Book 5, The G.o.dsword, Bloodviolet – Chapter 1, The Mysterious Magical Formation
Linley, too, could feel that his body was now far stronger than it had been in the past. Previously, his body was that of a warrior of the fourth rank, but now, he had suddenly reached the sixth rank. This was the inherent ability of the Dragonblood Warriors. Thinking back to the pain he had just suffered to reach this, Linley couldn’t help but s.h.i.+ver.
“Linley, give your Dragonform a test.” Doehring Cowart said with interest.
“Boss, give it a test!” Bebe was excited as well.
Linley slightly nodded. He, too, wanted to get a sense of what level of power his body now possessed when under the Dragonform transformation. Immediately, Linley began to exert his control over the Dragonblood battle-qi that had been compressed into a quasi-crystal at the dantian location, below his navel. Suddenly….
One stream after another of black liquid began to flow from his dantian to his body, his limbs, and his bones.
“Rrrrrgh.” Letting out a deep growl, Linley watched as a dense layer of small black scales began to sprout on top of his skin, while at the same time, a row of spikes began to appear on his back, and a long, iron-whip-like tail sprouted out from his tailbone.
Compared to the Armored Razorback Wyrm, those spikes running along Linley’s spine were slightly fewer in number and slightly shorter.
“I feel as though my body is filled with limitless power.” Linley couldn’t help but begin to grow excited. He felt so incredibly powerful. The Dragonblood Warrior, one of the Four Supreme Warriors of the Yulan continent. He had just begun his training in this area, but he already possessed enormous strength.
The Supreme Warriors really lived up to their name!
“The power I have right now, must be several tens of times greater than the power I had in my human form.” Linley stretched out his right arm, which was currently covered with scales, and saw that his fingernails were now as sharp as knives.
Linley suddenly leapt off the ground with a mighty kick…
As fast as a streak of fire, Linley charged into middle of the wide cave, then delivered a powerful blow to the cave wall. With an earth-shaking sound, rocks begin to fall down from the cave walls. His arm pierced all the way into the stone wall, and to Linley, it felt as though it was as easy as piercing his arm into soft mud.
Such incredible power.
“Harrgh!” Letting out a loud, excited shout, Linley lashed out with two mighty kicks at the wall as well, immediately blasting a huge hole into it, causing rocks to rain down from even the ceiling.
With a kick of his legs, Linley sent himself flying in the air…
And then, with his twin fists, Linley gave the cave ceiling a mighty smash.
“Bam!” The ceiling of the cave cracked like the sh.e.l.l of a turtle, and one giant boulder after another began to fall down from the ceiling. But Linley wasn’t afraid in the slightest. These boulders wouldn’t do any harm at all when slamming into his body. The black scales protecting his body right now were far more powerful than even the jadestone armor his Earthguard spell provided.
“Swis.h.!.+” “Swis.h.!.+” “Swis.h.!.+”
Linley’s body transformed into a vicious black blur. Sometimes he would land on the ground, while at other times, he would rise into the mid-air. Sometimes, he would use all of his strength while smas.h.i.+ng his legs into the wall with ferocious kicks, while other times he would viciously pummel the cave ceiling with his fists and allow the rocks to fall on his body.
After a while…
Linley landed on the floor, then directly leapt to the tunnel entrance.
“Grandpa Doehring, what do you think?” He asked.
Most people would find it very difficult to accurately a.s.sess a warrior’s strength unless a battery of tests was used. Linley, at least, didn’t have the ability to make this a.s.sessment. But the highly experienced Doehring Cowart should have been able to estimate his strength through the destructive power he had just unleashed.
“In terms of power alone…you should have just crossed over the threshold of being a warrior of the eighth rank.” Doehring Cowart seemed a bit uncertain. “But your movement speed was very fast. Perhaps you have inherited the high movement speed inherent to Armored Razorback Wyrms. Your speed should be on par with highly agile warriors of the eighth rank. As for your defensive abilities, there’s no way for me to judge at this time, since there was nothing to see.”
Linley nodded slightly.
He knew that this Dragonform of his had some sort of connection with the Armored Razorback Wyrm, so it made sense that this Dragonform of his was similar in many ways to the Armored Razorback Wyrm.
