End of the Magic Era

It took less than three minutes for Gandaph to complete the dismantling. He dug out a fist-sized pitch-black substance with his bare hands and it looked like he was kneading a black slime ball. It looked just like melted asphalt.

There was no subtlety, no mana aura, nothing. But Gandaph very cautiously put that mass into an obsidian box. He then put three layers of seal on the box. The inner seal was a gelatinous layer made of a Trapa Tortoise’s shell while the other two layers were an array and a mana seal.

The seal wasn’t powerful, but it had one property, it could seal mana!

The obsidian that Gandaph brought out was a relatively famous mana repelling material that stopped mana from being sensed. As for the gelatinous matter formed after a Trapa Tortoise’s shell was slowly cooked, it was used to seal off some special items. Its purpose was to stop mana from coming in and avoid mana erosion.

Lin Yun frowned as he saw Gandaph’s actions. He easily got rid of a level 43 Heaven Puppet and perfectly dismantled it in less than five seconds.

Yet, he already spent five minutes just to process that last part, that black mass. Moreover, Gandaph appeared to be extremely cautious and meticulous as he packed that black mass in the box before standing up.

“Sir Mafa, do you know what this thing is?”

Lin Yun had never seen it before. The Heaven Puppets he had dismantled before never had that kind of thing. Lin Yun shook his head.

“I’ve never seen this kind of thing before and I don’t recognize it…”

Gandaph straightforwardly threw the box to Lin Yun.

“Then take it back and study it. If you manage to successfully research it, then you’ll understand why I want you to meet that person.”

Seeing Gandaph’s expression, Lin Yun knew that he wouldn’t get any more information from Gandaph even if he asked and directly put the box away.

Then, Gandaph led the way. He flew to the spot they had appeared at a few hours ago, encountering increasingly weaker puppets on their way, up until they reached that large wreck. There, Gandaph once again tore through space and took Lin Yun back.

As they walked back, Lin Yun spat out a rune and merged it with the space, leaving coordinates there.

This area was an extremely desolate wasteland. It had a large number of discarded components that suffered from corrosion or rust. Only puppets below level 20 would appear in this area.

This was also a birthing ground for puppets. The acid rain, Rust Eaters, and other peculiar things formed this strange place. Almost all the components that could appear in the Puppet Plane would appear in this wasteland of parts.

There was also a desolate sea in the Puppet Plane. The sea of Noscent contained seawater, while the desolate sea of the Puppet Plane contained all kinds of discarded parts, all kinds of precious materials. Moreover, a large number of puppets were living in that endless sea.

It was a place where Heaven Puppets would frequently go to look for components.

Strictly speaking, the powerhouses of the Puppet Plane were a lot more powerful than the powerhouses of Noscent in the current era, and their strength wasn’t just one rank higher.

The first hurdle in conquering the Puppet Plane was the air. No human could breathe the air of this plane. Along with all kinds of things, this made the Puppet Plane almost impossible to conquer.

Lin Yun hadn’t dared to rashly open a Planar Path before because he was scared of ending up appearing next to a city of steel. If he was truly unlucky, he might have ended up opening the Planar Path inside a city and would have died an ugly death while opening a path for these iron cans.

With the safe coordinates, Lin Yun would be able to enter this part of the Puppet Plane next time.

After returning to Noscent, Lin Yun immediately started researching that black substance. Gandaph had been so cautious and afraid of making a mistake. And Lin Yun had never seen this kind of thing, he couldn’t even find anything like it in the treasure trove of knowledge inside his head. He didn’t dare to be careless.

He returned to the laboratory and made a set of tools based on what Gandaph had previous used. Ordinary alchemy tools have extremely good mana malleability, very few weren’t good in that regard, and they also could stabilize mana. But the tools Gandaph used all had mana repelling effects.

These tools never appeared in alchemy experiments. Lin Yun opened the obsidian box once he was done crafting these tools. After removing the seal, he cautiously cut a fingernail-sized part of the asphalt-like blob to study it. The rest of it was put back in the box and sealed.

He put that small lump on a tray on a crystal table and instantly sensed something abnormal. That tray was only an ordinary porcelain item, which was usually used by alchemists because it had no influence on experiments, it was just like a drinking cup.

But now, he could clearly feel that the little bits of mana remaining within the porcelain tray were absorbed by that small black substance. Moreover, because the mana was devoured, the porcelain was shattered and the black substance fell onto the crystal table.

