The topic of discussion was, of course, the floating city that had just been a surprise to them.
Li Lin said rather yearningly, “A floating city, a real aircraft carrier, not floating on the sea, but flying in the sky. It looks like it can even run to the universe-like Astral Plane right… To put it another way, this is a giant spaceship. Damn, those sports cars in my house are like toys compared to this thing.”
Everyone revealed an expression of yearning at the thought of roaming the starry skies.
Li Lin continued, “Roland, when are you going to build a floating city? When the time comes, let me drive it for some thrills! It’ll be tens of thousands of times better than driving a supercar.”
Roland said helplessly, “It won’t be for a long time. I have to be at least close to Legend to start building the floating city.”
“There’s no need to build that big.” Li Lin slapped the table and said hurriedly, “You can build a small one first.”
“Irrelevant of size,” Roland said, laughing bitterly, “to build a floating city, the floating core must be built first. According to the notes recorded in Mordenkainen’s book, the floating core has to be built with magic bricks, and to compress the magic bricks, normal Mages have to reach the Legendary level. We players have high attribute growth, but it has to be close to Legendary.”
“Then hurry and level up.” Li Lin looked a bit excited. “Damn, I’m feeling an urge, I can’t wait.”
The group laughed softly.
Roland thought for a moment and said, “Then how about you come over and help me? Building a floating city requires a large number of supplies, and that floating city up there was slowly built by Mordenkainen over two hundred years. Even if we want to build a small one, it’s not something that our current influence and supplies can provide.”
“Okay, we’ll all come over and help you.” Li Lin thought for a moment and said, “As for Schuck and Betta, they won’t be needed. Schuck is in a powerful position in the Church of Light and can’t get away, and Betta will soon have his own territory and will be busy enough in the future.”
Roland smiled and said, “Sure.”
His Magic Tower just happened to be short on staff right now.
Betta said in embarrassment, “Sorry, Brother Roland, I can’t help you.”
“It’s okay.” Roland waved his hand. “You and Schuck have your own business after all. I don’t have time to help you guys either. It’s normal.”
Seeing that Roland didn’t mind, Betta was relieved.
For the next two days, Betta and the others continued their own exploration activities in the city, while Roland still went to discuss magic theories with Mordenkainen.
Although Mordenkainen was much stronger than Roland, Roland’s foundation was quite solid, and after all, coming from an information-based society, he had been exposed to many weird and wacky ideas, was quite receptive, and could make a lot of inferences.
This was why it appeared that Mordenkainen had been teaching Roland, but in essence, it was a process of the two sharing ideas.
Mordenkainen also felt that he had gained a lot.
Today was the countdown to the dungeon’s final time limit. Mordenkainen looked at Roland in his study and said with a smile, “It’s been interesting discussing magic with you these past few days. Some of my ideas suddenly made sense, especially the one you said… the nature of all temperature differences is just the vibration and transfer of energy. It’s an interesting idea. With this idea at the core, I’m creating a spell that should be finished in a few months. I don’t know if you’ll be able to hear about it when you return to the future.”
At this time, Mordenkainen’s figure was already slowly fading away.
Knowing that he would soon be leaving the dungeon, Roland asked curiously, “What spell?”
“Mage’s Disjunction!”
Roland was stunned.
The voice gradually became hollow, and then Mordenkainen disappeared completely.
In a wave of dizziness, Roland noticed that his surroundings had changed, turning into complete darkness.
Roland snapped his fingers and two light balls surrounded him. Looking at his surroundings, he realized he was once again in his own time, at the top of the pyramid.
They would probably never meet again. Roland felt a slight sense of disappointment.
In the light, he also saw his close friends, all of whom looked dazed and uncomfortable, having been suddenly teleported out of the dungeon.
Li Lin had his back against Roland and the others, seemingly tying the waistband of his trousers in a hurry.
He quickly tied his waistband and then was about to make his way over to his friends.
They all took a step back at the same time, looking at him rather disgustedly.
Li Lin looked sullen. “There’s no need to be like this.”
Everyone curled their lips, not speaking.
At this moment, Roland found Betta holding a white worm in each of his hands, fleshy and quite cute.
“You didn’t go look for ingredients again, right?” Roland thought Betta was too preoccupied with food. “They’re worms, and while many of them can be eaten, I think you’re better off not eating them. It’s weirdly disgusting just thinking about it. Anyway, I’m not eating them.”
The others also immediately followed and said that they definitely wouldn’t eat bugs anymore.
“I was going to try to roast them so you guys could eat them.” Betta was a little disappointed as he placed the two white worms with fleshy heads in the empty Well of Light. “Forget it, it’s up to yourselves to survive.”
Roland casually took a jug of Water of Light out of his Backpack and gave it to Betta. “The quest item is here.”
