At the edge of the holographic sandbox map, several glaring crimson dots were flashing wildly.
Following the thick scent of blood left behind by the Shadow Webweaver Spider's death, they had already crossed the two-hundred-meter boundary and were greedily closing in on the pure white fortress that had just risen.
Seeing the moving red dots on the map, Labrynth showed no panic. She lay comfortably sprawled across the wide, soft velvet bed.
Her fair, delicate cheek sank deep into the white lace pillow, while her slender legs swayed leisurely back and forth in the air.
Her pure white eyes were locked onto the holographic projection, the corners of her lips curling upward into an uncontrollable, excited smile as if watching a show.
"Perfect timing."
Labrynth's voice carried the cruelty and cunning unique to a demon.
She had just expended a massive amount of mental power and Emotion Points to transform the ruins here into a complex three-dimensional labyrinth.
These foolish red dots that had walked right into her domain were the perfect opportunity to test the defensive strength of the maze.
However, cold walls and traps alone were not enough.
To enrich the labyrinth's defenses and to find herself the perfect labor force that didn't need to eat, sleep, or even be paid, Labrynth summoned the control panel of [Silver Castle Lord] in her mind.
Her gaze skipped past the basic building materials and landed on the middle section of the blueprint list.
There, resting, was a blueprint she had taken a liking to earlier.
[Pure White Doll: 750 Emotion Points]
For Labrynth, who had just become suddenly wealthy by killing the Shadow Webweaver Spider and harvesting Emotion Points from scavengers, the cost was painful… but absolutely worth it.
"Exchange!"
Without hesitation, Labrynth pressed down heavily on the virtual panel.
[750 Emotion Points deducted. Pure White Doll blueprint successfully exchanged]
Accompanied by the system's crisp and pleasant notification, an enormous and pure surge of magic gathered wildly beside the velvet bed.
Brilliant blue spatial ripples spread like waves, illuminating the entire cozy Gothic room.
As the light gradually faded, a life-sized, peculiar construct appeared beside Labrynth's bed.
It was a doll with no facial features at all. Its face was smooth like a mirror, without any outlines of eyes, nose, or mouth, exuding a strange aesthetic.
Its entire body was made from that indestructible snow-white Silver Castle material, with spherical joints at the shoulders, elbows, and knees.
Labrynth sat up on the bed, excitedly examining this perfect work of art she had created.
She wasted no time and activated the rare skill she had just obtained: [Remote Mental Manipulation].
An invisible wave of mental force surged from her forehead, directly entering the hollow head of the Pure White Doll.
She encoded basic guard patrol routines, friend-or-foe recognition, and absolute obedience into tightly structured streams of logic, forcibly imprinting them deep within the doll's body.
Then, Labrynth reached out with her right hand and removed the dark silver magic ring she had just obtained from the spider's stomach from her index finger.
She grabbed the doll's hard, pure white hand and slipped the ring, capable of enhancing magic release efficiency, onto its ring finger.
"From now on, this will be your magic core amplifier."
The moment the ring was equipped—
The dark silver magical patterns burst into a dazzling red glow, as magic power surged through the doll's entire body.
The Pure White Doll was instantly activated!
Its previously lowered head snapped upward. Though it had no facial features, Labrynth could feel a sense of being locked onto.
Its movements were initially stiff, accompanied by faint clicking sounds from its spherical joints, but within just two seconds, they became smooth as silk.
At once, the Pure White Doll knelt on one knee before Labrynth on the bed.
It placed its right hand over its chest and lowered its mirror-smooth head, adopting a humble posture as it became the first "servant" of this silver labyrinth.
"Go. Welcome our guests," Labrynth waved her small hand casually.
The doll rose silently, its body blending into the dark corridor outside the room like a ghost, without making a single sound.
At this moment, at the edge of the holographic sandbox map—
The red dots had already fully entered the outer region of the labyrinth.
Three low-level carrion-feeding demons, each the size of an adult hunting dog.
Their bodies were covered in diseased and dark red patches, their limbs short yet powerful, and their mouths filled with jagged, razor-sharp fangs. Foul, viscous saliva dripped continuously from their jaws onto the crystal-white stone floor, producing faint corrosive sounds.
These creatures had originally come to scavenge, following the scent of the Shadow Webweaver Spider's flesh.
In their simple minds, this place had always been a ruin they could freely roam.
But the moment they stepped into this area, everything changed.
The leading Carrion Demon greedily sniffed the blood in the air before suddenly bursting forward on all fours, charging toward what appeared to be a straight passage.
Its two companions followed closely behind, emitting low, savage growls.
However, they failed to realize: The labyrinth's corridors were folded and shifting.
The instant they rushed into the first fork—
Click!
The moment the leading demon's thick claws touched down, the seemingly solid and flat floor tile suddenly flipped downward without warning!
"Grr—?"
The savage expression on the demon's face froze as its limbs flailed in midair, grasping at nothing.
A powerful sense of weightlessness struck; it didn't even have time to react before its massive body plunged straight into the bottomless darkness.
The two demons behind it couldn't stop in time, tumbling in one after another like falling dumplings.
Shrill screams exploded through the corridor!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three dull splashes echoed up from below as they crashed heavily into the lower water prison meticulously designed by Labrynth.
