Chapter 1376
Leon left. Maxwell wasn’t surprised, but there was still a faint smile on his face, though his eyes had grown dim.
It seems Archmage Leon Merlin still hasn’t decided to accept us. I didn’t quite understand before, but now that I’ve returned to the Northend World, returned to the Thorned Crown, I realize the Thorned Crown truly isn’t what it used to be. The madmen who chase power at any cost have begun to dominate the faction.
Power that was once dispersed is now being consolidated. Over the years, countless mages, warlocks, and sword saints have fallen in secret due to bloodline transplants—far too many, snatched up by those lunatics for their experiments.
How is this any different from those wicked necromancers? No wonder Thorned Crown’s reputation has plummeted in recent years—many major powers have already voiced their dissatisfaction…
This time, we purged those lunatics from within—those who sold their souls for power. Thorned Crown suffered heavy losses, but it was necessary. Now, Thorned Crown must pledge allegiance to another faction. If things keep going like this, the powers dissatisfied with us might just find an excuse to strike.
Ah, it’s a pity Archmage Leon Merlin won’t accept us. If he did, not only would Thorned Crown’s crisis be resolved, but we could also learn from him and study bloodline transplantation…
Maxwell left the Gilded Rose with a bitter smile, feeling a touch of sorrow. This purge cost Thorned Crown dearly, and with the opportunity, many factions are already scheming.
He pulled up his hood, hiding the empty socket of one eye and revealing the other, which looked almost normal. Maxwell left the Gilded Rose, but glanced back at it, lost in thought, a flash of resolve in his eyes.
The Gilded Rose’s Blue Mana Potion is now so well-known that everyone’s heard of it—even in Neverwinter City, there’s no one unaware. In the beginning, one day each week, a random customer would be chosen and given a free bottle of Blue Mana Potion.
When it was almost time for the official release, they started giving away a bottle of Azure Mana Elixir every day. Even before its launch, anticipation among mages was high. Everyone knew exactly who received each bottle, so expectations for the elixir’s effects—whether they matched the Gilded Rose’s claims—were running wild.
After all, since the Gilded Rose opened, every new alchemical potion has lived up to its description—never worse, often better. Its reputation is solid, and even those who haven’t tried the new Azure Mana Elixir trust it’ll be at least as good as promised, if not better.
And following the Gilded Rose’s usual practice, every potion comes in different grades. The descriptions are always for the lowest grade. Higher-grade Azure Mana Elixir hasn’t appeared yet, and according to the Gilded Rose, the cost and difficulty are just too high to offer them regularly for now.
But everyone understands what that really means—there simply aren’t enough high-grade Azure Mana Elixirs to sell in bulk. It’s not that they don’t exist…
With the release date looming, stories about the effects of the Azure Mana Elixir from early recipients began to circulate. Many individuals and factions started reaching out to the Gilded Rose, hoping to form partnerships.
Just days before the launch, the first Ninth-Rank Title Archmage to get the Azure Mana Elixir appeared in the eastern seas of the Odin Kingdom. Beyond the continent’s edge lies the Endless Sea—the largest expanse in Northend World, teeming with treasures and powerful marine life, massive sea beasts, mighty sea tribes, and mysterious environments.
All this makes the Endless Sea the prime destination for mages seeking fortune and opportunity. Its dangers are well known—every year, at least thirty percent of those who venture out never return.
Yet those who return from the Endless Sea rich never stop coming. On a fifty-meter-long ship, Tom—the Ninth-Rank Title Archmage—was chasing destiny in the Endless Sea.
Tom’s been stuck as a Ninth-Rank Title Archmage for over a century. At this rate, another hundred years won’t change a thing, so he chose to gamble—he bought a heap of alchemical potions from the Gilded Rose, even the most obscure ones, just in case.
August brings the calmest seas along the coast—ideal for sailing, with minimal danger and gentle waves. The heat of the day means smoother travel from the heart of the Endless Sea, lowering the risk and extending the journey. The odds of striking it rich are better than ever.
Most of the powerful creatures in the Endless Sea avoid the surface during the hottest daylight hours, preferring the deep waters. The shallows are left to weaker marine life.
