The Era of Gods

Chapter 344: Earth Dwarves Evolution – Red Furnace Clan

He was pondering whether this hero profession template should be magic based or melee based, or perhaps a combination of both.

If it were a melee warrior profession, should it lean towards strength or agility, should it focus on small-scale combat or be suited for the chaos of the battlefield, should it specialize in strong battlefield assaults or battlefield survival.

If it were a magic profession, should it focus on damage dealing or controlling the battlefield, with damage being either single-target burst or large-scale AOE, or perhaps summoning?

You can’t have your cake and eat it too; being well-rounded also means being mediocre. You must have a unique feature, a strongest point.

Additionally, he had to consider whether this hero profession should be compatible with other races.

The intended users were undoubtedly the core race of the Supreme Naga, but whether to make it compatible with other races, allowing races like the Earth Dwarves to meet the loading conditions, was also something to consider.

Thinking of this, Lin Xiao suddenly remembered something.

His gaze fell on the busy Earth Dwarves within the Earth attached divine domain, then he looked at the one thousand units of Creation Energy just converted from a hundred units of Crystal Wall Origin, and raised his head to look at the giant flesh and blood tree in the center of the newly built great city that had not yet grown.

Well, now it was not called the giant flesh and blood tree anymore; Lin Xiao had named it the Creation Ancient Tree.

This creature had devoured a large number of Nightmare Creatures, including four Rank 10 Nightmare Behemoths, as well as a piece of Evil God Flesh. During the final battle when he turned against the will of the Nightmare World, he had a premonition that things might go south, so with a mentality of not suffering a loss, he collected a small piece of flesh from that Evil God.

All those powerful creature genes were stored and available for use at any time, just like the World Tree in ancient myths, capable of bearing flesh fruits, from which meticulously engineered lifeforms could be grown.

Of course, the Creation Ancient Tree was not yet mature and couldn’t bear fruit, but he didn’t need it to bear fruit now; he just wanted to access its gene bank, to extract a few suitable genes and merge them with the Earth Dwarves to create a new species.

The current Earth Dwarves were just a hasty fusion of two powerful Dwarf genes. Now that he had enough resources at his disposal, he needed to make some proper adjustments.

After picking through the gene bank of the Creation Ancient Tree for almost a day, he finally selected a few suitable species genes, then retrieved the Dwarf Species Card to begin the modulation.

This time, the modulation didn’t take much effort; he had done this so many times before, his understanding of the Creation Law had already exceeded ten percent. With the aid of the Creation Rubik’s Cube, this task was a piece of cake for him. Quickly, a new Dwarf species he had envisioned came hot off the presses.

Strictly speaking, the new species had little to do with Dwarves. He only extracted the Dwarves’ talent for forging, discarding all talents from both the Black Iron Dwarf and the Golden Dwarves, and replaced them with the talents of a certain Evil Spirit World creature and two kinds of Nightmare Creatures.

The talent from the Evil Spirit World creature was hard to describe, but it was definitely stronger than the Dwarves’, whether in terms of forging or combat talent. Paired with the genes from two Nightmare Creatures and merged into one, strengthened by Creation Energy, a very powerful, never-before-seen High Grade Species was freshly created.

Lin Xiao opened the new species panel, and its attributes were clearly displayed before him.

Race: Unknown.

Category: Sub-human Species.

Level: High Grade Species.

Profession: None.

Talent: Smithing Spirit, Nameless Talent.

Skills: None.

Specialty: None.

Constitution: 10 points.

Strength: 10 points.

Agility: 6 points.

Spirit: 3 points.

Evaluation: A never-before-seen humanoid species with an exceptionally gifted talent for forging.

Lin Xiao provisionally named this new race the Red Furnace Clan, for they had humanoid forms with skin reddish as glowing hot furnaces, and after reaching adulthood, they averaged around two and a half meters in height and appeared incredibly strong and powerful.

The faces of the Red Furnace Clan were extremely similar to those of Humans, but they had four arms. Two arms were like those of normal humans; such large hands could easily grip a basketball. The other pair of arms emerged from their backs, two flexible tentacles, with the ends of the tentacles splitting into five finger-like tendrils that could deftly grasp any tool.

As a High Grade Species, the Red Furnace Clan possessed Level 4 strength upon reaching adulthood and had a basic lifespan of one hundred and twenty years.

Upon advancing to Fifth Level, their lifespan increased to one hundred and fifty years.

If they could reach Rank 6, the racial limit of the Red Furnace Clan, they would have a lifespan cap of a full two hundred years.

The Red Furnace Clan possessed two talents: the Dwarves’ forging talent, enhanced by Creation Energy and transformed into the Smithing Spirit, a forging talent far superior to that of the Dwarves.

The other, a Nameless Talent, was unique to the Red Furnace Clan, with the following effects:

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Nameless Talent: The Crimson Furnace Clan is immune to fire damage, has greatly increased resistance to other energy types, is immune to bleeding, poisoning, disease curses, and other negative effects, and can continuously draw fire energy to recover from injuries and restore stamina in the presence of flames.