“Thank you, Brother Roland.” Betta was quite happy to have this. With it, his territory would be secured.
“Let’s go back, shall we?” Li Lin yawned. He exchanged meat-fighting tips with the brothel workers every day, it would be a wonder if he wasn’t tired. “I don’t know how much experience I’ll get after this quest is completed.”
Roland said, “Don’t be in a hurry. Let’s go to the mayor’s manor and look through it; we might find something valuable. This is a special location formed after being forcibly torn apart by magic, so a lot of things should have retained their original appearance.”
Husseret, as a Thief, loved this sort of thing, and his eyes lit up at the news. “Of course we have to go, let’s see if we can scavenge something.”
In the end, the mayor’s manor really allowed Roland and the others to scavenge a lot of gold coins and gems, and after getting a sweet taste of this, they went back to the large manors in the city to scavenge and found a lot more.
It took a day and a night, and the results were pleasing: an amount of nearly two hundred gold coins, and many gems.
Roland didn’t ask for gold coins. He offered to take all the gems instead because gems were good magic materials.
He now had enough gold coins.
So, the gold coins were split amongst the others, while Roland received many magic materials.
After coming out of the ground, Roland and the others returned to Pine Wind City and they tried to get the carriage back, but the innkeeper looked embarrassed.
He swallowed and didn’t say where the wagon was, but said he was willing to compensate Roland and the others for their losses and buy them a new wagon.
There was nothing special about the carriage that Roland and the others had come to Pine Wind City in.
Presumably, seeing that they hadn’t come back for a long time, the innkeeper thought they were in trouble and died, so he pawned the carriage as if it was no one’s property.
This was just a guess by Roland and the others. The innkeeper asked the staff to go outside and bring a carriage back, and just as Roland and the others were about to leave, the innkeeper suddenly whispered to them, “Sirs, don’t go through the east gate, go through the west gate. Someone is looking for you.”
With that said, the innkeeper returned to the inn as if nothing had happened.
They looked at each other, and four of them immediately jumped into the carriage to hide their figures, while Husseret pulled on the hood that was characteristic of the Thief’s outfit to cover his face.
The carriage rocked toward the west gate. The west gate here also collected tolls, but since most of the caravans came and went from the west gate, it was very busy, so in most cases, as long as a few bronze coins were given, the soldiers here would let them through without making too many inquiries.
Passing the west gate, Husseret uncovered his hood and the carriage drove down the small trail lined with trees. He turned back at the same time and asked, “Is someone looking to start trouble with us again?”
“It’s not just trouble for us, it’s trouble for the entire player community.” Roland had already connected to the forum by now. “I saw on the forum during the day yesterday that the alliance of churches have surrounded the city of Sisilia, and are probably besieging it now. And we, as Golden Sons, are probably included on the monitoring list. I’ll see if there’s a live feed of the battlefield—found it, there really is.”
Li Lin and the others immediately went to the forum to watch the livestream.
At this point, the number of viewers in the livestream had exceeded ten million, meaning that many non-gamers, who were also in the real world, stayed up all night to watch the drama at triple-speed.
After all, the time ratio between the game world and the real world was 3 to 1.
The livestream’s view was that of the players on the defensive, and as soon as it started, Roland saw a hail of arrows and colorful ballistic spells raining down from all over the sky.
The livestream camera was incredibly shaky; the livestreamer kept running around.
His quick gasps, the explosions of falling spells, the screams around him, and the sound of walls crumbling in the distance all blended together.
Just by seeing this scene, Roland knew that Sisilia would never be able to hold.
The scene showed soldiers being lifted off the ground by the blast of magic, being frozen, or falling with the wall and being covered in debris in the blink of an eye.
At first, this livestreamer worked hard to return fire with his bow and arrow and dragged the living defenders to safety.
But as more and more people died in front of him at an exaggerated rate, his gasps for air became tinged with cries.
“How did this happen, how did this happen!” The livestreamer fell to his knees at the edge of a pile of crumbling walls, looking at the bodies of his comrades and then at the dense sea of people beyond the walls.
The white, yellow, green, and purple Priest robes formed a multicolored alliance that had no end, as if they reached to the end of the world.
Countless balls of light from spells rose and fell from the alliance.
The protective boundary of Sisilia had already been destroyed, and these balls of light fell unhindered onto the walls and even into the city.
Masses of houses were collapsing, and the screams and cries of civilians were clearly audible even amidst the intense bombardment of spells.
Countless lives were withering away.
Roland sighed and turned off the livestream.
He couldn’t watch it any longer.
The others switched off the livestream one after another. At this moment, the carriage suddenly stopped and Husseret’s voice came from the front: “Brothers, someone is trying to trouble us.”
Roland lifted the curtains and saw a procession in purple Priest’s robes stop in the middle of the road in front of the carriage.
The group of people looked at them unkindly.
