Experimental Log of the Crazy Lich

While unexpected, it was still within expectations to meet Little Red so quickly down here in the Chaos Abyss.

After I “defeated” the powerful red dragon, the dark dwarves were astonished at how powerful the lizardmen faction had become. The dark dwarves now also relied on me even more.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find any top-level resources suitable for creating a holy sword. The dark dwarves instead had many dark resources for negative energy.

Still, this all made sense. It would be strange if the Chaos Abyss had top-level holy resources. It was only natural for dark resources to be plentiful here. Did I need to think about creating a different magic sword instead? But I also lacked top-level resources for all my magic swords. If I kept changing my path whenever I met with difficulty, that would be the same as constantly avoiding the problem.

“Haven’t you prepared anything before? Most Myth ranks prepare for half their entire life in order to achieve the next power level. Shouldn’t you also have many accumulated resources?”

“While I did obtain plenty of gold and other treasures back in the day, most of them are useless here. The true top-level resources need to be custom-selected when you have your Myth-ranked weapon’s design blueprint, or even before then. For instance, look how Undead Lords slaughter entire cities in order to gather souls. The best resource for a holy sword will be the soul of a stubborn Holy Knight who’s willing to sacrifice himself for his beliefs. These aren’t resources that can be purchased or gathered easily.”

Harloys was supremely rich, which was why she probably didn’t have a good understanding of how difficult it was for ordinary human individuals to power up.

“Not to mention, for more special Concepts, the requirements will also become special, such as the Traitor’s Heart, Lust Lotus, and so on. Just the names alone should tell you that such items are difficult to obtain. Sometimes, you even have to create your own resources. If it wasn’t for Adam’s ‘Undying Flame’ Concept having especially high requirements, there would have been no need for us to fight the phoenix back then. That was by far one of the most difficult battles we had.”

I paused for a moment before continuing. Other factors could still be taken care of, but…

“The worst part is, I’ve learned far too many things…”

Harloys had a sudden realization. Perhaps this was the critical factor. Holy Light, ice, and death were all rather common Concepts. However, my time and energy would be limited. It would be impossible for me to gather enough top-level resources related to these Concepts.

Other people would focus on only one path for their entire life. Naturally, they would be able to fully concentrate on their chosen path, making it easier to gather that type of resource. However, I was walking down four paths simultaneously. While this was faster, I actually was unable to keep up with my power level progression. I had finally reached a bottleneck due to lacking top-level resources.

“How did you deal with the resource issue the last time that you achieved SemiGod rank?” Harloys inquired.

“Me? The greatest advantage of being an undead mage is that we’ll never lack resources as long as we have some corpses. The Seven Original Sins were my Myth-ranked weapons. These Original Sins were also the Concepts themselves. They were all pieces of my soul. Although they were connected to me, they could have their own independent growth. Although I suppose I used a shortcut, this indeed allowed me to achieve SemiGod rank.”

The “weapon” Concept of Myth-ranked weapons was that they could be used offensively. However, this didn’t mean that they needed to be actual physical weapons. A powerful enough magic containing a Concept would also be a Myth-ranked weapon. An entire Soul World that contained a Concept would naturally also count.

Harloys fell silent as she also understood.

“Undead Lords only need to kill others and harvest souls…”

Some things didn’t need to be explained in detail. As the Seven Original Sins were also weapons, the resources used to create them were countless souls and corpses. Equivalent exchange was something that also applied to undead magic. The more willpower a soul had, the more outstanding it would be as a resource. But unless I was willing to personally create an even greater Undead Calamity than last time and kill countless people, I would still lack the resources to create something equal to my Seven Original Sins.

From a certain standpoint, at least in this world, the demon kings that came out to destroy the world for no apparent reason really did have at least somewhat of a motivation for causing all the death and destruction they did.

I was the most satisfied with my design for my death magic sword. Its theoretical attack power would be inconceivably strong, being the strongest of my four planned swords. However, I lacked so many top-level resources that I didn’t even want to think about it.

My ice magic theoretical knowledge was the weakest out of my four Concepts. I hadn’t even finalized my planned design for my ice magic sword. In the end, I would likely have to take shortcuts and focus more on practicality.

Although I had personally invented Law and understood it better than anyone, the related resources would actually be even more important because of how strong my foundation was in Law. I intended to make my Law magic sword into a core element of my physical abilities, making up for any previous inadequacies. The resources would have to be gathered from Sulfur Mountain City and Hell. I already requested relevant individuals there to help me, but this would still take quite some time.

