End of the Magic Era - Chapter 1175

Chapter 1175: Another Round of Negotiations

It wasn’t that Lin Yun couldn’t craft a powerful puppet, but a puppet that could be crafted by a person couldn’t be mass-produced by the puppet base. They were two completely different things.

This was the difference between mass-produced goods and laboratory goods. The time needed it would take to set up mass-production at a reasonable cost could even be as long as an entire era.

The best way to improve the puppet base was to go to the Puppet Plane. There, they could find all solutions to things regarding puppets.

Some components that couldn’t be manufactured at a low cost in the puppet base might be found on the bodies of some unknown puppets.

At this time, Lin Yun remembered the Planar Infiltrator that he had imprisoned.

Byron was going crazy. Lin Yun had imprisoned him with the power of the Demiplane. Let alone the Demiplane’s shadows, he couldn’t even merge with the physical shadows. It was the same as Lin Yun drawing a circle he couldn’t leave.

The ability he was so proud of was completely useless. Getting out by force? What a joke.

The Natural Demiplane had the protection of Eternal Dark Gold. It was comparable to the amount of Eternal Dark Gold existing in all of Noscent. As time passed, the Eternal Dark God would merge with the Demiplane and it would be like the Demiplane itself gained the defensive properties of the precious metal.

Moreover, the radiance of the God Fire Ember serving as a sun enveloped the entire Demiplane, and it would cripple the abilities of Planar Infiltrators.

Even a Heaven Rank powerhouse would be crushed to death in the Demiplane.

Lin Yun went to the place where he had locked Byron and undid the Demiplane pressure imprisoning him. Byron had a vacant gaze, and his hair and beard were reaching as far as his stomach. It looked like he had lived as a savage for a few dozen years. His body was even emitting a pungent stench.

Looking at Lin Yun, Byron froze, even forgetting that the cage imprisoning him had already dissipated.

“Nervous breakdown?”

Lin Yun was a bit stunned. ‘How could this guy be an Archmage… And a Planar Infiltrator? How could just being imprisoned give him a nervous breakdown?

‘Those Planar Infiltrators should be more patient than assassins. In order to infiltrate a plane, those guys could even turn into shadows and merge with the shadow of a Planar Path. They wouldn’t eat or drink, only maintaining this state that slowly used their mana over the course of several years.

‘It was all in order to find an opportunity. The record of the longest concealment was 28 years!

‘The Planar Infiltrator that left this record didn’t draw the ire of the plane’s ruler. The latter even generously gave the Planar Infiltrator the precious Magic Tool he needed as a present.

‘Turning oneself into a shadow and hiding for 28 years… How could a group of Heaven Ranks get angry? Even a powerhouse transcending the Heaven Rank felt that that guy’s perseverance had been quite good and gifted him a decently-sized plane for his dedication.

‘But this guy got a nervous breakdown just from being imprisoned for a bit?’

Lin Yun watched Byron for a while, but there wasn’t much vigor in Byron’s eyes. His gaze was vacant as if his soul had been torn apart and his mind had thoroughly collapsed, leaving him an idiot.

Lin Yun sighed. He had managed to find a Planar Infiltrator, and although he could only be considered an apprentice Planar Infiltrator, this wasn’t something easy to find in this era.

As Lin Yun turned away, Byron’s eyes regained their vigor and his entire body turned into shadows, instantly disappearing.

Lin Yun sensed the fluctuation behind him and turned back around, only to see that Byron’s silhouette had already disappeared. He was already unable to discover Byron’s location by relying on his mana fluctuations, but he could barely figure out his direction by using the Magic Array and the law runes.

Lin Yun grinned and pensively looked in the distance before leaving while saying, “I’ll let you go if you can escape.”

Byron had hidden, and his heart was filled with fear as he kept himself immersed within the shadows. As insurance, he didn’t even dare to merge into the shadows of other things. Those trees, vegetation, mountains, he gave up on every single shadow and instead kept sneaking through the shadow of space itself.

Only after feeling that Lin Yun hadn’t discovered him did Byron smile.

