That perfectly enunciated, profanity-laden roar—soaked in blood, sweat, and accumulated grievance...
It bounced back and forth through the vast, dead silence of the underground mine and refused to fade.
Mo Fan stared at the skeleton mage before him and quietly made a solemn, ironclad resolution:
From this day forward, no matter what—every single morning...
The first thing he would do upon waking was spend a solid minute mentally cursing this garbage System's entire ancestral line.
Because this thing played dead better than anyone. When life-or-death crises hit, it was completely useless.
Every discovery, every mechanic, every breakthrough—all of it had been found by stumbling face-first into a pit and surviving.
Since you love playing dead so much, I'm going to squeeze every drop of satisfaction I can out of this.
Mo Fan let out a cold laugh and fixed his gaze on the Foundation Establishment spell-cultivator skeleton standing before him—the one that still didn't have an official designation.
With a thought, he prepared to bestow a formal name upon his newest subordinate. And take a little revenge on the System while he was at it.
Name: System's Father.
Mo Fan typed it into the mental interface with maximum arrogance, already savoring the image of this skeleton carving through enemies under that title.
BUZZ——!
A sharp, almost indignant electronic buzz detonated in his mind.
A massive warning box—red so deep it was nearly purple—slammed onto his retina:
[ ERROR! Prohibited vocabulary detected! ]
[ Naming REJECTED!!! ]
"..."
Mo Fan stared at the instantly-triggered red warning box and felt all words leave him.
"Are you SERIOUS?! You play dead every time I ask about a skill mechanic, but the second I try to insult you, you're RIGHT there?!"
His frustration deepened. This broken System wasn't just mute—it was a hypocrite with double standards.
He refused to give up. He furiously typed a rapid series of highly creative abbreviations into the mental interface...
Things along the lines of "System is trash," "SB System," and several others that required no translation.
Every single one was intercepted and bounced back by that merciless red warning box without exception.
Finally, completely defeated by the System's rigorous vocabulary screening, Mo Fan rolled his eyes so hard it almost hurt.
In a moment of total resignation, he blurted out a classic exclamation from his past life:
"WTF!"
Ding!
[ Naming Successful: WTF ]
[ Subordinate Unit: WTF (Tier-2 Skeleton Mage) has been registered. ]
"..."
Mo Fan stared at the three ice-blue glowing letters now floating above the skeleton's skull. His eye twitched twice.
"Fine. WTF it is. Honestly, it's a pretty accurate description of how I feel every time I run into one of this broken System's mechanics."
Bearing that fragrant English designation, Mo Fan didn't rush to leave.
Instead, he spent the entire night in the relative safety of the underground mine, methodically running experiments.
After countless tests, he finally mapped out the complete operational mechanics governing the skeleton-scepter relationship.
First: the [ Pale Bone Scepter ] could hold a maximum of three Necromantic skills simultaneously—but only skills Mo Fan himself had already mastered.
Second: the "Lockout" mechanic of the Maximum Mana cap.
While the skeleton drew on its own residual spiritual energy to cast, the scepter was still an undead construct...
It required Mo Fan's Mana as a "conversion medium" to seamlessly fuse spiritual energy and death-qi.
But this didn't drain Mo Fan's current Mana bar.
Instead, it carved directly into his maximum Mana cap!
Every portion of Mana sealed into the scepter to sustain a skill permanently reduced Mo Fan's total Mana ceiling...
Until he actively removed the inscription, at which point the cap would restore.
Mo Fan stared at this brutal mechanic and drew a sharp breath.
For any normal Necromancer in the cultivation world—if such a thing even existed—this would be enough to make them weep.
Permanently slashing your own Mana ceiling by a third, or even half, just to give a summon a few extra skills?
That was putting the cart before the horse and cutting off your nose to spite your face.
But on Mo Fan, this mechanic produced a deeply unusual reaction.
Reduce my Mana cap?
Mo Fan looked at his own status panel—at the grotesquely bloated Mana pool that had been overflowing since the transmigration compensation bug...