“For the Dragonblood Warriors of our clan, the more powerful one is, the less of a difference there is between the three forms. Right now, I’m a warrior of the sixth rank, and so my Dragonform can reach the early eighth rank in power. According to the books that I read, once a Dragonblood Warrior has reached the early ninth rank of power in human form, then in Dragonform, he will possess the power of an early Saint-level combatant. But once his human form reaches the Saint-level, then in Dragonform, he will still only be a Saint-level. His battle ability, however, will be somewhat improved.”
Linley was quite clear about the nature and origins of the Dragonform ability.
The purpose of a.s.suming the Dragonform was because early on, a normal human being would not be able to utilize all of the power held within the Dragonblood in his veins. Only after using the Dragonform would they be able to summon forth all of their power.
But once they reached the Saint-level, and had totally mastered and harnessed the effective power of their Dragonblood, then when they a.s.sumed the Dragonform, their increase in power would be fairly small.
“Linley. Hurry up and dispose of the corpses of those two magical beasts. The two of them have a Saint-level magicite core and a draconic magicite core of the ninth rank.” Doehring Cowart immediately urged.
Linley’s heart suddenly shuddered.
Cores of the ninth rank and Saint-level?
Linley knew that the value of a magicite core of the ninth rank was worth up to five million gold coins, an incredible amount of money. In Fenlai City, some of the relatively large clan’s entire net worth might be around that much.
But the core of a Saint-level magical beast? That was a priceless treasure.
“Right.” Maintaining his Dragonform, Linley immediately rushed over to the Saint-level Violet Tattooed Bear’s corpse. Because Linley had caused so much damage to the walls and the ceiling, even the Bear’s corpse had been buried under falling rubble.
With a wave of his black-scale-covered right arm, Linley knocked over ten large pieces of rubble away, revealing the Saint-level Violet Tattooed Bear’s upper torso and head.
Using his set of two knife-sharp claws, Linley directly tore at the Saint-level Violet Tattooed Bear’s fur.
“Oooof!” Linley used as much force as he could, but the Saint-level Violet Tattooed Bear’s fur wasn’t damaged in the slightest.
“Linley, this is a Saint-level magical beast. Even under the effects of the Dragonform, you are only a warrior of the early eighth rank. If you want to split open this Bear’s fur, there’s no way you can do it alone.” Doehring Cowart laughed.
Linley was forced to admit that this was the truth.
“But Linley, look. There’s many sharp spikes on the Saint-level Violet Tattooed Bear’s body. These spikes are all extremely sharp. Based on your current ability, there’s no way you can use the spikes to cut open the fur either. But there’s a spike located very close to the Saint-level Violet Tattooed Bear’s eyes. What you need to do is pull that spike out, then stick your claws into that wound and go digging. I’m confident that you should be able to pull out that Saint-level magicite core.” Doehring Cowart instructed.
To the enormous Armored Razorback Wyrm, these spikes were nothing more than spikes!
But to the much smaller Linley, these spikes were like ma.s.sive drills which were twenty centimeters in length. After pulling the spike out, a huge, gaping wound would be revealed near the eyes of the Saint-level Violet Tattooed Bear. Going digging for the magicite core through that gaping wound should be an easy task indeed.
After all, as tough as the fur of a Saint-level magical beast might be, its brain and organs weren’t too tough.
Using all his strength, Linley forcibly tugged out the giant ‘drill’, and then extended his black scaly arm into the wound, digging for the magicite core. This Saint-level Violet Tattooed Bear’s head was really large as well, over a meter long. Linley had to extend his arm into the wound all the way past his elbows before he was able to locate and pull out the Saint-level magicite core.
The Saint-level magicite core was still covered in blood and gore.
A black, fist-sized magicite core.
“It actually doesn’t have even a hint of darkness-style aura.” Linley was very surprised. If he hadn’t already known that this fist-sized black stone was the magicite core of a Saint-level Violet Tattooed Bear, he would’ve never been able to guess.
“The energy within a Saint-level magical beast’s magicite core is highly dense and reserved. Frankly speaking, the magicite core of a magical beast of the ninth rank is as well.” Doehring Cowart explained.
Linley nodded.
“The entire body of a Saint-level magical beast is a treasure. For example, the leg bones of this Saint-level magical beast definitely possesses an astonis.h.i.+ngly resilient strength.” Doehring Cowart let out a sigh. “Unfortunately, you simply don’t have the ability to break through the powerful defensive barrier of its fur.”
Linley also nodded helplessly.
