Chapter 800: Valley of the Magi (Three in One)
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
“Snake magician’s skin!”
Without taking much time, Abel managed to guess the name of the dark-golden quality armor. As soon as he got it right, he began to see different attributes and features in his power of the Will.
Snake magician’s skin
Sea snake’s leather armor [expand] [light]
Defense: 279
Durability: 24 out of 24
+1 for all skills
+30% spell casting speed
+120% defense strengthening
+35% resistance against everything
-13 spell damage
Abel didn’t expect something this good from Summoner Horazon. This was a legendary item. Just by having it on, every spell could have a +1 attack buff. This buff applied to even the spiritual guardian knights, which was never heard of on the Holy Continent.
And the +30% spell casting speed was every wizard’s dream. Powerful spells tend to take longer to prepare. If the casting speed was too slow, then there was no point in casting it in the first place. For spells such as “instantaneous movement,” the buff could effectively reduce the interval between each teleportation, meaning that there would be even less chance for the user to be hit with an attack.
For the 120% defense, it just made Abel’s “conceal” defensive rune become twice as effective. Also, the resistance effect was no longer restricted to poison but against attacks of all traits.
For the -13 spell damage, once combined with the +35% resistance against all traits, Abel could ignore any spell attacks that were coming from a beginner wizard. It sounded unfair, but that was just reality. Gear was crucial in battle. It wasn’t supposed to be like this on the Holy Continent because wizard gears were very difficult to come by. However, in the dark world, a gear was all it took to enhance a wizard’s fighting capability by several times. None of the technologies was lost until the underworld invaded, but for the Holy Continent, all that remained were bits that were inherited from ancient times.
If Abel changed into the snake magician’s skin, he would no longer be able to wear the rune of “conceal.” Instead, he changed into a regular armor he forged. This could hide the dark-golden light emitting from the snake magician’s skin.
“What a shame,” Abel said as he looked towards Summoner Horazon’s corpse. He hadn’t learned the “resurrection of skeleton wizard” spell yet. Actually, it might be better that he didn’t. This was one of the evilest priest spells there was. If he tried, it might just be the end of his career as a wizard.
The “resurrection of skeleton wizard,” like other types of summoning spells, required living samples to serve as base materials. To be specific, this one required wizards as its base material. Before the wizards died, they needed to be tortured in order to turn them into skeletons. If the same spell was used on priests, only the poison element priest could be turned into skeletons.
If Abel wanted to use a fire element wizard as his base, he would get a fire element skeleton wizard as a result. For an ice element wizard, he would get an ice element skeleton wizard. For a lightning element wizard, he would get a lightning element skeleton wizard. Different sacrifices created different outcomes, which was why the Holy Continent Wizard Union declared such practice as pure evil. If they found someone that attempted to use it, the rule was to kill on sight. Even the orc priests didn’t dare use it in public.
For Abel, he knew his morals. He was not going to learn this spell just so he could increase his a.r.s.enal. Still, the dead summoner in front of him wielded both ice and fire element spells. If he could manage to use the most basic form of “resurrection of skeleton wizard,” he could get a powerful skeleton wizard right away.
To resist such temptation, he tried shaking his head and looked elsewhere. He s.h.i.+fted his focus to what was happening on the giant platform. The giant platform was a large-size control spell circle. One could control every mechanism that was built within the secret sanctuary. And the location was key to making the secret sanctuary float in midair.
There were texts that were flas.h.i.+ng in secret blue light around the platform. By absorbing energy from nothingness, they provided the energy needed to power up the secret sanctuary. It was the reason this place lasted after tens of thousands of years.
There was a bookstand with a book in the middle of the platform. When Abel went to open it, a powerful golden light emitted from the book. Once the light shrunk back towards the book, a golden text appeared.
The book was a biography. It recorded how Summoner Horazon lived his life. Since the story was so long back, Abel wasn’t really interested. However, as though wis.h.i.+ng Abel to read it all, the text continued to change and showed everything that happened in Summoner Horazon’s life.
Abel shrugged his shoulders and waited until the final text appeared. The book somehow activated a spell circle, which opened a red portal that was beside the bookshelf. He tried to wrap his power of the Will around this red portal, and he discovered a stable energy balance. For the past tens of thousands of years, the energy never stopped being supplied to this place. By this logic, this red portal was probably permanent.
Abel didn’t choose to leave by the red portal immediately. By connecting his power of the Will to the bookstand, he realized that there was a spell circle for declaring owners.h.i.+p. After Summoner Horazon’s death, this circle was unoccupied once again. He was free to become its new owner, and so he did. By activating it with his power of the Will, the entire secret sanctuary trembled with him for a few seconds. After that, he felt a strange connection with the environment that surrounded him.
