End of the Magic Era

The large group reached Okland half an hour later. After separating from the three mercenary groups, Lin Yun, his three cousins, and Xiuban looked for a carriage to go to the Merlin Family Manor.

As they were half an hour late, they naturally couldn’t know what had just happened. The Thousand Souls Sacrifice had been discovered by the powerhouses of the Cloud Tower and the Black Tower and had suffered heavy losses as it fled back to the Charlotte Family.

Soon after, the few of them returned to the Merlin Family Manor.

After finally getting some rest, the exhausted Xiuban simply didn’t care about the others and already started sleeping…

“Oh right, Cousin Willian, has Faleau’s group arrived at Okland?” Lin Yun suddenly recalled this important matter. After discovering the change to his Demiplane in the Aurij Mountain Range, he had told William to contact Faleau in Thousand Sails City. He just didn’t know if they had arrived yet.

“Faleau arrived half a month ago, but since we weren’t there, he didn’t go to the Merlin Manor, stopping somewhere else instead.” William promptly nodded. After putting down his cup of water, he took out a piece of paper from his pocket and quickly wrote something using magic runes. He then poured mana into the paper, and it transformed into countless dissipating rays of light. “If nothing unexpected happened, they should rush to the Merlin Family Manor within half an hour.”

After a while, Lin Yun, William, Ross, and Leon reached the Merlin Family Manor. Their group was very eye-catching as they entered, drawing everyone’s attention. It was obvious for Ross and Leon, as they were the two great geniuses of the Merlin Family and were very famous in Okland. Aube had once stood alongside them, but unfortunately, that Elder Council three months ago had completely ruined his magic path.

If nothing unexpected happened, the next patriarch of the Merlin Family would be chosen between Leon and Ross.

Usually, when the powerful candidates for the patriarch’s seat returned to the Manor, many people would come to curry favor. But no one dared to come over this time. In fact, no one dared to stay within a hundred meters.

Seeing this situation, Leon and Ross couldn’t help recalling what had happened in the Elder Council three months ago. Their Cousin Mafa had been truly fierce, killing three Elders and crippling one. It had already been three months, yet his prestige hadn’t subsided at all in the Merlin Family.

The four youths waited right outside, and soon, ten carriages arrived with the crest of the Gilded Rose. The carriage at the forefront stopped, and a young figure came out. With a glance, he recognized Lin Yun’s group and rushed over. “Boss, Cousin…”

A vein twitched on William’s forehead. He hadn’t expected Faleau’s behavior to be that strange after a year, calling him cousin in such a shrill voice.

The members of the Gilded Rose’s mercenary group came out of the carriages one after the other. There were a total of fifty people, not one less, all standing straight behind Faleau.

A year ago, they had been the worst batch of mages of the Merlin Family. They should never have had the chance to advance to the Great Mage realm. But their fates changed after being sent to Thousand Sails City by the Merlin Family and meeting with Boss Merlin. They reached the Great Mage realm in less than a year.

The Great Mage realm was something they could only dare to dream of…

But that dream came true after going to Thousand Sails City.

They as mages with the worst potential in the Merlin Family, but they returned there after a month as Great Mages.

This was quite ironic.

They clearly understood that this was all due to the young mage in front of them.

“Faleau, how are those formulas’ calculations going?” Before leaving Thousand Sails City, Lin Yun had arranged a few formulas for Faleau. In a flash, half a year had passed.

To be honest, Lin Yun was very pleased with Faleau.

When Faleau first came to the Gilded Rose, Lin Yun had intended to let him supervise the technical work and had planned on making Faleau the Chief Alchemist. But Faleau hadn’t let him down. Back then, when the Gilded Rose received a batch of alchemists from the Alchemist Guild and frantically expanded before monopolizing the market of the eastern part of the kingdom, a lot of it had been due to Faleau.

And during the past half a year, Faleau had taken care of everything concerning the Gilded Rose. It kept quickly expanding and bringing in large amount of money every day.

Although Faleau wasn’t a genius, he was still qualified as an outstanding alchemist. Lin Yun valued Faleau’s diligence and his eagerness to study. Back in Thousand Sails City, Lin Yun would frequently see Faleau staying in the laboratory late into the night to solve a thorny problem. He could even stay up the whole night working on it.

In Lin Yun’s eyes, Faleau’s future achievements would in no way be inferior to those so-called genius alchemists. He might even leave those geniuses in the dust.