The icy underground water instantly submerged their heads, and all around them were perfectly smooth stone walls with no footholds whatsoever.
Labrynth lay comfortably on the soft velvet bed, hugging a white lace pillow in her arms.
Through the holographic projection on the panel, she watched this ridiculous scene with absolute clarity from a god's-eye perspective.
The demons in the water prison struggled desperately, their sharp claws frantically scraping against the walls, only managing to leave a few faint white marks.
When they finally managed to climb out of the water by stepping on each other and crawling up along a slanted stairway, they would immediately crash into the visual blind zones Labrynth had set.
The demons became completely lost within the complex three-dimensional corridors.
They stumbled around like headless flies, sometimes startled into retreat by stone slabs suddenly popping out from the walls, and other times panicking at the sight of inverted fake spikes suspended in midair.
These harmless intimidation mechanisms couldn't kill them, but they were relentlessly crushing their psychological defenses.
[Absorbed Panic Emotion from Carrion Demon: Emotion Points +2!]
[Absorbed Panic Emotion from Carrion Demon: Emotion Points +3!]
[Absorbed Carrion Demon Despair Emotion, Emotion Points +5!]
Small but continuous amounts of Emotion Points were rapidly ticking upward in the top-right corner of the panel.
This tower-defense-like satisfaction—where she didn't need to lift a finger or risk her life, simply lying comfortably in bed while harvesting her enemies—made Labrynth narrow her eyes in pleasure.
"So this is how satisfying it is to be a lord."
She turned over lazily, watching the demons in the holographic projection as they were driven nearly insane.
More than half an hour passed.
Finally, one of the largest and strongest Carrion Demons managed to bypass seven or eight dead ends and flipping traps, climbing to a mid-level open corridor of the labyrinth while soaked and covered in wounds.
Its crimson eyes were filled with irritation and exhaustion as it opened its fang-filled maw, preparing to unleash an angry roar.
At that very moment, the seamless wall beside it suddenly slid open into a hidden door without a sound.
The Pure White Doll glided out from the hidden door like a weightless ghost!
The demon instantly sensed danger. It whipped its head around, its powerful hind legs bursting with force as it lunged forward, its jaws wide enough to crush stone, snapping toward the doll!
But before the doll, this beast-like counterattack was laughably slow.
Under the magic amplification of the ring on its ring finger, red magical patterns spread along the doll's snow-white arm.
Clack! Clack! Clack!
With a series of crisp mechanical transformation sounds, the doll's right arm transformed into a one-meter-long blade of pure silver, sharpened to the extreme!
Without any unnecessary movements or flashy techniques, the Pure White Doll simply stepped forward. Its spherical joints drove a twisting motion, and the silver blade of its right arm became a blinding streak of lightning as it slashed horizontally through the air!
Slash!
The blade cut through the demon's tough hide without resistance, severed its thick muscles, and cleaved straight through its sturdy neck bones.
One strike!
Just a single strike!
The demon's head shot into the air, while foul black blood erupted like a fountain from the severed neck, splattering across the surrounding pure white walls.
Meanwhile, the Pure White Doll had withdrawn its blade and stepped back, not a single drop of blood staining its body.
The other two demons still wandering the lower levels of the labyrinth had no idea how their companion had died.
"Well done."
Watching the rising Emotion Point total on the panel and the impregnable three-dimensional territory on the holographic map, Labrynth let out a satisfied yawn.
The intense mental focus and creation exertion had eventually brought waves of drowsiness to this young body.
"That's enough for today. I'll deal with the remaining two tomorrow."
Labrynth rubbed her slightly sore eyes, preparing to close the panel and enjoy her first proper sleep since transmigrating.
Just as she was about to close the panel—
Buzz!
At the very bottom of the blueprint list, the previously dim area suddenly burst into a brilliant white light!
The glow even overshadowed the fireplace's flames in the room!
A brand-new building blueprint, radiating top-tier quality, slowly appeared in the light.
⌜Thunder Thermal Furnace: 10000 Emotion Points⌟
[Description: Any monster corpse or remains can be placed within and incinerated using abyssal thunder-thermal flames. Based on the monster's strength and traits in life, fifty percent can be converted into high-tier base materials (such as refined iron, Mithril, Mana Crystals, etc.)]
Labrynth, who had just been on the verge of falling asleep, snapped awake the moment she read the description.
Her eyes widened sharply, the drowsiness vanishing as a greedy, fanatical gleam lit them up.
She abruptly turned her head, her gaze seeming to pierce through the thick stone walls, toward the massive corpse of the Shadow Webweaver Spider at the labyrinth's outskirts, as well as the Carrion Demon corpse that had just been decapitated.
Before this, she had always thought these monster corpses were nothing but smelly, space-taking trash; useful only for cutting off some meat to stave off hunger.
She had even been worrying about how to dispose of them.
But!
With this [Thunder Thermal Furnace], those disgusting corpses would all be turned into iron and Mithril.
Even if they weren't useful to her right away, who would ever complain about having more resources?
A grand plan of squeezing every last drop of value out of the dungeon began to take shape in Labrynth's mind.
Not only would she drain monsters of their Emotion Points through the labyrinth, but after their deaths, she would throw their bodies into the furnace and extract the very last piece of value from them.
Anyhow, for now, it was time to enjoy her first sleep since transmigrating.
...
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