Chapter 1371
"Walking upon a path strewn with thorns, the thorns are soaked in my blood. I pluck the blood-stained thorns and weave them into a crown. May I, on this thorn-filled road, be crowned by this very crown.
I hope you remember the oath of the Thorned Crown. Take care of yourselves."
Lin Yun shook his head and said nothing more to Maxwell. Saving these people was already an act of kindness; as for subduing them, Lin Yun truly had no interest at all.
These people have been notorious in the Northend World for ages, and it's not just a recent thing. They've been discriminated against by regular mages for just as long.
The conflict and hatred between the Caucasus Battlemages and the mages of Andalusia Kingdom stems fundamentally from their differences in magical paths and philosophies. And that's just a difference in philosophy—over that alone, they've been fighting and killing each other for who knows how many years.
Even now, there are plenty of unresolved hostilities between the mage factions of Andalusia Kingdom and the Caucasus Battlemages, though at least there haven't been any large-scale clashes lately.
As for those in the Thorned Crown, they barely even count as proper human mages anymore. Their conflict with regular mages is even deeper. For years, they've kept to the shadows, expanding only in secret, never daring to act openly—one wrong move and they'd be wiped out by other factions.
The conflict in magical paths and philosophies here is far greater than that of the Caucasus Battlemages. Add in the mages who’ve grafted foreign bloodlines—like Shelton and Sunny—their personalities are prone to issues, making the mainstream mages’ impression of the Thorned Crown even worse.
Trying to subdue the Thorned Crown is asking for trouble. Not to mention, the Thorned Crown itself is still mired in chaos...
Lin Yun ignored Maxwell and the others, but Maxwell’s crystal monocle glimmered with light. The pain was still there, but it was fading. Staring at Lin Yun’s back, and at the vast army of alchemical golems covering the earth, he couldn’t help but show a trace of fanaticism on his face.
Leading the Thorned Crown to submit to Lord Merlin isn’t a bad thing at all. The Thorned Crown is already in chaos, and it’s urgent we clean house. Those lunatics are bound to bring disaster sooner or later—like this time, all because of that mad fool Sunny, whose brain is utterly broken.
If we purge the Thorned Crown from within, we’ll definitely take a hit, and our research will stall for years. What we need is a leader everyone can respect, admire, and even submit to.
Archmage Leon Merlin is even stronger than I am, and his talent is terrifying. Plus, he definitely hasn’t transplanted any foreign bloodlines. He’ll only get more formidable. His research into bloodline transplantation is beyond even my comprehension. With his guidance, our entire Thorned Crown could finally move forward again.
And his subordinates are terrifyingly strong too. No one ever realized he commanded such a vast steel army—one hundred thousand alchemical golems, all above level thirty. That’s a monstrous force. In the Odin Kingdom, aside from the absolute top factions, no one else could possibly stand against him...
Submitting to such a powerful mage, and researching under someone even stronger, is our best path forward. But... he doesn’t seem willing to accept us. That’s a big problem...
Behind Maxwell, several Thorned Crown members had already tacitly agreed to his proposal and were about to speak, but Maxwell waved them silent. Instead of approaching Lin Yun, he led them to swear oaths of soul and magic, with many terms included.
They were forbidden from spreading any information about this plane, by any means. Even anything about Lin Yun or his subordinates had to remain secret.
The price for breaking the oath was simple: any leak, even a tiny one, would shatter their souls and scatter their magic.
Even if coerced, no one could force a Sky Rank mage to fully divulge these secrets—at most, a single sentence, and even that would trigger backlash.
Maxwell showed his sincerity but didn’t follow Lin Yun any further. Clearly, he’d realized Lin Yun didn’t care for them, so tagging along would do no good. He could only hide to the side, take out healing potions, and wait for his wounds to recover...
On the other side, Lin Yun ignored the Thorned Crown members and instead opened the Natural Semi-Plane, summoning a swarm of engineering alchemical golems. Huge components for alchemical machinery were hauled out and assembled here, while mining golems lined up to enter underground tunnels and began extracting mana crystals and mana essence from below.
Many other alchemical golems were busy building fortresses, exploring the plane’s surface, and gathering plant materials growing there...
