Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Ever since Lin Li went to the Black Rock Mountains, he experienced battles that most people had probably not encountered in their lifetime. The first significant battle to his ascension was the one against the Death Knights. Under the oppression of the Death Knights, and with the help of powerful potions, he touched the Legendary-realm’s boundary subtly and exhibited spells that were up to level-21, like the Eternal Light Spell.
The greatest gain from that battle seemed to be the acquisition of the ten-odd Death Knights who came under his control. However, in reality, the biggest benefit that Lin Li had reaped was the enlightenment regarding the Legendary-realm, which many mages longed for in their lives. If the mages who were stuck at the pinnacle of the Archmage-realm could ever be fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of Legendary-realm and experience such enlightenment just once, they would definitely have a higher chance of breaking through to the Legendary-realm.
Lin Li was now trying to recall the battle and the changes before and after that trace of perception. Although he was now a Legendary-mage, that touch of insight and enlightenment was still invaluable to him. Although he still had had a battle with a Legendary powerhouse later, the gains from that battle were slightly inferior.
After a close shave with death, the attack by the Syer Bandits seemed to have become absolutely insignificant in comparison. Actually, it could not be considered a battle, but rather was just a bunch of fools courting death. Hence, that pathetic battle was not worth Lin Li’s time and memory at all.
To Lin Li, the only battle in the past few months worth pondering over was the one against the Lord of Darkness in the Abyss of Tharlen. It was during that battle that Lin Li managed to reach the Legendary-realm through the perception and enlightenment brought about by the ancient demon runes.
It was during that very moment in the battle that Lin Li’s body changed drastically together with everything else around him, including the way he used his magical powers and executed his spells. Lin Li had only roughly experienced the changes, and only now had the time to recall and reflect on everything carefully.
The ancient demonic runes were perhaps not the strongest demonic language, but it was definitely one of those that were closest to the energy source. Through the ancient demonic runes taught to him by Connoris, Lin Li could understand the true meaning of the Legendary-realm and achieve the transformation from an Archmage to a Legendary-mage smoothly.
During the battle against the Lord of Darkness, Lin Li would not be a match for him even as a Legendary-mage, let alone when he was still weak and powerless. The Lord of Darkness was almost invincible as he owned the Throne of Darkness created by the Dragon of Destruction. Even if the Lord of Darkness had lost his sentience, he could still use his own instincts and abilities to utilize the Throne. That was how he’d subdued the Lord of Souls, Mephistos.
The purpose of the ancient demonic runes taught by Connoris was not to increase Lin Li’s powers or promote his realm to the Legendary-realm. Instead, it was to make use of the power of the abyss to control the Lord of Darkness.
The Endless Abyss was created by the ancient deities. To the Endless Abyss, the ancient deities were like the Dragon Aspect to Anril. After all, no matter how powerful the Dark Lord was, the Dragon of Destruction had already fallen. Since the Dark Lord had already become the ruler of the Abyss of Tharlen, he would not be able to escape the control of the ancient deities, even if he was in the Throne of Darkness’s separate space.
The greatest difference between a Legendary-mage and an Archmage was that no matter what magic the latter did, it would have to depend on his own power. It could be said that in the Archmage-realm, the accumulation of magic power would have already reached the limits of the human body. On the other hand, in the case of the Legendary-mages, not only did the magic power in the body undergo a qualitative change—just like gas turned into liquid, so did magic power become Rules—but most importantly, it allowed the mage to mobilize and use the power of the world through their own magical powers and the Rule power.
The ancient demonic runes were a magical language the closest to the origin of power, whose function was to borrow the power of the abyss, which was in line with the rules of the Legendary-mages’ enlightenment. It was a pursuit that borrowed the power of the world. Although these particular ancient demon runes were a language of the ancient demons, they were also a description of the ancient demons’ understanding of power. However, ever since history began, everyone had the same pursuit of and desire for power, regardless of their race.
Connoris directly instilled the demon runes into Lin Li’s consciousness with spiritual force, which was more thorough than any detailed narrative. That was to say, Lin Li’s consciousness and memory palace were almost infinite. No one else would have been able to withstand the impact at that moment.
Lin Li broke through to the Legendary-realm with the understanding of this ancient demon runes, coupled with the previous accumulation of knowledge and a trace of enlightenment that had once come to him. Once again, Lin Li experienced the demonic runes and realized that he could still understand a lot and get more enlightenment about the origin of power from the runes.
After making a trip to the Abyss of Tharlen, the battles that Lin Li had been through could’ve helped him get used to the power of the Legendary-realm. In hindsight, Lin Li realized that the intense battle in the underground palace with the Crimson Dragon gave him a better understanding of the Legendary-realm. He summed up his shortcomings and the areas for improvement that he could work on. Lin Li felt as if he had teleported back to his school days, when he would analyze the questions and reflect on his knowledge at the end of every test and exam in school.
In fact, the effectiveness of the summary and reflection was obviously great, for it would allow one to realize what their flaws and shortcomings were, and let them know what they should work on in order to make up for what they lacked. Lin Li still remembered the ancient proverb that he learned before traveling through time: “I reflect on three of my experiences daily”.
Apart from summing up the knowledge gains in the previous days, Lin Li also wanted to use the opportunity to understand the Rules of the Holy Light and the Darkness. Polar Snow and Raging Flames had been left in the underground palace, and he had no idea when he could collect them, but regardless of whether he could successfully acquire the Ice element magical crystal of the ancient dragon or not, he would have no choice but to give up on the magical domain when necessary.
