End of the Magic Era - Chapter 1228

Chapter 1228: Underground

A middle-aged man with a smooth grey robe and meticulously combed hair walked out of the mage tower. That mage curbed all his mana fluctuations, but the few mana fluctuations that occasionally leaked out made everyone feel apprehensive. Moreover, the Extraordinary Power contained within his body made everyone feel as if they couldn’t resist it.

As this mage appeared, the surroundings suddenly became quiet. Even Albert, who had been busy with his own matters from the start, ceased his actions and raised his head to look at the mage at the entrance of the mage tower.

“Hello everyone, I’m the host of this gathering. I believe everyone knows me… I’m one of the assistant deans, Zeith. I’ll first lead you to check on the item we are researching this time.”

Zeith didn’t say much. He was very familiar with this kind of thing. Most of the mages greeted him in a manner that clearly showed that it wasn’t the first time they’d met him.

Zeith turned to enter the mage tower, with the group of Artisans following behind him.

Raphael and Lin Yun were walking at the rear, and Raphael was using mana to give him some explanations.

“Sir Mafa, Sir Zeith didn’t rely on alchemy to get his position at the Starry Sky College. The Starry Sky College’s three deans almost never actually manage the matters here.

“The ones supervising the Starry Sky College’s matters are a few assistant deans. Zeith is a very powerful 5th Rank Heaven Mage and is said to have awakened a Frozen Domain.

“Last year, there had been a problem in one of the planes controlled by the Starry Sky College after a powerful Heaven Rank Magic Beast emerged. Zeith ended up going, and he only needed a few minutes to freeze that Heaven Magic Beast into a statue. Now, the statue is still in that plane, intimidating other magic beasts.

“If you meet Sir Zeith in the Starry Sky College, do not resist, especially if you violated a rule. Sir Zeith might appear polite, but he is ruthless when fighting. Any problem that appears is turned into an ice statue so that he can focus on other problems…”

Raphael gave some quick advice before stopping. He didn’t dare to use mana sound transmissions within the mage tower. This was Zeith’s mage tower. It was just like a mage’s Demiplane, under complete control of the mage. With Raphael’s strength, he might end up being heard by him.

After they entered the mage tower, they surprisingly didn’t go up. Instead, they headed underground.

There were two puppets in the form of magic beasts defending the entrance, and as everyone appeared, their eyes opened and flickered with radiance, seemingly confirming everyone’s identity.

After going through that entrance covered in a layer of light, they arrived on a huge platform. They could see a bottomless abyss on the sides of the platform and a passage leading underground. Shining crystals were embedded on both sides of the passage, but they still couldn’t see how deep the passage was.

As everyone stepped on that hundred-meter-wide platform, Zeith walked to the center, took out his own special imprint, and put it on a crystal table on the side.

At that moment, numerous alchemy equations and runes appeared on the inside and the surface of the crystal table. A barrier covered the entire platform, and then the entire platform started following the tracks of the passage into the depths of the abyss.

The shining crystals were rapidly flashing past up until they merged into two straight lines as the platform reached maximum velocity.

But the group standing on the platform didn’t feel any vibrations. They also didn’t react to the sudden acceleration.

Shock flashed in Lin Yun’s eyes. He hadn’t seen much advanced alchemy technology before coming to the Starry Sky College, but he just saw something that would be widely spread in the future.

Reverse Gravity Array, Spatial Enchantment Array… Regarding the latter especially, Lin Yun never heard of it in this era.

The Reverse Gravity Array already existed in this era, as Sky City’s floating fortresses all had that kind of array on board. It was just that this array had a huge restriction.

Sky City’s floating fortresses were very slow. The main reason was that the Floating Array would collapse if they moved too quickly.

The Floating Array was a lower-grade version of the Reverse Gravity Array. Only its advanced form could be considered a true Reverse Gravity Array.

The Floating Array used the power of the array to support something, but the Reverse Gravity Array actually used the gravity coming from the earth itself to alter gravity.

The Floating Array couldn’t support things that were too heavy or too fast. It had many restrictions. But the Reverse Gravity Array didn’t have these kinds of restrictions. It seemed impossible for the huge Sky City’s main city to be supported by a Floating Array, so it should be supported by a Reverse Gravity Array.