A hundred thousand alchemical golems sounds like a lot, but once they spread out across the whole plane, they seem pretty sparse. All these golems were pre-programmed with control systems and weren’t built for combat—here, they work even more efficiently than humans.
Lord Shaun watched Lin Yun summon so many alchemical golems—nearly the entire stockpile of engineering and support golems, all deployed at once, looking like a full-scale development project. He nervously drifted over.
"Lord Merlin, is this really wise? Sending out so many alchemical golems for a major development—won’t that thing underground go berserk...?"
Lin Yun gave Lord Shaun a look reserved for idiots, staring for several seconds before finally squeezing out a reply.
"You really think that thing understands any of this?"
Instantly, Lord Shaun’s face turned ashen, speechless—his intelligence had just been insulted...
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Everything in this plane—the mana essence, mana crystals, the abundance of surface plants, magical beast resources, even many rare materials—means absolutely nothing to that monster. It doesn’t even notice them...
It has no concept of value, no understanding of trade—it simply knows that Lin Yun can make it smarter, can make it stronger...
As long as Lin Yun doesn’t harm it directly, it couldn’t care less what he does in this plane—none of it matters to the monster at all...
Lin Yun can develop the plane however he likes; the monster doesn’t care and doesn’t understand what it means. All it remembers is that Lin Yun can make it smarter...
Lin Yun built fortresses across the surface without restraint, searching for the best places to grow magical plants and herbs—as if this was a completely unguarded, wholly owned plane where he could do whatever he wanted.
In the future, when other mages gain access to this plane, even development would have to wait until the monster was asleep. If it ever woke up, the loss would be catastrophic.
With things as they are, Lin Yun was starting to think the monster waking up was a good thing. If it had gone back to sleep, that would’ve actually been worse.
If the monster were to sleep forever, development could continue, but not as recklessly as now. Even the highest-quality mana crystals in the underground sphere could be mined at will right now.
Besides, using special potions to keep the monster’s soul asleep isn’t foolproof—there are ways to break it. If the plane is fully developed and the monster wakes up then, the loss would be immense...
Now that the monster is awake, it’s actually much better than expected. Not only can the plane be developed at will, but as long as it isn’t destroyed, you could turn the whole surface upside down three times a day and it wouldn’t matter.
Most importantly, using that brutal soul-tempering potion to slowly imprint bloodline and soul marks onto the monster’s soul produces a result even more perfect than a direct soul contract.
Once the imprint is fully integrated, the monster’s deepest instincts will compel it to obey Lin Yun’s every command, as docile as a pet raised from birth.
And its soul will keep being refined, its intelligence will keep growing. Eventually, the plane won’t need any special defenses—no one will be able to infiltrate it. Of course, this is a last-resort measure.
A void city could be built outside this plane, serving as a supply station in the endless void, anchored by the plane itself—its significance would be enormous.
And once the monster’s soul reaches a certain level, it could even split off fragments—split out soul shards and magic crystals, then cultivate another similar plane, or place them inside the Natural Semi-Plane. The benefits are endless; there’s already a long list of possibilities, and even more methods will be discovered in the future...
You could even use similar methods on the Northend World. The spatial tunnel left in the void by this plane isn’t something the monster can’t destroy—it’s something it deliberately left behind while evolving the plane. With this tunnel, the plane itself can absorb endless energy from the infinite void.
Most of the energy it absorbs is meant for itself, but ninety-nine percent still ends up feeding back into the plane, making its magic ever stronger. And it’s not just the blue sun in the sky causing this.
If, in the future, you split off part of the monster and send it to the Northend World to develop there, the world’s mana would definitely increase—and keep increasing. The era of mana decline would be greatly shortened, giving much more time to prepare the Sanctuary Tower, and much more time to seek the truth...
The benefits of subduing this monster are just too many...
For days on end, Lin Yun wore a smile—this harvest was far greater than he’d ever expected.
The only real annoyance was Max, who kept popping by every few days to stir things up.
"Lord Merlin, if there’s anything you need us to do, just say the word—we’ll make sure it’s done..."
Max trailed after Lin Yun, looking thoroughly subservient. He was careful not to overstep, showing up for just a few minutes each day—never more, never less. Whenever Lin Yun started getting impatient, Max would vanish on his own...
