A Wizard’s Secret

The palace of the Blackmoon royal family was very large and was protected by a Runic Magic Circle. Therefore, even Merlin would not be able to find out what exactly was going on in the palace.

Merlin followed the eighth prince through many corridors and finally arrived at a huge statue. There was almost no one around the statue, and there was a strict Runic Magic Circle guarding it. It seemed that this was an important place in the palace.

Merlin did not feel anything special about it though. There was nothing around it, just this one strange statue. He did not know why the eighth prince brought him here.

The eighth prince looked solemn. He waved his hand and produced a few mysterious runes. They flew into the statue one after another. Suddenly, the air about them seemed to ripple as though when the surface of the water was disturbed.

“Open!”

With a loud shout from the eighth prince, the Runic Magic Circle began to gradually open, and even the large statue began to shake. Then, a staircase appeared under the statue.

“Oh? What rich Elements!”

Merlin’s expression changed slightly. He felt the strong Elemental fluctuations the moment the Runic Magic Circle was opened. These Elemental fluctuations were stronger than any other he had felt in the Glorious Land.

That meant that there could be a large number of elemental crystal stones under those stairs!

“Wizard Merlin, did you feel that? This is why our royal family has to seal this place with a Runic Magic Circle.”

The eighth prince was not surprised upon seeing the change in Merlin’s expression. He was also very surprised when Bhutto XVI brought him here for the first time.

After the eighth prince finished speaking, he took the lead and stepped into the passage. Merlin did not hesitate and followed after him.

The passage was long and inclined downwards, and it was going deeper and deeper. There was a dull smell of dust in the passage, indicating that people did not come here often.

“I haven’t been here for a very long time.” The eighth prince said casually. Around half an hour after entering the passage, they finally walked out of the passage and arrived at a spacious secret chamber.

Merlin was shocked by the scene before him when he reached this secret chamber. He saw that the chamber was filled with elemental crystal stones which were emanating a thick aroma of elemental force. They were so many of them stacked into small hills around the chamber.

Each pile pribably contained around tens of millions of elemental crystal stones. Merlin glanced around and saw that there were around eighteen hills of them. That was at least eighteen million elemental crystal stones!

“How can there be so many elemental crystal stones?”

Merlin was truly shocked. He had once seen an unimaginable lode when he was in the Void Zone in the dimension on the Slothful Beast’s body and that was it. An unimaginable number of elemental crystal stones could have been dug out from that lode, but it had been destroyed in the end because of the Slothful Beast.

Now that Merlin had seen the Blackmoon royal family’s collection, he thought for the first time that the Glorious Land was in reality nowhere as ‘poor’ as he thought it was.

“Wizard Merlin, are these elemental crystal stones enough? If they aren’t, then why don’t you look over there?”

The eighth prince pointed forward, and Merlin glanced over in the indicated direction. In front of the secret chamber was a flat and wide field. Merlin was even more shocked to see such an open area like this underground.

It was very clear to him that this was a lode. It was an incredibly large lode that had been dug deep. These elemental crystal stones were clearly what the royal family had dug out from the lode since thousand of years ago.

More importantly, Merlin could still feel the richness of the elemental crystal stones. It meant that there were many elemental crystal stones that had not been mined yet in this lode.

The eighth prince smiled when he saw Merlin’s shocked expression and said in a low voice, “Wizard Merlin, I believe you know about the Spell Casters’ most glorious era during the Molta Empire. This was a place where my royal family ancestors were first discovered. This is actually the largest elemental crystal stone lode in the Molta Empire. By relying on this lode, the Molta Empire rose to glory and finally declined. This lode had witnessed the rise and fall of the Molta Empire. After the collapse of the Molta Empire, my royal family ancestors discovered this lode and acquired some treasures and inheritances left behind from the Molta Empire, and thus created the Kingdom of Blackmoon!”

Merlin listened carefully to the eighth prince’s explanation. He did not expect that this lode was originally controlled by the Molta Empire and had not been completely mined up till now. It showed just how large this lode was.

It was no wonder that the Blackmoon royal family claimed that they were descendants of the Molta Empire. It turned out that it was because they had obtained this Molta Empire’s lode as well as some inheritances.

Nevertheless, Merlin noticed that there were some things the eighth prince was not saying. There must be more than just a lode here, and the treasures the royal family had obtained might not be just something that was left behind by the Molta Empire.

At the very least, treasures like the purple-gold crown were extremely precious even in the Void Zone. Its origin must have been extraordinary, but since the eighth prince did not seem willing to elaborate further, Merlin did not plan to ask about it. This might have something to do with the greatest secret of the Blackmoon royal family.

