Chapter 600 - Baby Elemental Wyrm’s Food
Lin Li stopped and turned towards the baby Elemental Wyrm with confusion after walking a few steps into the crack. Since this little creature had led him here, why wasn’t it moving now? Could it be that it was scared of something here? Looking at its pitiful expression, it was evidently not afraid.
“Let’s go, little thing! Aren’t you leading me somewhere?” Lin Li waved at the baby Elemental Wyrm, and then pointed inside the crack.
Lin Li’s hand gestures were easily understood by the baby Elemental Wyrm given its exceptional intelligence. However, this little creature chirped and circled around in the same spot. It rubbed its tummy with its front claws and looked at Lin Li with watery eyes.
Damn it! Does this little thing want to drink milk? Where do I find a female Wyrm for it? thought Lin Li as he turned stared at the baby Elemental Wyrm which appeared to be starving helplessly. However, its reaction was understandable since it was a newborn. Lin Li took out some food from his ring to feed the baby Wyrm, like roasted beef and some snacks.
The baby Elemental Wyrm chirped with joy and zoomed towards Lin Li upon seeing him take out something. However, it stopped suddenly and fell onto the ground after seeing that Lin Li had taken out food, rolling on the ground while rubbing its stomach.
“Hey, are you hungry or not? These dishes were cooked by the most famous chefs in the Breezy Plains. Even I think they are good, how can you be so picky?” Lin Li waved the dishes in front of the Wyrm, trying to entice it with their aroma.
However, the baby Elemental Wyrm wasn’t interested in the food Lin Li was holding at all. It continued to roll about on the ground and yelped with sorrow as if it was tortured. It rolled next to Lin Li’s feet and gripped onto Lin Li’s pants, looking at Lin Li with sadness.
“What do you want to eat? Tell me so that I can find for you,” said Lin Li, not knowing whether to laugh or to cry, and put the food back into his ring.
The baby Elemental Wyrm’s eyes sparkled, and it shook off the dirt on its body. It then spread its wings and pounced onto Lin Li’s hand, wanting to give Lin Li’s finger a bite.
“Damn it! Are you trying to kill me?!” Lin Li was shocked by the Wyrm’s action. After some tugging and dragging, Lin Li finally saved his fingers from the Wyrm’s mouth.
Lin Li couldn’t be bothered with the little Wyrm anymore. He raised his hand to check his fingers. Evidently, the baby Elemental Wyrm didn’t want to eat his flesh, but rather targeted the Evil Eye Tyrant’s ring on his finger.
“Hmph, you think that the baby Elemental Wyrm is just some ordinary magical beast?” Connoris’ voice sounded in Lin Li’s mind again.
“Why didn’t you say it earlier if you know? If I had not been fast enough, this ring would’ve been ruined! Where can I find another one of these!” Obviously Lin Li would be unhappy with Connoris. Even if he hadn’t said anything, Lin Li would have known by now that the little Wyrm wanted to eat magical crystals. However, the problem was that this Evil Eye Tyrant’s magical crystal had irreplaceable effects even though its level wasn’t very high. Otherwise, Geresco wouldn’t specially put it with a treasure like the Book of Eternity.
Since Lin Li had started wearing the ring made from the Evil Eye Tyrant’s magical crystal, he had gotten many benefits from it. His mental strength had been increasing at every moment. To a mage, this meant that his magic potential was increasing. It should be known that one’s magic potential was inborn, couldn’t be increased, and directly determined his future achievements in magic.
If Lin Li hadn’t increased his mental strength by using this Evil Eye Tyrant’s magical crystal, how could he fight with that elven Legendary-mage? He would have been harmed himself first when he let out the Lord of Nightmares. If not for his immense mental strength, Lin Li wouldn’t have dared to fight with the Elemental Wyrm’s projected avatar and drink the Heart-piercing Potion.
“The Elemental Wyrm is like an incarnation of the four magical elements. Although it can use the four magical elements without worrying about exhaustion, it still needs to transform the magic it absorbs into its own in order for it to grow. Like other prehistoric Wyrms, the Elemental Wyrm’s developmental process is very long compared to your pathetic human mortality.” Connoris was green with envy regarding Lin Li’s luck, and sounded rather sour upon thinking about his own unfortunate current state.