The bookstand in front of him was the control panel of the secret sanctuary. By using the bookstand, he could know everything there was about this place. From what he could see now, there was a h.e.l.l creature that was standing on one of the platforms. Until just now, he hadn’t noticed that it was there. Since it didn’t detect any enemies, it just didn’t move at all. Upon a closer inspection, Abel could see that there was a pile of spiked pits underneath it.
If this h.e.l.l creature was found at any other place, Abel would’ve had no ways of dealing with it. All one hundred lightning spirals in this location were already collected into his portal bag. He wasn’t out of other options, though. By moving his power of the Will, he summoned a pile of blades that struck at the h.e.l.l creature’s feet.
Despite being attacked, the h.e.l.l creature continued to stand where it was. It didn’t see any enemies in sight, so it just looked around while feeling confused about why it was hurt. That’s when the blades quickly disappeared. Abel repeated the same attacks over and over, and eventually, the h.e.l.l creature lost all its life point without ever noticing just what killed it.
Now that the h.e.l.l creature was rid of, Abel wanted to research the spell circle in this secret sanctuary. He didn’t know a lot of spell circles, but it was easy to tell that the one here was much more advanced than the ones back at the Holy Continent. He was like a kid in elementary school, trying to read university textbooks. It might be rewarding for him to look at this, but the challenge was simply too much for him.
Anyway, he decided to follow through with the old rules. To make sure that there was nothing dangerous ahead, he decided to send the clay stone guard through the red portal before he went in himself. Once it got back, he brought the spiritual guardian knights with him to enter.
After pa.s.sing through the red portal, he saw that it led to a platform that was made with stone. It was still daytime, but the h.e.l.l flame on the four pillars did not extinguish. In the middle of the stone platform, he could see a waypoint that he could activate with gemstones.
By inserting two perfect gemstones into the portal, Abel managed to activate a waypoint that led to another waypoint. As the name stated, the location was called the Canyon of the Magi. This was where the legendary wizard Rasha was buried.
But was it actually Rasha’s grave? If he wanted to be sure about it, there was a very simple way of doing so. At the Summoner Horazon’s platform, there were six strange symbols flas.h.i.+ng in blue light. The number was supposed to be seven at Ta Rasha’s grave. The one that was missing was supposed to be at the real Ta Rasha’s grace. Still, even whilst knowing that, finding the right cave would still take a lot of time running around the Canyon of the Magi. There were also a lot of h.e.l.l creatures he had to remove first.
Abel tried moving forward just a bit. He was not far at all from the waypoint that he teleported from. He already saw a h.e.l.lcat in front of him. A h.e.l.lcat was a h.e.l.l creature that was dangerous because of its speed. It wasn’t supposed to be something too dangerous, but he saw that plant that it was stepping on.
The h.e.l.lcat was stepping on a legendary herb. It was one of the three ingredients to create the “life-prolonging potion.” Abel was devastated to see it trampled. If that was harvested correctly, it could make potions that would increase the average lifespan of an entire community by thirty years. Also, by brewing the potion itself, he would gain a lot more progress in his alchemist career. Now that he was already a master alchemist, brewing ordinary potions were no longer enough to make him make any real improvement.
Speaking of which, it was only after brewing the “dragon blood wall-breaking potion” that Abel made some progress as a master alchemist. When he was creating the altered version of the “soul-nouris.h.i.+ng potion,” the improvement he made was less than a tenth of what he gained. And it wasn’t like he could just create an infinite amount of the dragon blood wall-breaking potion. Flying Flame didn’t like giving out its blood, and he didn’t feel like doing something his beloved summon creature didn’t like.
Now that there was a raw ingredient to create the life-prolonging potion, he could just collect it to get more energy to fill in his master alchemist rune pattern. He could tell his spiritual guardian knight to chase the h.e.l.lcat away, but he decided that it was something that he ought to do himself.
When the h.e.l.lcat noticed Abel, it quickly left the plant that it was stepping on. After that, Abel and his spiritual guardian knights surrounded it and beat it to death. After that, he quickly went to inspect the plant that was on the ground. He was certain that it was the ingredient he was looking for, but upon a closer look, he realized that it looked just like what he saw from the encyclopedia.
From what he read, all three ingredients for making the life-prolonging potion were from environments that were extremely dry and barren. That being said, he had hopes that he could find the other two ingredients at the same place. With a bit more searching, he found the plant that was used for the second ingredient. h.e.l.l creatures already trampled it, so there was only half of it left, but nevertheless, it could still be used to create the potion.
There was another ingredient that was missing. It was meant to be a supplement ingredient. It’d be better if he was to find it, but even without it, he could still create the life-prolonging potion, but it wouldn’t be as effective. Of course, he wasn’t going to give up right away. Before he found it, he was planning on not fighting the h.e.l.l creatures in this area. He wouldn’t want his eight spiritual guardian knights, his clay stone guard, or him to ruin the chances of destroying the ingredients before he found them.
