End of the Magic Era

A three-story building could be seen inside the area protected by the arrays. The construction style was clearly that of the early stage of the 3rd Dynasty, and it was well preserved. There were several damaged puppets inside, but apart from a few salvageable components, they weren’t very useful.

After walking inside the building, he saw many arrays that had lost their magic power. Most things couldn’t stand the decay of time and would collapse with a single touch before shattering into dust.

He found a scribbled diary which belonged to a captain of this ruins in charge of many matters.

But most of the things written on the diary were worthless things such as ‘today I saw that female mage ten kilometers away, I’ll show off the mission assigned by the powerful eastern mage group.’

Most of the diary has already been damaged and Lin Yun only found one valuable piece of information, a map of the ruins.

In order to prevent the ruins’ inhabitants from accidently intruding in some forbidden areas and end up killed by the puppets, captain-level people had a map of this ruins and they supervised people and puppets as they both had a strict range of movement.

Lin Yun then walked to the 3rd floor of the building and rapidly discovered a peculiar area. There was an opening in a corner of a wall and inside was a wooden box made out of Black-patterned Iron Tree.

The wooden box fit perfectly within this gap, if one didn’t know about it ahead of time, they definitely wouldn’t find it even if they used mana to search. Black-patterned Iron Tree had formidable magic resistance and anything put inside the Black-patterned Iron Tree box wouldn’t be discovered by magic. Moreover, mages trusted their magic the most.

Lin Yun opened the box and found a fist-sized crystal ball in which floated an island-like mirage. He poured a wisp of mana into the crystal ball and his mind power focused on a certain part of the island. The scene rapidly changed and turned into a three-dimensional figure.

A narrow passage appeared out of nowhere and linked to the island. This was the passage Lin Yun had taken earlier.

As he poured more mana, the scene kept transforming and many names appeared. Most of the places were marked with red names, which meant dangerous areas that couldn’t be crossed. The owner of the crystal ball only controlled the surroundings of this building.

This place originally was a place where many replacement parts for puppets were produced. There were some places that produced more important parts, but these places were all marked with red letters.

After attentively observing the map, Lin Yun swept a glance and most of the places marked in red were under the protection of intact arrays. By adjusting his line of sight, it seemed that his line of sight was overlooking the entire ruins.

And when he adjusted the crystal ball to the eastern side of the ruins, he saw a huge array and noticed that there was nothing apart from that array, he couldn’t see a building inside.

He would at least see a layer of fog in the other areas, even if it was blurry, he could still make out the inside. But he couldn’t on the easternmost side, it was even indicated in blood red letters that it was forbidden to peep or get close.

After irresolutely mumbling, Lin Yun put away the crystal ball and went over. He came here looking for the Reedpush Plate, and from looking at the map, if he was right, the Reedpush Plate should be in the easternmost area.

The Reedpush Plate must be where the owner of the ruins resided. He had to go there, but he first had to go to other places.

One of the areas was referenced as the puppet energy system production area, and another was referenced as the battle system production area.

According to the map, these two areas were the biggest and the buildings were the highest, even higher than the weapon system area.

Lin Yun was suddenly taken aback. He shrunk the map and checked the overall layout. He had felt that this layout was very familiar and he only remembered after checking the entire layout of the ruins.

The huge puppet base in the Natural Demiplane was set up like that. It’s just that the base was an underground base, but that was a negligible detail.

Now that he thought about it, it was really the case. That ruins was a huge puppet base emphasizing on the energy system on the easternmost side, while the westernmost side was the assembly location. When he entered this base, he had entered from the westernmost side.

Moreover, every part and every system was separated in its own area, there couldn’t be interference between them, this was exactly the same as the puppet base.

This wasn’t something all puppeteers did, everyone had their own style. Now that he recalled that, the more Lin Yun thought about it, the more he felt the huge connection between the puppet base and the ruins.

That kind of fierce sword puppet was even higher level than the sword puppets of the base, while the casting puppets were more or less the same.

Lin Yun frowned and suddenly wondered how it could be related to the puppet base of the Raging Flame Plane…

He followed the map and took the safe path, but he still encountered some awakened puppets After completely dismantling them, and comparing the components to the ones he had picked up before, he was surprised to find out that most of the components came from an assembly line. Almost every single part seemed to have been following a model and were carbon copies.

These clearly were components that came out of an assembly line, and assembled into puppets. They were purely prepared for a puppet army.

As he thought of the puppets of the puppet base, he felt that the puppets’ weak points were very similar.

It’s just that this ruins’ puppets had formidable battle systems, or it was better to say that the more puppets were gathered, the stronger their battle system.

Lin Yun tried to decipher it, but he discovered that these puppets’ battle system was strange. After deciphering it, most of it was actually normal, it was a very ordinary battle system, but a portion couldn’t be cracked for the time being.

The cracked content was meaningless stuff, but Lin Yun didn’t believe that there would be meaningless runes in the battle system.

After spending over a day, he reached the area of the energy system. Lin Yun started rapidly cracking the array, and unexpectedly, there was no puppet inside after cracking the array.

There still remained many intact Mana Reactors inside, but there was no mana in them as they had yet to be used.

These Mana Reactors would be transported to another area to be filled with pure mana, every single step was taken in a different area, and there was a gap between every area.

He put away this batch of Mana Reactors to be studied later.

The other thing which confused him even more was that there was an assembly line in this area with many mana-exhausted machine puppets.

