Inside the yellow sand enveloping the orc, countless spikes suddenly appeared. The orc hadn't even reacted before these spikes had already deeply pierced into his body.

Then, a series of explosions sounded, with these spikes detonating at various points within his body.

The powerful energy concentrated in such a small space triggered an even stronger energy reaction, causing the surrounding yellow sand to be unable to form a stable structure.

From an external perspective, the cocoon suddenly exploded, and countless pieces of flesh and tissue flew out from within.

Countless grains of sand gathered in front of Duke, blocking the impact of the energy, with not a single drop of blood landing on him.

Duke was already very adept at using Earth Magic, able to directly use the yellow sand to condense into Rock Spikes, which had explosive properties. After the sand had bound the enemy, it would form Rock Spike attacks inside, followed immediately by an explosion.

With this series of attacks, if the enemy couldn't escape in the first moment, even a Level 1 life form would be severely injured if not killed.

Duke found that the cocoon he formed with sand had actually become an alternative bomb, killing quite a few orcs nearby, with some others also injured by the shockwaves.

[Sand Guardian level increased, Spiritual Power +0.5]

[Sand Guardian: LV2 (1/150)]

Duke found that after he had just killed this Level 1 orc, the proficiency of Sand Guardian directly increased by fifty points.

It seemed that the stronger the enemy killed with this spell, the more proficiency gained.

However, this spell inherently gained proficiency easily, without consuming Magic Power, so there was no need to deliberately target stronger enemies.

After upgrading Sand Guardian, it provided 0.5 Spiritual Power, which was a lot compared to the 0.1 Spiritual Power gained from a Secondary Spell or Secondary Potion.

This was the first time Duke had upgraded a Level 1 Magic after becoming an Official Wizard.

He estimated that if he were to level a Secondary Spell now, he probably wouldn't gain any Spiritual Power attribute points from upgrading, only receiving free attribute points upon reaching max level.

Duke was just in an inconspicuous corner of the battlefield, not drawing much attention.

This battle lasted from dawn until sunset, with the third stronghold ultimately failing to hold and completely falling, causing the beastman garrison here to begin a desperate retreat.

Duke had fought continuously for a whole day, killing countless orcs, even losing track himself.

Among them were four Level 1 orcs, all of which he felled, yielding at least two thousand contribution points in total.

Prior to this, Duke had been in the Beastman Plane for three months, refining many potions and Alchemy Creations, and completed some tasks, all adding up to just a little over a thousand contribution points.

The battlefield truly was the quickest source of contribution points.

In this one day, Duke directly leveled up Sand Guardian to Level 4, noting that on the Skill Tree it was still in the state of a green bud, indicating that the max level for a Level 1 Magic was quite high.

After experiencing an entire day of combat, Duke became increasingly familiar with the Sand Guardian spell.

Physically, he was doing well, with more than half of his Magic Power remaining and slowly recovering.

[Earth Spring: LV2 (142/150)]

Throughout the day, Duke also managed to level up Earth Spring to Level 2, and it was close to Level 3.

Earth Spring needed a certain amount of Magic Power restoration before gaining a point in proficiency, hence its progress wasn't as fast as Sand Guardian.

Just as the third stronghold's beastmen were retreating, Duke suddenly had an ominous feeling.

He couldn't identify the source of this feeling, nor did he think too much about it, but immediately surrounding his body appeared a mass of yellow sand.

This sand stacked layer upon layer, forming a pyramid-like Yellow Sand Fortress, instantly enclosing Duke inside.

The moment the Yellow Sand Fortress was formed, a massive energy wave erupted from the third stronghold, sweeping across the entire battlefield.

While escaping, the beastmen at the third stronghold decisively decided to detonate all the weapons and energy sources left there, even at the cost of affecting their own, to exact a heavy toll on the wizards.

In an instant, this massive energy spread out with the third stronghold as the center; those close to the center, whether slave creatures or orcs, were instantly melted by the high-energy force.

Positioned on the edge of the battlefield, the energy reaching Duke had significantly weakened, yet it was still very strong.

Luckily, he reacted quickly, forming a fortress with sand around himself in an instant upon sensing a life-threatening crisis.

The sand forming the fortress was all reinforced with Golden Scale Celestial Iron, granting it extremely high strength.

When the energy wave subsided, Duke was inside unscathed.

This was a pre-planned strategy on his part; after witnessing various high-energy weapon effects, he had been contemplating how to handle such situations on the battlefield.

The sand, having been reinforced by Golden Scale Celestial Iron, already surpassed the strength of Celestial Iron in essence. Furthermore, Duke maniacally infused Magic Power into it, turning this Yellow Sand Fortress into an extremely sturdy sanctuary.

This allowed Duke to survive the energy wave without a scratch.

This wave caused the direct death of at least tens of thousands of slave creatures and injured many wizards and slave creatures.

Of course, the orc's losses were also extremely severe.

A large number of orcs who hadn't had time to escape were also swallowed by this energy, meeting their end at the third stronghold.

The Black Sail wizards also suffered a reduction in numbers; many were caught off guard while inside the third stronghold, unable to produce effective countermeasures, and were directly consumed by the raging energy.

Only a portion of wizards with sufficient defensive measures survived, though they were also injured.

Duke estimated that if he had been inside the third stronghold at that time, he would likely have struggled to survive, and even if he did, it would have been in a severely injured state.

His current strength was still too low, not enough to truly make a mark on the battlefield of the Plane war, only affording him a little self-preservation capability, but not much.

Like the third stronghold, the first and second strongholds also fell in succession.

The defensive forces of these two strongholds were slightly stronger, allowing them to hold out a bit longer.

Learning from the third stronghold's lesson, the Black Sail wizards were more vigilant in handling the first and second strongholds, not giving the orcs a chance to drag them down with retaliatory desperation.

What followed was the pursuit, which was the wizards' favorite part.

Black Sail needed to continue pursuing the fleeing enemies while occupying this region, taking over its mining operations and facilities.

During this process, wizards could plunder to their heart's content, with everything they seized belonging to them, naturally showing unprecedented enthusiasm, like hounds catching the scent of blood.

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