Simon chiseled many soul stones.
To him, this item had a more practical use than as an enchanting energy source.
He had a broadsword enchanted with Soul Trap, which could extract the souls of slain creatures directly. However, it required a medium like a soul stone as a temporary storage place; otherwise, once a soul ascended, it would be difficult to capture.
With enough soul stones, Simon could act freely, avoiding the need to stop and convert the dead after every kill, which wasted a lot of time.
When making the third-generation armor, he had already considered reserving a soul-catching slot for embedding soul stones. This way, the tail end of the Soul-sucking Tapeworm would naturally extend to the soul stone. When the tapeworm entered its annihilation state, it could extend to an extremely long size, like a thin thread, capable of sucking souls from a distance, fully showcasing the tool-like nature of the Soul-sucking Tapeworm.
The raw soul stones chiseled out contained many impurities that needed to be ground away, and they also needed to be sculpted to fit the slots.
Simon drew a ten-foot straight blade from his sword box, gripping a soul stone ore the size of a human head in his left hand. Like cutting tofu, the blade rotated against the crystal, and gravel scattered like sand from his fingers. When he opened his palm again, a prism was perfectly cut.
Now, the actions of the third-generation mech were aided by necromancy and The Core, making Simon's agility in movement higher than the inspiration an ordinary person has when using their body. A thought in his mind immediately translated into action, a high-level state in martial arts.
However, for Simon, this was a disadvantage. Because he could achieve a state of unintentional action, when facing an enemy, his body would move before a thought even formed in his mind. Therefore, improving the operator's control was a difficult problem that the External Armor would need to solve in the future.
Simon also envisioned drone swarms. Once an intelligent core was created, Simon's participation would be completely unnecessary. The External Armor itself would be a nimble living thing, far more advanced than existing dwarven mechanical creatures.
Unfortunately, that day was a long way off.
A plate on the back of big ivan lifted, and Simon used telekinesis to place the carved soul stones into the slots. The total capacity was thirty, meaning after thirty kills, he would need to replace them.
These native soul stones could not hold human souls; they needed to be corrupted into black soul stones to be useful. It seemed the soul-catching sword could only be used to kill monsters for now.
Souls are truly strange things, and necromancy is just as strange.
Simon studied for a long time but still couldn't understand the principle of soul generation. Of course, all things are shaped by superior affinity, but superior affinity itself is a very conceptual thing, not a specific existence, but a reason for existence, a logical basis for existence. For a soul to form, it needs superior affinity, a certain superior affinity, combined with spirit, logic, and emotion, and the resulting thing is also a relatively conceptual product.
Bodhisattvas can certainly create souls, but the current Troll cannot.
To get necromancy, one can only painstakingly kill.
Necromancy is a soul plus necromantic magicka. Necromantic magicka is a tone of magicka itself, like a few lines of lyrics in a song. A soul combined with different magicka will produce different phenomena.
Necromancy is, of course, very common. With magicka, there is a concept of form, and with form, one naturally gets hurt. Necromancy usually isn't killed by the blade of a sword because they can retreat into a state of nothingness, but since they have a form, they are constrained by that form. Many necromantic specters have various cores, spirit skins, and so on. These things need to be well protected, otherwise, if they are pierced, it will cause trauma, leading to gradual demise.
It is best to use magic against necromancy, but mortals are not without a chance of victory.
When necromancy possesses a corpse, its form becomes more complete, which also means that if the possessed body is cut off, the necromancy within cannot escape its fate, just like those draugr.
In that case, the necromancy under Simon's command actually had a better chance of survival, as The Core still existed, and the forms they controlled were merely gold and iron objects attuned by enchanted souls, which they could leave at any time.
Simon opened many soul stone mines along the way and slaughtered many short-sighted monsters. With his current combat power, he was basically at the pinnacle of mortals; as long as he wasn't besieged by hundreds of mages, he could generally roam unhindered. Simon didn't even bother to give these obstructing 'brothers' a proper look.
Along the way were Dwemer cities, now occupied by Snow Elves. These creatures wore rags and Nest Moth carapaces, their bodies small, gaunt, and stooped, their skin chalky gray. Their ears were long and thin, their hearing astonishing, and their blind eyes had no eyeballs, the wrinkled flesh of their eyelids resembling nasal cavities, as ugly as a Troll's nose. They hooted and hollered, accompanied by several human servants—these individuals, no one knew how they came to Blackreach, perhaps flowing in with underground water, or perhaps they were explorers with a attuner. It seemed they had multiplied and now served the brutal Snow Elves.
The human servants showed clear signs of intellectual disability, their language function largely lost, communicating entirely through meaningless whimpers.
Never mind, just cut them all down.
In the wilderness of the Snow Elf settlements, Nest Moth cocoons were scattered, looking like cradles. The black chitin was covered with thick green veins like blood vessels, and when pierced, it exuded a foul-smelling pulp.
Transformed Nest Moths, also called Nest Moth Hunters, resembled flying mantises, capable of spitting venom and possessing serrated chelicerae. The crawling form of the Nest Moth, or Charus to distinguish it, looked like a centipede magnified dozens of times, with a thick, long chitin-covered neck and huge chelicerae capable of tearing a person apart. They are mainly found underground in Skyrim, preferring darkness and avoiding light, and are a more terrifying creature than the Frostbite Spider.
In short, they were disgusting things.
Jonas was so disgusted that he cursed loudly after seeing the Nest Moths, uttering profanities and slang Simon had never heard before, then rushed over and cleanly chopped all the bugs to pieces.
"What exactly did you learn at the academy?!" the Troll asked in shock and anger.
"Uh... my classmates taught me everything," Jonas's voice was amplified by a spell, and though his tone was submissive, it somehow sounded righteous.
"No more swearing!" Simon poked the little boy with a finger, making him spin in place.
"O-KAY!"
Blackreach was vast. Arriving at the center, there was a high city. Most remarkably, an artificial sun made of brass floated above the city. Although its light was now dim, it was not hard to imagine the magnificent scene when it illuminated all of Blackreach.
Simon remembered that releasing a Dragon Shout called "Unrelenting Force" at this sun could awaken a dragon.
However, he didn't know any Dragon Shout now, which was quite a pity.
This city was The Core of Blackreach, the holiest of holies in the Dwemer sanctuary. Simon piloted big ivan, crashing through the brass city gate with a charge, engaging in battle with the Snow Elves inside.
High-ranking Snow Elves also knew a few frost spells. Although they had fallen into idiocy, the instincts in their bloodline could still transmit magic, which was incredible.
A thick magic barrier appeared on big ivan's surface; icy air or sharp ice spikes could not penetrate it.
"Come! Die! And then be reborn!"
The skyscraper-like iron giant roared, and the mountains and rivers of the underground world trembled.
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