"Skeleton Evolution Point: 1.26"
The battle against the Grey Wolf also yielded considerable evolution points, skyrocketing from 0.88 to 1.26 in a short time. This suggested that points were generated rapidly during combat, perhaps due, too, to the Little Skeleton being pushed to its limit in this fight.
Regardless, it was a good thing.
Mu Yuan summoned the Door-Panel Skeleton. Its one arm had already shattered, but the Soul Flame in its skull was still leaping healthily. It was an optimistic Skeleton.
At this point, the Evolution Points were faintly glowing.
Mu Yuan pulled and harnessed this special power onto the Door-Panel Skeleton. This time, there was no failure; instead, a prompt appeared: 'Skeleton Evolution Point -1'.
The next moment,
A miraculous force showered the Little Skeleton. It was just beginning to show a stunned expression when its entire figure... the whole Skeleton... turned into light.
Wrapped in a white light, the Little Skeleton's figure began to extend higher and wider, seemingly becoming more muscular.
Soon, the glow of evolution started to recede, and the transformed Skeleton in its new form appeared before Mu Yuan.
It was a large Skeleton, about 1.8 or 1.9 meters tall, standing taller than Mu Yuan's game character, let alone compared to the small, feeble Skeletons that were probably under 1.6 meters tall with hunched postures.
Not only had it become taller and more muscular, the newly born Skeleton was also clad in a complete set of armor, including a helmet, breastplate, and war skirt. The rusty chopper it held was now shiny and sleek, and a round shield was held in its left hand.
Though this set of equipment couldn't be considered luxurious, it was still a major upgrade from the skeleton's previous beggar-like appearance.
"Notification: 'Little Skeleton (Normal★)' has evolved into 'Skeleton Soldier (Normal★★★)'."
"Notification: Skeleton Soldier has acquired the skill 'Cleave'."
...
Having just finished evolving, this Skeleton, whose expressions were much richer than the others, was stunned as it looked over its entire body. It reached out a hand to pat its grey-black armor, causing a resonating thwack.
Good armor indeed.
A Two-Star Spearman was already much braver than the Little Skeleton. Mu Yuan was looking forward to seeing how a Three-Star Skeleton Soldier would perform. Aside from anything else, he was very satisfied with this set of armor. The other Little Skeletons would find it hard to breach the armor with their rusty choppers.
The gap in equipment was quite large.
The enhancement of the Skeleton Soldier compared to the Little Skeleton was evident in many ways.
"Come, let's test your strength and speed."
Mu Yuan called another clueless Little Skeleton as a test subject. However, when the two stood together, the difference in height and size was rather large. If the large Skeleton used a bit more force, the Little Skeleton might be sent flying.
So, the Skeleton Soldier came to a large tree and swung out a powerful punch.
Boom--
The tree branches shook violently, and leaves showered down.
And then the Skeleton Soldier continued with punch after punch, seemingly not knowing pain... oh, Skeletons didn't feel pain, but this one was particularly unflinching.
Mu Yuan hurriedly halted it.
"Now try your speed, start with a full-speed sprint."
Even though Mu Yuan could only watch from in front of his computer, he could still see that the Skeleton Soldier was running like the wind, several times faster than the Little Skeleton.
Comparing them was completely out of the question.
So, Mu Yuan called upon himself, commanding himself to perform a 100-meter sprint and compared it with the Skeleton Soldier's speed. He quickly discovered...
"The Little Skeleton's speed is definitely its weak point. It wobbles when it walks, and even at full speed is only comparable to a human's brisk walk. Its agility is even worse. Setting aside its advantage of not fearing injury, the Little Skeleton's overall quality is no better than a human's."
"But the Skeleton Soldier is different. When it runs at full speed, it's like a national level athlete, and it won't get tired."
Even before leveling up and just being a normal three-star troop, it was already so fierce? No wonder it was said that top-level troops could turn the tide of battle.
Compared to running at full speed, Skeleton Soldier was somewhat stiff in moving and dodging in a small range — after all, it wasn't an agile type of troop.
Even though it became faster, its best form of combat was still more or less the same as before, gradually building an advantage by trading injury for injury.
Mu Yuan found that with the strength of a single skeleton, the Skeleton Soldier could still steadily win in one-on-one combat against multiple Little Skeletons after conducting some tests.
A true general's demeanor.
What's more, he did not forget that in this evolution, the Skeleton Soldier had also learned a new skill.
Cleave.
"Let's try this skill."
"Understood... Skeleton..."
There was even a dialogue bubble above the Skeleton Soldier's head, which made him pause for a moment.
Soon, the Skeleton A-Soldier was ready. At first, it seemed a little confused, frequently looking at Mu Yuan for guidance, appearing wanted to ask for advice but hesitating.
"You need to believe in yourself. As a leading Skeleton, you must learn to explore and improve on your own, to set an example for the other little buddies, you understand, right?"
The Skeleton Soldier nodded repeatedly.
Mu Yuan watched the Skeleton Soldier learn on its own... After all, he himself didn't know how either. Don't ask him how to use the skill, he wasn't even clear about what the skill was — the guide didn't mention it, so he guessed it was advanced content.
Using a skill was not easy, as it involved the use of energy.
After pondering for about ten minutes, the Skeleton with the demeanor of a great emperor gradually figured out the knack. It raised its sword high, black mist gradually gathered on the blade of the sword. The black energy covered it, and the Skeleton Soldier, after charging for seven or eight seconds, finally made a swift cut at the Grey Wolf corpse in front of it, using it as a target.
Boom ——
Like a hot knife through butter, the tough fur and bone of the Gray Wolf could not resist at all. It was cut open, and the blade with black energy even left some traces in the ground.
So strong, so strong.
"My Skeleton, truly a general."
Not only that, after releasing this Cleave, the Skeleton Soldier started to contemplate on the spot. It was thinking, considering, improving.
Its intelligence was always higher than other skeletons. After the evolution, it had a significant improvement. After a while, the second cleave it used had a noticeably shorter charge time.
"Good."
Mu Yuan was very satisfied.
Of course, his excellent guidance as a lord was also inseparable from this. If he didn't fully utilize the subjective initiative of the Skeleton Soldier and let it learn to explore on its own, how could it improve so quickly?
After two Cleaves, most of the energy in the Skeleton Soldier's body was consumed, and it was difficult for it to use a third one.
After all, it was still a level one baby, Mu Yuan understood very well.
Looking at the hard-working and promising Skeleton Soldier who was still thinking and practicing, he thought of giving it a name. It couldn't always be called Door-Panel Skeleton or Skeleton A-Soldier.
After all, it was destined to be one of the generals in the territory in the future.
A dignified general couldn't be nameless.
"Stand up straight; I'm going to give you your real name."
"Since you're from the Undead and also a Skeleton, how about I call you... Dead Bone!"