Chapter 1002: Successful Control
It was a contest on a whole other level where strength had become secondary, and what mattered the most was each party’s experience. Even though it did not seem too intense on the surface, it was just as thrilling as a toe-to-toe battle.
Osric’s experience was definitely rich and incomparable to ordinary people’s, as he had killed plenty of powerhouses.
However, Lin Li was not that inferior to him. Although he had only been in this world for a few years, and had not experienced many actual battles, he had other ways to gain experience.
The Dragon Crystal of the Dragon of Destruction, Azardas, contained a lifetime of battle experience. Likewise, the magical crystal of the top powerhouse of the Abyss, Balak, also contained lifetime experience of Balak, the ancient deity. Most importantly, the control crystal of the Sky Castle that Lin Li had obtained allowed him to gain a huge amount of knowledge and experience from it even though he did not know the origin of the control crystal.
With such a rich acc.u.mulation of knowledge, there would not be a great gap between them even though Lin Li might not have more experience than Osric.
What really gave Lin Li a headache was the indestructible nature of Osric’s soul, which left him with no means to attack. If Lin Li were far stronger than Osric, he could seal Osric’s soul. However, the problem now was that Osric was the stronger one, and Lin Li was already having a hard time resisting his attacks. He obviously did not have any remaining power or energy to seal Osric’s soul.
“Go to h.e.l.l. So what if you’ve obtained those things? I want to let him know that he had made the wrong choice!” Osric’s anger was clearly not just directed at Lin Li, but mostly at the Immortal King’s unfairness. He roared angrily and erupted with an even greater power.
With this terrifying power, Osric broke straight into Lin Li’s Domain World with only one goal, and that was to kill Lin Li. He no longer cared about the control crystal. Those who defied and despised him had to die.
Under the pressure of Osric, Lin Li’s Domain World was already swaying. This time, the entire Domain World collapsed, and a ma.s.sive wound had appeared in the sky. The ground was shaking and collapsing.
Faced with such a sudden change, Lin Li did not panic in the slightest, and suddenly raised his hand to release an emerald-green seed. It was the Seed of Eternity of the Undead World. As the tree fused into the s.p.a.ce of the Domain World, a patch of green suddenly appeared on the ground in the center of Lin Li’s Domain World. Immediately afterwards, it grew at an extremely fast pace.
In the blink of an eye, a huge tree appeared in the middle of the world, and its roots spread all over the earth, while its canopy seemed to support the sky. It was the legendary Tree of Eternity, but in Lin Li’s Domain World, it was just an illusion created by the power of the Tree of Eternity.
However, the power of the Tree of Eternity was extremely ma.s.sive. Even if it was just a small portion of the power of the Tree of Eternity, it was enough to support Lin Li’s Domain World and make it stable. As the Tree of Eternity appeared, the large wounds were healed in a split second, and the entire Domain World immediately became extremely stable.
Under the power of the Tree of Eternity, Osric’s mana which had invaded Lin Li’s World Domain had its spiritual imprint removed in the blink of an eye. It was then integrated into Lin Li’s World Domain, and became the power of the world.
Seeing the change in Lin Li’s World Domain, Osric was boiling with fury because he knew that he had fallen into Lin Li’s trap again. Under the protection of the Tree of Eternity, Lin Li’s Domain World almost became a real world, unlike the Immortal King’s Domain World. It turned into a huge, solid cage for Osric who had broken into it.
However, at this moment, Osric was not fl.u.s.tered at all despite being infuriated. After all, the power of his realm would allow him to break the Tree of Eternity’s protection over the Domain World easily. Of course, the easiest method was to kill the creator of the Domain World. As soon as the creator died, the world would vanish.
Hence, when Lin Li’s world was still changing, Osric flew straight towards Lin Li without pausing.
However, just as Osric was about to reach Lin Li, Lin Li did not panic. Instead, he smirked mockingly.
Before Osric realized what Lin Li’s smirk meant, a huge black hole suddenly appeared in the Domain World. The black hole was right in front of Osric, and a powerful and irresistible attraction emerged from it, pulling Osric into the black hole while he was charging forwards.
“The Abyssal Pa.s.sage!” Osric felt a familiar aura from the black hole—it was actually from the depths of the Endless Abyss. He immediately stopped and retreated. Although Osric had swept through the Endless Abyss countless times during the Dark Age, he was just a spiritual existence now, and could not quite resist the binding force of the Abyss on his soul. Once he was sucked in, it would be difficult for him to get out of it again.
The black hole that led to the Endless Abyss was forcibly opened up by Lin Li, who managed to do so by using the impact that the power of the Tree of Eternity had on the World Laws. Besides, that was the only solution that he could come up with to deal with Osric for the time being. An indestructible soul was the most annoying thing to deal with, and once Osric’s soul was placed in the Endless Abyss, it would probably be impossible for him to escape in less than 1,000 years.
Lin Li took painstaking efforts to lay such a trap. How could he allow Osric to escape easily? Under his manipulation, the black hole immediately became even larger. It seemed like a monster’s mouth that tried to swallow Osric who kept retreating.
“I won’t let you off!”
With a roar of indignation and anger, the ma.s.sive black hole vanished. At the same time, Osric’s figure also disappeared. Although he could not destroy Osric directly, Lin Li believed that in a few hundred years, Osric would no longer pose a threat to him even if he managed to regain his body and leave the Endless Abyss.
Finally, everything calmed down, and the seven pieces of the debris of the stars and the Seed of Eternity broke free from the Domain World. Lin Li returned to the ground after he put it away. On the other hand, Archbishop Martin and the rest fell to the ground. After having had a close shave with death, they looked dumbfounded.
