End of the Magic Era

“Eh?” Lin Yun suddenly stopped when he heard this, and he gave Karon a strange look.

Although this was the first time Lin Yun had come to the Mercury Tower, he was familiar with both Karon and Suyass. He had heard quite a bit about the Mercury Tower’s circumstances, so how could he not know that the Mercury Tower’s puppet legion had already seized control of the Gold Forest Plane’s surface? With the help of the Wood Elves, they were continuously nibbling at the underdark. Although the Elves from the underdark, also known as Drows, were fiercely resisting, their destruction was foreordained. It was only a question of time.

It could be said that the situation of the Mercury Tower’s Gold Forest Plane had already been decided.

Under these circumstances, how could they still need Nolan to personally head over and take command?

‘Did something happen?’

“It’s nothing, just a trivial matter…” Karon shook his head with a smile, but his forced smile clearly hid a heavy expression.

“Haha…” Since Karon was unwilling to talk about it, Lin Yun wouldn’t keep questioning about it. He chuckled before bringing up what he had come for. “In any case, Sir Karon, I came hoping that the Mercury Tower would do me a favor…”

“Oh?”

“It’s like this, Sir Karon. I just obtained a batch of pretty good magic materials, but it would take me at least half a year to personally process it all, so I came to the Mercury Tower. I wonder if the Mercury Tower can help with these magic materials? As for the reward, I’ll give 30% more than the market price for your work. The only requirement is that Master Alchemists have to be the ones processing these materials…”

“Master Alchemists…” Despite making preparations, Karon couldn’t help holding his breath when he heard the main requirement. Needing Master Alchemists to process a batch of magic materials… This was enough to understand that those magic materials most likely had astonishing value.

‘Hold on, magic materials…’

“Well, Merlin, I heard about a young mage throwing his wealth around at the Black Horn Auction and making Hanson Charlotte spit blood. Wasn’t that you?”

“Hmm…” Lin Yun scratched his cheek, but didn’t say anything.

“As expected, it was you…” Karon said before falling silent. Although he had already heard people say that this young mage was one of the richest people in the eastern part of the kingdom, he truly hadn’t expected his wealth to reach the level where he could spend a few dozen million in an auction. This kind of wealth could throw the market into chaos, even in Okland.

“Well, the magic materials you earned indeed have to be processed by Master Alchemists. Let’s go to my laboratory first so that I can expand my horizons. I’ve never seen a Star Gem this big…”

As the future master of the Mercury Tower, Karon’s status wasn’t much inferior to Nolan’s. His alchemy laboratory was also located on the top floor. This wasn’t just a symbol of status, as it also had the most advanced alchemy tools.

Even Lin Yun felt as if he was expanding his horizons by visiting Karon’s laboratory. In comparison, Lin Yun’s laboratory in the Gilded Rose wasn’t even worth mentioning.

“Quite a big display…” Even the experienced and knowledgeable Karon couldn’t help exclaiming after seeing these magic materials.

It was worthy of all the golds spent.

It was too shocking…

Let alone that Star Gem worth 20,000,000 golds, the other six magic materials could all be counted as top-quality goods. Any of these items would cause a crazy fight between alchemists if displayed. After looking at them for a long time, Karon unwillingly pulled his gaze away from them.

“Alright, Merlin, how do you plan on processing these magic materials?”

“I already prepared the processing process,” Lin Yun said while taking out a stack of paper. The writing was dense with all kinds of diagrams and characters. An ordinary alchemist would feel dizzy just looking at it.

It was to the point that even Karon’s expression turned more and more serious over time as he looked through.

After no less than half an hour, Karon finally put down the stack of paper.

“Well, Merlin…” Karon considered how to say what he wanted before unhappily asking, “Merlin, do you plan on locking all of the Mercury Tower’s Master Alchemists away with those processing plans?”

When Lin had asked for Master Alchemists, Karon had thought of arranging for one or two of them to handle the magic materials.

But after reading through the proposal…

Karon knew that his thoughts had been too simple.