The newly born Crimson Furnace Clan possesses immense combat power, but in Lin Xiao’s design, they are merely a race specialized in smithing. Both their talents and their form have been enhanced in the smithing regard. As for their combat power being stronger than that of the original dwarves, that is just an additional bonus.

After thoroughly checking and confirming that there was no problem with the new race, he issued a Divine-mandate to summon all Earth Dwarves back to the Earth attached divine domain, then reload and transform them.

After finishing these tasks, he had only consumed 42 units of Creation Energy, not much.

The reason he didn’t make them more formidable was mainly due to the scarcity of suitable genes, plus the fact that high-grade species have their limits. Moreover, he only needed a forging race, not a main battle race, so there was no need to make them that powerful.

Furthermore, the gap between high-grade races and sub-legendary species capable of ascending to Rank 7 was too great, and he didn’t have that many resources.

Perhaps after Divine Enthronement and another expansion of the Divine Realm, and once he has ample resources, he might elevate the Crimson Furnace Clan to a sub-legendary or even legendary forging race.

After strengthening the Crimson Furnace Clan, it would take some time for the entire race to complete their transformation. Lin Xiao then turned his attention back to the standard Hero class template, considering how to proceed with it.

However, now that the Crimson Furnace Clan was freshly forged, he had a fair idea of how to select options for this standard Hero class template.

First and foremost, it was going to be a melee profession, as a magic-based one would conflict with the Wise Goblins.

It would definitely be tailored for the Supreme Naga, without considering compatibility with other Clans.

As a melee profession, the focus would be on survival and battlefield presence, for in games, only those who can hold their ground can make a significant impact. Like in competitive gaming, those who have farmed all game but drop in a second, despite having thirty thousand gold, have no right to call themselves boss.

With this in mind, Lin Xiao had a clear idea of what to do.

First, he selected several high-quality Skills from the hundreds of cards available as alternatives, knowing that the Hero class had limited capacity. Additionally, he would use the Creation Rubik’s Cube to enhance the skills. After enhancement, the skills would become much more powerful and would thus occupy more capacity. In the end, he estimated that only a few Skills could be loaded.

Quality, not quantity of Skills, matters. A multitude of minor Skills combined can’t match the power of a single high-level Skill.

He spent nearly half an hour painstakingly selecting five Skills as backups: three active Skills, one passive Skill, and one passive Talent.

It is worth mentioning that, coincidentally or not, the Skills he chose were very similar to the Talents of Slarda.

The first active Skill: Sprint.

Its base effect is to substantially increase one’s own Speed, with an amplification ratio of fifty percent. It is a Four Star Epic quality Skill Card.

Lin Xiao selected a bunch of Skills that were identical or similar to this Skill from the pool. Using this card as the core and infusing ten units of Creation Energy, he soon enhanced it into an incredibly powerful Skill Card.

Five Star Skill Card — Phase Shift (Ancient): After use, increases the user’s speed by 300%, lasting for 60 seconds, usable five times a day.

Note one: While shifting, significantly enhances one’s evasion, with a chance to evade targeted locking Skills and Spells.

Note two: Obtains a Phase non-collision state while shifting, ignoring any slowdown effects, and ignoring terrain, capable of walking on water.

The second active Skill: Thunder Strike.

A classic warrior’s AoE (Area of Effect) damage Skill, with average power, but most important for a warrior is this Skill’s AOE slowing effect on enemies.

By merging different similar Skills and infusing ten units of Creation Energy, a new, extremely powerful group damage and control Skill is freshly created.

Five Star Skill Card — Chaos Roar (Ancient): A powerful ground slam that causes substantial physical and explosive damage to enemies within a fifteen meter +X radius around oneself, stuns for 2+X seconds, then slows for 5+X seconds after the stun, and leaves a Chaos Field in place for 30+X seconds that lasts when the Skill ends, usable five times a day.

Note one: The power of the Skill and the effect strength are related to individual strength; the stronger the individual, the greater the power and effect.

Note two: Within the Chaos Field, oneself gains strong physical and magic resistance, as well as a powerful regenerative ability, a huge bonus to attack accuracy. Allies receive half the effect of oneself, and it decreases enemy defense and resistances.

The third passive Skill: Heavy Strike.

Initially, it enhances the power of the next attack significantly, inflicting severe injuries on the enemy. After merging different Skills with ten units of Creation Energy, the new Skill turned out to be unexpectedly powerful.

Five Star Skill Card — Chaos Strike (Ancient): Every five normal attacks accumulated, the next strike will gather a mighty force, dealing three times the user’s maximum damage, ignoring any form of the target’s defense and evasion, and stunning the target for 1 second.

The fourth active Skill: Stonify Saint.

It may look like Berserk, but it is a Transformation Skill that turns oneself into a stone figure, immune to most magic effects, and greatly increases defense and strength.

This Skill is the most powerful of the more than one hundred cards given by Jin Sisi. If not for the short duration and drastic reduction in speed while transformed, it would be considered a divine ability.

By merging different Skills and consuming a total of…

Let’s just say, after strengthening the other three Skills and Talent and loading them into the standard Hero class template, he still had fifty capacity points left, he decisively used thirty units of Creation Energy to enhance this Skill.

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