It left Lin Yun with no room to get angry. These people considered themselves Lin Yun’s loyal followers, and Max was shameless enough to pester him daily, eager to help, eager to ease their Lord Merlin’s burdens...
Unfortunately, none of them knew a thing about cultivating magical plants or herbs. They were less useful than the programmed alchemical golems, and even less capable when it came to construction. Helping with fortress building only made things worse.
In the end, all they could do was mine. That was the only thing they were good for—a bunch of Heaven-rank experts digging underground for mana crystals. These idiots actually went through with it...
Lin Yun didn’t even know how to scold them. Finally, fed up, he had a magic-powered warship send these overly enthusiastic fools back to the Northend World.
With the Thorned Crown people gone, Lin Yun wanted nothing more to do with them. He even regretted saving Max and the others—maybe it would’ve been better if they’d all died. After all, if those Thorned Crown lunatics caused trouble, it’d be years before it happened; just staying vigilant would be enough...
(This chapter isn’t finished yet ^.^ Please click ‘Next Page’ to continue reading!)
The grand development of the plane continued in full swing. When the magic-powered warship returned from the Northend World, it brought a large group—the main force for the next phase of development.
A huge number of alchemists arrived from the Northend World. Those skilled in alchemical potions began experimenting with the plane’s plants—almost every plant here contained mana, meaning any of them could be used as potion ingredients. This drove the alchemists wild; each day, they roamed the plane with teams of alchemical golems, and some even dared to venture into beast territories in search of materials...
Alchemists specializing in magical artifacts started experimenting with the plane’s mineral resources. Besides the vast reserves of mana crystals and essence, there were other rare materials underground. Even the hardest stones yielded new discoveries under their research...
Those skilled in alchemical arrays began laying out formations for growing magical plants, building fortresses, and planning the overall layout—everything needed alchemical arrays...
Alchemists specializing in golems also began designing and building new golems tailored to this plane.
Everything was developing rapidly. First, they discovered a massive supply of usable herbs—so abundant that even the current harvest could supply three Gilded Rose shops. In other words, if Gilded Rose expanded its stores in the Odin Kingdom threefold, there’d still be enough materials...
With so many new materials, once research was finished, they could produce many new potions—potions unique to Gilded Rose. Other alchemy shops wouldn’t have the materials, and even if they cracked the formulas, they’d be left empty-handed.
The uniqueness of this plane meant its materials—even those that seemed similar—were almost impossible to find anywhere else.
Three months later, Lin Yun gave the underground monster another bottle of brutal soul-tempering potion, making the soul imprint even clearer.
With more benefits gained, the monster’s closeness to Lin Yun obviously increased. It cared even less about Lin Yun’s activities in the plane, and even learned to ask if he needed help...
With a pile of future-famous special materials in hand, Lin Yun boarded the Fearless and returned to the Northend World.
Three magic-powered warships guarded the spatial entrance outside the plane. There, a void fortress was already under construction—a base in the endless void, of great strategic importance. Once completed, a Stargate could be built in the base to shorten travel time.
Unfortunately, this special plane counts as a living being. With life added to a plane, its spatial coordinates can’t be stabilized, so an interplane road can’t be laid out inside—the path would never stay stable.
If not for this, laying down an interplane road would be the easiest solution. For now, they had to rely on the magic-powered warships...
During the long voyage through the void, Lin Yun holed up in the Fearless’s alchemy lab, experimenting with special materials from the monster’s plane. All these materials had one thing in common: immense, pure, and stable mana—making them ideal for alchemical potions. Over eighty percent of potions required materials like these.
Only a handful of these materials were well-known enough to be recorded; the rest didn’t even qualify to be listed in the Desolate Library.
Using the most famous materials, Lin Yun quickly developed several representative potions. Only two could be mass-produced.
One replenished mana, and one accelerated mana accumulation—both were the hottest, most in-demand types of potions.
Lin Yun named this new potion the Blue Mana Potion. It was far stronger than any mana-replenishing potion currently on the market. Most potions out there—mana potions, clarity potions—simply boosted mana recovery speed for a while, letting it slowly return.
For a low-tier titled Archmage, it would take at least an hour to fully restore mana using potions. That’s fine for non-intensive combat—slow recovery can even help raise the mana ceiling a little...
But in intense battles, these potions were almost useless—good for a bit of mana to help you run away, but not much else...