Lin Li did not care about them. Instead, he walked straight to the control panel in the center where Osric’s body had completely eroded and collapsed. The Divine King Battle Robe was spread on the ground, with some black ashes that could be vaguely seen beneath it. On the control panel, the bizarre magical crystal glistened in the groove, while powerful mana waves emanated from it. Clearly, it had devoured a large amount of mana from Osric.
However, the function of the magical crystal was merely to trigger the mana to leave Osric’s body, and its devouring ability was only mediocre. If the magical crystal could really devour all of Osric’s mana, it would probably be about the same as the control crystal.
Lin Li reached his hand out without hesitation, and removed the magical crystal from the groove of the control panel. The magical crystal that had put Osric through ma.s.sive suffering actually remained extremely calm in Lin Li’s hand. After putting away the magical crystal, Lin Li finally took out the real control crystal, and slowly placed it on the control panel.
This time, no one came out to disturb Lin Li, and he managed to place the control crystal in the groove of the control panel smoothly. Countless complicated golden mageweaths began moving towards the entire control panel. The control crystal in the groove seemed to have also been triggered by a sudden power as bright dazzling rays of light emerged from it like from the sun.
As the control crystal changed, Lin Li’s mental strength that was attached to the control crystal was immediately magnified, engulfing every corner of the Sky Castle and penetrating it. Lin Li could clearly sense that he had now become the master of the Sky Castle, and all of its secrets appeared in his mind clearly.
However, Lin Li could also feel that his current strength seemed to be somewhat lacking, and he needed to get stronger to fully control the Sky Castle. At present, he could only control it a little like a child playing with a big sword. Picking it up was one thing, and swinging it well and gracefully was another. He needed to have a certain power that would match it.
Lin Li secretly estimated that he would only be able to control the Sky Castle with ease when his strength reached a level like Osric’s. Although he was already the true owner of the Sky Castle, he was still unable to use the full power of it.
Although he found it a pity, Lin Li was not that bothered by it. After all, the Sky Castle now belonged to him, and it was only a matter of time before he could master it completely. Moreover, Lin Li was confident that it would not take him long to reach that level at the rate that his strength was improving.
If it was someone else, they would probably take hundreds or even thousands of years to advance from level-26 to level-28. However, Lin Li was different. He only took a few years to advance from a mage apprentice to the Sanctuary-realm that he was in now. The insurmountable gap in the eyes of others was not a problem for him at all.
Lin Li familiarized himself with the operations that he could use at this stage, and began issuing orders for the Sky Castle. The previous destruction of the 36 Double-Realm Psychic Towers had left the Sky City in a mess. Since the Sky Castle now belonged to Lin Li, he naturally had to clean it up.
With the issue of Lin Li’s order, the doors of the heavy four underground warehouses distributed in the four different areas of the Sky Castle were slowly opened. Next, a batch of alchemy puppets walked out of the respective underground warehouses in an orderly manner, and began cleaning the Sky Castle up.
The alchemy puppets could all fetch a high price in Anril, yet they had become janitors here. If Archbishop Martin and the others were to see them, they would probably die of jealousy.
“Master Felic, congratulations on finally gaining control of the Sky Castle.” Archbishop Martin stepped forward and congratulated Lin Li sincerely.
Through Osric’s appearance just now and the shocking changes that had happened to the magical crystal that Lin Li had taken out again, Archbishop Martin could already guess what happened even though he knew nothing about it before. After congratulating Lin Li, Archbishop Martin was secretly emotional. He thought that Lin Li had such an amazing plan for the exploration of the Sky Castle this time.
At the thought that the Immortal King’s Sky Castle and the treasures belonged to Lin Li alone now, Archbishop Martin couldn’t help but feel bitter even though he had always been close to Lin Li. If the Brilliance Shrine had such a Sky Castle…
“Congratulations, Master Felic, for acquiring the Immortal King’s Sky Castle. In the future, the Tower of Dusk will certainly have a position in Anril that no one can reach easily.” At this point, Donald had no choice but to offer his compliments in hopes that Lin Li would not abandon him after having made use of him.
Deep down, Donald was of course extremely jealous. It was the Immortal King’s Sky Castle, the most powerful magical weapon that the High Elves relied on to rule over Anril. If the Rotterdam Kingdom could have a similar Sky Castle, it probably would not be a problem for them to rule over Anril.
However, Donald was well aware that he could not show the slightest hint of jealousy yet, as the relations.h.i.+p between the Rotterdam Kingdom and the Tower of Dusk was strained, and Lin Li could easily get a hold on them before destroying them. A Sanctuary powerhouse who controlled a Sky Castle was not to be trifled with, and was someone whom not anyone could contend with.
“Alright, I’ve already achieved my agenda for the expedition this time. Everyone, will you be returning to Anril after this, or do you have other plans in mind?” Clearly, Lin Li was asking them to leave. After all, the teams from the Rotterdam Kingdom and the Brilliance Shrine had already found what they were looking for. Now, even the entire Sky Castle belonged to Lin Li, and everything that was left in it belonged to him. He obviously wouldn’t let the people from the Rotterdam Kingdom and the Brilliance Shrine continue exploring.
Being old and wise, Archbishop Martin and Donald knew even without Lin Li’s reminder that they could not expect to get anything more from the Sky Castle. At this juncture, they finally figured out why the Tower of Dusk’s team was so generous in the distribution of benefits when they were discussing the matter of cooperation previously. Well, since the entire Sky Castle already belonged to Lin Li, why would he let them continue to take his belongings?