[Spiritual Essence +2.1]

[Spiritual Essence +2.0]

[Spiritual Essence +2.9]

[...]

"Ice butterfly worms -

Can't move after cocooning,

Among monsters of the same spirituality level, they're bottom of the barrel. Only after transforming into ice butterfly worms do they get solid attack methods.

And there's tons of them!"

Things went exactly like Carlos predicted. The three retainers harvested together, ice butterfly worms couldn't stir up any trouble, and outside ice butterfly worms stayed sleeping with zero signs of waking up.

"Too bad this type of ice butterfly worm nest is crazy rare."

Carlos only knew of this one spot, learned by pure luck while doing a collection mission in his past life.

Monster crews that could be harvested so fast and efficiently were seriously rare.

"They're also unlucky. If they hadn't bumped into the retainers, even facing enemy tribal attacks, most could've escaped."

But who told them to run into him?

...

Seeing the retainers' slaughter of ice butterfly worms on track with no major issues, Carlos focused his mind on necromantic alchemy.

[Necromantic Alchemy—Ghostly Dark Steed (Light Gold):

Using wraith ashes, bones, and Umbral Stone as materials,

can craft and fuse to sublimate exotic mount: Ghostly Dark Steed (Light Gold)]

[Note: Crafting success rate depends on spirituality—higher spirituality means higher success rate.]

"Time to craft the Ghostly Dark Steed."

Since snagging this alchemy and corresponding materials in those ruins, Carlos had hauled butt here day and night, naturally having zero time to start crafting on the road.

Now was the perfect time for Carlos to craft.

He waved his hand, and piles of bones showed up.

Next, he pulled out massive quantities of wraith ashes and that huge, precious Umbral Iron Beast corpse.

The Umbral Iron Beast was exactly the concentrated essence of Umbral Iron ore, a top-shelf substitute for Umbral Stone—even better to use!

With all three materials ready, Carlos cut out proper portions, then focused his mind.

"Necromantic alchemy!"

Pointing his finger, psionic energy roared out, instantly forming a pale necromantic alchemy formation.

Then he placed the pre-prepared materials one by one into the necromantic alchemy formation.

Carlos held his breath and concentrated, both hands forming weird formations, syncing with the necromantic alchemy formation ahead.

"Refine!"

Mysterious power surged out. Bones dissolved, Umbral Iron Stone melted, wraith ashes bubbled...

His mind constantly watched the formation's progress. When the three materials completely melted,

"Condense!"

Materials started fusing and transforming, slowly building a strong bone horse with dark bone structure, carved with strange patterns throughout, heavy aura gradually emerging...

Carlos didn't dare slack off mentally. The closer to the final step, the more careful he had to be. He waited for the horse body to form, then combined his hands in a weird gesture and shouted:

"Activate!"

In the dark bone horse's skull, soul fire instantly blazed.

"Neigh!!!"

Along with heavy aura exploding, on the dark iron bone structure, a layer of strange ghostly flames suddenly burned—ice cold.

"First crafting nailed it!"

Carlos's eyes lit up with joy, looking up at the tall, fierce bone horse before him.

Strong bones, insanely hard, cold ghostly flames, chilling to the bone!

[Ghostly Dark Steed]

[An exotic mount crafted by Carlos Valois using wraith ashes, bones, and Umbral Stone as materials, fused and sublimated, rare in the world.]

[Quality: Light Gold]

[Speed: 40]

[Skills: Umbral Iron Bone, Ghostly Flame.]

[Note: Soul bound to creator, higher spirituality allows crafting more.]

"Speed actually hits 40 points—totally worthy of a Light Gold quality mount!"

40 points of speed—talk about crazy! Below Controller level, nobody could catch it.

With this, Shield Guards' speed wouldn't be a weakness anymore. On the flip side, for quite a while, it would be a massive advantage!

Not only that, the two bonus skills made Carlos even more pumped.

[Umbral Iron Bone: Bone structure condensed from seriously hard Umbral Iron essence, massively increases defense, can absorb Umbral Iron to heal injuries.]

[Ghostly Flame: Ghostly cold flame attached to Umbral Iron bones, massively increases soul damage.]

These two skills—one made the Ghostly Dark Steed nearly indestructible, the other was a rare soul-damaging skill. Too awesome!

The newborn Ghostly Dark Steed lowered its head, letting Carlos pet it. He could sense a soul link between them.

This meant the Ghostly Dark Steed, like the skeleton warriors, had absolutely zero risk of betrayal.

"However, I can feel that when the Ghostly Dark Steed was born, part of my spirituality got integrated.

This means the number of Ghostly Dark Steeds I can create is capped, tied to spirituality."

Carlos thought so.

"Keep crafting. I'm still way off from the limit. I'll worry about it when I hit the limit!"

Carlos looked at the mountain of materials and started crafting the second Ghostly Dark Steed...

...

"Phew!"

After several days and nights of non-stop crafting, Carlos's eyes were bloodshot, his beat face unable to hide satisfaction.

In his vision, Ghostly Dark Steeds formed a dark mass, cold ghostly flames connecting like a huge ocean.

"60! A full 60!"

Carlos had burned himself out crafting 60 Ghostly Dark Steeds—enough for now.

With a thought, he stashed some Ghostly Dark Steeds in his storage space.

Ghostly Dark Steeds were alchemical creations, naturally able to enter storage space.

After wrapping up this step,

Carlos didn't choose to crash, instead chugging several alchemical potions, pulling himself together to start teaching the Shield Guards.

"Next, I'll grant you Skeletal Horsemanship!"

"Roar!"

Shield Guards mounted up one after another, starting their studies...

...

In no time,

through the three retainers' harvesting and Carlos's teaching, spiritual essence accumulation finally maxed out!

[Spiritual Essence accumulated 19000, Spirituality +1, current Spirituality 20]

[Gained Attribute Points +1, Skill Points +1]

"20 points!"

He kept adding one point to strength, hitting 25.5 points!

Constitution, boosted by Child of Nature, also hit 25.6 points!

Skeleton Revival gained another point,

total level reaching an incredible 46 (16 skill points + 30 spirit gear enhancement), already summoning 31, with 18 unused.

"Hell yeah! Spirituality finally hit 20 points!"

Carlos was crazy excited.

For Shield Guards to go through their third sublimation and transform into more powerful Dark Knights, three conditions had to be met:

1).Death Herald spirituality at least 20 or above.

2).Shield Guards meet sublimation threshold and learn special horsemanship: Skeletal Horsemanship.

3).Sacrifice a Purple quality or above skeletal mount.

Now all conditions were met. Carlos could move to the next step without worry.

However, Carlos didn't immediately proceed but first performed soul fusion with his spirit gear.

Spirit gear—why's it called spirit gear?

Not only because it can boost skills, but because when a psionic's spirituality hits 20 points, they can perform soul fusion with spirit gear, taking it into their soul.

After integrating into the soul, enhancement keeps working, avoiding the risk of losing enhancement when removing spirit gear.

However, after soul integration, it naturally couldn't block attacks—durability and sharpness couldn't kick in. Only by re-manifesting could it block attacks.

Overall, way more convenient.