Before he continued, he opened the Scroll of Town Portal and went back to Lut Gholein. There, he teleported back to the Rogue’s Encampment and then back to his own magic tower. After that, he teleported to the battle fort platform to where Flying Flame and White Snow were resting.
“Both of you come here,” Abel commanded as soon as he appeared in front of Flying Flame and White Snow.
Flying Flame was thrilled. It knew that there was another fight that it could partic.i.p.ate in. On the other hand, White Snow just felt like resting more. It didn’t like how warm its new nest was. It bellowed to the snowy mountain areas, and a colder climate was required to enhance its levels.
“Here,” Abel gave White Snow a few hundred perfect blue stones, “These belong to you. They are from the Budapest Mountain Range. Put them all inside your nest, and you’ll feel a lot more comfortable here.”
White Snow looked a lot more energized when it saw the gemstones. Before Flying Flame was about to throw a jealous look at it, it quickly retrieved them all into its own portal bag.
“I know you’re a real dragon now, Flying Flame, but don’t steal from White Snow, okay? I’ll give you yours now.”
While scratching his head, Abel took out several hundred perfect red gemstones from his portal bag. Like White Snow, Flying Flame immediately put them all into its own portal bag. Flying Flame was a greedy dragon now. Every time it left its nest, it would find loot to collect so it could fill them into its portal bag. When the original bag became too small, Abel got him a new one that was about five cubes in volume.
Abel opened a black hole with his portal beast ring, “Okay, now. I want both of you to get inside the portal beast ring. We’re going to battle.”
Both of them were very excited about fighting. As Abel said that, they both sprinted into the black hole and waited inside. Soon, Abel took them to the dark world, back at the Canyon of the Magi. However, when they came out to look for a fight, he stopped them and gave them some instructions.
“No elemental attacks, okay? Only physical attacks. And don’t ruin the plants on the ground! That’s very important.”
Flying Flame and White Snow looked at each other for a bit. They didn’t expect Abel to make a request like this. They were told to fight while handicapped. From Abel’s perspective, he understood how strong the h.e.l.l creatures here were. They weren’t capable of breaking through the defense of his two summon creatures, so there wasn’t really anything to be worried about.
While complying with Abel’s command, Flying Flame started by doing a dragon’s roar. Since h.e.l.l creatures were immune against it, the most that it could do was to boost Flying Flame’s morale. Of course, White Snow followed it from behind. Abel was very far back. He didn’t want to join the fight, but if he was too far, he wouldn’t be able to collect the h.e.l.l creatures’ dead souls with his Horadric Cube.
They were facing against the metallic holy bugs, which were known for shooting out lightning rays when they were hit. Due to their speed and the ability to launch lightning element attacks, it was not very easy to face them. Luckily, Flying Flame’s claws possessed the ability to break through any sort of armor. With one sc.r.a.p, it could tear through the sh.e.l.ls and skulls of these bugs without much resistance at all.
The lightning ray attacks were useless against flying creatures because they could only be launched on the ground. Even Abel was out of range.
Abel screamed as one bug was thrown to the ground, “Hey, watch! My ingredient!”
Flying Flame couldn’t help but roll its eyes at Abel. To heed to his orders, it had to pick the other bugs and carefully drop them somewhere empty. White Snow was a bit slower at this, but its attacks had more variety. It used its claws, its beaks, and wings to keep attacking the metallic holy bugs.
Flying Flame got faster the more it continued. Its “special speed” trait made it appear invisible when it was flying above the h.e.l.l creatures. From an ordinary person’s perspective, it would look like a dark shadow that would kill the h.e.l.l creatures every time it moved a bit.
There was a reason that Abel didn’t call Johnson. Johnson’s attacks were mostly done on the ground. The damage it dealt could be very effective in removing all the enemies, but he was worried that it would ruin the environment here. It seemed like he was making the right choice here. By frequently searching the area, he managed to find the third supporting ingredient in time. Actually, now that all three ingredients were collected, he was feeling like he could just go to the Angstrom City Alchemist Union right away.
It’s been four days ever since he began cleaning up the Canyon of Magi. Since he could only use physical attacks, Flying Flame could only kill about one h.e.l.l creature every time it attacked. The work was not proceeding effectively at all. Also, it was very dark during night time. Out of fear that the ingredients would be destroyed, Abel told his summon creatures to just not attack during night time.
Nevertheless, the entire canyon was cleared after four days. To be certain of it, Flying Flame eventually scouted the whole area several times. Abel managed to recover twenty portions of the ingredients that could be used to create the life-prolonging potions. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to collect too much of it, but he was worried that the Angstrom City Alchemist Union didn’t have enough of the other ingredients that were required. Anyway, his next step was to head back home.