“Are these elemental crystal stones enough?” The eighth prince asked confidently.

No one could imagine that the royal family had accumulated such a terrifying amount of elemental crystal stones. This was the reason why the royal family could flourish so quickly to establish the Kingdom of Blackmoon to the point all the large Spell Caster organizations could not do anything about it.

“It’s enough. It’s definitely enough!”

Merlin’s heart burned. He believed that the warship could definitely be repaired with so many elemental crystal stones. Even if it was not enough, he could obtain more elemental crystal stones from this large elemental crystal stone lode.

“I’ll need to stay here for several days though.” Merlin said with hesitance.

“That’s not a problem!”

The eighth prince agreed without any hesitation. Merlin was confused by his behavior, so he asked doubtfully, “Your Majesty Bhutto XVII, how are you so sure about me? I’m afraid any Spell Caster would be tempted by such fortune and that lode.”

“Why wouldn’t I be assured?”

The eighth prince shook his head and continued, “The secret of the royal family is only known to the successive kings. Back then, Kleis was ambitious, and I knew that his plan was to unify the entire Spell Caster world. Even our royal family was included in his plan, but even if that plan of his were to succeed, he would never have obtained this treasure.

“However, Wizard Merlin, you’re different. You’ve unified the entire Spell Caster world and controlled Ozmu and the northern Spell Caster world, but you only asked for some elemental crystal stones in return. You even took the initiative to take out some experiences about becoming a Great Wizard and imparted knowledge about constructing Spell Models, Runology, potions, and alchemy. With your current status and strength, you could easily control the royal family but you haven’t. It was as if nothing here has much appeal to you. Greed would’ve blinded everyone who has stepped in here, but you wouldn’t be affected!”

The eighth prince spoke and stared at Merlin intensely.

After a long while, Merlin finally laughed. The eighth prince really understood him thoroughly. There really was nothing worth remembering apart from the space of the Origin Lord in the Glorious Land. What was the point of having so many elemental crystal stones?

If he had not obtained a damaged Atlan civilization warship, Merlin would not find elemental crystal stones all that useful. He needed elemental crystal stones now merely to repair the warship.

Since the eighth prince had already taken out the elemental crystal stones and allowed Merlin to take however many he wanted, Merlin naturally had no rapacious thoughts towards the elemental crystal stones here as well as the lode.

“Your Majesty Bhutto XVII, if the Holy Light Empire is defeated, I’ll definitely honor my promise!”

Merlin knew what the eighth prince was most interested in. It was to reunify the whole world and establish a single empire, just like the Molta Empire three thousand years ago.

Relying on this lode and the backbone of the royal family were indeed the most potent force in the entire Spell Caster world. If Ozmu had not produced Kleis who had been a force to be reckoned with, then they could not be compared to the royal family.

The eighth prince showed a hint of happiness on his face and left the secret chamber, leaving Merlin alone.

Merlin looked at the almost inexhaustible elemental crystal stones here and took a deep breath before going into the space where the warship was. The energy bar was already down to five percent, and the Matrix had stopped repairing.

“Matrix, how’s the repair going?”

In fact, Merlin could see that the two halves of the warship had not been repaired yet.

“The fracture on the warship has not been repaired yet due to the low energy!”

Merlin nodded. The answer was identical to what he had suspected. There really was too little energy. However, the energy was no longer a problem now.

Plak!

Merlin poured a large stream of elemental crystal stones into the high-powered engine furnace. The energy bar of the warship rose rapidly, from five percent to ten, twenty, fifty… and finally one hundred percent!

“Beep. Replenishing energy, complete!”

The voice of the Matrix sounded. The energy of the warship had been restored to one hundred percent, and Merlin murmured, “Perform a comprehensive repair on the warship. Focus on repairing the ruptured part first!”

“Comprehensive repair of the warship requires more repair robots. Do you want to build more repair robots?”

“Manufacture the repair robots according to your needs!”

Merlin did not have any restrictions this time. He had just used ninety-five million elemental crystal elements plus the remaining five percent of energy to fully recover the warship’s power to one hundred percent. Then, he let the Matrix conduct a comprehensive repair on the warship.

After all, Merlin needed an empire-level warship that was whole and ready to go to war!

As a result, the energy of the warship decreased rapidly, but Merlin was not worried at all. He replenished as much power as the warship reduced. He even saw that the elemental crystal stones outside were not enough, so he ordered the warship to manufacture some mining robots to start mining the huge elemental crystal stone lode.

In short, Merlin wanted to restore this thousand-year-old Atlan civilization empire-level warship no matter what the cost!