As for the Spatial Enchantment Array, it never publicly appeared in this era. Just like Raphael’s flying shuttle that he remodelled before, the biggest restriction was sudden acceleration. That would create such powerful pressure that Archmages might not be able to handle it.

But when flying, if the speed was too fast and some obstruction appeared on the path, they would have no way to stop or rapidly avoid it. Even if it was shut down, the flying shuttle would still be rushing over at its original speed.

But this problem would no longer appear with the Spatial Enchantment Array. No matter what happened to the platform below their feet, no one would be able to feel the pressure since space itself was moving. They also wouldn’t be able to feel any pressure from outside.

If there was no such array, at least half of the people would have been thrown out due to the sudden acceleration.

And without the Spatial Enchantment Array, they would need a very long period to slow down from such a high speed. This would also increase the pressure. The people on the platform would suffer from at least several dozen times the gravity.

Mages that had yet to reach the Heaven Rank would end up being crushed by the pressure.

After a minute, the two trails of light slowly disappeared, and the platform appeared at the entrance of a huge underground square, instantly switching from rapid movement to stillness.

But the people standing on the platform didn’t even feel like they had moved at all.

However, Lin Yun knew that even if that passage was a slope, they were three kilometers underground!

And this was due to the array on the platform. In the future, the first weaponized magic battleships that left Noscent to conquer the endless planes all had these two arrays, even the smallest ones.

It was impossible to only have Heaven Mages conquering planes. Most of the time, those under the Heaven Rank would be the ones conquering planes, and speed was usually the biggest constraint.

If there was a problem, they might take a month to arrive, and the conquest would be impossible to complete. With these two arrays, the speed of the magic battleships was no longer an issue, and they only had to consider the power.

As long as the magic battleships had enough power, they would be able to keep on accelerating.

The other Artisans apparently didn’t notice this platform’s arrays, or if they noticed, they didn’t know what they represented.

Their sight was locked onto the huge underground square.

The domed sky and ground were just like a silver mirror fully made of metal. There wasn’t a single crack… It all looked like a whole.

There were all kinds of puppets and machinery spread about with various alchemists moving in a hurry. But even though they were in a hurry, it didn’t feel chaotic. Everything was methodically arranged.

Everything was clean, and not a single speck of dust could be found. There was even a dust-cleaning array at the entrance. The huge square was divided into blocks, with one block being an individual unit used to do some alchemy experiments.

A blast of green smoke suddenly surged from a small unit conducting an experiment, and the alchemy equipment within that block rapidly corroded upon contact with the smoke. But as the green smoke reached the thick glass walls, runes and patterns appeared, and the corrosive fog was completely locked into that small unit.

In less than two seconds, a special puppet with eight long tentacles appeared at the entrance of that unit. The eight tentacles stuck to the entrance’s glass door, and the corrosive fog was rapidly absorbed by that puppet.

It took less than a minute for the corrosive mist to be completely absorbed, and only the corroded alchemy equipment remained. But then, another two puppets opened the entrance of the small unit and rapidly cleared away the corroded equipment before exchanging it for new ones.

As for the poisoned alchemist, he was saved, waking up in less than ten seconds before settling on a spot to heal.

Everything happened so quickly. And the small units on the side apparently hadn’t even been affected. What happened there didn’t spread to the other alchemists, and even if someone threw a glance, it was only a casual glance before they focused back on their own matters.

Zeith also ignored the sudden accident, and none of the alchemists busily running around came to greet Zeith. Even if one of them went past him, they would only slightly bow as a greeting before going back to their own matters.

No one stopped to curry favor with Zeith because he was an assistant dean of the Starry Sky College. This place not only had Heaven Mages, but it also had Great Mage alchemists. But in this place, they were only alchemists. They even saw an Archmage asking guidance from a High Mage.

Amazement flickered in Lin Yun’s eyes, and he was a bit distracted. It looked like the center of a large-scale scientific research facility he had seen in his previous life. No matter who it was, skill was key.

And the conducted experiments were all very advanced for this era. Some concepts were even ahead of their time.