Hearing Connoris’ explanation, Lin Li fell into deep thought. No wonder Xiao Hua absorbed his mana frantically when it was born. It was because his mana was more delicious than the magical elements…
The baby Elemental Wyrm couldn’t hear Lin Li and Connoris’ conversation, and slowly stood up from the ground. Its eyes were filled with tears, and it sobbed.
Connoris continued, “Don’t feel reluctant, since you won’t be giving the Wyrm magical crystals for nothing. A baby Wyrm needs at least thousands of years to reach adulthood, but it’s not impossible for it to mature in a few hundred years if you give it enough magical crystals. If you are willing to give it Legendary-level magical crystals, it may reach adulthood in 100-200 years.” While he was jealous, he also knew that it was a good thing for him that Lin Li was getting stronger. At least he would be able to get out of this wretched old hammer earlier.
“Oh? There’s such a good thing?” Lin Li was motivated by Connoris’ words. It was easy to see how powerful an Elemental Wyrm would be given the abilities of that projected avatar. Although he hadn’t planned for Xiao Hua to be his helper in battles, he wouldn’t refuse to have a powerful assistant.
However, it was evidently not a matter of one or two magical crystals in order for the baby Elemental Wyrm to reach adulthood. Even if he were to feed it Legendary magical crystals, he needed a large number of those. The only good thing was that according to Connoris, the Elemental Wyrm wasn’t picky at all. No matter which level the magical crystal was, the Wyrm would be able to absorb all the mana inside it.
Although this good thing was simply said, only the Elemental Wyrm would really accomplish not wasting any mana in the magical crystals.
From the prehistoric times till now, it wasn’t the Elemental Wyrm’s specialty to increase power by consuming magical crystals. Many powerful magical beasts would swallow its prey’s magical crystal first after making a kill. Then, they would slowly absorb the mana inside the magical crystal. Though this absorption process was very slow, it was a relatively more efficient way to grow in power compared to converting magical elements into mana.
However, this method was extremely wasteful in the eyes of humans. This was because most magical beasts might not even be able to absorb 10% of the magical crystal’s mana, and wasted large amounts of mana. Even beasts that could use other’s magical crystals to improve their own power were considered rather powerful beasts already.
Compared to the magical beasts that had no other choice, humans and other intelligent beings could use the magical crystals in other ways that would maximize their gains. For example, mageweaths, Alchemy Arrays, and the embedding of magical crystals into magical equipments were all ways to do just that. Equipment with embedded crystals required the user to use double the mana. For example, a level-1 spell released from an embedded equipment required the user to use the mana equivalent to that of a level-2 spell.
On the other hand, no matter how high in level mageweaths and the Alchemy Array used were, they would inevitably damage the core mana of the magical crystal even though they sought to maximize the usage of mana from the magical crystals by using them as the energy core.
Moreover, the higher the level of the mageweaths and Alchemy Array was, the greater the amount of mana wasted would be since more complex magical patterns would result in a longer route that mana needed to flow through before coming into effect. Even though generations of masters had researched ways to reduce this wastage, their efforts were futile.
Other than the wastage of mana, mageweaths and the Alchemy Array were still inanimate objects, and wouldn’t control mana as sophisticatedly as true mages, even though they could help a mage release certain pre-programmed magical effects. For the same magic effect, a mage needed to use at least twice the amount of mana on the mageweath or Alchemy Array.
Lin Li had placed a Legendary magical crystal for the Tower of Dusk as the energy core for all kinds of mageweaths and the mageweath All-Kill Array. However, even this Legendary magical crystal couldn’t supply mana for using the All-Kill Array more than several times. Once the usage had reached the threshold, this rare and precious Legendary magical crystal would likely be completely destroyed. This wasn’t because the Legendary magical crystal was so fragile, but rather the additional wastage of mana was inevitable in the process of using it. Even a Guru of Inscription like Lin Li could do nothing about it.
However, the Elemental Wyrm was different. It innately possessed the four elements’ Rules, and had the ability to use all of the main four magical elements in the entire Anril. Back when the Dragon of Dream still existed, the four magical elements in Anril basically belonged to it—even those that it had missed out on. Thus, any magical crystals that formed from the four elements were just another form of the elements, like ice was with water.
Although Xiao Hua wasn’t the Dragon of Dream born in Chaos, and didn’t possess the Dragon of Dream’s ability to monopolize all the four elements, it wouldn’t waste any bit of mana in the magical crystals it consumed given its understanding of the four element’s Rules.