And let a spectacularly smug, arrogant grin spread across his face.
The one thing I have the absolute most of is exactly that.
What would bankrupt an ordinary mage was, for Mo Fan and his absurdly deep reserves, barely a rounding error. It didn't even register as a cost!
"Three slots? Then let's fill all three."
Mo Fan waved a hand with the casual generosity of a tycoon who had money to burn.
He focused, took a breath, and in one unbroken session, inscribed a completely unhinged skill combination into the Pale Bone Scepter's three empty slots with reckless extravagance:
[ Ding! Inscription Successful: Corpse Explosion (LV. 1) ]
[ Ding! Inscription Successful: Floating Soul Wings (LV. 2) ]
[ Ding! Inscription Successful: Bone Armament (LV. 2) ]
Three streams of light sank into the skeletal claw at the scepter's tip.
Hundreds of points of maximum Mana capacity were ruthlessly locked away by the System.
But when Mo Fan opened his eyes and looked at the skeleton again, he couldn't stop himself from drawing a sharp breath.
A flash of pure, stunned awe crossed his face.
The peak Foundation Establishment bone frame gave it unmatched physical defense.
The built-in spiritual energy vortex in its chest cavity gave it casting capability.
And now, with these three skills loaded—
Without any exaggeration whatsoever: WTF's actual combined combat power had left its own master—Mo Fan himself—completely in the dust!
"This is absurd..."
Mo Fan stared at WTF hovering in midair, ghostly blue wings spread behind it, scepter raised.
He genuinely couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry.
After a full day and night of relentless work, even he was feeling the fatigue.
Mo Fan retreated to the stone room above the ravine and spent an entire day in closed-door recovery.
Restoring his essence, energy, and spirit to their absolute peak condition.
Deep night.
The world was silent. The moon was dark, the wind cold.
A few night owl cries echoed across the bare ridge of Hundred Forging Peak, sharpening the air with a faint edge of killing intent.
Mo Fan opened his eyes slowly. The lazy ease of daytime was gone.
What remained was the cold focus of a deep abyss—pure, concentrated, and utterly rational.
He opened his status panel for a final pre-mission review.
[ Basic Profile ]
Name: Mo Fan
Class: Necromancer (Tier-2)
Realm: Peak Qi Condensation (Body) / Undead Scholar
Level: LV. 13 (500 / 4000)
HP: 650 / 650
Mana: 1500 / 1500 (600 points locked — inscribed skills)
Soul Strength (CPU): 175
Mental Load: 101 / 175
[ Skill Tree (6/10) ]
[ Death Vision ] (LV. 2)
[ Bone Armament ] (LV. 2)
[ Grave Chill ] (LV. 1)
[ Corpse Explosion ] (LV. 1)
[ Death Frenzy ] (LV. 1)
[ Floating Soul Wings ] (LV. 2)
[ Skeleton: WTF (Tier-2) ]
Equipped Weapon: Pale Bone Scepter
Skills: Floating Soul Wings (LV. 2) / Corpse Explosion (LV. 1) / Bone Armament (LV. 2)
Even with a hand like this, a faint thread of anxiety still ran through Mo Fan's chest.
Because he knew exactly where he was going tonight.
Not the outer mine shafts where low-tier beasts clustered. Not the familiar hunting grounds he'd already picked clean.
Tonight's destination was the mid-level mine—the layer his Corpse Rat scouts had passed through during their earlier reconnaissance.
Nowhere near the abyss that had nearly shattered his soul, but dangerous enough.
That layer was home to swarms of mutant centipedes, highly toxic scorpions, and venomous snakes coiled in the cracks of the rock walls.
It was precisely that kind of brutal, unforgiving environment that bred the high-tier beasts he needed—the ones that would actually push his Tier-2 progression forward.
High risk. High return.
Mo Fan pulled his cloak hood low, covering the upper half of his face.
"Move out."
His voice was low and rough.
Leading his fully armed skeleton squad, his silhouette flashed.
Like a ghost melting into the shadow, he stepped once more into the dim tunnel that led down into the underground kingdom.