This kind of method and habit was truly not too different from the puppet base, although the dense individual style was a bit different, Lin Yun concluded that they definitely had a common origin.

Even if it wasn’t that legendary alchemist, it had to have something to do with him.

He followed the map once again and found a safe path to the battle system area. There, he found many things that let Lin Yun confirm that this ruins was definitely related to that puppet base, and the relation wasn’t shallow.

Lin Yun intended to leave for the easternmost area after putting away many of the remains of the machine puppets, as well as many of the battle system components.

But he took out his Draconic Staff as soon as he came out of that building while looking in the distance with a serious expression.

The light of the array and some faint mist obscured his sight and most of the mana fluctuations, but Lin Yun could feel that there was something very powerful approaching.

A wisp of radiance covered the Draconic Staff as the Purple Dragon Incarnation flew out and floated at Lin Yun’s side. The Book of Death was now in Lin Yun’s left hand, its chains snapped and the power of the Element Chapter blossomed, buffing Lin Yun.

The Spell Wheel slowly turned tangible and Enderfa controlled the Spell Wheel while looking at the fog with fascination. The Spell Wheel started slowly revolving as mana fluctuations slowly appeared.

The Book of Mantras also appeared on Lin Yun’s left, the flames it displayed burned and converged into a pair of flaming eyes that also stared into the dense fog.

“Merlin, be careful, a powerhouse seems to have appeared. That person is so far, yet we can feel his aura from here. From the pressure that person emits, it should be a 2nd Rank Heaven powerhouse at the very least, and a relatively powerful one.”

Enderfa’s sensitivity to that kind of danger exceeded Lin Yun’s. As a Magic Tool Incarnation, his sense of danger came from his magic power. The mana and elements were parting in the front. This showed that the other side definitely wasn’t an opponent that had just advanced to the Heaven Rank, he was at least a 2nd Rank Heaven powerhouse.

Lin Yun’s face turned solemn. He didn’t know whether that powerhouse was a living person or a puppet. But there wouldn’t be too much of a difference between a person and a puppet after advancing to the Heaven Rank.

Especially for those able to display this kind of pressure, it would have to be a Level 42 puppet. After awakening wisdom, puppets of this level would be comparable to humans in terms of intelligence, they would even be more cunning and have even more strange abilities. They might even be stronger than 2nd Rank Heaven Mages.

Feeling the increasing pressure as the other side grew closer and closer, the Purple Dragon Incarnation transformed into a huge Purple Dragon Shadow behind Lin Yun. The wheel shadow also appeared and the Purple Dragon Shadow embraced it. It looked like the two were merged as one, and the elemental light roaming within the wheel instantly increased.

Within the dense fog, a middle-aged Heaven Sword Saint carrying a long sword looked over with a solemn expression. His clothing was awe-inspiring and his eyes were brimming with fighting intent. He wasn’t releasing his aura, but the huge pressure already forced the surrounding elemental power to get out of his way.

Aura radiance slowly filled the surroundings and a very thin armor condensed on the middle-aged Heaven Sword Saint’s body. The sword wrapped on his back automatically flew out and fell into his hand.

The pitch-black greatsword was only 1.6-meter-long, a bit shorter than ordinary greatsword. It was also half as wide and had no wisp of brightness. When he poured Aura in it, it looked as if the Aura’s radiance was absorbed. It looked very ordinary, just like an ordinary iron sword that had been blackened. But the dangerous aura it was emitting rapidly increased.

As he stood on the boundary between the array and the dense fog, Laibo frowned, his expression becoming more and more solemn.

The other side’s aura was growing stronger and stronger. No, the feeling of danger was growing increasingly more dangerous. The other side’s mana fluctuations weren’t intense, but their power was extremely piercing. Even through the cover of an array, he could feel its piercing power. It absolutely came from a true powerhouse.

‘Could it be a powerful puppet that awakened its wisdom?

‘The other side is standing still, but from the formidable aura they are releasing, they are definitely waiting for me, they already discovered me…’

Laibo took a deep breath and burst out with his own Aura. The gray radiance blossomed, but it didn’t give a feeling of stillness. Instead, it felt as if it was a scorching sun. There was formidable vitality contained within that vigorous aura. Just by relying on this Aura radiance, Lesser Undeads wouldn’t dare to approach or they would directly be burnt to ashes.

Laibo took a small step forward, but his pressure grew increasingly stronger. Each step was making the surrounding space tremble. Those steps didn’t sound like he was stepping on the ground, but on the space itself.

On the other side, Lin Yun’s expression turned even more serious. Fighting intent could still be seen in his eyes. Pressure and a sense of crisis was exactly what he needed, and there was someone that could make him go all-out. This was even better than the previous fight.

Lin Yun raised his Draconic Staff and his magic robe suddenly shook. His fierce mana burst like a volcanic eruption. The fierce mana fluctuations rose like tides and the surrounding arrays immediately reacted, one array after another was activated.

The silent defensive array on the ground was also activated by Lin Yun’s spreading mana. It completely shone and the power of the earth under his foot seemed to consolidate. No matter how much mana was washed down, it couldn’t shake the ground under their feet.

Their powers were separated by a layer of array light. As the two kept increasing their strength, the Aura’s radiance, carrying fierce power, impacted onto that membrane of light. While on the other side, Lin Yun’s mana fluctuations also surged like waves and ruthlessly attacked the membrane.