End of the Magic Era

Lin Yun soon reached the edge of the black wasteland as his path was completely unhindered, and he found the alchemy puppet hunting Skeleton Warriors.

‘I wonder how much it harvested…’ Lin Yun softly muttered a control rune and the pursuing alchemy puppet let go of its target to rush over to Lin Yun like a hunting dog.

Before the puppet even reached him, Lin Yun could already feel a thick death aura surrounding it. He knew that this was due to it carrying a large number of Soul Essences for a long time.

It looked like the harvest of the alchemy puppet over the course of the last two months wasn’t small.

When the puppet reached him, Lin Yun used a control rune to open the spatial array storage on the puppet’s arm. Sure enough, it held a great many Soul Essences, over three thousand at the very least. If he were to put them on Thousand Sails City’s market, it would create a lot of chaos.

“Not bad.” Lin Yun nodded, feeling pleased. This harvest had gone beyond his expectations. At first, Lin Yun thought that the puppet would be able to collect at most one thousand Soul Essences in the black wasteland. But unexpectedly, the harvest was triple that amount.

From this, it could be seen how fertile the Bone Plane was.

Lin Yun whispered a control rune, making the puppet stay alert while he piled the Soul Essences on the ground before taking out the Sage Chapter.

After Lin Yun’s mana input, a dazzling light blossomed from the Sage Chapter, releasing shocking death energy, covering a radius of ten meters.

That small pile of Soul Essence on the ground resonated with the shocking death energy.

Only a glimmer could be seen at first, but then, the glimmer gradually shone brighter and brighter. Finally, the dark Soul Essences turned into dazzling Soul Fires. Due to those several thousand shining Soul Fires, Lin Yun’s location shone like a sun!

Then, the Sage Chapter’s light fluttered, and the several thousand Soul Fires became like moths attracted to the flame. They threw themselves into the Sage Chapter one after the other.

One, ten, a hundred…

More and more Soul Fires came pouring into the Sage Chapter, and in a short period of time, it had absorbed several hundreds of Soul Fires. Lin Yun could clearly feel that this shocking quantity of Soul Fires brought some kind of transformation to the Sage Chapter. After all this influx, the originally dim stone tablet looked like a sun emitting rays of sunshine.

The Sage Chapter would become brighter every time it absorbed a Soul Fire. After absorbing several thousands of Soul Fires, the Sage Chapter was now sparkling and translucent, like a crystal.

“It should have evolved…” Lin Yun grabbed it and looked at it. He could clearly feel a huge amount of death energy flowing within the Sage Chapter. It was several times more powerful than before.

Lin Yun considered for a moment and then tried to store a 2nd Tier Spell, Frost Ring, in the Sage Chapter.

And it indeed worked…

‘It really evolved.’

The previous Sage Chapter could only store 1st Tier Spells.

After 1st Tier Spells became Ultimate Spells, their might would be comparable to that of a 4th Tier Spell. In other words, they would reach the level of a 5th Rank Great Mage.

But now, the Sage Chapter could store 2nd Tier Spells.

After 2nd Tier Spells became Ultimate Spells, they would reach the level of a 5th Tier Spell, raising the power of the Ultimate Spells he could use from that of a 5th Rank Great Mage to that of a 1st Rank High Mage.

This wasn’t a small upgrade.

Except for a monster like Lin Yun, the gap between a 5th Rank Great Mage and a 1st Rank High Mage was almost insurmountable. But now, these several thousand Soul Fires directly made the Sage Chapter able to break through that huge chasm.

It could be said that the current Sage Chapter was several times stronger than it had been before.

The only regret was that the number of Ultimate Spells that could be stored was still the same as before, three.

‘Well, three is more than enough…’ After consoling himself, Lin Yun stored two other 2nd Tier Spells.

He then took the alchemy puppet and headed out of the black wasteland.

Half an hour later, Lin Yun entered a dense forest. The seemingly dense forest looked verdant and lush, brimming with life, but it also felt sinister and oppressive. A bloody smell filled the forest.

Lin Yun was pretty sure that this was the famous Blood Forest.

Towering trees spread everywhere within sight. But in reality, the trees and weeds were frightening, blood-sucking monsters.