Then, the black substance rapidly polluted the transparent crystal table and the area around the point of contact rapidly became turbid. And it didn’t stop, it rapidly spread towards the surroundings and it took a few seconds for half of the crystal table to became turbid, without a single transparent spot.

Lin Yun subconsciously released a Mana Hand to grab that small black substance, but upon contact with it, Lin Yun immediately felt as if a part of his Mana Hand had been bit off and his Mana Hand’s mana was leaking towards the black substance.

Lin Yun decisively scattered his Mana Hand, and the absorption targeted the crystal table once again.

Lin Yun calmly observed, but didn’t try to control it again. A minute later, the originally transparent crystal table had transformed into gray limestone, it had completely lost its shine.

This meant that the mana within the crystal table had been completely absorbed. And after absorbing the mana within the crystal table, the black substance started slowly absorbing the mana within the air. Although it was at a very slow rate, it was apparently unstoppable.

Lin Yun remained silent. He hadn’t expected that black substance to be able to absorb mana. Not only was it not picky, its absorbing power was tyrannical.

The previous pottery tray was usually used as mana repelling material because it could barely hold any mana. After being used inside the alchemy laboratory for a long time, it was normal for mana to slowly seep into it, but that amount of mana was so infinitesimally small that it couldn’t be felt, and it already fused with the tray.

But that black substance could forcibly devour the tray’s mana, and it was the same for the crystal table. The crystal contained mana, but this mana came from the crystal itself. It was a kind of stable mana material. The mana contained within these kinds of crystal tables couldn’t be used.

But it was still absorbed by this black substance. A spell’s mana could also be absorbed, and so could the ambient mana.

After testing a dozen different methods, Lin Yun confirmed that mana, or anything with mana, would be absorbed by that black substance. Only something like that obsidian, which had a complete mana repelling effect, could touch that black substance.

Just by standing there, the black substance could still absorb the ambient mana at a very stable speed. It looked like it wouldn’t stop.

After crafting a set of mana repelling tools, Lin Yun immediately decomposed that black substance. But no matter how small the pieces, that thing wouldn’t stop devouring mana. However, he figured out that the bigger the piece, the faster it would absorb mana.

He calculated the ratio and found out that it wasn’t proportional, it was exponential.

Even after three days of research, he still couldn’t discover where the absorbed mana went to. That black substance had no mana fluctuation, it was like the mana fluctuations went into a black hole. After the mana went in, it could no longer be found.

It was only a small piece, but over the course of three days of experiments, that small piece had absorbed mana equivalent to a Level 20 mana crystal.

But even after using a dozen kinds of detection methods, he still couldn’t figure out where the mana went. Even when using a special energy that could be tracked into the black substance, the only result was that it could no longer be tracked. Apparently, as long as it had mana, anything would disappear after being absorbed.

Lin Yun used various methods, but there was no way to deal with this black substance, it was still devouring all the mana in the surroundings without stopping.

Lin Yun put back that piece of black substance back into the obsidian box and it fused back with the rest just like a drop of water falling into a cup of water. It was as if Lin Yun never cut a piece out.

Lin Yun frowned. He sealed the box once again and left to find Gandaph.

Half an hour later, Lin Yun was leaving Gandaph’s mage tower with a frown, sighing in frustration.

‘That damned Gandaph, he can definitely chat about any alchemy topic for a couple years without stopping, yet he just smiles and remains silent when that black substance is mentioned…’

Thinking of Gandaph’s terrifying strength, Lin Yun decisively chose to leave his mage tower. He didn’t end up asking, but through a few sentences of discussion, he thought of some new alchemical theories.

After returning to his laboratory, he researched for a couple more days, but his research didn’t make any progress. Without a starting point, aside from researching the speed at which it absorbs mana, and what kind of mana it could absorb, Lin Yun made no progress.

And during this time, more and more people came to Neverwinter City as the exhibition was about to start.

Lin Yun walked on the main street of Neverwinter City. On a street, eighteen shops had changed their signboard and the Gilded Rose’s sign could be seen from three streets away. The best eighteen shops of this main street all had a change of ownership and now belonged to the Gilded Rose.

Moreover, the gaps between the eighteen shops had been removed to form one big shop, and with the use of spatial expansion, although the shop looked like an eighteen-building-wide, six-storey-high building, the inside could definitely compare to a small town.

The main road was even blocked as a platform, on which stood many people, could be seen in the center of the street.

Lin Yun walked over and immediately felt the bustly atmosphere. 9th Rank Archmages were looking at the people on the platform with admiration.

