It took a second for Liam to take in the presence of this very diverse group.
He let out a small sigh and then looked at Luna. Her next task was ready. "You know what to do."
Kyuuuuuu!
[Yes, Master]
"Be careful. We don't know this place well. So stay close and don't wander too far."
The fox nodded, rubbing her head up and down on Liam's shoulder, and then ran away to do her bidding.
The other soul undeads also promptly followed her.
Liam silently watched the group disappear behind some rocks and let out another deep breath. "Time to get to work."
He then looked at his cage of imps. They were screeching and clawing, trying to break free. The whole cage was rattling.
However, Liam did not care about that. He opened the cage and reached forward to grab a single imp.
He took a beating, but it was barely a scratch on his health.
On the other hand, he only needed a single punch to end the imp's life.
Liam quickly sat down and tried his best to focus on the small soul bead that popped out of the dead imp.
Argh. He could already feel a burden on his mind just sensing this soul bead.
Just like the lesser dryads, he could tell that this one as well was not going to be easy to handle.
However, that did not matter because he was now in the nether realm and not in the Xion realm.
"Come on!" Liam grunted and commanded the thick nether in the air to condense to form hundreds of tiny black hammers.
He then forced all the hammers to thrum with life and made them bang the small soul bead up and down repeatedly.
DANG. DANG. DANG. DANG.
The thundering of the hammers echoed loudly, filling the entire place, but Liam was far too occupied to hear it.
"Damn it. Why is it still so difficult!"
He clenched his hand and used all of his mental focus to concentrate and continue forging the soul bead.
Based on everything that he had learned so far, Liam came to a logical conclusion.
He had made prior calculations and then started this forging, but now it looked like all the logic was out of the window.
Forging this damned thing was still ridiculously difficult!
"Why? What am I missing?" Liam gritted his teeth and tried his best to persevere. However, he couldn't hold on any longer after a few seconds.
Seeing that he had no other option, he once again fished out a fire essence crystal from his inventory space.
Even though he did not want to, it looked like he needed to rely on this.
Liam tossed the crystal up into the air and then caught it back in frustration, absorbing everything that was present in the stone.
The stone dissolved, and a wisp of energy floated across him. Almost immediately, his eyes widened in surprise!
"What the heck? Why is this effect so instantaneous?"
The soul bead that he was struggling to forge up until now was just like that no longer stiff and sturdy.
It became soft and malleable making it easy for him to finish the rest of the forging.
Only a few more seconds passed when the notification also popped up.
[Ding. Soul Forging Successful]
Liam flashed his eyes open to see the familiar bluish white soul bead with a tinge of yellow orange hue spread across it.
The bead then disappeared as the ghost of an imp emerged in its place.
Grug. Grug. Grug.
The soul undead grunted and gazed at Liam, waiting for his command.
Just as it lifelessly looked at him, he also stared at it blankly for a minute, trying to understand what just happened.
"Attack that rock," Liam muttered in contemplation.
Grug. Grug. Grug.
The imp dragged its scrawny body and tossed a small ball of fire.
Its casting speed was faster than the dryad's but clearly, the damage capacity of the attack was a lot lesser.
Liam already expected this because while an imp fought with a quick succession of fire attacks, dryads tended to be cannons that delivered big hits.
So the forging was indeed successful. There was no doubt about it.
From whatever angle he looked at the imp, it was a perfect replica, just like the imps in the cage.
It also seemed to be capable of doing magic and its level was also Level 11 which almost mirrored its original level.
So no matter how he analyzed it, the forging was very successful. However, Liam was still not satisfied.
What he did not understand was… why did he need a fire essence crystal even though they were in the nether realm currently?
This was supposed to be his strong point!
He was strongest in all aspects when he was in the nether realm. So why was this particular forging still proving to be difficult?
"What am I missing?" Liam quietly pondered.