Chapter 287: Battle of the Sky Rank
After Anderson agreed to the two conditions, Leon didn't provoke him any further...
Leon always felt that this so-called Anderson—the magical spirit—was the most sinister of all the relic spirits he'd ever encountered. Now that everyone could cooperate and coexist peacefully, it was the best outcome. It might look like he hadn't gained much, but if he kept pushing and forced Anderson into a corner, things could get ugly for everyone...
"By the way, Lord Anderson, did you just call me stupid?"
"That... that was just a joke, hehehe..."
Anderson's laughter dragged on for a while, but after a long bout of chuckling, he realized Leon hadn't said a word. The laughter gradually became stiff and forced.
Leon didn't rush him, waiting until Anderson finished laughing. "Go on..."
"Damn it..." Anderson muttered a few curses under his breath, then reluctantly started explaining, "I called you stupid because you always assumed this Alchemical Golem was made by Vaughn..."
"Hm?" Leon's eyes lit up at those words. "So you're saying the creator of this Alchemical Golem was actually someone else?"
"Fine, I'll just tell you everything. You'll find out sooner or later anyway..." Anderson sighed, sounding resigned. "You should know, Vaughn rose to power so quickly because he inherited the legacy of a powerful alchemist..."
"You mean Igor the Azure Sage?"
"That's right, Igor the Azure Sage. But what Vaughn inherited was only a tiny fraction of his legacy—specifically, the three Sky Rank Alchemical Golems..."
"Just as I thought..." Leon nodded, his expression clearing up.
In fact, back in the Third Dynasty, many speculated that Vaughn had obtained those three Sky Rank Alchemical Golems left behind by Igor the Azure Sage. But speculation was all it was—no one had any proof. Even when Vaughn died, those three Sky Rank Alchemical Golems had never appeared before the world.
Only today did Anderson finally confirm this theory.
"Later, Vaughn discovered some secrets in Four Seasons Gorge. As for what those secrets were, don't ask, because I honestly don't know. All I do know is that after Vaughn found them, he set up a massive alchemical array throughout the gorge and built an alchemist's lab here, using every resource he had. Once it was done, he left Four Seasons Gorge and didn't return until many years later..."
"About when was that?"
"Probably ten years before he exiled himself..."
"Oh..."
Leon did the math. Vaughn exiled himself to Crystal Isle and supposedly lived another twenty years before dying. That meant Vaughn returned to the lab about thirty years before his death—by then, he stood at the pinnacle of Northend World: Imperial Chief Alchemist, the last Worldshaper, basking in endless glory.
When Vaughn returned, he brought those three Sky Rank Alchemical Golems and handed over control of the entire alchemist's lab to them. Another ten years passed, and Vaughn began his self-imposed exile, leaving for Crystal Isle, where he spent the last twenty years of his life.
"And then?"
"And then... heh, those three Alchemical Golems kept carrying out Vaughn's will, running the entire lab. Everything went smoothly until one night about five hundred years ago, when one of the Sky Rank Alchemical Golems suddenly lost control and began rampaging through the laboratory..."
"It went berserk?"
"Yes, berserk. You can't even imagine how terrifying a Sky Rank Alchemical Golem is when it loses its mind. That single golem nearly destroyed the entire lab. What you see now is just the ruins left by that disaster—the lab in its prime was far beyond anything you could picture..."
"How could an Alchemical Golem go berserk..." Leon muttered, unable to understand. Alchemical Golems were supposed to strictly follow control runes—how could one go mad for no reason?
"How would I know? Back then, my body was just a set of enchanted relic armor. In the face of a Sky Rank disaster, all I could do was hide—who had the guts to look for the truth? All I know is, that golem went mad, destroyed everything, and finally climbed to the summit of the Skyspire. Up there, it met the other two Sky Rank Alchemical Golems. What followed was a battle so fierce, the summit was reduced to rubble. You can't even imagine how terrifying that fight was..."
"Oh?"
