just like Carlos had ordered: Carlos shouted from above: "Let’s do this!" Right away, the skeleton guards assigned to column-cutting duty aimed their greatswords at the column bases and swung with everything they had. "CRACK!" Those Light Gold Quality greatswords were razor-sharp, slicing through stone pillars like a hot knife through butter. "CRASH!" Wind-carved columns came thundering down, jolting awake the Stone Box Monsters that had been snoozing inside. Cracks immediately spider-webbed across the column surfaces, spreading fast until they exploded in a shower of stone fragments, and the monsters burst out. They weren’t exactly giants—only about three feet tall, looking like rough-hewn stone boxes someone had carved with a dull chisel. Right where you’d expect a stone lock sat a blood-red eye burning with endless greed. These freshly awakened Stone Box Monsters were mad as hell. The stone lock eyes on their surfaces split apart as their bodies opened up like treasure chests! Looking inside, you could see the stone boxes actually contained massive mouths packed with razor-sharp teeth, with nasty brown-black drool oozing out. "Hit ’em with the gold powder!" The second those Stone Box Monsters showed themselves, the waiting skeleton guards immediately grabbed fistfuls of gold powder and flung it right at them. "Hehehe!" With that gold powder touching them, the originally furious Stone Box Monsters went absolutely berserk. Their box bodies snapped open and shut, stone locks clamped tight as they frantically soaked up the gold powder into their surfaces for their renovation project. At the same time, brown ’keys’ started poking out from their backs. Those were their Achilles’ heels—the core source of all their power! "Smash those cores!" Seizing the moment, the skeleton guards with greatswords took aim at those ’key’ cores and drove their blades home with everything they had! In a flash, the brown ’keys’ shattered to pieces. The Stone Box Monsters’ bodies made that grinding stone-on-stone sound, then collapsed into heaps of rubble. [Spiritual Essence +1.5] [Spiritual Essence +1.5] ... Each team successfully took down a Stone Box Monster without waking up the others. This worked because as long as the Stone Box Monsters’ wind-carved columns stayed standing, they’d generally keep on sleeping. This kept them from getting mobbed by angry monsters. "Hold up for a minute." Carlos didn’t let his skeleton guards keep going but flew down to ground level instead. Flying over to the stone piles left behind by the destroyed Stone Box Monsters, he started digging through them one by one... Glittering chunks of ore, glowing mystery beast bones... "Nothing here, nothing there, still nothing... Could I have the wrong spot? Maybe it’s somewhere else?" Suddenly, while searching through the ninth pile, a golden glint caught Carlos’s eye. He immediately brushed away the rubble, revealing a gold coin underneath. Carlos snatched it up eagerly, rubbing it several times to clean off the grime. Those familiar strange shield patterns emerged—exactly what he was looking for: Ersbah ancient gold coins! "Bingo, this is definitely the right place." After finding those Ersbah ancient gold coins, Carlos felt completely confident that this wind-carved column forest he was clearing was his target location. After pocketing the Ersbah ancient gold coin, he spread his wings and flew back up into the air. "Keep it up! Let’s clear out every last Stone Box Monster in this place!" "Clatter! Clatter!" "CRACK!" "CRASH!" "..." The skeleton guard teams followed the same game plan, starting to chop down fresh batches of wind-carved columns and kill the Stone Box Monsters hiding inside... [Spiritual Essence +1.5] [Spiritual Essence +1.5] ... Another eleven Stone Box Monsters crumbled into stone piles full of stuff they’d swallowed over the years. This time Carlos didn’t fly down to search but ordered them to keep going. Waiting until all the Stone Box Monsters were completely wiped out before searching everything at once would be way more efficient. ... From sunrise to sunset, then sunset to sunrise. Skeleton guards never got tired, grinding away at monsters in the wind-carved column forest for a solid twenty-five hours straight. Carlos hadn’t caught a wink of sleep either. This area was incredibly important, and not just for the Ersbah ancient gold coins. Even more crucial, this was also the gateway to the ruins of the Shield Era’s former top dog—the Ersbah United Kingdom... [Spiritual Essence +1.5] [Spiritual Essence +1.5] ... [Spiritual Essence accumulated 9000, Spirituality +1, current Spirituality 10] [Gained Attribute Points +1, Skill Points +1] "Hit Spirituality 10." Carlos perked up, dropping one point into Strength and boosting Skeleton Revival by one. "Almost finished—only about a thousand wind-carved columns left." Hovering in mid-air, Carlos kept a constant eye on his skeleton guards’ work... Five hours later, as the last wind-carved column toppled and the Stone Box Monster inside got smashed to bits, the entire area was finally cleared out! [Spiritual Essence: 1721/10000] Carlos checked his spiritual essence progress, then touched down and gave new orders: "Strip everything useful from those stone piles, especially the Ersbah ancient gold coins!" He and his skeleton guards worked as a team, starting to sort through these 6,000-plus rubble heaps... After about half a day of work, two piles—one huge, one small—sat in front of Carlos. The big pile held all kinds of colored ores, weird beast bones, and other odds and ends. Some pieces were rare and worth good money, others were just pretty to look at but not worth much. The family could deal with those later. The small pile was golden and absolutely dazzling—nothing but Ersbah ancient gold coins. "Holy cow, over 2,000 pieces." When Carlos first started searching, he figured maybe 10% of the Stone Box Monsters would have gold coins. Turns out the odds were way better—over 2,000 pieces, more than he’d found in all those treasure chests back at the Castle of Agony. "Now that’s what I call a pleasant surprise. Adding the 1,800-plus pieces I already had, that brings the total to 3,809 pieces. This haul can completely outfit an entire Ersbah legion with shield gear!" An Ersbah legion had thirty-six soldiers, which would definitely speed up the prep work for his skeleton guards’ second transformation big time. After storing away all his loot, Carlos let out a long breath. His wound-up nerves finally relaxed, and immediately a wave of bone-deep exhaustion hit both his mind and body. He’d been going strong for a full forty-two hours without any rest. Unlike his skeleton guards, who still stood there straight as arrows without showing the slightest bit of fatigue. It was nighttime now with a blood moon hanging high overhead. Carlos looked up—the blood moon was almost full. "About five more days until it’s completely full." Only at the right time, in the right place, performing the right rituals could someone enter the Ersbah United Kingdom ruins. Carlos could use this time to rest up and get his mystical ritual work ready... "Now go patrol the area!" Carlos wolfed down some rations, then crawled into his tent. Under the protection of his twenty-two skeleton guards, he peacefully drifted off to dreamland...