My Holy Light sword had the clearest design plan. No matter if it was the theory or the resources I lacked, it was the sword closest to completion.

“The Holy Light sword isn’t a purely offense-focused magic sword. Focusing purely on offense would actually waste Holy Light’s support, healing, protection, cleansing, and many other non-offense uses. That’s why I intend to create a Holy Light magic sword that’s highly versatile.”

“Then what resources will you need?”

“As the base materials, the more divine resources, the better. However, there are two cores in my design that will require some unique resources.”

I organized my design plan in my head before I told Harloys the next part.

“The Light of Salvation has far-reaching penetrative properties. If I can use its power like a lighthouse and constantly send out the Light of Salvation, that will create a huge area of effect that will weaken all undead and demons within it. And in order to finish this design, I need a ‘Light’ resource that has far-reaching properties, such as the ‘Undying Light’ or ‘Eternal Crystal of Light’ and so on.”

The two items I named were both in the mortal plane. Since they both lacked attack power, this meant that they were also impractical to use. Both were currently with the Holy Church, being worshiped as holy items belonging to the God of Holy Light. At most, they were lit up sometimes as church service for Holy Light believers. This was far too much of a waste of these items.

While such items had rather weak practical uses, one of these items would be exactly what I needed to complete my Holy Light sword design, and that was exactly what made it so difficult to create the perfect Myth-ranked weapon that you wanted. Sometimes, it wasn’t the strongest abilities or properties that were required of the resources. Rather, the resources needed to have exactly the right traits that complemented your abilities. That was why luck was more important than anything.

To be honest, if it wasn’t for my rather special “ally” status with the Holy Church, and how they constantly tried to keep tabs on me everywhere I went, I would have robbed them already… And if I really couldn’t find any Light resources elsewhere, I would indeed consider hiding my identity and robbing them.

Now that I was telling Harloys about this, I also hoped that the All-Knowing cat would be able to tell me about any other potential items I could use.

Several seconds later, Harloys shook her head regretfully with a contemplative expression. She couldn’t recall any such divine items or treasures with properties of Light being far-reaching.

I could only sigh. Although this was to be expected, it was still regrettable. I knew that even if the Gold Elf Empire had had such items back in the day, they would likely have been treated as nothing more than toys or ceremonial items. It was unlikely that Harloys would know about anything related to this.

“What’s the second necessary Concept that you need for your other core?”

“If the first is far-reaching light, the second is naturally the ability to gather light…”

The Holy Light sword was still a sword. Since it was a sword, it would obviously need to be sharp. It would be quite foolish to waste Holy Light’s strong attack potential against the undead and demons. The purest high-density Holy Light could be condensed into physical pure light. That was the other half of the Holy Light sword that I wanted to create.

“Gathering and far-reaching, inner and outer. Completely opposite Concepts? However, they’re both related to Light, so it should be possible to combine them. You’re truly innovative. Your Holy Light sword will have both a large AOE weakening effect as well as powerful direct attacks, making it quite practical.”

Harloys affirmed the practicality of my design, giving me even more confidence. However, we still lacked the top-level resources needed, even though my Holy Light sword was the closest of my four swords to completion. When I thought about how my death sword might require me to go find The Eldest One, I had absolutely zero confidence about that.

“…I suppose that I’ll have to go rob the Holy Church when I return to the mortal plane.”

I wasn’t joking about this at all. Considering how the God of Holy Light had an almost complete monopoly on all Light-related Concepts, any other natural resources that I could use in the mortal plane had likely been gathered by the Holy Church already.

[Actually, the God of Holy Light wasn’t the first God with the Concept of Light…]

My System suddenly interrupted my thoughts. I knew that Astrya wasn’t the type to interrupt me with some background explanation for no reason.

[…Long before him, there was the Sun God from the very first generation of Gods. The second generation of Gods had the God of Natural Light of Peace. They both had Divine Concepts related to Light.]

I paused for a moment before having a sudden realization. There was no need for me to antagonize the God of Holy Light even further right now by robbing him. Since the Light of Salvation was a new evolution of Holy Light, I simply needed top-level resources with properties of Light rather than Holy Light.

Those ancient Gods’ God Equipment, or maybe their Myth-ranked weapons, were highly likely to fit my requirements perfectly.

“Where are they right now, then?”

[Since the God of Holy Light is now in power, where else would the Gods of Light that lost power go? Sun God Aloyo is currently residing in the 372nd level of the Chaos Abyss. The God of Natural Light of Peace is currently living as a hermit in the 16th level. Oh, and Aloyo was formerly a Main God.]