This time, he had Faleau come to Okland with the mercenary group used for commerce. He wanted to increase the power of this mercenary group since their power obviously couldn’t keep up with the crazy expansion of the Gilded Rose.

Fifty Great Mages was far from enough for the current Gilded Rose.

“Boss, I haven’t finished yet…” Faleau suddenly stiffened when this topic was brought up. He said with embarrassment, “I’ve only completed ten of the thirteen formulas you have left me…”

“Not bad…”

Lin Yun merely smiled, not saying much. In fact, it wasn’t easy to get a “not bad” as praise from him. Faleau’s pace actually slightly surprised Lin Yun. The thirteen formulas he had left before leaving were each incrementally harder than the previous one, and even the most simple one involved a large amount of Master Alchemist knowledge. For Faleau to solve ten in half a year showed just how great his progress had been. He already had a foot in the Master Alchemist realm. Perhaps within two months, he would become a genuine Master Alchemist.

He wasn’t a genius, but he had greater achievements than most geniuses. Faleau was in his early twenties, but when looking at some of Okland major forces, which of them didn’t constantly invest expensive resources to produce Master Alchemists in their twenties and thirties?

Just like the Merlin Family’s Aube. Through spending a large amount of wealth, he became a Master Alchemist in his thirties.

As for Faleau, he had relied on his own efforts.

Naturally, this also had something to do with the guidance he received.

Faleau, as one of the first people to come into contact with Lin Yun, naturally understood the character of his boss. He knew how much weight this “Not bad” had. Thus, he smiled, but remained silent.

Even he felt shocked by his results. Before joining the Gilded Rose, he had just been a slightly talented Alchemist in the Black Horn Auction House. But everything changed after he began to follow that young mage.

Before meeting his current boss, becoming a Great Alchemist had been his lifelong pursuit, but his situation now felt like a dream. It wouldn’t be long before he could become a true Master Alchemist.

He clearly knew that this was all thanks to the young boss, so he would always remain grateful and do his best to manage the technical work of the Gilded Rose.

Next, Faleau simply reported the recent developments of the Gilded Rose and the problems he had encountered. The Gilded Rose had already been set up, and even if Faleau left for three months, there shouldn’t be too much impact. Not to mention that the old butler, Pave, was still over there.

“Hey, did you notice…”

Leon’s expression suddenly turned strange. He was looking at the fifty mages with disbelief.

“Notice what?” Ross was thinking about something when he suddenly got interrupted by Leon, so he sounded a bit annoyed and didn’t even glance at Leon.

His relationship with Leon had been even worse due to this trip to the Tulan Mountain Range.

A few months ago, Leon shamelessly asked to follow them when they were getting ready to leave for the Tulan Mountain Range. And when he explained the reason, Leon managed to make Ross’ face darken a few times. Ross clearly remembered those matters. Naturally, this wouldn’t cause their relationship to deteriorate. It had to be known that in the past, Ross was considered the strongest of the three geniuses of the Merlin Family.

But Leon became a lot more powerful after fusing those nine Arcane Rings into one. Ross had the upper hand when they first started exchanging pointers, but on the way to Okland, Ross suddenly found out that he wasn’t Leon’s match.

This wasn’t a big deal…

The most significant part was that Leon just kept provoking and defeating him.

“Check their power…” Had it been any other time, Leon wouldn’t have taken the initiative to chat with Ross. The two were powerful candidates for the seat of the next Patriarch. It could be said that within a decade or two, they would have to fight each other. But Leon had clearly forgotten himself at this time.

“Great Mage? So what?” Ross said without care as he glanced at Leon. In his eyes, it was quite normal for their cousin Mafa to have a mercenary group with fifty Great Mages for his Gilded Rose. Leon was making a fuss for nothing.

“This group of mages was sent by our Merlin Family a year ago… They were the group with the worst aptitudes and they had only been 5th Rank Mages…” Leon paled as he looked at the group of Great Mages, stunned and in disbelief.

Leon had access to a wide range of information in the Merlin Family, including the conditions Mafa Merlin had raised when negotiating. He had asked the Merlin Family to send him a group of fifty Mages. Moreover, Leon knew a few of these fifty Mages and he recognized them when they all came out of the carriages.

Not one less, not one more; all fifty of them were Great Mages!