Hi guys, I'm really sorry for the delay. Kind of writer's block. Thank you for reading my fiction. Enjoy.

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“Tsk, why so hurry to leave, I still have many things to ask. The location of the other grave and the method to locate them do not even appear. At least, explain about it before you go”, Acma was complaining about the suddenness of the man departure.

When the man were talking about the other tomb and the method to locate them, nothing was actually appeared, either panel or mind map. Even when he tried several words that he thought can be used as password like map or location, were also failed. The other problem was he didn’t even know where the Metal Kingdom was located.

“How do I find this Metal Kingdom? At least give me a working map or something useful. Damn old man”, he cursed.

“Let it go, let it go”, Acma tried to consoled himself. Since nothing come out even when he tried harder, he decided not to think about it anymore. He believe, when the time and place was right, he would know about their location eventually.

Realising that nothing he could do for now, he turned his head and look at his newly acquired guardians. He was thinking about something and he was eager to try it.

“Alice, could you control these guardians like our drones?” he asked. A ball of light immediately flew out of his chest and turned into a beautiful fairy with a golden wings.

“Let me try, Master”.

Seconds later, the guardians started to move. They began with keeping their weapon safe and then moved into several uniform column. The speed of their movement shocked Acma, especially the supreme guardians who stood in the front row.

“How do you do that?” Acma asked with full of admiration.

“They were just like our drones. It seem, they already have a built-in systems and I only give two simple orders and they execute them flawlessly. Even master can do this with the control panel. However, to completely control their movement is difficult. With my current processing capacities, I can only control flawlessly about 10 of the metal statues or 25 of the stone statues”, replied Alice.

“I will leave the control to you. 10 is extremely great because I only need two or three of them to cover my blind spots. Can you move one of these statues with a complete control and do something highly complex, I want to see to what extent is the capabilities of these guardians”. “Yes Master”.

One of the supreme guardians who wield a twin swords moved forward and performed a beautiful sword dance. Its move was simple in the beginning and becoming more and more complex. It even added several acrobatic moves like backflips or summersault, several types of kicks and many more. Acma was speechless because that sword dance really similar to the sword dance that his father performed.

“Hahahaha. Alice, you copied father’s sword dance”. Acma was extremely excited.

“Yes Master”

“Hahahaha.... Now I have 10 fathers watching my back. Alice, I will entrust my back to you in the future. Lets fight together”, said Acma with a laughter that reverberating throughout the room.

“Yes Master, I will fight together with you”, replied Alice before it flew back into Acma’s chest.

Acma quickly kept all the guardians in his inventory. Then, he opened the summon panel and puppeteer panel simultaneously because he wanted to compare between the two. In his mind, both systems have their own plus and minus.

Puppet or golem were considered as an equipment so their strength were fixed. It also depends on their controller and rank. Legend rank golem like his supreme guardians were obviously stronger than his epic rank stone guardians. However, they were versatile, no mana consumption and ready to use. Furthermore, under Alice’s complete control, they were an extremely deadly weapon.

Summons also good. They were either beasts or monsters and their strength increased with their levels. He can effortlessly use them and he only need to give simple orders like attack or defend. They also could became a great companion like Silver. However, to increase their levels took time and efforts. Increasing their class also very costly. The higher their class, the higher was the cost and he could get the upgrading items from killing the beasts or monsters only.

So, the summon was great for a long run if they were trained diligently. As for the puppet or golem, they were great for an immediate use. This was Acma’s conclusion when he compared between the two.

He closed both panels and his eyes started to wander across the room, looking for anything available left. He already decided to take the dragon pearl last to avoid any mishaps. As for the light crystal on the ceiling, he could only take them later in the future after he learned some flying or levitation magic. So the only thing left was the golden statue and its helmet. He stood up and walked towards the throne. Meanwhile, he took out some drones and ordered Alice to find any hidden mechanisms inside the room that may lead to a treasure.

Acma reached the golden statue after a while. He touched the statue here and there, looking for any hidden mechanism but nothing was found. The statue was just a simple golden statue. Alice also returned empty handed. It also couldn’t find any hidden mechanism or secret room. Acma kept the drones while his eyes locked onto the helmet on the statue’s head. He raised both his hands and grabbed the helmet. Then he slowly took it off very carefully. Inside the helmet was a golden skull, but he didn’t care about it. Its just a skull, not something special.

“Identify”

Conqueror Helmet

Named divine helmet, part of Conqueror Armour set.

250 % mana regeneration, +500 INT

“Wow, this is a great helmet. I wish I can collect all armours from this Conqueror’s set. Alright, lets make that as an objective in my adventure”, said Acma with a wide smile. This helmet will be a great help whenever he was running low on mana.

He took a look on the golden skull again and secretly thinking, maybe it was belong to a conqueror. That’s why it was wearing a helmet from a conqueror’s set. The skull was missing several tooth, maybe from an intense fight. It also have several fractures on its jaw bone and cheek bone was also visible

“This skull was well made. Almost like a real thing”, muttered Acma as his fingers flicked the forehead of the skull, trying to figure it out, either it was made of gold or a just a bone.

However, beyond his expectation, the skull moved and rolled backwards.

‘TAANGGGG!!!’

Before Acma could do anything, the skull already reached the floor behind the throne. It fell. Acma was dumbfounded. He never thought that the skull was actually separated from the statue.

“Damn”, he cursed. He immediately running down the throne as fast as he could to collect the skull. He didn’t want to be cursed by the owner of the skull from Netherworld and suffered from miserable things throughout his life.

