Skill Extraction: Exploring Dungeons-Chapter 471 - 435: Promotion Altar

Over 2000 soldiers wearing blue armor dashed towards the front camp.

They had varying degrees of scars on their bodies, but at least these scars didn’t affect their combat or mobility.

Those too severely wounded had already been taken down halfway by Kane and his team.

On the wooden wall of the blue camp, a general was wearing heavy armor.

Upon seeing those soldiers, he immediately shouted to his own troops below: "Quick, quick, quick, open the gates, let them in and prepare for defense."

Seeing this scene, there’s no need to think much—it’s clear his comrades had failed the ambush.

Moreover, he didn’t see the figure of the mage general; it seems he perished too.

"Fools! Told them the enemies are exceptionally strong this time. If he’d teamed up with me, there might’ve been a chance to hold the camp. Overestimating themselves—death served them right!"

The general loudly complained.

Although he hadn’t engaged directly with Kreya and the others, he knew well the strength of the camps before him.

To have three camps uprooted in a few days—he was terrified by the concept. Who knew the reinforcements would be such arrogant fools?

All just a bunch of naive fools!

Utterly unlucky.

However, thankfully, for some reason lately, his and his underlings’ powers have greatly increased.

A blessing from above.

He hoped this might help him hold the camp.

From a distance, he saw dust rising and heard the sound of hooves, immediately turning to shout loudly at the soldiers below.

"Prepare, the enemy is coming, hold your swords damn tight!"

Kane and his team didn’t charge directly to the camp front but stopped several hundred meters away.

There were surely countless traps ahead, as the footprints had already betrayed this.

The footprints of the retreating soldiers cleverly looped several times upfront.

"Boom!"

Several cannonballs flew out, plowing through the ground in front of the opposing camp.

When the dust cleared, the traps on the ground were nearly all destroyed, revealing the pits on the ground.

Kane looked at the meticulously defended enemy camp, observing the dense magical reactions inside.

Honestly, he really wanted to send a surprise over to wipe the camp out entirely.

However, he thought twice—exposing this move merely for such a small camp was not appropriate.

After all, this attack was extremely loud, and once known, the enemy would surely devise defenses, making it less effective than the first time.

Not to mention, this attack might only be used once at the moment, and one time would almost drain his magic power.

Because the essence of this move is simply a magic power concentration followed by an explosion skill.

But due to Kane’s massive magic power, the effect seemed highly exaggerated.

Still, Kane wasn’t planning on using cannonballs.

The earlier skirmish had already consumed much of his magic power, now he needed some time to recover even by drinking magic potion, so he chose to use stored magic tears directly.

Most importantly, his Eagle Eye had already spotted the very hidden magic runes carved on the wooden wall.

While unable to fully understand these runes, they seemed to be for defense, perhaps using a magic shield given Kane’s attacks had been used many times, information already spread across enemy camps.

Kreya previously said remote arrow rain coverage wasn’t effective anymore, as they’re always shielded by anti-air magic shields.

Seeing this, Kane turned to Kreya and said.

"Wait, I’ll drive the mecha over to demolish the wooden wall, you follow closely."

Hearing Kane’s words, Kreya nodded.

Surging magic power quickly erupted, beginning to construct densely packed metal components around, wrapping him tightly, growing thicker and higher, within less than a second, a mechanical giant over 10 meters high appeared before everyone.

Special for siege—Ruins Maker.

The most noticeable aspect of this mecha is its heavily built upper body, and its enormous mechanical arms, the arm size collectively exceeding its body.

While the lower half looked very small, mostly jet nozzles.

"Let’s go!"

As Kane’s words fell, the lower half launched directly, jets spraying blue flames, propelling Kane towards the wooden wall opposite.

"Attack!"

Kreya followed with the soldiers close behind.

The enemy certainly wouldn’t sit idly by, a dense rain of arrows was shot towards them.

The arrows hit Kane’s mechanical body, making a ding-dong sound.

All the cavalry behind raised their shields, bending over trying to hide under the shield.

Fortunately, Kane was blocking nearly half of the arrow rain for them upfront.

"Boom!"

Under immense force, the Ruins Maker directly rammed into the wooden wall, a magic shield appeared in midair, covering the entire camp within.

The Ruins Maker piloted by Kane thrust its massive drills directly into the wooden wall, beginning to spin wildly.

As they rotated, the drills continued to emit explosive sounds.