He understood once that stack of paper appeared. The magic materials were only secondary, and the processing was key. The processing methods were very complex and left Karon feeling simply amazed. That Darkness Evil Python skin, for example… Normally, the processing of a Darkness Python’s skin wouldn’t be too complicated because it was naturally suitable for making defensive tools and because complicated processing could destroy the patterns.

But the processing plan before his eyes wouldn’t be easy.

The young mage actually asked for the pattern containing the darkness magic to be peeled off.

Karon didn’t dare to believe his eyes when he saw that request. He thought it wasn’t possible.

But after reading the rest, Karon found out that this request wasn’t made casually, the young mage actually wrote down a feasible method. Naturally, this method would be very troublesome.

Karon estimated that even if he personally took care of this, he would still have to spend two months on it, not to mention the Mercury Tower’s other Master Alchemists.

Just one Darkness Evil Python Skin was that complicated, and the remaining five magic materials wouldn’t be that simple, causing Karon to wonder if Lin Yun just wanted to occupy all the Master Alchemists of the Mercury Tower.

“I can’t do anything about it, Sir Karon. In all of Okland, only the Mercury Tower is able to do this kind of processing. If you don’t agree to help me, I can only put the magic materials in front of me and look at them…”

“Merlin…” Karon ignored Lin Yun’s flattery and explained with an awkward expression, “It’s not that I refuse to help you, it’s just that your processing plans are too demanding. If we truly followed your requirements, it would take up the Mercury Tower’s efforts for two whole months. This would have been fine in the past, but now…”

“What’s happening now?”

“Let me tell you the truth, Merlin… The Mercury Tower ran into great troubles in the Gold Forest Plane, to the point that even Teacher had to go…”

“Is it that troublesome?”

“Yeah…” Since the discussion had come this far, Karon no longer hid the truth and smiled bitterly as he explained, “The situation in the current Gold Forest Plane is very complicated. The Wood Elves deserted the alliance and detained our four puppet legions. The Drows also went crazy and are doing all they can to attack the surface. It feels as if the whole plane suddenly banded together to frantically resist us outsiders. In a month, we lost several hundred puppets and seven Great Alchemists. Even Suyass was grievously injured…”

“This is quite serious…” Lin Yun couldn’t help shaking his head when he heard that. The colonization of the Gold Forest Plane had almost been completed, and as long as they could remain united with the Wood Elves, they would have the power to nibble away at the Dark Elves and eventually gain control of the plane within ten years.

The Gold Forest Plane wasn’t an ordinary plane.

That plane wasn’t inferior to Noscent. It was rich in natural resources and had a vast expanse of land. As long as they could conquer the Gold Forest Plane, the Mercury Tower’s power would take a huge leap forward. At that time, let alone the Andlusa Kingdom, they might even be regarded as a top force in all of Noscent.

The Gold Forest Plane was truly too important to the Mercury Tower.

Important to the point that they would use everything they could for it!

“Merlin, you see, this isn’t quite possible at the moment…” After Karon finished his words, he felt that a direct rejection wasn’t too good, so he proposed a compromise. “There are six or seven Master Alchemists left in the Mercury Tower now. I’ll let them start first and help you with the simpler processing. Naturally, time is lacking, so I estimate that they can complete one in a month.”

“Indeed, time is lacking.” Lin Yun nodded. Originally, he planned to borrow the Master Alchemists of the Mercury Tower to finish the processing of all the magic materials within two months. That way, the Doom Staff and the Ten Thousand Spell Wheel would be completed at around the same time.

With these two Magic Tools, he would have enough confidence to go to the Aurij Mountains.

But now, the Doom Staff might take a while…

‘Forget it, it’s better to finish the Ten Thousand Spell Wheel first.’

“Alright, we shall do as you say, Sir Karon. Also, can you lend me this laboratory for a few days? I wish to borrow it to process the Star Gem.”

“No problem. You can use any tools here. If you need anything else, send someone to inform me. I’ll go now and help arrange the processing of your magic materials.”