However, as soon as he touched the skull, it turned into a ball of golden light and disappeared into his body. He felt a warm energy rushing to his head. Luckily, he didn’t felt any pain, only a refreshing feelings that made his mind clearer and comfortable.

“Am I cursed?”

After the effect of the golden light disappeared, he immediately checked his head with his hands, secretly hoping nothing strange found. Luckily, no horns, no pains or whatsoever. He was safe but something must happened since he could sense the energy from the skull entering his body.

“Open: Status”

Acma Heart

Level28RaceHuman

ClassEmissary of Void

HP1850/1850MP154975/154975

Strength354Agility419

Intelligence521Luck310

Unallocated point(s)0

TitleLord of The Heavenly Villa, The Benevolent, The Grand Summoner, The Puppeteer

“........”

“........”

“........”

No matter how many times he look at it, he still couldn’t believe it. His mana reservoir skyrocketed to 150000 in just a mere second.

“Whew, 150k mana increase permanently just from a single skull. This is surely not an ordinary luck”, said Acma with a great smile as he look at his status panel. He tried to reason the increase, but most likely it was due to the fact that the skull was belong to a supreme expert. When that supreme expert still alive, his power must be seeping into his bones and it stay there even after he died. That was the most reasonable explanation Acma could came out.

Looking across the room, Acma thought that it was time to go since no more treasure inside the room. He stood up and walked towards the dragon wall. His target was the precious dragon pearl inside the dragons mouth on the wall.

“Alice, teleport to outside of the gorge as soon as I take the pearl” “5 seconds, Master” “Ok”

When the Teleport spell was ready, Acma slowly took the dragon pearl.

“Teleport”, said Alice. Immediately, Acma’s body was glowing and then disappeared from the room. The light crystal on the ceiling slowly dimmed out as no more visitor inside the room.

Outside the gorge, the situation was calm as usual. The sky was still bright and the wind occasionally blew over the valley. Suddenly, a ball of light appeared at the edge of the gorge’s wall, followed by three others. The first ball of light was slightly bigger than the others. Soon after, they turned into a youth wearing a black armour, a great wolf, a stone golem and a fairy.

“Good job Alice, we teleport at the right place”, Acma praised his A.I. “Thank you Master”

Acma took a good look at the gorge for the last time. His harvest from the tomb this time was quite generous. Although the treasure trove was immense, but the real catch was those guardians. Especially 25 supreme guardians. Those guardians was definitely priceless.

"It's confirmed, the day have become longer", he murmured as he look at the slightly redden sky.

"In the previous world, right now should be at night already".

He turned around and walked forward. Both his summons closely followed behind him.

On this side of the gorge, the valley’s floor was flat and the width was about several hundred metres. There were no trees or boulders that provided a hiding spot for predators. An exit also could be seen at the end of the valley. Acma was excited. He couldn’t wait to get out from this Death Valley. Unconsciously, he began to relax and lower his guard. It was definitely a big mistake. He shouldn’t lower his guard, especially when he was still inside the valley.

There were about 700 metres left to exit. Acma began to jog so he could reach the exit faster. Silver was running in front of him while his golem walked as fast as it could. Each steps leave a small crack on the hard floor.

With his guard lowered, Acma didn’t realize that there was a cave not far from the exit, a hundred metres above eye level. With his current speed, he would reach it in several minutes. He was getting closer to the cave. Several metres from the cave, Silver stopped its advance and gave a low growl but it was ignored by Acma. Although Silver’s behaviour wasn’t normal, Acma didn’t think it was a warning since he couldn’t see anything suspicious or dangerous in his surrounding. However, Acma did stop his jog and continued walking leisurely.

The cave entrance was closed enough but Acma was still oblivious to it. Suddenly, a long, black shadow came out of it an strike towards Acma.

‘Grrrrrrrrrr’

Silver gave a loud bark and jumped towards Acma as fast as it could. Silver used its head to push its master backwards.

‘Boooooom’

Silver turned into a light particles after its body received the attack from the black shadow when it pushed Acma. That attack was heavy. A small crater with a crack like a spider web appeared from the attack.

“Silverrr!!!!” Acma shouted loudly. He didn’t register why Silver pushed him earlier. But, when he realized about the black shadow, it was already too late. Silver was gone.

Luckily, a panel appeared on his sight, mentioning that Silver didn’t perish permanently, it just couldn’t be resummons within one hour. Only after reading the notifications did Acma gave a relieve sigh.

He turned his sight toward the direction where the black shadow came from. Only now Acma realized about the cave. Secretly, he cursed his carelessness that almost took his live. He was saved by the sacrifice of his summon only. Acma renewed his determination, he won’t get careless again in the future.

The black shadow retreated back to the cave. Acma didn’t pursue it, but he keep his vigilance high.

Finally, the cave master emerged from its dwelling to show itself after a minute passed. It did not immediately attacked Acma, but slowly stationed itself between Acma and the exit. Look like it wanted to prevent Acma from leaving the valley.

The size of the cave master send a chill down to Acma’s spine. It was huge, almost as big as a small hill.

It was a huge python.

“I’m in a deep shit this time”, he cursed.

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Actually, I can't decide the best amount of mana he get from the skull, either 100k, 150k or higher. During the planning stage, I even put 1.5 millions. Haha.

The reason is, I can't gauge the opness of his Dimension Splitter skill and Blackhole spell, worth their rank as divine skill. Op skill = huge mana consumption. It will be wirthless if Acma didn't have enough mana to execute them. This is where the golden skull idea came.

Anyway, please bear with my indecisiveness for a while.