I became a legion lich

241 Fortress project

“...” The two stared at each other in silence for a few seconds, before Athos sat up and coughed a few times.

“So what? You came here because you need something?” Athos asked with his best poker face, ignoring what just happened.

“In truth no. You are alone at the edge of the army and so absorbed in your task that you have ignored everything in your surroundings, so the generals and I have taken turns watching over you.” Treevor replied as he did the same.

They stared at each other silently for a while longer before getting up and heading back to the center of the army. No words were spoken and there was only silence between the two men, but the story was different in the mental link.

‘Hahahahahaha, what the hell was that? I can’t believe a murderous psychopath like you would scream like that just to be scared.’ Treevor laughed and sneered at Athos in the mind-link only between them, so the others couldn’t hear him.

‘Shut up, you just took me by surprise, that’s all!’ Athos replied with embarrassment. ‘Besides, you’re not much better than me. I clearly remember a certain skeleton that screamed the same way as it fell from the sky of a wyvern.’ Athos counterattacked, causing Treevor to gasp in surprise, though that was impossible.


‘How did you know about that?’ Treevor asked shocked.

‘You fell in the midst of the army, while the battle was in progress. Almost the entire army heard his disgraceful performance, just avoided mentioning it because of his position. But Emilia happily shared it with me when I asked for a battle report.’ Athos spoke with a sly smile, making the surrounding black skeletons who were unaware of the conversation wonder why he suddenly burst out laughing.

‘This and that are completely different situations. Besides, comparing our scares is ridiculous. My voice just sounded higher because I was falling at high speed, while you scream was so high that only dogs could hear it.’ Now it was Treevor’s turn to strike back.

.....

‘Let’s fly in Simogo and take the test. I’m sure Simogo would love to help you overcome your fear of heights.’ With no way to defend himself, Athos began to play dirty.
‘I don’t think we need to use such extreme measures. Let’s just pretend nothing happened and move on.’ If skeletons could pale, Treevor would be almost gray by now, realizing how serious Athos was.

Before they knew it, they were in the middle of the camp, the dead earth beneath their feet being replaced by black stone bricks. The dwarves had regained their mana thanks to the rhinos’ crystals and were already working again.

“I’ll take some time to meditate and recover my mana , so just interrupt me if something happens.” Athos spoke as he entered one of the empty carriages they had brought from the fortress of the platinum fist.

The dwarves had not yet constructed any buildings other than the meeting building, so Athos could only have privacy inside the empty carriages.

************

Days passed quickly as the busy skeletons worked day and night tirelessly, stopping only to regain their mana.

The stone floor was finished in less than two days and construction began on the first of three walls they planned to build around the fortress.

According to the blueprints created by the dwarves and reviewed by Dwarvin, the new fortress would have its first wall within a extensive of 1 kilometer and be 15 meters high, while the second wall would be within a extensive of 10 kilometers and would be 13 meters, the The last and most extensive wall would be 20 kilometers long and only 10 meters high.

The walls were the dwarves’ priority and they were using as much mana as possible on the blackstone bricks so that mages could later runesmithing. Each wall would have different enchantments and despite Athos’ expectations, their effects would not be shared.

According to Dwarvin, there would be wards on every wall, but minor enchantments would be different for each one. He wanted to build it this way to save energy from detection spells, which would consume a colossal amount of mana if they were to cover 20 kilometers in length.

The inner space of the first wall is where the fortress would be built, or as Dwarvin tried and failed to name it, the skelly castle. The fortress would be almost 500 meters long and almost 100 meters high, surpassing even the royal castle in the capital of Mirkor in size, but Dwarvin refused to reduce the size of the construction, saying that this was the minimum for his master.

A project of this magnitude would normally require a huge budget and months of hard work even with the use of magic, but the dwarves could build it in a few weeks at most. The fortress would also only be made of black stone reinforced by the dwarves’ racial ability, so it wouldn’t require materials that the undead currently lack.

Skeletons wouldn’t even need to find a quarry to obtain raw materials, just using earth magic to compress earth and create bricks out of stone was enough. This also caused a huge gap of land around the stronghold area, but the dwarves also planned to make use of this in the future.

The intermediate area between the first and second walls would be occupied by forges, warehouses, barracks and various stone buildings for different purposes. The buildings would also be constructed similar to a maze, with several streets ending in dead ends.

Its purpose was to delay the enemies if the two walls were invaded, allowing the skeletons to retreat with all important resources into the fortress.

The outermost area would be a huge forest of corrupted trees that the dwarves planned to plant in the future. It was currently just a wasteland and all the skeletons had done was flatten the land.

Athos found the idea of ??planting trees a strange idea and a waste of so much space, but then he remembered the spirits he had killed and were currently unconscious, understanding Dwarvin’s idea.

The spirits were powerful and if a corrupted forest was created, they could act as a new line of defense. The skeletons had moved the trees that were the real bodies of the spirits to the outside area, replanting them in all twelve directions like clockwork.

The land around the spirits was slowly being corrupted, but according to Treevor, the land still held its nutrients, just naturally corrupted by the presence of the spirits. This discovery made the plan to create a corrupted forest actually viable, as the spirits still nourished the land, albeit in a different way that only allowed corrupted trees to grow.

While the dwarves were busy working and human skeletons that possessed greater dexterity helped with manual work, the demihumans spent their time between training and hunting.

The monsters refused to approach the undead now, so they had to go farther and farther away to hunt and maintain their pace of development. During these days, the undead even encountered nomadic demi-human tribes thanks to birds and flying undead, slowly increasing their numbers.

Athos also didn’t sit still and trained almost without rest, only stopping when he ran out of mana. His control of darkness has increased immensely and he has even developed some simple spells.

Now, Athos could also move around while using darkness spells, although it would still be doubtful if he would be able to hold his own in a real-time battle. Another discovery that Athos made was that his magic organ’s control of magic depended on his own understanding of magic, so as he practiced magic, his magic organ’s control also improved.

After learning this, Athos had an idea and began to practice magic with his mind and magic organ, finding that his control of magic also increased as the magic organ practiced. The experience that his magic organ gained from training was passed on to him and vice versa, as if it were a second brain.

Training along with his magic organ also made Athos realize that he wasn’t tapping into his full potential. He always cast incomplete spells or abilities and let the magic organ complete it and doubled its effects using spells of his own, but that was inefficient.

What he discovered by chance while practicing magic was that his magic organ could offer support to the spells or abilities that Athos cast, adding the energy of the magic organ itself to increase them to another level and assisting in spells that would be impossible for his level current.

Its effects would be even stronger than if he just duplicated a skill, as it was akin to two mages working together to cast a spell. His training pace only increased with this discovery, making even the most loyal of skeletons feel a touch of Athos envy, though the latter said that he planned to research a way to develop magical organs for all of them when he had time and a suitable laboratory.

Lastly, the skeletons of hive hawks also began to gather clouds in the sky and electrically charge them, starting to form a small storm cloud above the camp. Mages with an affinity for air and water also helped the hawks gather storm clouds, quickly increasing the size of the clouds.