This Saint-level Violet Tattooed Bear was simply too huge. He didn’t have the ability to bring the corpse of this Saint-level Violet Tattooed Bear back either.
“What a waste.” Bebe said intentionally, off to the side.
Linley chuckled. “We’ve already done quite well. The most valuable part of a magical beast is its magicite core. A single Saint-level magicite core is already a truly priceless treasure. I am already very satisfied at having acquired it. What’s more, I also have a draconic crystal of the ninth rank.” Linley laughed as he walked over to the Armored Razorback Wyrm’s corpse.
The corpse of the Armored Razorback Wyrm had a gaping wound on its head. Finding the draconic crystal shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
Linley plunged his sharp claws directly into the wound on the Armored Razorback Wyrm’s head.
“Eh?”
After carefully sifting around in the Armored Razorback Wyrm’s skull for a while, Linley couldn’t find anything. This made Linley feel suspicious.
“Why is there no draconic crystal? What bizarreness is this?” Linley frowned.
“Impossible. A magical beast can’t be without a magicite core, and this dragon must absolutely have a draconic crystal as well. After a magical beast dies, there’s no way that the magicite crystal will disappear.” Doehring Cowart couldn’t believe it either.
But Linley suddenly remembered something…
Earlier, when he was raging and drinking the dragon’s blood of this Armored Razorback Wyrm, he had swallowed an icy cold object into his stomach. But at that time, due to his rage and his sorrow, he hadn’t paid it any attention. And then, when he had eaten the Blueheart Gra.s.s, the pain in the rest of his body had faded, except for that one place where the object was.
“No way….was that the draconic crystal?” Linley thought to himself.
Linley could still recollect that sensation of having that ice cold object pa.s.s through his throat into his stomach.
“I ate a draconic crystal? This…how could this have happened? In the Secret Dragonblood Manual, there only is a discussion on drinking dragon’s blood. Can it be that eating a dragon’s draconic crystal core also works?” Linley totally didn’t know what was going on. But no matter what, it seemed he had indeed swallowed the core, and from the looks of it, he wasn’t suffering from any particular bad aftereffects.
Linley chuckled.
“What I ate wasn’t just a draconic crystal core. It was five million gold coins.” Linley sighed to himself.
“Boss, lu, lu, look!” Bebe’s excited voice rang out.
Linley glanced at Bebe, who was standing in the middle of a pile of rubble, staring dumbly up at the ceiling of the cave. Linley immediately left the tunnel and returned to the cave, and also looked up at the ceiling.
“…what is that?”
At the top of the cave, a large, circular black platform had been revealed. This circular black platform had been embedded into the ceiling, and even now, a large part of it was covered with stone. Clearly…Linley’s wild attacks on the ceiling earlier had caused so many rocks to fall down that the circular black platform had been revealed.
Linley wasn’t too surprised by the black platform. What did surprise him was….
On the black platform, there was an extremely complicated pattern of magical marks. All sorts of marks were on the platform, and the pattern was complicated to an extreme. Clearly, on the top side of the black platform, there was some sort of magical array formation, but Linley had never, ever, seen such a complicated magical array formation.
If one described the magical array formation covering the front gates of the Ernst Inst.i.tute as a single ‘wind blade’, then this mysterious magical formation was the ‘Annihilating Tempest’ spell.
In particular, in the direct center of this black circular platform, there was a violet-covered sword plunged into the platform.
“This magical formation…how is this possible?” Doehring Cowart appeared by Linley’s side as well. Lifting his head up and staring, he said, “Impossible. How could there be a magical formation such as this here, and with this bizarre sword as a focus.”
Doehring Cowart, who in the past had always been calm and composed, had now totally been shocked. In his thousand plus years of life, he had never seen such a terrifying magical formation. Although this magical formation was currently dormant and not active, he could already tell what terrible power this magical formation contained.
“Grandpa Doehring, is this magical formation very powerful?” Linley asked.
Doehring Cowart looked at Linley. “Very powerful? We can’t even use the word ‘powerful’ to describe it. The power of this magical formation is even greater than that of any forbidden spell. You tell me, is it ‘powerful’? In my entire life, I’ve never seen such a complicated magical formation, such a powerful magical formation. And what’s more, it is borrowing power from that strange sword to supplement the power of the formation itself. What, did the creator feel the power of this formation alone was not great enough?”