Chapter 346: 346

War was all about deception. Ibro read his enemies move, but that made him more confused. Why would this enemy show up his plan like this? It wasn't hard to deduct these arrangements, and that made Ibro have more doubts.

The only idea that came into his mind was the presence of fiends to ambush him. If they were the weak fiends like Gorat, then Ibro wouldn't have any problems dealing with them. But, what if it was Domil?

Every time Ibro fought with these fiends, he always experienced some sort of tricky trap. Their usual tactic was to send him to the gate world. There was also the possibility to send him to another world.

As he couldn't know for sure his enemy's plans, Ibro decided to improvise. The initial plan was a distraction one, but now he would turn it into a battle of attrition plan. 

'Didn't they send out only half of their army? Let me kill this half then.'

Ibro then ordered:

"Tell Erond to send enough armies to the north. All the armies would target the enemy there and prevent them from escaping. If the northern powerhouse moved again, come and tell me. I will hold the south, so focus on the north."

"Immediately, my king."

Ibro then moved rapidly towards the nearest city. He was aiming to strike the southern main city, but he decided to start with every single city other than it. All the preparation he made for the main city would help him to achieve rapid victory in each city.

Once Ibro appeared in this city, he found his army already engaged with the southern emperor's army. Ibro didn't participate in this battle, as he knew the whole out war had already begun everywhere. He still had a huge number of cities to support.

Patches of skeletons came out of his pocket space to take part in this battle. Once he arranged 1 billion armies, he left after giving out his orders to the death kings. He planned for them to move through a teleportation portal from one city to another.

If everything went as planned, he would gather all his scattered southern armies into four major armies that would be ready to hit the enemy main stronghold. Ibro then headed straight to the city. He used the teleportation portal to move from one city to another.

Each city he visited, 1 billion skeleton army would appear out of nowhere on the adjacent battlefield. Ibro did so in nearly 50 cities, and then he stopped. His armies were now scattered over huge parts of the southern lands, he didn't need to release more. 

The southern lands have been already huge, so dispatching these armies of them wouldn't make Ibro obtain control over these lands in a short period.

That was in case if the southern emperor stood there in his main city motionless. Ibro didn't stand motionless either, as he started to roam the lands seeking for Ren's heritage.

He didn't stop summoning his skeletons either. For the subsequent 10 days, Ibro kept summoning his skeletons and death kings, moving them into his world, obtaining over 50 Ren's heritage, and finally taking possession of any demon gate he met.

Throughout this period, he didn't stop monitoring battles between his armies and the emperor's armies. After ten days, he got nothing else to do as he completely visited all the altars in the southern lands.

His armies didn't yet manage to control most of the cities, as the emperor sent out more armies to stand against his own. 

As he had time, he decided to try seeking for materials for his blacksmith function he got. He didn't obtain blacksmith skills in his previous life, so he anticipated his first try to make something with this function. The materials were all that he lacked right now, so he asked the system:

'Can you search for any suitable materials around here?'

The system had already mentioned more than once the presence of suitable materials around him, but he ignored these notifications. He didn't have time before, but now he had some to spare for this. 

'Did you decide finally to look for materials? Fine, there is one type of material near you. It's located 100 kilometers to your north.'

Ibro ignored the system comment as he searched for this location via his divine sense. The divine sense divine ability was always activated to let him monitor everything in a wide radius. Ibro found this location easily. It was a big valley inside a huge forest.

The presence of a valley in the forest was strange, especially it presented between two huge mountains. The strange thing was these two mountains, as the whole forest under Ibro's divine sense didn't have any mountains except for these two. That was weird. 

'Where is the source of this material exactly in this valley?'

Ibro asked after some time when he failed to spot anything that could give him materials in the valley. The system replied:

'It's not in the valley, it's in the mountains.'

Ibro was moving leisurely towards these two mountains while he tried to search for his target. The mountains were immense, so he didn't find any clue after some time. 

'I didn't manage to spot the source of the material. Is it in a small cave or something?'

The system explained patiently:

'No, it's not in a cave; it's on the whole mountain.'

'Do you mean they are the mountains?'

'Yes, these two mountains are composed of unique materials. You can purify them to form one type of material.'

Ibro looked again towards the two huge mountains up ahead with doubt as he expressed it:

'Are you sure? These two mountains looked huge.'

'You underestimate your mineralist divine ability. These two mountains are nothing. If you managed to upgrade this divine ability, then you can even obtain materials from Ren's altars.'

Ibro was astonished as he asked:

'Can I absorb the altars too?'

'Yes, but the altars are made of a special mix of materials that exceeded your current mineralist divine ability rank.'

Ibro was eager to try and absorb these altars; they would provide him with a variety of high-end materials. These altars worked to suppress the demons in the areas inside their coverage.

Although Ibro failed to deduct the pattern of their distribution so far, when he controlled the whole southern empire he wouldn't need these altars.

These altars' heritage was useless to him. So far, he didn't obtain anything that could boost his power. He would prefer to turn them into materials after he cleansed these lands from demons and their agents. 

'How do I raise the rank of my mineralist divine ability?'

'You have three ways, either by raising my rank as a system, sacrificing some PSR orbs, or succeed in obtaining unique materials through it.'

Ibro knew the first way as he already upgraded his system once, he then asked:

'How many PSR orbs do you need to upgrade?'

The system sighed before it replied:

'It's not orbs, I need PSR crystals. I need 1000 SPR crystals to upgrade. One PSR crystal is formed of 10 million PSR orbs. You still have not obtained such wealth, yet.'

Ibro was surprised by this, he commented in disbelief:

'Even after all this killing, I didn't have enough PSR orbs to upgrade you?'

'Don't forget I used a lot of energy to support you in many battles. Your reserves are still not enough to sustain you in long battles. If you let me destroy all the gates you are collecting inside your world, then you will be able to upgrade me easily.'

Ibro sighed as he refused the suggestion:

'That would be killing the hen to lose the golden eggs forever.'

Ibro held high hopes at these gates, so he couldn't sacrifice them now. He would prefer to wait for a while before he could upgrade his system rather than to destroy all the gates now and lose the future potentials they brought to his empire. 

Ibro now had only the two other ways, one to use PSR orbs and the other was to successfully obtain unique materials from his divine ability. He asked about the first one as it was more practical to use:

'How much PSR stones do I need to upgrade the mineralist divine ability?'

'You need 100 million SPR orbs to upgrade it to the first rank. You can upgrade it now if you wish, but you will only have less than 20 million SPR orbs to use.'

Ibro hesitated. His usage of PSR orbs was immense, especially during wars. He decided to postpone using this until he would gain enough PSR orbs in the future. Ibro looked towards the two mountains that stood with pride in front of him, then he asked:

'How can I use my mineralist divine ability?'

'That's easy, just put both of your hands over the thing you need to transform into mineral essence and I will use PSR stones and orbs to activate the divine ability over it.'

Ibro complained:

'There's nothing you provide for free.'

'…'

Ibro sighed before deciding:

'Fine, just don't deplete my PSR orbs on just one mountain.'