End of the Magic Era

"What is it?"

Lin Yun looked at Xiusi, who was floating not far away. The owl had become so much fatter that it seemed to have trouble flapping its wings. Also, the cream marks on his face suggested that he must've eaten a piece of cream cake before he came to the Demiplane.

"Sir Merlin, Faleau is looking for you. He seems to have caused trouble again. The enemy he pissed off this time is formidable and brutal. He doesn't know what to do…"

Lin Yun frowned and stepped forward from the pillar. He immediately reappeared in the Gilded Rose, where Faleau was already waiting for him.

"Sir Merlin, there's something I need to report to you…"

Faleau told him everything in great detail, and Lin Yun listened with an awful expression.

"Sir Merlin, that's what happened. What do you think we should do? The Holy Light Alliance is a problem. They're not really the most reasonable people, and they're very strong…"

Hearing Faleau's report, Lin Yun frowned, and recalled information about the Holy Light Alliance.

The Holy Light Alliance could be dated back to the Third Dynasty, when the holy light mages didn't really have a special status. Also, they were all controlled by the Third Dynasty, and were unable to establish an organization of their own.

Although the holy light mages didn't have a special status, they were all over Noscent. At that time, potions weren't nearly as advanced as they were these days, and only belonged to the top experts. All alchemists strove to make more advanced potions. Nobody was interested in popularizing the potions.

All herbs that didn't contain mana were as useless as weeds in that era. Therefore, all civilians and low-level mages and swordsmen needed the holy light mages' healing. They would go to holy light mages when they were wounded or sick.

In this age, even the civilians would buy potions after they got sick. A Magic Apprentice was already able to make effective potions for the use of civilians.

The powerful mages would buy potions when they needed anything too. Enhancement potions, mana replenishment potions, body strengthening potions, healing potions… All sorts of potions were available.

But back in the Third Dynasty, the holy light mages played an important role. For the Archmages and those stronger, potions were their solution, so the holy light mages didn't have a high social status. But due to the huge population of low-level mages and swordsmen, they were still badly in need.

After the fall of the Third Dynasty, the holy light mages, who were unorganized and incapable of fighting, were the first to suffer. They didn't learn to fight until then. Before that, they had only been studying healing and enhancement spells.

The Holy Light Alliance was founded by an ascetic after the fall of the Third Dynasty for the purpose of passing on the holy light mage's knowledge. It was only an alliance at the beginning.

But as time went by, the ascetic never showed up again. The power of the Holy Light Alliance was controlled by different people, and its members gradually became as crazy as dogs…

Thanks to their craziness, the Holy Light Alliance had been rising very fast, but it was not nearly the same as when it was founded at the beginning.

They had pissed off more people during the thousands of years than anybody could count. They were not overthrown only because the ascetic who founded the Holy Light Alliance was still alive and very strong…

Although the founder was still alive, he kept the style of a real ascetic. He could stay in one place for hundreds of years without moving at all…

He would never intervene until the Holy Light Alliance was on the verge of destruction. Lin Yun was aware of that because in the next 3,000 years, the Holy Light Alliance would encounter several crises and suffer huge losses.

The ascetic never once intervened, but the powerful organizations knew that he was alive, and never destroyed the Holy Light Alliance. They simply cut off one of the Holy Light Alliance's hands as punishment when they were infuriated.

3,000 years later, the ascetic suddenly came out of the place of his meditation, and disappeared from Noscent. Three years later, the word came from the space battlefield that the ascetic had died. Then, the Holy Light Alliance was destroyed in no more than a week. Its headquarters were razed to the ground by a level-10 spell.

Remembering the information, Lin Yun was less worried. That super expert wouldn't intervene anyway unless the Holy Light Alliance was truly to be destroyed. The crazy dogs of the Holy Light Alliance were only counting on the level-9 Heaven Rank ascetic who didn't care about anything…

Damn it. Did they think that only they had a powerful supporter? In the next 10 years or so, Agalon would be surely safe, and could definitely crush that ascetic. The gap between them was significant. The Natural Demiplane alone ensured that Agalon would have an absolute advantage.