First, he went back to his magic tower. He took Flying Flame and White Snow to the battle fort, and after transforming himself into Master Bennett, he used the large-sized teleportation circle to head to the Orwell Palace outside Angstrom City. There, he called Butler Brewer and Jacob, the leader of the death warriors.
Abel asked with a concerned tone, “this is very important, Jacob. Tell me, how long before your warriors can reach the top level?”
Jacob said with confidence, “Ten years at max, Master. At around that time, about half of the warriors will reach top rank.”
Abel frowned at that response. He was giving the thirty elven death warriors the same amount of resources as the human knights, but the progress they made was literally worlds apart. Back at the duchy of Carmel, countless knights have been promoted from advanced knights to knight commanders. Some of them were already close to becoming head knight commanders.
Speaking of which, in just two years, the duchy of Carmel had gained a lot more military might than it ever had. Four sphinx head knight commanders and five ordinary head knight commanders were enrolled. All of them got to where they were because of the dragon blood wall-breaking potions, but before that, they all had to get to the breakthrough stage with their own efforts.
While the four sphinx knights were already top-level knight commanders when they came, three of the five head knight commanders were originally just advanced warriors. If it weren’t for the bread that Abel’s made and the blue-quality knight training potions, it would be logically impossible for them to achieve such miraculous results in such a short period of time.
Back to the Orwell Palace. All thirty of the elven warriors were supposed to possess very great potential. Still, they would take five times the amount as the humans would become top-level warriors. From Jacob’s expression, Abel could tell that he thinks it’s already very fast.
“Can’t you be faster than that?” Abel couldn’t help but ask. He couldn’t wait for ten years. The human world was already in some disarray. Things could escalate very quickly.
Jacob shook his head, “I’m afraid not, Master. For ordinary elves, the same process would take about one hundred years. Ten years is already pus.h.i.+ng the limit.”
Abel said powerlessly, “Right, okay. You can go now.”
Jacob wasn’t wrong about what he said. The average lifespan of an elf was about five hundred years. It would be “fair” that they couldn’t train as fast as humans.
Abel said to Brewer, “So Brewer, I will be installing some mechanisms at the large-sized teleportation circle and the Orwell Canyon. After that, without permission from the Orwell spirit, all trespa.s.sers will be attacked as soon as they come in.”
“I’ll tell all the servants to be careful,” Butler Brewer bowed. He understood Abel’s intent. The two locations were supposed to be where all the resources were transported. Without some sort of reinforced security here, things could get very dangerous during battle. Since Jacob’s death warriors wouldn’t be available in a while, he had to resort to other means to increase the tightness of military presence here. Luckily, he just got the lightning spirals. With the original owner dead, all one hundred spirals were now his to use.
At the entrance of the Orwell Canyon, there was a spell circle installed. It was directly connected to the Orwell spirit, so Abel could install five of the lightning spirals after he powered it with perfect yellow gemstones. That was five lightning spirals that were designed to attack at the same time. Even he himself could be killed if he wasn’t careful. It was what he needed to make sure that the Orwell Canyon was absolutely secured.
Next, he installed another five lightning spirals all around the large-sized teleportation circle. He was also using perfect yellow gemstones as an energy source. It wasn’t impossible to infiltrate into a teleportation circle, so he had to try making things safe. Long ago, at the Bakong City Morton Magic Tower, Wizard Cliff used his authority to make forced entrances. With the five lightning spirals, those who tried to make a forced entry into the Orwell Palace would surely suffer the consequences.
If Abel wanted to make things more effective, he could also combine the lightning spirals with the small-sized battle puppets. The consecutive ballistas could launch very powerful physical attacks, whereas the lightning spirals could be replaced if the enemies were too resistant against physical attacks.
After fixing the problem with security at Orwell Palace, Abel used the teleportation circle to move to the Angstrom City Alchemist Union. As soon as he arrived, he saw a beginner female elven alchemist bowing to him. After asking for a bit, he was told that this was the Alchemist Union’s way of paying respect to him. By arranging a few beginner elven alchemists to wait for him at the teleportation circle, they could provide a.s.sistance to him at any given time that he arrived.
Abel was extremely humbled by such generosity, but he didn’t hesitate to ask for the ingredients he was after right away. Soon, after making calls to his VIP suppliers, he would have no need to come to the alchemist union building himself. All he had to do was to drop his order, and someone would come to deliver the ingredients to him at the teleportation circle.
Soon, the female alchemist brought five portions of the ingredient that could create life-prolonging potions. This was all that that alchemist union had in stock. Due to the lack of produce, even herbs became much harder to come by.
Speaking of which, if it wasn’t for the fact that he couldn’t bring in farmers to help him crop, Abel would’ve opened an entire herb garden in the dark world.