These explosions converged at the drill tips, and as the drills spun, energy kept pouring in.

The entire protective shield showed no fluctuations, but numerous cracks appeared where Kane faced.

"Crack!"

It was the sound of glass shattering, followed by intense explosions and the sound of the wooden wall being blown apart.

The overall Magic Shield remained very intact, with only a broken gap appearing in the area in front of Kane.

The wooden wall behind it collapsed as well.

"Why! Why does the Magic Shield only shatter in one area? This isn’t right, what did you do!"

The general on the wooden wall shouted in panic.

He couldn’t comprehend why the Magic Shield had a breach in only one place.

This was a shield composed of Magic Power, not a real glass cover.

"Don’t underestimate the effort I’ve put into the knowledge of Magic Arrays and Runes during this time!" Kane shouted in his heart.

As Kane rushed in, the soldiers behind him also entered in a stream.

Now it was time to catch a turtle in a jar.

...

Kane had already dispelled the Mecha and was seated at the command camp in the middle of the encampment, which was shifting from a blue and white scheme to a red and white one.

"The loss of soldiers this time is a bit much." Kreya said with emotion as she looked at the battle report handed over by her subordinate.

The total number of soldiers they led was 2,000.

Yet after a skirmish and a siege, they had lost over 500 soldiers.

This was unimaginable previously; even without Meizike overseeing, there shouldn’t have been this many losses.

But there was no choice, the strength of the enemy forces had indeed received significant reinforcement.

Although for Kane and Kreya, it was just a matter of one cut versus two cuts, for those soldiers, it was deadly.

Most of the enemy’s forces were inherently stronger than them, and they outnumbered them several times over.

Even with Kreya’s Enhancement enabling them to temporarily match the enemy’s strength, due to the number of enemies, even if Kane intercepted a large portion, they still outnumbered them.

So such a loss could actually be considered a thoroughly exhilarating victory.

And these soldiers indeed gained the experience and recovery of a thoroughly exhilarating victory.

"It’s just something unavoidable, after all, the Dungeon went all-in." Kane said while appraising the collected loot.

Looking at the soldiers outside, Kane suddenly said, "It seems that those earliest soldiers who followed us, the ones still alive, have already reached the bottleneck of their strength."

Upon hearing Kane’s words, Kreya nodded: "Many soldiers had already reached the bottleneck when we returned earlier, and even more have reached it now."

Soldiers can gain experience and strength improvements from each victory, but such improvements have limits, often stalling at the Silver level reaching the middle Silver bottleneck stage.

According to the materials provided by Kreya’s mother, if they want to further improve their strength.

They need to go to a soldiers’ Promotion Altar, spend some battle merit to advance their soldiers to higher-level units.

This would elevate the ceiling of these units and also grant them some basic battle formation Skills to enhance their combat ability.

Or they may gain the right to construct Special Soldier units without spending battle merit, transforming their troops into Special Soldiers under their command.

Thus their ceiling would naturally be lifted, but this situation is quite rare.

It’s said one generally needs to encounter some Spirit of Freedom not belonging to either side to achieve that.

Like encountering a hidden NPC and completing their task to receive a reward.

But in a world not yet turned into a Dungeon, according to Kallen, it means developing the potential of more life forms.

To see if those worthless life forms have any hope.

Of course, the two girl soldier types Kane recruited in the wild camp have the same maximum limit, being able to reach up to the Silver bottleneck phase.

It’s not that they can’t reach the gold level, merely that the Dungeon’s limit is like this, or say, the limit of this piece of the world after it shattered is like this.

Kane took a map from his Space Equipment and spread it out on the table in front of him.

"I remember there’s a Promotion Altar for soldiers, one that seems to be not far from here, let me check where exactly."

"Oh, found it."

Kane pointed to the foot of a high mountain over 60 kilometers from them, indicating it to Kreya.

"But what does the flying blade symbol next to this altar mean?" Kreya asked, pointing to a marker on the map. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

Kane leaned over to look and saw a triangular flying blade icon beside the Dungeon.

He reached back into the Space Equipment to search again: "Let me look up the data, I remember seeing this marker in the materials."

Kane searched through the material and finally found what the marker meant.

"This symbol represents a remote Promotion Altar, which can only promote long-range units, and it must be lower-level units, while the square symbol is for close-range units."

With that said, Kane looked around the map and found a square Promotion Altar 200 kilometers away from them.

However, to reach it they would have to capture a camp ahead of them first.