After seven days of smooth sailing, they were far beyond the continent’s reach. The coastline’s influence only extends about two hundred kilometers—no powerful sea beast wants to live that close to land.
At noon, with the sea calm and the first destination near, the water suddenly grew choppy. Waves surged from less than a meter to seven or eight meters high in seconds, as if a storm had struck—yet the sky was perfectly clear.
A terrifying surge of magical energy erupted from beneath the surface. Tom’s face grew grim—the power in that aura was far beyond any Title Archmage.
In seconds, a massive bulge rose from the sea just over a thousand meters ahead. Hundreds of meters tall, it exploded with a roar—a Deepsea Terror Croc, eighty to ninety meters long and shaped like a monstrous crocodile, burst from the depths, soaring two to three hundred meters into the air.
“A Deepsea Terror Croc? Damn it—how is there a Level 40 Deepsea Terror Croc here…?”
Tom cried out in terror, springing into the air and chanting a high-level spell. Hurricane winds wrapped around him, propelling him away at breakneck speed.
The enormous Deepsea Terror Croc hung in midair, its savage eyes fixed not on the nearby ship, but on the ocean below—filled with fear.
In less than two seconds, the sea erupted again—a colossal Abyssal Leviathan, nearly three hundred meters long, shot up from the depths. Its head was half its body’s length, the other half all tail, with two massive arms below, each ending in three razor-sharp claws like some hellish beast.
The Abyssal Leviathan whipped its tail, lunging for the falling Deepsea Terror Croc. Its monstrous jaws opened wide—at least a hundred meters across—lined with three rows of interlocking fangs.
The falling Deepsea Terror Croc was like a helpless cub, shrieking in terror, utterly unable to stop itself from plunging into the Abyssal Leviathan’s gaping maw.
In the instant it landed, the Deepsea Terror Croc clawed at the Leviathan’s jaws, managing to wriggle its upper body free. But with a thunderous snap, the Leviathan’s mouth slammed shut, compressing the air so fast it burst into white clouds.
The Deepsea Terror Croc’s lower half was bitten clean off and swallowed. The remaining upper half barely had time to escape before the Leviathan’s arms seized it, shoving the still-screaming croc back into its jaws.
With a muffled gulp, the eighty-to-ninety-meter, Level 40 Deepsea Terror Croc was swallowed alive. The Leviathan crashed back down, sending waves a hundred meters high.
Within seconds, monstrous waves battered the ship, tossing it like a toy. Everything aboard was flung into the sea; only a few Title Archmages escaped, only to be struck down by the waves.
A second later, the Abyssal Leviathan surged up, devouring the entire ship in one bite. Blood spread everywhere, but the Leviathan didn’t stop—it hunted down the surviving Title Archmages, swallowing them one by one.
Ice, hurricane, and fire spells rained down on the Leviathan, but not a single mark was left. Many spells were simply swallowed whole.
In less than ten seconds, the Leviathan had devoured everything—every scrap of debris on the water. Only then did it turn to Tom, who had managed to fly some distance away, and began to chase him down.
The Leviathan roared, raising a two-hundred-meter wave that crashed toward Tom. He chanted frantically, summoning a runic shield and speeding up, but was still struck by the wave.
The runic shield, glowing with blue sigils, shattered like a bubble, exploding into fragments. Tom was flung through the air, blood spraying as several bones snapped under the immense force. The Leviathan was still hot on his heels.
Faced with this, Tom turned pale, gritted his teeth, and downed a Clarity Tonic. Forgetting all about defense, he flew while chanting a spell—a green hurricane twisted into a tornado, wrapping Tom inside as he sped toward the continent.
The prey escaping its jaws enraged the Leviathan, which gave chase. After a few minutes, the gap widened, but the monster refused to give up.
Half an hour later, Tom was even paler, his mana nearly spent. The Leviathan was nowhere in sight, so he slowed the tornado and adjusted his mana output.
This spell was pure escape magic—Gale Tornado. As long as you fed it mana, it persisted; the more mana, the faster you went, but the faster you went, the quicker you burned through your reserves.
