Chapter 243: A Bit of Trouble
To Salomon, this wasn’t difficult at all...
Last time in the Ashen Tower’s sub-plane, didn’t this young Archmage do exactly the same thing? He casually cast two spells for cover, and Leon went up and dismantled those two alchemical golems into piles of spare parts. What, was that supposed to be hard?
Honestly, you can’t really blame Salomon for this...
As someone completely clueless about alchemy, how could he possibly know how complicated an alchemical golem really is, or what kind of skill it takes to dismantle one in seconds? To Salomon, wasn’t this just common sense? Alchemical golems are products of alchemy—if a real alchemist gets close, what are they supposed to do, lay eggs instead of getting dismantled?
In fact, after coming back from Rockridge City last time, Salomon even complained to Sophron a few times, saying that alchemical golems were just unreliable. Once an alchemist got close, they were just waiting to be taken apart. The Sage’s Tower territories shouldn’t rely too much on golems for defense. After hearing this, Sophron just looked at Salomon with a whole new expression.
But Sylas West is an expert...
And not just any expert—he’s so skilled that you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in the entire Andalusia Kingdom who knows more than him.
Salomon might not understand how complicated an alchemical golem is, but Sylas West does. Salomon might not realize what kind of technique it takes to dismantle one instantly, but Sylas West knows all too well...
Sylas West’s expression right now was like he’d seen a ghost.
"Salomon, did you—did you... did you see that?" Sylas West was dumbfounded, standing there in a daze, not even bothering to guide the thundercloud storm, just frantically rubbing his eyes...
I must be seeing things. I must be seeing things...
Sylas West kept desperately trying to reassure himself...
But Leon wouldn’t even give him that little comfort. Just as Sylas West was rubbing his eyes, Leon, still under the effects of Accelerate, shot out again like a phantom. With Salomon’s barely-there spells as cover, he closed in on the second alchemical golem...
Then, using the same method, his hands moved lightly twice, and that golem suddenly froze, then with a loud clatter, it collapsed into a pile of parts.
The last golem was even less suspenseful. This time, Leon didn’t even wait for Salomon’s cover—he just cast an Icefire Shield, using the swirling red and blue light to block attacks, and forced his way through the barrage of magic rays, taking down the final alchemical golem right on the spot.
And then... that was it.
"This—this—this... this has to be cheating, right?" Sylas West rubbed his eyes so hard they were nearly swollen, but he still saw three piles of parts on the ground. For a moment, he really thought he might lose his mind...
What the hell is going on here...
How could anyone be that fast? Those were alchemical golems—taking them apart according to the original schematics wouldn’t even look like this. Isn’t this basically magic trickery?
"Salomon, did you—did you... did you see that?" Sylas West stammered, repeating himself from before.
"Yeah, yeah, I saw it..." Salomon replied offhandedly, thinking to himself, ‘You really haven’t seen much, have you? This time was actually slow—if you’re this scared now, you’d have wet yourself if you’d been in the sub-plane last time.’
People from Mercury Tower just can’t cut it. Their nerves are way too fragile!
That was Salomon’s silent judgment...
"All done, let’s go." By now, Leon had already finished picking through the three piles of alchemical golem parts. True to his usual style, he swept up every useful piece and stuffed them into his spatial ring. Only after he was done did he notice Sylas West’s odd expression: "What’s wrong, Sylas West?"
"It’s nothing, nothing..." Sylas West snapped back to reality at Leon’s question, but his face was still unusually complicated as he looked at Leon.
Thinking about it, it made sense. Sylas West was a top-tier master, almost destined to become a Worldshaper, and usually only dealt with the likes of Nolan. His standards were so high that he barely gave ordinary alchemists a second glance.
After several encounters, Sylas West had already realized that this young Archmage’s alchemy skills were ridiculously strong. Otherwise, a casual tip from him wouldn’t have let Sylas crack a near-True Spirit level maze array.
But Sylas West really hadn’t expected...
