Chapter 180: Spoils of War (2)
Lynn never expected this wizard's tower to hide a small army of Cyclopes. What was he planning to do? Breach the walls of some massive empire?
Although Cyclopes were not legendary creatures, they sat at the absolute pinnacle of magical beasts just below that tier.
An extremely rare few possessed mutations that even touched upon the domain of legendary lifeforms. But even ordinary Cyclopes reached at least Tier 6 upon adulthood, and the stronger individuals could attain Tier 7.
Right before him stood fifty Cyclopes: thirty adults and twenty juveniles.
At the moment, the entire group was trailing neatly behind Maesys.
After looking for a moment longer, Lynn withdrew his gaze. "Congratulations on acquiring a batch of sturdy thugs."
He didn't feel any envy. If Maesys hadn't stepped in, Lynn would have been the one facing this Cyclops army. He was confident he could escape, but it would have been highly troublesome.
Cyclopes were born with the magic to condense earth into stone. They could harden dirt into massive boulders and hurl them with violent force to strike prey from a distance.
They possessed innate titanic strength alongside formidable explosive power, endurance, and recovery. As long as they stood upon the earth, they could continuously replenish their stamina.
Therefore, a living Cyclops was essentially a violent, flesh-and-blood catapult.
But their skills weren't limited to throwing. Achieving such devastating bombardment required more than just leverage; it relied on their terrifying explosive strength.
That same strength allowed them to ruthlessly punish any enemy who mistook them for poor close-quarters fighters.
Standing nearly ten meters tall, their massive frames weren't just for show—a Cyclops was equally terrifying in melee.
Beyond being natural throwers, they were devastating brawlers.
As long as they avoided legendary predators, creatures this adept at both ranged and melee combat were the undisputed overlords of the wilderness.
It was astonishing for a second-level wizard to command a small Cyclops army. Subjugating them must have cost him a tremendous amount of effort.
Good thing I prepared in advance and finished him off early, Lynn thought to himself. If he had been any slower and given his opponent a chance to deploy the wizard tower, the combination of eye monsters, Cyclopes, and the tower's various modules would have formed an unceasing, strategic-level bombardment fortress right where it stood.
Its only flaw would have been mobility. But since the enemy was a wizard, he certainly wouldn't have ignored that shortcoming. The tower's modules very likely included a mobility countermeasure.
It would be either short-distance spatial displacement or a levitation module. Given the Cyclopes' affinity for the earth, it might even have been a module that allowed the wizard tower to travel directly across the ground.
But the wizard tower had not finished revealing its secrets. Immediately afterward, more spider-like creatures began crawling out in succession.
These creatures were entirely transparent, resembling crystalline amber, their bodies catching and reflecting the sunlight.
Crystal energy spiders. Lynn recognized the species.
They preferred living in underground caves. Adapted to that environment, they possessed a special gland that secreted a glue-like substance to snare prey. Once a target was trapped, they would continuously spray this glue until the victim was entirely encased and suffocated to death.
Or, at the very least, lost all ability to resist.
Then, they would drag the prey deep into their cave, pierce the victim's body with a toxic tail stinger, and liquefy their insides.
This was all done to nourish their offspring.
But that was merely their standard hunting behavior. In truth, crystal energy spiders possessed a special ability: they could self-detonate.
When encountering dangerous predators, the intelligent swarm would split in two: one group would flee to cover and protect the young, while the other would charge the enemy and detonate themselves!
The explosion would either blow the enemy to pieces or collapse the cavern.
A collapsed cave provided excellent cover for the survivors to escape.
As long as the offspring got away, the sacrifice was entirely worth it.
Furthermore, their claws were hard and adept at digging, meaning a cave-in posed little danger to the spiders themselves.
Taking the crystal energy spiders into account, Lynn could already guess what modules were installed inside this wizard tower.
"These familiars aren't bad," Maesys said, a trace of showmanship tinging his voice.
"Do you want them?" Maesys asked suddenly.
"Yes," Lynn agreed without the slightest hesitation.
"Hmph. You agreed rather quickly."
Maesys didn't care much about these familiars anyway, as they were essentially useless to him.
His true body was still sealed deep within the ocean.
What good were these creatures to him? Cyclopes were fools, eye monsters were a bunch of deranged madmen, and crystal energy spiders were low-intelligence beasts driven purely by instinct.
Moreover, they were all land creatures. He was a god of the Ocean Pantheon, after all!
Expending divine power to remodel such familiars would be far too wasteful; it was better to just give them away.
"What do you want in return?" Lynn inquired.
Surely he couldn't accept benefits from Maesys for nothing.
The deity was still sealed at the bottom of the sea, working hard to earn his keep so he could break out of prison sooner.
"What I want, you cannot provide right now. Just help me gather more believers over on the Feilan Continent," Maesys said, appearing quite carefree. In truth, knowing Lynn, the deity fully expected reasonable compensation. He was treating these familiars as an investment—the faster Lynn developed, the more bountiful the future payout would be. It was basic economics.
In fact, many gods loved playing this game—cultivating so-called heroes, divine children, demigods, and the like. After all, once these figures ascended, they would all enter those divine kingdoms to serve as personal enforcers.
Lynn stepped inside the wizard tower. Without its master, the vast majority of the tower's functions had fallen dormant.
However, an outsider entering certain sensitive areas still triggered the tower's instinctive resistance.
Yet since Lynn had already breached the interior, those defensive reactions were feeble and futile.
After a short while, Lynn gained complete control over the wizard tower. Securing it so effortlessly was largely due to the fact that he had spent the past month cracking this very tower's magic seals and rune structures.
Upon seizing control, Lynn immediately inspected the structure from the inside out, confirming that this Rank 2 Wizard Tower possessed a total of twelve modules.
These included two energy modules, three defense modules, two auxiliary modules, four Attack Modules, and one special module.
The two energy modules were the Elemental Pool and the Abyss Forge.
To Lynn's slight surprise, the Elemental Pool was active and connected to a certain elemental plane.
Lynn had previously scavenged an Elemental Pool module, but lacking the crucial elemental plane quota, he had never been able to activate it.
That problem had now been solved.
Indeed, spoils of war were always the greatest source of wealth.
As for the Rank 2 Abyss Forge, its materials could be dismantled and used to strengthen his own wizard tower's Abyss Forge, advancing it to Rank 2.
Alternatively, he could simply transplant it into his own wizard tower, giving him two Abyss Forges.
However, one energy core module like the Abyss Forge was enough; a second would only provide redundant functionality without any significant boost in efficiency.
As for the three defense modules and four Attack Modules, Lynn looked them over and found nothing out of the ordinary—they were all standard, average-grade components.
This left Lynn a bit disappointed, but when he considered the Pocket Watch and his new followers, it felt perfectly fair.
He couldn't monopolize every advantage in the world; it was only natural for others to be lucky enough to acquire decent treasures.
What truly caught Lynn's attention was the final special module—the Spatial Blink Function Engine.
Its core was a transparent crystal made of a material so exotic that even with Lynn's extensive knowledge, he couldn't identify it.
The module bore a heavy mechanical aesthetic, reminiscent of the style found in the City of Mechanics.
Its true value lay in its function: a wizard tower equipped with it could execute high-intensity, short-distance spatial displacements in rapid succession.
A fine item. And now, it's mine.