After half an hour at full speed, he’d burned through eighty percent of his mana. Now he could only slow down and try to recover a bit.
But minutes later, the sea exploded again—the Leviathan burst out, jaws wide, lunging for Tom…
Once again, Tom fled for his life, the Leviathan hot on his trail. Gradually, Tom found the bare minimum mana output to stay ahead, dragging out the chase and hoping to reach land.
The Leviathan’s speed in water nearly matched Tom’s flight with Gale Tornado. After a day of pursuit, Tom had covered most of the way back, but land was still far off—and his mana was nearly gone…
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All the way, Tom kept replenishing and burning mana—even the reserves in his magic device were spent. At most, he had half an hour left before running dry and being caught.
Tom had exhausted all the potions in his spatial ring; none of those left could replenish his mana. Just as he was about to use whatever was left as a substitute, he suddenly spotted the Azure Mana Elixir among them.
In that instant, Tom’s expression became a whirlwind of emotions—ecstatic, hopeful, and anxious all at once.
Damn, I almost forgot—the Gilded Rose gave me a bottle of Azure Mana Elixir, and I couldn’t bear to use it, so I tucked it away with my healing potions.
The Gilded Rose’s potions have always been reliable, but is the Azure Mana Elixir really as miraculous as they claim? Whatever—this is my last hope. If it works as promised, it’ll be enough to get me through the final stretch.
Tom grabbed the Azure Mana Elixir and, without hesitation, began to gulp it down. Halfway through, a surge of powerful mana flooded his body—his depleted reserves instantly recovered by thirty percent, then soared to eighty percent in less than three seconds.
Suddenly, the Gale Cyclone’s spinning speed tripled. The blue tornado swept Tom’s body into a breakneck flight, with the Leviathan roaring in pursuit. Waves crashed and shockwaves erupted behind him, but none could catch up.
As Tom sped through the air, he felt his mana continually draining, yet new energy kept being generated within him. Though the regeneration slowed, it still added up to his full mana reserves at peak strength.
After an hour of flying at top speed, his mana was depleted again. He swallowed the remaining half of the Azure Mana Elixir, not daring to pause for a moment, and dashed onward for another hour. At last, he saw the continent appear in the distance, and the Leviathan was nowhere to be seen.
A few minutes after Tom landed, waves surged rapidly across the distant sea. The coastal defenses detected a powerful sea beast and sprang into action—energy cannons, ray spells, and massive ballistae unleashed a barrage of attacks.
The Leviathan endured the assault, its eyes glaring with little sign of injury. Seeing so many prey on the shore, it refused to retreat. But suddenly, several spots near the coast erupted with extraordinary magical power. Sensing these forces, the Leviathan hesitated, shot a wary glance at the shore, and turned away.
Tom, pale-faced, sat on the ground, watching the Leviathan vanish into the distance. He let out a long sigh, clutching the Azure Mana Elixir’s bottle tightly—there was a little left, which he quickly sealed and stowed away.
Only after the Sky Rank sea beast left did people approach Tom to ask what had happened.
"Oh, cowardly Tom, who would’ve thought your first voyage would land you face-to-face with a monster like that? Your luck is truly rotten. Normally, at this time of year, such powerful sea beasts never appear near the coast. But how did you make it back? I remember you’d been gone from the ship for eight or nine days, right?"
The crowd’s attitude shifted at those words. Their gazes turned from mocking amusement to shock. Many here had sailed out before, including Sky Rank mages, but most were Title Archmages—some even Ninth-Rank Title Archmages.
Most Ninth-Rank Title Archmages have little hope left; some are nearing the end of their lives, unable to break through to Sky Rank. These old archmages are a common sight around here.
After eight or nine days at sea, a ship would’ve traveled thousands of nautical miles—maybe even over ten thousand if it was fast.
Now Tom had flown back to the continent, which meant the ship had encountered a terrifying Sky Rank sea beast. To escape from such a distance was no ordinary feat; none of the Ninth-Rank Title Archmages present could have managed it.
Seeing the looks on their faces, Tom could only offer a wry smile. Many of these people knew him well—they understood just how difficult it was. Escaping a Sky Rank sea beast, even by flying, was nearly impossible.