Even if the natural Magic Domain could not be fused with the Eternal Furnace, Lin Li felt that he had to at least master the seven debris of the stars and Stars of Fury in order to cope with the calamity that would happen in the near future. Even though he had some of the debris of the stars, understanding its Rule power required more than just a few days. Hence, for safety purposes, Lin Li decided to understand the debris that he had as well as he could now lest he ran out of time when all seven pieces were gathered by him.
While Lin Li was settling down to sum up the gains and losses that he’d made in the past few months, the construction of the new Black Clouds Town was in full swing. Although those involved in the construction, be it ordinary artisans or magicians, were not clear what exactly they were constructing, they could still vaguely guess based on the complicated and exquisite design that after the new Black Clouds Town was built, it would definitely become an indestructible fortress.
Lin Li designed the new Black Clouds Town to be hexagonal, which was a rather common arrangement in mageweath and alchemy. Although the design was themed around the magic gears, some arrangements were reserved for adding Mageweath or Alchemy Arrays in the future.
In order not to affect the lives of the residents of the town, Lin Li decided to design the new Black Clouds Town in such a manner that it did not become a closed fortress lest it became like a prison. If that were the case, they would be better off living in a normal city. When they were not facing any invasions, the entire town would be open, and one would be able to look across the town and enjoy a panoramic view when standing at the entrance.
When encountering an enemy attack, the entire town would immediately be changed in structure and the fort defense form would emerge as a result of a switch in the magic gears. The outermost layer of the construction was made of a particularly strong material that was not only strong, but also very durable and resistant to magical powers. The layer would become the fortress’ wall after the magic gears were activated, and at the same time, the 36 lamp posts in the town would prop up the dome magic shields that were only found in bigger cities.
These two defense mechanisms alone were strong enough to defend against enemies. Even the Syer Bandits wouldn’t be able to break through the defensive walls.
However, it was not like Lin Li to stay submissive and allow others to attack him. If his sole intent was to provide a better defensive system, there would be no need to design so many elaborate magic gears. He had designed a total of 10-odd blueprints. If anyone were to attack the Tower of Dusk, Lin Li would perhaps let his enemies die a better death. However, they would never be forgiven if they were audacious enough to harm the ordinary citizens of Black Clouds Town.
The first would be the most basic attacking method. Each wall was equipped with 200 magical crossbows, and the complementary wind magic could make it harder for one to dodge the crossbow bolts once they were shot. The town was rather small in the first place, and the length of every side was also very limited. There were basically no blind spots when 200 magical crossbows fired continuously in different directions. With the clever settings of magic gears, they could also automatically track moving objects within the shooting range.
The magical crossbows were also shooting first-class enchanted bolts no inferior to a level-10 spell each. All of the crossbows were automatically reloaded by magic gears, which could guarantee that 20 bolts could be fired in a row. In other words, 4,000 enchanted crossbow arrows could be consecutively fired from each wall. There definitely would not be any survivors after the salvo was shot.
That was also why everyone who had seen the blueprints thought that the designer was insane. Even bustling big cities could not be equipped with so many crossbows, be it enchanted or magical. Six walls, 1,200 magical crossbows, 24,000 first-class enchanted crossbow bolts. The money spent alone was enough to buy 100 Black Clouds Towns.
These magical crossbows could be considered weapons that were used to deal with the enemy’s small fries; of course, that was on the condition that one could call people at level-10 small fries. If the enemy managed to survive such an attack, what awaited him next would be a hopeless journey to hell. Don’t forget that in addition to being an inscription master and a magic gears master, Lin Li was also a pharmacist Guru.
Medicine and potions could be used to save lives, to help practice martial arts or magic, and of course to harm people. As a pharmacist, Lin Li possessed fascinating formulas that could make one feel like they were in a living hell. He also had those that could poison someone to death immediately, as well as those that could weaken the magic shield, deplete magical powers, and induce hallucinations, or cause severe decomposition of living human bodies.
Basically, there were only a few people who could survive a conflict with a pharmaceutics Guru. Unless he had the help of a strong Legendary-realm powerhouse, even an Archmage would be at a huge disadvantage. He might survive if he was lucky, or regret and get shot to death right from the start if he was not. Most people would not get to even catch a glimpse of the potions concocted by pharmaceutics Gurus, and they could be considered fortunate to be able to die in the hands of a pharmaceutics Guru.
It would require quite a bit of time for the new Black Clouds Town to adopt its defense form through the switching magic gears—at least one minute. If other magic gears experts and researchers were present, they would definitely find it incredible, since the transformation of this form transpired on a large scale even though the principle was simple. One minute was truly the bare minimum.
In order to solve this problem of conversion time and prevent the residents of the town from being caught off guard by an attack, surveillance gears were set up 10 kilometers away from the town. Although the Warlock’s Eyes was a simple spell, the magical waves were easily discovered. Using the magic gears would eliminate that problem.
In addition to the supervision, copies of the surveillance data would be sent to the Tower of Dusk as well as the town so as to avoid mistakes that could result from the negligence of the person in charge of monitoring. Besides, it would also make it more convenient for the tower to send rescue teams to provide aid and relief in time.
Once danger was detected and the hostile intentions of the enemy were confirmed, a surveillance officer in the town or the Tower of Dusk would be able to activate the magic gears and allow the entire town to go into defense mode in a minute. Even an Archmage would not be able to fly the distance of 10 kilometers to the town within just a single minute.
Even if the enemy was a strong powerhouse of the Legendary-realm, there were still hundreds of Magic-resistant Gems Lin Li had brought from the underground palace that would render the enemy helpless once 10 of them were arranged in a magic drainage pattern. Although 10 Magic-resistant gems would not be enough to resist the powerful blow of a Legendary powerhouse, they could at least reduce the intensity of the enemy’s offensive spells. The magical drainage could then be used to transmit the power absorbed from the magical attack into the power core of the magic gears, operating without any wastage.