‘This terrifying guy is really too frightening. He was actually able to capture and imprison me. Fortunately, I was smart and came up with this method after thinking for a long time.

‘But who would have thought that this damned guy would take so long before coming to see me? Could it be that he grabbed me to imprison me to death? Fortunately, I tricked him and he won’t be able to capture me again.

‘Let’s find the entrance of the Planar Path… Eh, damn, the entrance to the Planar Path is actually in the air. Such a crafty guy… But it doesn’t matter, I already merged with the space’s shadow, the Planar Path being in the air can’t stop me.

‘Hey, crafty and terrifying guy, I’m leaving, let’s never meet again.

‘Eh, should I get a hold of the planar coordinates? Forget it, I shouldn’t provoke that terrifying guy. Who knows if he will chase after me if I obtain the coordinates…’

Byron carefully sneaked along. He even slowly drifted within the spatial fluctuations, slowly making his way towards the traces of the Planar Path.

After three days, he reached the location that Lin Yun had used to come in. There was a portal linked to the Raging Flame Plane.

As for Lin Yun, he no longer concerned himself with Byron. Most of the Natural Demiplane was already under Lin Yun’s control. He only needed one more step to control the Laws here, but this was a very slow process and Lin Yun would need to comprehend them before he could control them.

But finding Byron was really too simple. He watched Byron sneaking like a thief for three days as he floated towards the entrance.

Lin Yun laughed inside the puppet base and spoke to Shawn, who had been snacking on mana crystals due to boredom.

“Lord Shawn, it’s been boring lately, hasn’t it? I found something fun for you. But please don’t kill him, I still have a use for him.”

After saying that, he told Shawn the coordinates of that entrance, and the idle Shawn immediately regained his vigor. He grinned as he floated up to it.

When Shawn arrived, he didn’t find anything strange. He rolled his eyes and pretended to nap.

A dozen meters away, Byron was slowly approaching the entrance and only relaxed when he noticed that the strange Ghost Wolf didn’t seem to react.

He still didn’t react when Byron walked in front of the entrance and was about to take the final step to leave this place.

He grinned and almost burst out from excitement.

‘Damn guy, I can finally leave this cursed place. This place is crazy. There is a guy that can discover and capture me and a huge base that seems to be mass-producing puppets with the weakest ones being Level 30. There are also mages from the Quicksand Tower and Shadow Tower, yet they are all treated as the lowest laborers, and they don’t even dare to resist.

‘I want to leave this place, I want to return to Noscent. No, I need to find a plane where that scary guy will never find me…’

Byron joyfully merged with the shadows and followed the shadow of the entrance.

But just as he was about to step into the Planar Path’s shadow, an undetectable dim golden wall of light suddenly revealed itself, and Byron bumped into it.

“Ouch, damn, what is that…”

Byron’s silhouette was suddenly revealed, his head clearly bloody and his magic power unstable.

Byron suddenly quivered as he glanced at the Ghost Wolf, who had opened his eyes and was glancing right back at him. He then looked around and figured out that his shadow state had been canceled.

Before he could turn back into a shadow, he saw a flash of light coming from the eyes of the Ghost Wolf and he instantly let out a blood-curdling screech. He looked as pale as a corpse as he fell towards the ground.

Shawn laughed heartily as he felt that he had found a funny toy. He chased Byron to the ground and entered his body. Then, Lord Shawn came out, his claws scratching his chin as he seemed to hesitate.

‘Merlin said not to kill this guy, that he had some use for him. What should I do if I go in and carelessly tear that guy’s soul apart? Forget it, I’ll just be very careful, yes, I’ll just take a look, that’s all.’

He once again got into Byron’s head, and a second later, Byron let out a blood-curdling screech. His pupils dilated and his body kept twitching on the ground as if he was about to die.

Shawn cautiously poked back out of Byron’s head. He had wanted to take a good look at his surroundings, but he ended up jumping out immediately before fiercely slapping Byron.

