He slowly and patiently hammered the small bead.
Sure enough, the difficulty in forging this soul bead was much higher than the spiked mountain bear.
Even though the level of this lesser dryad was lower than the bear, its essence, the soul bead was probably more complicated.
Liam felt a crushing weight on his body and mind, as pain rippled all over. It felt as if his hands were holding something colossal.
No, it felt as if his entire body was lifting something colossal. The pressure was simply unbearable.
Every single time he tried to manipulate the mana, his body twitched in pain.
When he willed the mana hammers to descend on the soul bead and forge it, it felt as if a pair of giant hammers was beating him down as well.
But Liam gritted his teeth and bore the pain.
Even though everything was just one step away from collapsing entirely and probably giving him a huge backlash, he felt as if he was close to something.
If he let this slip, he had a feeling that he would be missing out on something important.
After getting a taste of what this power could be, Liam couldn't bring himself to give up without putting up a fight.
This dryad could push his undead followers to a new level. He needed the two magic damage dealers in his lineup.
He needed stronger followers faster!
His reddened eyes shone with resolution as his greed and pain warred inwardly with each other.
However, this was not a process that Liam could do blindly. He needed to be very conscious and very aware of what he was doing.
He did not think it would be this difficult.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have attempted it, and now he was far too deep to back out. He had to keep going. That was his only option.
So he bore the pain completely and continued the forging with all of his mental acuities.
But unfortunately, that was not enough.
Liam felt the pain tear through his consciousness. This was his limit. There was simply no stretching it further.
Just as everything was about to collapse and backfire on his face, he remembered something crucial.
The loot that they had picked up in the last dungeon! There were five fire essence crystals in the haul!
Liam did not want to expose everything about Luna in front of everyone so he had stored them away for later use.
And now he couldn't help but think of those fire essence crystals.
In the past, he had obtained these crystals from slimes and he had also absorbed them.
They in fact improved his ability to manipulate the fire element and gave him a damage buff.
So if he absorbed these five crystals now, could that help him get through this?
Was this forging so tricky because the soul was branded with fire magic or something like that?
Several theories and conjectures popped up in his mind but Liam knew that he did not have time to think. He had to act NOW!
He quickly summoned the inventory space and took out the fire essence crystal from within it.
Another pang of horrendous pain tore through his brain.
But Liam bore everything and crushed the crystal in his palm. "ABSORB!"
He shouted out loud. He could no longer think clearly. He was on the verge of collapse.
However, his efforts were not in vain.