Agalon was already able to change laws without igniting his God Fire, which meant that he could crush all the other Heaven Rank experts.

"Don't bother those rabid dogs. They have offended countless people, and made a lot of enemies over the years. Do you really think they have any powerful supporters? Nobody is willing to attack the level-9 Heaven Rank holy light mages, because they can hardly be killed. Otherwise, the Holy Light Alliance would've been destroyed a million times.

"Our main focus is still the north of the Odin Kingdom and Andlusa. As for the south, just open one branch as you proposed. It will be good enough if we can strike deals with the southern forces and exchange for what we need.

"If the rabid dogs of the Holy Light Alliance dare to cause trouble again, just fight back. We won't suffer any loss even if it gets huge. There are a lot of people who don't like them."

Lin Yun wasn't too worried, but Faleau was.

The Gilded Rose hadn't been developing smoothly in the Odin Kingdom, but all its enemies only set obstacles for greater returns. When the Gilded Rose showed its strength and promised copious returns, the enemies would soon change their attitude.

Take the Lodney Family for example. It wanted to swallow the Gilded Rose at the beginning, but after it lost its teeth, it soon backed off. If it had fought on, the Lodney Family wouldn't have gained anything, but would've suffered a heavy loss. Seeing that the Gilded Rose was unstoppable, it came for negotiation again. It was only pursuing interests.

But the rabid dogs of the Holy Light Alliance were different. They didn't care about interests or returns. Sometimes, they would bite crazily at the cost of hurting themselves. They were unreasonable…

Although he was still worried, there was nothing he could say. After all, Lin Yun had already made a decision.

Shaking his head, Faleau took out a space ring.

"Sir Merlin, these are the materials I've exchanged for in the past months. But many of the materials in the inventory aren't available yet.

"The beast blood that you asked me to collect has been found. It's inside the space ring."

Transferring all the collected materials to his Natural Demiplane, Lin Yun was ready to go with the blood of the dark beast.

All the materials were for the construction of the Shelter Tower. The blood was from a beast named Blood Bone. Such beasts didn't have bones. Their internal organs were simple too. They didn't have what most normal creatures had, and blood was their bones and internal organs. They looked like blood that was wrapped in a thick skin. They were out-and-out monsters.

Also, after they were wounded and started bleeding, they would constantly generate blood until they died. Only such beasts could meet Lin Yun's demand. He needed such a huge amount of blood that it would essentially be a river.

He was about to set off when Myers suddenly arrived.

"Sir Merlin, we've found something about the thing you asked us to investigate."

There was undisguised excitement on Myers' face. He had come to the Gilded Rose with a huge pile of paper. Over these days, the Thorny Crown had been investigating with all the intelligence and connection networks it had. They didn't expect to find anything, but they had made a surprising discovery.

Seeing the shock on Lin Yun's face, Myers became even more excited.

The leads were so few that I thought it would take years before we found anything, but we've had a critical discovery in only one month. After this, Sir Merlin will surely treat us differently. It's possible that he'll even accept us for real.

The potion he gave me last time changed my transplanted bloodline significantly. Not only is it melting into my own bloodline, but it is also getting more powerful and stable. This is a methodology that can be applied to all transplanted bloodlines.

As long as we accomplish Sir Merlin's mission, the future and hope we cannot see will become a road of brightness…

Lin Yun was indeed rather surprised. He glanced at the thick pile of paper, and put it down. Then, he looked at Myers.

"Sir Myers, what did you find? Just tell me. It's really too much for me to read."

Myers almost lost his cool. What Lin Yun said was simple, yet it carried a deeper meaning. If Lin Yun were to read the proof, it would mean that this was just a deal, and he wasn't trusted yet. But Lin Yun asked him to report the conclusion, which meant trust and acceptance.

Myers took a breath of relief, and calmed himself down. He had finally found a solution to the problem that had bothered him for years. For countless years, the Thorny Crown had been hiding in the dark, and everybody was an unsteady bomb that might explode anytime. At this moment, they had finally seen hope. Those who didn't have a similar experience could never understand that…

"Sir Merlin, honestly speaking, I was quite surprised at the critical discovery too. I thought it would take a couple of years before we found anything useful.