“Idiot, hurry up and stand up for me. Don’t play dead, the great Lord Shawn has pulled his punches. I know you are fine, damnit! You leave Lord Shawn no choice if you don’t stand up…”

After saying that, Shawn blew a gust of wind into Byron’s head, and Byron seemed to be filled with energy. He fearfully crawled up and looked at Lord Shawn as if he was a Devil.

“Devil, damnit, you are a Devil from Hell, one of the most malicious Soul Sadists…”

Before he could finish his words, Byron held his head in his hands and rolled about on the ground.

Shawn looked quite unhappy as he slapped Byron’s head with his claws.

“Moron, the great Lord Shawn is a Soul Walker, not one of those filthy Devils. How could those idiots compare to the great Lord Shawn?”

More than ten kilometers away, Daggeth raised his head, as he seemed to have heard some faint mournful screams as well as Shawn’s cursing roars. He couldn’t help smiling.

‘Which idiot dared to provoke Lord Shawn? Even if you provoke Merlin, the one thing you should never do is provoke Sir Merlin’s demonic Magic Tool Incarnations. No, the most wicked Devil of Hell might not even compare to these Incarnations when it comes to torture.

‘But that’s also good, with someone attracting the attention of Shawn, we are safe and can properly enjoy our time here.

After three days, Byron cried and asked to pledge his loyalty to Lord Shawn. He then asked to join one of the laboring groups.

Unfortunately, neither Daggeth nor Dylas wanted to accept that guy. They said that they had enough manpower and didn’t need someone else. Thus, Byron could only use his expertise to go sort out areas that others couldn’t see.

Half a month rapidly passed, and the news of negotiations between the humans and Beastmen soon spread. As for Lin Yun, he was naturally invited as one of the human participants of the negotiations.

Lin Yun could guess the results of the negotiations without even going.

The Raging Flame Plane had gone through this major disaster, and both humans and Beastmen were still shaken. They didn’t dare to start another all-out war. Who knew if it would trigger the Raging Flame Plane’s source power again?

After all, that God’s body was still slumbering in the depths of the Raging Flame Plane, and its souls hadn’t been annihilated. Who knew if Del Rovana would take another shot at causing a calamity?

They didn’t dare to fight. And more importantly, though the Raging Flame Plane had gone through this calamity, the earth had been overturned, and the sky had shattered, there would be even more benefits after it recovered.

The energy storms rushing down from the torn sky made the Raging Flame Plane’s environment even more terrible, and as the God’s body was devouring the source power of the Raging Flame Plane, these chaotic energies started destroying the plane.

But the Raging Flame Plane was now becoming stabler and stabler. The chaotic energy storms started being slowly pacified under the effect of the Raging Flame Plane’s source.

In this manner, the Raging Flame Plane’s mana would keep growing for a long period of time, and it would be a lot more diverse. This was the greatest advantage. It would make many resources come into being.

The greatest benefit of the earth being overturned was that many precious resources hidden in the depths of the earth had now surfaced or appeared in the shallow depths of the earth where they could be easily excavated.

Moreover, these natural resources were very old and were resources on the verge of extinction. There were also metal veins of a few kinds of ores that required a lot of time to be nurtured.

The quality and quantity of the resources in the Raging Flame Plane had greatly increased.

Recently, more than thirty new veins of ore had been discovered in the Four Seasons Plain. These abundant resources helped greatly increase the pace of the puppet base’s research. Furthermore, the Grey Beastmen’s fort, which already had the reputation of being the first formed city, was welcoming more and more people lately.

The patrolling puppets had all been upgraded to Level 35, and every small squad of five was led by a Level 37 puppet.

As for the puppets in charge of those groups, they were a new kind of Level 39 puppet. Lin Yun would have changed all the puppets into these new models if not for the prohibitive cost in materials, time, and labor.

With these cold puppets as guards, no one would dare to cause trouble in the Grey Beastmen’s fort. After all, those puppets could only execute orders based on their settings. They didn’t care about the identity of the other side. During this time, three children of affluent Families had been killed. There was even a 9th Rank Archmage that protected a child of an affluent Family and tore a few Level 39 puppets apart.