Ridiculously strong—so strong it’s almost unreal...
‘Strong’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. This is basically cheating!
Sylas West isn’t Salomon. Salomon might think this is all normal, but that’s only because he knows nothing about alchemy. Sylas West, on the other hand, is Nolan’s disciple and one of the top master craftsmen in the entire Andalusia Kingdom. His understanding of alchemical golems is far beyond what ordinary alchemists can imagine.
And it’s exactly because of that understanding that Sylas West knew just how terrifying everything that young Archmage had done really was...
To dismantle golems that quickly, you’d have to know every detail about them inside and out.
And by ‘inside and out,’ I mean knowing every single part and every single detail by heart. If the golem’s creator did it, maybe that would make sense. But this young Archmage—just like me—was seeing these golems for the first time. He didn’t even know their prototypes before I used Wizard’s Eye to get a clear look...
From the moment he saw those golems to the moment he’d dismantled them into pieces, it couldn’t have been more than a minute.
But in that single minute, he’d already grasped every part and every detail of those three alchemical golems. That’s a terrifying level of insight—a terrifying level of calculation...
And then, there’s his dismantling technique...
The last golem was even less suspenseful. This time, Leon didn’t even wait for Salomon’s cover—he just cast a Frostfire Shield, using the swirling red and blue light to block attacks, and forced his way through the barrage of magic rays, taking down the final alchemical golem right on the spot.
Most people might just think it’s impressive, but Sylas West knew it was more than that. It meant the young Archmage had an absurd amount of hands-on experience with alchemical golems—maybe he’d made thousands, or fought thousands, until it became an instinctive skill.
This realization made Sylas West truly understand—this was no ordinary genius...
After dismantling the three golems, the four of them finally left the botanical garden. But compared to before, Sylas West’s gaze toward Leon had clearly changed...
"I’m guessing that once we leave this garden, we should be able to go straight to Vaughn’s Alchemist’s Lab..." Leon didn’t notice Sylas West’s changed expression at all.
When it comes to dismantling alchemical golems, there’s nobody in this era better than Leon—not even the Worldshapers who specialize in golems. Why? Because they never lived through the era three thousand years later...
Back then, the desert was littered with all kinds of alchemical golems. Most had lost their magical cores and lay like corpses in the sand. After generations of dismantling, the usable parts grew fewer and fewer. By Leon’s era, any golem you found in the desert had been dismantled who knows how many times.
But even those golems weren’t spared. Sometimes Leon and his group would spend days and nights in the desert, just to unscrew a few bolts or springs. After more than twenty years, Leon had seen every kind of golem—broken, even more broken, and broken beyond repair. After thousands and thousands of dismantlings, every detail and part was burned into his mind.
As for dismantling technique...
If you’d dismantled that many golems, you could do magic tricks like Leon too...
"That's not so certain. Vaughn was the last Worldshaper of the Third Dynasty—do you really think you, as an Archmage, can fathom his methods? What if he built the botanical garden and the alchemy lab miles apart?" Fran, though surprised by the way Leon dealt with those three alchemical golems, couldn't help showing some defiance after years of pent-up resentment.
Unfortunately for him, Leon specialized in curing all kinds of defiance...
"Heh, Fran, your imagination really is something else."
"You..."
"Fran, enough." Sophron's face darkened as he spoke from the side.
Fran saw Sophron speak up and immediately dared not say more, only muttering under his breath, "Well, what if..."
"What if, what if!" Sophron snapped, his temper flaring and voice rising. "If you were Vaughn, would you really be that foolish? Would you put the alchemy lab ten thousand miles from the botanical garden? Do you not realize some magical materials have a shelf life?"
Fran's face froze, caught up in his rebuttal and forgetting that detail entirely...
"Alright, we're almost there..." Leon ignored Fran's pointless bickering, focusing on controlling the Eye of the Mage as it searched the surroundings. After about ten seconds, the Eye returned with results, and Leon frowned slightly. "But it's a bit troublesome..."