"You've been to the summit of the Skyspire, right? You should remember that long road lined with empty cages. To tell you the truth, those cages once held magical beasts from every plane. The weakest were level twenty-seven or twenty-eight, and the strongest could reach thirty-seven or thirty-eight. There were so many, far more than you could imagine. I still remember, when those two Sky Rank Alchemical Golems released them, it was like a tidal wave of monsters... But in the end, almost all of them died in that earth-shattering battle. Maybe less than one in a thousand escaped..."
"I see..." Leon finally understood.
So those empty cages were left behind by those magical beasts...
With that in mind, everything made sense. The magical beasts the joint exploration team encountered at the Skyspire Summit were probably the one-in-a-thousand survivors—or maybe their descendants.
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Thinking of this, Leon couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat.
Just that one-in-a-thousand that escaped nearly wiped out the entire joint exploration team. If this had been centuries ago, when the lab was at its peak, barging in like this would have been suicide—the magical beasts would have torn them to pieces.
In the end, the berserk Sky Rank Alchemical Golem finally lost. Its systems were dismantled by its two companions and it was tossed into the abandoned warehouse below.
But what does any of this have to do with me being stupid?
Because after they dismantled their companion, those two Sky Rank Alchemical Golems went mad too. They started attacking each other, each controlling part of the lab, each frantically building their own armies, fighting endlessly. The Shadow Assassin you see now was created by one of them...
No way..." Leon was dumbfounded. Two Sky Rank Alchemical Golems, with all of Vaughn's alchemical resources, endlessly producing armies of golems and waging war, again and again. Just imagining it was enough to understand the scale of disaster this lab had endured.
After hearing all this, Leon finally began to understand...
So that's why so many things in the alchemist's lab don't seem like Vaughn's work—like the labyrinth array in the Void Serpent's belly, the Breakers patrolling near the botanical garden, and the flying alchemical golems guarding the Skyspire. Turns out, all of it was made by those two crazed Sky Rank Alchemical Golems.
Thinking of this, Leon couldn't help but ask, "So what happened after that?"
"After that, they fought for two or three hundred years, burning through every resource. Finally, both made their way to the summit of the Skyspire—and vanished without a trace..."
"Vanished...?" Leon's eyes suddenly lit up. "Don't tell me, inside that mountain range..."
"That I have no idea." Anderson sounded impatient. "Alright, that's all I'm saying. If you want to dismantle that piece of Lathite Mithril, get on with it. Let me know when your relic is finished..."
After that, he fell silent. No matter how much Leon called out, Anderson didn't make another sound.
"Alright, let's pack up and head back..." Leon muttered, feeling awkward after getting no response. He scratched his nose and started dismantling the Lathite Mithril from the Shadow Assassin.
To Leon's surprise, that chunk of Lathite Mithril was almost the size of a fist...
"What a waste..." Leon was speechless for a moment. A fist-sized piece of Lathite Mithril, used just to power a Shadow Assassin—if you want to talk about waste, nothing beats those two Sky Rank Alchemical Golems...
Not just fist-sized...
Even a thumb-sized piece of Lathite Mithril would fetch a price in Soul Magic Crystals on the alchemy market. But those two Sky Rank Alchemical Golems used a chunk for a single Shadow Assassin...
From this alone, you can imagine just how brutal the war between those two Sky Rank Alchemical Golems must have been. The lab's resources were nearly depleted, and in the end, they had to use Lathite Mithril in a Shadow Assassin—clearly, they'd reached the end of their rope.
If the joint exploration team had entered the lab a few centuries earlier, their haul would have been a hundred times greater.
Of course, that's assuming they could survive the battle between the three Alchemical Golems...
After Leon finished dismantling the Lathite Mithril, the distribution of magical materials was almost complete. Every faction that joined the joint exploration team got a satisfying share—including Suas and Fran.
Of course, the biggest winner was still the Gilded Rose...
Priority selection was just too powerful an advantage...
Besides the Lathite Mithril and rare magical materials Leon took, the rest of the conventional materials would keep the Gilded Rose supplied for years.
What's more, Leon had another idea in mind.
All these factions had claimed so many magical materials, but only a handful could actually put them to good use... maybe not even three.
Might as well do something nice—maybe offer to buy them out...