As for their Family, they could only hope not to be recognized. They didn’t dare to come looking for trouble. After all, the news of Lin Yun’s strength had already spread far and wide. And with the matter of the Intrepid’s energy source already solved, no one in the Raging Flame Plane dared to provoke Lin Yun.

The emergence of the Dark Elves, Firerock Dwarves, and Ash Beastmen wasn’t very impactful, mostly because no one provoked them as they were all living in the Intrepid.

The might of the mana crystals cannons on the Intrepid was something that almost all the Heaven Rank powerhouses currently in the Raging Flame Plane had seen. Especially the main cannon… It almost blew away the Holy Mountain in one shot. This wasn’t something a Low Tier Heaven Rank powerhouse could do.

Although the humans and Beastmen couldn’t help cursing at each other while participating in the negotiations, as well as taking the fight outside on a few occasions, once the negotiations started, both sides came to the same conclusion.

The war had to stop. Especially since the current Raging Flame Plane had enough natural resources for everyone. There was simply no point in starting a war over it now.

What needed to be discussed was just how to distribute these territories.

Lin Yun was sitting at this huge heated round table with closed eyes. He simply wasn’t participating in these discussions.

Apart from the Merlin Family’s territory, Lin Yun was now occupying the original remote territory of the Black Iron Beastmen. That place had sparse vegetation, and the environment was somewhat vile. Aside from mineral resources, no plants could be found there.

That place had now become even richer in mineral resources, but it wasn’t to the point of being shocking.

As for the Four Seasons Plain and the mountain range’s depression bordering it, they were important areas Lin Yun was managing, and the mineral resources and vegetation had become frighteningly rich. The corrupted magic beasts and Demons within the depression had been cleared up, and many magic plants that hadn’t been seen before were now growing there.

Unfortunately, no one would dare to make Lin Yun spit out that area. Lin Yun felt quite satisfied with these two regions. After all, the Raging Flame Plane’s territory had almost been completely partitioned. The debate only regarded some controversial areas.

And these areas were quite far away from Lin Yun’s territory, so he didn’t bother to listen to these discussions. After confirming his own interests, he didn’t feel like listening to them argue.

No matter how much one fought over the benefits of the Raging Flame Plane, they wouldn’t get much. The Four Seasons Plain had a Planar Path leading to the Puppet Plane. And the benefits of the Puppet Plane were a lot greater than the entire Raging Flame Plane. Lin Yun truly didn’t feel like pushing for extremely small benefits.

Unfortunately, Lin Yun had been comprehending the Laws with his eyes closed when someone brought the topic to Lin Yun.

The Shadow Tower and the Black Flame Beastmen were arguing on who that piece of contested territory belonged to. After discussing for a while, the Shadow Tower’s Heaven Rank powerhouse suddenly noticed Lin Yun ignoring everyone with his eyes closed.

Joseph rolled his eyes and sneered.

‘Mafa Merlin is actually not paying attention to what’s happening here at such a time. That’s for the best… The resources of the Four Seasons Plain are the richest. It’s like the warm spring among the four seasons. That place is filled with even more materials.

‘More importantly, the Four Seasons Plain has almost no Magic Beasts. There are only some puppets with unknown origins. Those puppets have no interest in valuable plants. This is completely letting Mafa Merlin off cheaply.

‘Damn, that guy only needs to safely control the Four Seasons Plain and that basin to obtain a huge harvest. He is obtaining his resources a lot more safely than us. Furthermore, he’s already established a city. The profits generated there every day could absolutely compare to a major city in Noscent.

‘That lucky guy… How did that foolish Birbo die? She didn’t even deal with Mafa Merlin before dying. If Mafa Merlin had died in the Holy Mountain, it would have been really easy for the Shadow Tower to take over his territory.

‘But now, our territories have yet to be confirmed. One-third of the Four Seasons Plain was sandwiched between our Shadow Tower and the Black Flame Beastmen’s territories. It would be profitable as long as that bit of territory was snatched.

‘I believe that the greedy Black Flame Beastmen would definitely not refuse this suggestion. A third of the Four Seasons Plain clearly has more benefits and natural resources than the small piece of land on the edge of our territory.’