Raphael saw Lin Yun gazing at a small unit with dual-layered platforms on which two alchemists were arranging a miniature array.

“Sir Mafa, what are you doing? The arrangement of this kind of array is simply a fantasy… It’s simply impossible to complete, the most basic runes can’t shape this…”

Array experiments could sometimes be more dangerous than potioneering experiments. Some powerful arrays could cause large-scale destruction to their environments that far surpassed what potions could do after being destroyed.

Thus, they could form a miniature array first to test all kinds of possibilities, but miniature arrays had limitations.

Lin Yun ignored Raphael’s words. The two alchemists working on that project were at most Master Alchemists and should have just advanced to the Archmage realm. This could be seen from the runes they were using.

Their experiment was bound to be a failure, but that didn’t mean that their idea was wrong. This kind of doubled-layered array wasn’t just two arrays overlapping. The structure was already a well-researched technique.

They were experimenting with one array!

Those two layers were two parts of an array, and it needed a new energy transmission resonance method.

But they were bound to fail because that technique would only appear 1,800 years later. It was because the currently available materials couldn’t support this array and because the runes of Archmages couldn’t support the resonance of that energy transmission.

Law runes were needed, and to be more specific, law runes made from ten runes wouldn’t work. They had to at least be law runes made from twelve runes like Lin Yun’s.

This also meant that most of the Heaven Mages of this era would be unable to complete this research, or even make any real progress.

But the fact that someone was already researching this in this era showed how advanced this underground base was.

Moreover, as Lin Yun walked along the central avenue, he saw many types of research, and many of these were going in the proper direction but were limited by materials and some basic concepts that couldn’t be completed.

Lin Yun remained silent along the way. They walked at least a dozen kilometers before crossing this huge underground square. At the end was some huge cylinder-like alchemy machinery.

The main part of the cylinder was silver, but it had a trace of a golden color. It was ten meters tall and ten meters deep.

And there were eight of these cylinders. Three people walked into the leftmost cylinder and the surface of the cylinder flickered with electric light and dense spatial fluctuations. But these fluctuations were restricted and couldn’t spread out.

After three seconds, the fluctuations on the cylinder collapsed to its center, and the three people instantly disappeared. The cylinder also regained its tranquility.

Lin Yun’s pupils suddenly shrank. ‘Spatial Shuttle Device!

‘That thing was recorded in history, but the first successful product should only appear five hundred years later… Yet it’s already inside the Starry Sky College!’

That thing’s effect was similar to a Teleportation Array, but the way it worked was completely different. Teleportation Arrays could teleport things to another Teleportation Array.

But this thing was only a single item, and only one was needed for two-way teleportation.

Most importantly, it could only be used in a certain kind of environment. The teleportation area had to be within a completely sealed space with no exits and no spatial reactions. It would also form a powerful spatial barrier sealing the contents from the surroundings when activated.

The only way to get in and out was through this spatial shuttle device. The space within this device resonated with the sealed space, and the activation was unlike a Teleportation Array’s teleportation.

Instead, it swapped the two sections of space. Everything in the other area would be transferred to this part of space.

That spatial barrier absolutely couldn’t be forcibly shattered from the inside unless it was done by a particularly outstanding powerhouse. Even a peak Heaven Rank powerhouse wouldn’t be able to forcibly get in.

This was because that sealed space didn’t even have coordinates. No one knew the coordinates aside from the creator of the space. Even the spatial shuttle device could only exchange two sections of space.

At Noscent’s peak, that kind of spatial shuttle device was treated as a refuge or a safehouse.

It was unknown how many precious things ended up being locked in those spaces as Noscent’s mana became exhausted.

This extremely huge spatial shuttle device before his eyes was too crude and cumbersome for Lin Yun. It couldn’t be moved at all, but it was absolutely one of the most advanced alchemy technologies of this era.

It was like Lin Yun’s Natural Demiplane. After Lin Yun destroyed its original Planar Path, no one aside from Lin Yun would know the coordinates of the Natural Demiplane. Or, it could be said that the Natural Demiplane no longer had coordinates. Lin Yun himself was the coordinates, and only he could open a Planar Path. Just like a mage’s Demiplane, it was the safest hiding place.