“I don’t know the Gilded Rose’s influence, but they are actually able to open eighteen shops in this alchemy street and link them all together…”

“Who knows, for the store owners to sell their shops, they definitely should have quite a bit of influence. Haven’t you noticed that not only is there an assistant dean of the Starry Sky College in attendance, there is also a prince? A few important members of a few major families also came over…”

“It is said that the Gilded Rose obtained these shops because the royal family spoke on their behalf. Do you think the original store owners would sell so easily if that wasn’t the case? Even the less successful shop here has several times the business of shops in other areas…”

“Stop talking, let’s go in. I heard that on the Gilded Rose’s opening day, any Archmage or Sword Saint coming in would get a free Mana Cleansing Potion. Moreover, the Gilded Rose re-developed it. You must know that only first-rate Master Alchemists or Artisans could make a Mana Cleansing Potion, so let’s hurry up…”

Lin Yun smiled as he heard the envious tones of these two Archmages. The Mana Cleansing Potion was a potion that had been researched by the Gilded Rose. It was at least seven to eight times more effective than the one on the market. It would purify mana or Aura of a mage or swordsman and would even rinse their body, eliminating all impurities and negative effects.

The results were similar to the Mana Baptism Potion, but it was aimed at Sword Saint and Archmages. After all, Sword Saint and Archmages’ potential would be exhausted to some extent at that point. Without a special opportunity, progressing would be impossible and the Mana Cleansing Potion was such an opportunity. Although that kind of thing existed on the market, it was very expensive.

In order to pave the way for the Gilded Rose in the Odin Kingdom, Faleau could be said to have spent quite a bit of funds. At least four hundred Sword Saints and Archmages showed up today. That many potions would usually sell for a few million golds, and it would be the purple gold coins of the Odin Kingdom.

However, the processing cost of that kind of potion was only a few hundred Andlusan golds after heavy research and development.

As the exhibition started, five Griffin Rider Squads kept patrolling the skies, all of them led by Heaven Rank powerhouses. As for the ground, aside from the Gilded Rose’s own guards and Neverwinter’s army, there was still over a thousand puppets of all kinds.

Whoever tried to cause trouble would definitely die an ugly death.

After entering the shop, Lin Yun felt as if the space was ten times bigger. There were all kinds of transparent cupboards, each containing the outcome of a research with a detailed introduction on the side. Especially the potions, every single potion was strictly differentiated by grade.

The same potion would be divided into four grades according to the quality. The effect of every grade, side effect, and even the positive and negative effects were clearly written down. Every single detailed data was displayed.

Common, Excellent, Premium, Perfect. Those were the four grades of the Gilded Rose’s articles.

Lin Yun looked at the cupboard in front of him and saw four Volcano Potions which just happened to be of the four grades researched by the Gilded Rose and the alchemist guild. The Common Volcano Potion was selling for 6,000 golds, while the Perfect Volcano Potion was selling for 50,000 golds!

But seeing the data and effect of the Perfect Volcano Potion, no one would feel that 50,000 golds was too expensive, they would instead rejoice that they could buy one at such a cheap price. After all, a potion with such good effect would end up in an auction in the past as there was too few of them. They would end up selling for 200,000 golds to 300,000 golds, and if they met a competitor, that price might still increase.

On the way, he saw that this was the same case for all kinds of potions, even lower potions. It’s just that many lower potions didn’t even have potions at the Common Grade, the lowest grade one was at the Excellent grade.

Lin Yun smiled as he saw these, he thoroughly understood. He had previously mentioned to Faleau how to mass-produce a potion, but Lin Yun hadn’t expected that Faleau would have successfully developed it just from the mention of a few steps.

Lower potions could definitely be mass-produced successfully now, because if they were sold at that price without being mass-produced, then the profits wouldn’t be high enough. And the Gilded Rose’s required constant improvement to guarantee that they could successfully compound certain potions.

Thus, there was no Common quality among lower quality potions.

Lin Yun silently made calculations, and according to the profit policy of the Gilded Rose, the profits of the sold potions needed to be ten times that of the compounding cost. The Gilded Rose could keep their prices down because of their law compounding costs.

After making calculations for a few lower potions, Lin Yun calculated that at least three hundred copies of these potions could be compounded at a time. And after being mass-produced, the bottles were ready to be filled and sealed. Not only was the compounding cost lower than compounding the potions one by one, the success rate was guaranteed and so was the quality.