Chapter 2: A Unique Hidden Class! Undead Sovereign!

John immediately opened the description.

The surface of the ancient bronze mirror shifted once more, and lines of pale golden text appeared.

[Exclusive Talent: 10,000× Acceleration (SSS)]

[Talent Effect: All standard processes involving the passage of time receive a permanent 10,000× acceleration bonus.]

[Applicable processes include, but are not limited to: unit training, building construction, building upgrades, technology research, resource gathering, crop growth...]

John stared at the glowing text, his chest rising and falling.

A one-in-a-billion awakening chance.

And he had actually hit it.

Ever since humanity first entered Godfall Battlefield, fewer than fifty SSS-Rank talents had ever been officially recorded.

And as long as those SSS-Rank talent holders survived long enough to return from Godfall Battlefield, every last one of them eventually became a major power—ruling dozens of underground cities and commanding millions of high-tier troops.

More importantly, even those godlike talents usually came with one major limitation.

Most of them only excelled in a single field.

Some removed the growth limit on one attribute.

Others doubled resource gathering efficiency.

But John’s talent was completely different.

At its core, Godfall Battlefield was a game of conquest built around one thing above all else.

Time.

Units in Godfall Battlefield were divided into twelve Star tiers.

Even the weakest 1-Star unit took one full hour to recruit and train from an altar.

If an ordinary Lord wanted to build a low-tier defensive force of two thousand soldiers, they would have to camp beside the altar for nearly three months without stopping.

Higher-Star units took even longer.

John once heard a merchant from the Upper City mention that training a single 9-Star unit required three years.

And 12-Star units?

One hundred years.

Unfortunately, such units existed only in legends and textbooks now.

As far as John knew, no Lord had ever successfully trained a 12-Star unit in the modern era.

But none of those time costs mattered anymore.

Not in front of 10,000× Acceleration.

A 1-Star unit normally took one hour to train.

An ordinary Lord could produce twenty-four of them in a full day.

John?

He could produce two hundred and forty thousand.

Even a legendary 12-Star unit that normally took a full century to train would only require around three and a half days.

The thought alone was enough to make his blood boil.

John raised both hands and rubbed his stiff face until he finally calmed down.

"Wait."

He suddenly smacked his forehead.

"How did I forget about that?"

There was one major prerequisite for mass-producing troops.

Resources.

Godfall Battlefield had its own rules.

Just because a unit had been trained didn’t mean a Lord could maintain it indefinitely.

Every unit required a basic upkeep resource.

Food.

Without enough food, troop morale would steadily fall.

If supplies ran out for too long, morale would eventually drop to zero.

Then came desertion.

Mutiny.

And in the worst cases, the troops could even turn on their own Lord.

The more troops a Lord recruited, the more food they consumed.

During the novice period, however, the area surrounding a starting territory contained little more than 1-Star wild rabbits and 1-Star gray wolves.

Even after hunting monsters for an entire day, an ordinary Lord might not gather more than a few hundred units of food.

In other words, if John abused 10,000× Acceleration and recruited several thousand soldiers on the very first day, his territory could run out of food before half the day was over.

"All the production capacity in the world won’t mean anything without the resources to support it."

John muttered under his breath.

"The more I build, the faster I’ll collapse."

Accelerated resource gathering could alleviate some of the pressure, but resource nodes on the map still required time to respawn.

And the amount of material available inside a novice protection zone was limited.

He would have to carefully balance troop production against his available food supply.

Just as John began calculating how to maximize his opening resource ceiling, violent ripples spread across the ancient bronze mirror once again.

"Talent allocation complete."

"Evaluating compatibility with the Lord’s core soul signature."

"Beginning initial class selection..."

"WARNING!"

"Residual traces of an abnormal Law of Time detected!"

"Class Database experiencing rule instability..."

"Random selection pool locked!"

"Forcibly recalibrating class compatibility..."

The standard class icons that had appeared across the mirror—

Warrior.

Mage.

Priest.

Knight.

—all vanished beneath a surge of gray-black mist.

A moment later, the image of a skeletal throne glowing with deathly pale light condensed at the center of the mirror.

"Recalibration complete."

"Unique Hidden Starting Class automatically selected:

Undead Sovereign."

John froze.

"Undead Sovereign?"

He immediately opened the class information panel.

[Class Name: Undead Sovereign]

[Rarity: Unique Hidden Class]

[Class Description: The supreme ruler who exists beyond the laws of life and death, the guide who awaits all things at the end of existence.]

[Class Passive 1: Undead Conversion]

[The Lord may convert altars, living creatures, trained units, and other valid targets into undead forms. This process consumes no resources.]

[Class Passive 2: Absolute Dominion]

[All units converted by the Undead Sovereign have their Loyalty permanently locked at 100%. They are immune to mental control, temptation, manipulation, and subversion, and can never desert or rebel.]

[Class Passive 3: Skeletal Form]

[Undead units are freed from all biological needs. They are immune to hunger, and all daily upkeep costs are reduced to zero.]

[Daily Food Consumption: 0]

John stood motionless.

His breathing grew heavier.

Daily upkeep—

zero.

Daily food consumption—

zero.

The problem that had been bothering him only moments ago...

was gone.

Completely gone.

10,000× Acceleration solved his production problem.

Undead Sovereign solved his logistics problem.

Put the two together...

and the combination was absurd.

John slowly curled his fingers into a fist, forcing down the excitement surging through him.

"This time..."

A grin spread across his face.

"I really can build an endless army."

He let out a long breath.

The shock in his eyes faded, replaced by calm.

Then the enormous ancient bronze mirror floating in the void began to crack apart inch by inch.

Countless fragments dissolved into motes of light and shot into John’s chest.

System notifications rang rapidly in his ears.

"Lord Status initialization complete."

"Lord Identification Number:

Lower City–Sequence 13–9527."

"Lord ID:

Tyrant."

"Talent:

10,000× Acceleration — SSS-Rank."

"Class:

Undead Sovereign — Unique Rank."

"Randomizing initial spawn coordinates..."

"Coordinates locked."

"Outer Misty Wasteland."

"Region Code:

Dark-0914."

"Teleportation in three seconds."

"Three."

"Two."

"One."

The sensation of solid ground returned beneath John’s boots.

A powerful gust scattered the white light surrounding him.

John steadied himself and looked around.

An endless forest stretched in every direction.

Ancient dark-brown trees towered from the earth, their dense canopies blotting out half the sky.

Rumble...

The ground suddenly began to shake.

The soil beneath John’s feet split apart.

A square altar made of blue-gray stone slowly rose from underground until it stood at the center of the small hill where he had appeared.

Then—

a golden pillar of light descended from the sky.

It struck the stone platform dead center.

A crisp notification sounded beside his ear.

"Congratulations, Lord Tyrant."

"Successfully entered Novice Map."

"Current Region:

Misty Wasteland."

"Notice: This region is currently designated as a Novice Map."

"Once the Trial Period ends, the region will automatically merge into the main territory of Godfall Continent."