"During the 1,000 years that you gave us, Sir Merlin, the narrow, long central part of the Odin Kingdom was very chaotic. There were too many small mage families to count. Every year, a lot of them declined, and just as many rose.

"So, we looked into those mage families. After all, only they could have probably left critical leads…"

Myers reported every detail of the investigation, fearing that they might have been misled by anything that they thought to be true.

The connections and liaisons that the Thorny Crown had established over the years did play a critical role.

The date of the 73rd God's rebirth was unspecific. Even if he left the Raging Flame Plane, it didn't mean that he would be reborn immediately. That was why Lin Yun asked them to investigate a span of 1,000 years.

However, in that period, the central part of the Odin Kingdom was quite chaotic. It was not very wide, but was extremely long. Also, because of the trouble that the north and the south instigated, it had never been at peace during the millennium.

Many mage families were established, and many were destroyed. Even a High Mage was bold enough to establish a family or a mage tower there. After they set up their own force, their demand for resources would soar. The central part had a limited area. They could only fight and compete with each other.

They didn't dare to compete with the forces in the south or the north, and could only fight amongst themselves, which made the historical records horribly messy. Not much useful information was left behind in Noscent.

A mage tower that was built in one year might be destroyed the next year, so it was pointless to keep a record of it. There were few descriptions of that period even in the archives of the Starry Sky College that had been kept for thousands of years.

However, when looking into what happened in the center during the 1,000 years, the records of the forces that existed back then were the most valuable materials for investigation.

Therefore, the Thorny Crown focused on investigating the small forces. It searched for a couple of months, and found that most of the forces that existed back then were already gone, or couldn't be found.

They tracked down each of the small forces that had ever existed during the 1,000 years.

Luckily, they found a descendant of one of the mage families, which was relatively powerful in the center of Odin back then. Its founder was not a High Mage, but a level-8 Archmage, who was already very strong in the center where people were weak in general.

Although the family was inevitably destroyed, its offspring and legacies were passed on. The Thorn Crown found a descendant of the family, who was only a poor Magic Apprentice, but he still kept the records of his family.

Attracting the poor Mage Hand as a peripheral member of the Thorny Crown, they got all the information easily, and found important leads, which were descriptions of unusual phenomena, in it.

The leader of the family noticed the unusual phenomena and investigated them. The first batch of investigators reported that it was a normal meteor, but those who were very close to it could detect a vague, unusual aura from it. After the meteor crashed, the aura was gone.

Whoever detected the aura would soon forget it. The leader of the family, who was relatively strong, had already forgotten about the meteor before he left the site of the crash. He even forgot why he went there.

But then, he found a channel to the underground world near the site. Naturally, he entered the underground world, and encountered many dangerous and formidable underground races. He also found many things that didn't exist in Noscent.

In the end, he encountered a strong creature. He was able to return, but got heavily wounded. When he was dying, he suddenly remembered what he had forgotten, and asked his children to write down the strange phenomena.

There were also an underground map and a simple introduction to some of the materials, which were even more precious!

The information had been hidden in normal records. After so many generations, the descendant of the family had even lost his family name. Also, the news that the family leader returned with grave wounds was never leaked. Everybody thought that he perished in the underground world.

Someone else had investigated the matter too, but didn't find anything. If the Thorny Crown hadn't promised the poor Magic Apprentice to let him advance, or offered the Gilded Rose's Hope Potion, he wouldn't have admitted that he carried the family's bloodline.

Hearing Myers' description, Lin Yun was both surprised and enlightened.

He didn't know that the underground channel was related to the 73rd God. When he investigated the 73rd God earlier, he had discovered something about the channel by accident.

At that time, he was interested in the underground races and the special resources down there. The resources were not really important, because the abyss had all the resources that the underground world had. A lot of such resources had been offered from the abyss every month. They were much better than those from the underground world.