Sure enough, a sharp hissing sound echoed by Lin Yun’s ears just as he entered the forest. The originally verdant grass spun in a split second, and countless sharp, thorny vines rushed to try to coil around Lin Yun’s legs like snakes.

But since Lin Yun dared to enter the Blood Forest, he would obviously have countermeasures.

Lin Yun incanted as soon as he saw movement. A Flame Path was cast and only a “bang” was heard as flames rose under Lin Yun’s feet. Those sharp vines didn’t have time to coil around his legs before being turned into ashes.

Lin Yun didn’t even bother to look down as he kept walking with the puppet towards the depths of the forest, leaving a path of fire behind him. He didn’t stop incanting on the way, a dazzling flame spreading out from the Elemental Amber of his Spiritual Magic Staff…

Lin Yun knew that the Blood Forest wasn’t an ordinary place. This place was inhabited by undead vegetation, and although the weeds and underbrush were strangely sinister, their fighting strength was comparable to that of Skeleton Warriors. The true danger came from the tall Undead Treants with heights reaching up to a hundred meters. The strongest ones had power similar to that of the previous Bone Devil.

And furthermore, there wouldn’t be just one or two Undead Treants in the Blood Forest…

Just as some shrub burned to ashes, Lin Yun felt the earth shake under his feet. He heard the sound of things breaking behind him, and the first things he saw when he turned to check were branches as thick as arms and legs, ruthlessly whipping over at him.

Fortunately, Lin Yun was prepared for this.

When he heard that sound, Lin Yun chanted the last part of his incantation. A flash was emitted from the Elemental Amber and the Pyroclasm that had been prepared for a long time was instantly cast. This was a 4th Tier Spell, and after merging with the Magic Array, it had become so powerful that even a High Mage like Allen Watson wouldn’t dare to take it head on, not to mention an Undead Treant that wasn’t even twenty meters tall.

A loud explosion thundered out as the dazzling flames landed on the Undead Treant just before the branches reached Lin Yun. A cracking sound then echoed as the entire Undead Treant was blasted in two from the middle.

Those branches turned into cinder in instants, not leaving any trace on Lin Yun’s clothes.

But Lin Yun didn’t dare to stop, because he knew that he had already alarmed the Undead Treants of the Blood Forest. This was only the beginning. He would have to face tens to hundreds of them.

Sure enough, after snapping that Undead Treant in two, the ground didn’t stop shaking.

In a blink, five Undead Treants had burst out, and it looked like there were many more behind.

‘Damn, I knew it…’ Facing such a large number of Undead Treants, Lin Yun couldn’t help but bitterly smile.

Lin Yun wouldn’t hold back, he didn’t dare to.

After whispering a control rune, the Gaugass Battlemage model puppet immediately entered all-out firepower mode, and the Gold Essence Spear in its hand carried a dazzling flame as it rushed towards the Undead Treants. As for Lin Yun, he raised his casting speed to its limit and using his five Magic Arrays, he cast spell after spell, levelling almost all the land in a hundred meters around him.

Half an hour into the battle, there were no fewer than a hundred Undead Treant corpses in front of and behind Lin Yun as his mana was getting depleted. The puppet was covered in wounds, but the Undead Treants’ offensive was also slowly getting sluggish.

Lin Yun was panting when the final Undead Treant fell to the ground. There was not a single Treant left standing, and within a few hundred meters, the brush and weeds had all been turned into ashes. This had become a scorched land, a bit desolate even compared to the Bone Devil’s territory.

Lin Yun couldn’t do much about it at this time. He looked for a clean location and sat down, using the Elemental Amber Ring to recover his mana while ordering the puppet to search the area. Because Lin Yun had read that after these Undead Treants died, they would leave behind the Life Crystals.

Although Life Crystals didn’t contain a lot of mana, the magic material had a wide range of uses in potioneering. Life Crystals containing a large amount of life power were most suitable for compounding two kinds of potions: recovery-type potions and berserk inducing potions.

Moreover, Lin Yun still remembered a recipe from the library that could make the effects of these Life Crystals reach an incredible level.

In truth, there were three shortcuts leading to the Book of Death.

Lin Yun chose this one because besides being safe enough, this path would also give him the opportunity to harvest the Undead Treants of the Blood Forest.