“But Linley, look. There are many sharp spikes on the Saint-level Violet Tattooed Bear’s body. These spikes are all extremely sharp. Based on your current ability, there’s no way you can use the spikes to cut open the fur either. But there’s a spike located very close to the Saint-level Violet Tattooed Bear’s eyes. What you need to do is pull that spike out, then stick your claws into that wound and go digging. I’m confident that you should be able to pull out that Saint-level magicite core.” Doehring Cowart instructed.
To the enormous Armored Razorback Wyrm, these spikes were nothing more than spikes!
But to the much smaller Linley, these spikes were like massive drills that were twenty centimeters in length. After pulling the spike out, a huge, gaping wound would be revealed near the eyes of the Saint-level Violet Tattooed Bear. Going digging for the magicite core through that gaping wound should be an easy task indeed.
After all, as tough as the fur of a Saint-level magical beast might be, its brain and organs weren’t too tough.
Using all his strength, Linley forcibly tugged out the giant ‘drill’, and then extended his black scaly arm into the wound, digging for the magicite core. This Saint-level Violet Tattooed Bear’s head was really large as well, over a meter long. Linley had to extend his arm into the wound all the way past his elbows before he was able to locate and pull out the Saint-level magicite core.
The Saint-level magicite core was still covered in blood and gore.
A black, fist-sized magicite core.
“It actually doesn’t have even a hint of darkness-style aura.” Linley was very surprised. If he hadn’t already known that this fist-sized black stone was the magicite core of a Saint-level Violet Tattooed Bear, he would’ve never been able to guess.
“The energy within a Saint-level magical beast’s magicite core is highly dense and reserved. Frankly speaking, the magicite core of a magical beast of the ninth rank is as well,” Doehring Cowart explained.
Linley nodded.
“The entire body of a Saint-level magical beast is a treasure. For example, the leg bones of this Saint-level magical beast definitely possess an astonishingly resilient strength.” Doehring Cowart let out a sigh. “Unfortunately, you simply don’t have the ability to break through the powerful defensive barrier of its fur.”
Linley also nodded helplessly.
This Saint-level Violet Tattooed Bear was simply too huge. He didn’t have the ability to bring the corpse of this Saint-level Violet Tattooed Bear back either.
“What a waste,” Bebe said intentionally, off to the side.
Linley chuckled. “We’ve already done quite well. The most valuable part of a magical beast is its magicite core. A single Saint-level magicite core is already a truly priceless treasure. I am already very satisfied at having acquired it. What’s more, I also have a draconic crystal of the ninth rank.” Linley laughed as he walked over to the Armored Razorback Wyrm’s corpse.
The corpse of the Armored Razorback Wyrm had a gaping wound on its head. Finding the draconic crystal shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
Linley plunged his sharp claws directly into the wound on the Armored Razorback Wyrm’s head.
“Eh?”
After carefully sifting around in the Armored Razorback Wyrm’s skull for a while, Linley couldn’t find anything. This made Linley feel suspicious.
“Why is there no draconic crystal? What bizarreness is this?” Linley frowned.
“Impossible. A magical beast can’t live without a magicite core, and this dragon must absolutely have a draconic crystal as well. After a magical beast dies, there’s no way that the magicite crystal will disappear.” Doehring Cowart couldn’t believe it either.
But Linley suddenly remembered something…
Earlier, when he had been raging and drinking the dragon’s blood from this Armored Razorback Wyrm, he had swallowed an icy cold object into his stomach. But at that time, due to his rage and his sorrow, he hadn’t paid it any attention. And then, when he had eaten the Blueheart Grass, the pain in the rest of his body had faded, except for that one place where the object was.
“No way… was that the draconic crystal?” Linley thought to himself.
Linley could still recollect the sensation of having that ice cold object pass through his throat into his stomach.
“I ate a draconic crystal? This… how could this have happened? In the Secret Dragonblood Manual, there is only a discussion on drinking dragon’s blood. Can it be that eating a dragon’s draconic crystal core also works?” Linley simply didn’t know what was going on. But no matter what, it seemed that he had indeed swallowed the core, and from the looks of it, he wasn’t suffering from any particularly bad aftereffects.
Linley chuckled.
“What I ate wasn’t just a draconic crystal core. It was five million gold coins.” Linley sighed to himself.
“Boss, lu, lu, look!” Bebe’s excited voice rang out.
Linley glanced at Bebe, who was standing in the middle of a pile of rubble, staring dumbly up at the ceiling of the cave. Linley immediately left the tunnel and returned to the cave, and also looked up at the ceiling.
“…What is that?”
At the top of the cave, a large, circular black platform had been revealed. This circular black platform had been embedded into the ceiling, and even now, a large part of it was covered with stone. Clearly… Linley’s wild attacks on the ceiling earlier had caused so many rocks to fall that the circular black platform had been revealed.
Linley wasn’t too surprised by the black platform. What did surprise him was…
On the black platform, there was an extremely complicated pattern of magical marks. All sorts of marks were on the platform, and the pattern was complicated to an extreme. Clearly, there was some sort of magical array formation on the top side of the black platform, but Linley had never before seen such a complicated magical array formation.
If one described the magical array formation covering the front gates of the Ernst Institute as a single ‘wind blade’, then this mysterious magical formation was the ‘Annihilating Tempest’ spell.
In particular, in the direct center of this black circular platform, there was a violet-covered sword plunged into it.
“This magical formation… how is this possible?” Doehring Cowart appeared by Linley’s side as well. Lifting his head up and staring, he said, “Impossible. How could there be a magical formation such as this here, and with this bizarre sword as a focus?”
Doehring Cowart, who in the past had always been calm and composed, had now totally been shocked. In his more than one thousand years of life, he had never seen such a terrifying magical formation. Although this magical formation was currently dormant and not active, he could already tell what terrible power this magical formation contained.
“Grandpa Doehring, is this magical formation very powerful?” Linley asked.
Doehring Cowart looked at Linley. “Very powerful? We can’t even use the word ‘powerful’ to describe it. The power of this magical formation is even greater than that of any forbidden spell. You tell me, is it ‘powerful’? In my entire life, I’ve never seen such a complicated magical formation, such a powerful magical formation. And what’s more, it is borrowing power from that strange sword to supplement the power of the formation itself. What, did the creator feel the power of this formation alone was not great enough?”
62
The Four Higher Planes
Linley was totally stunned by Doehring Cowart’s words.
“Grandpa Doehring was a Saint-level Grand Magus of the era of the Pouant Empire. If even he has never seen such a complicated, powerful magical formation before, and is certain that the power of this formation is even greater than that of forbidden spells, then…” Linley felt a thread of trepidation.
What exactly was this mysterious magical formation doing here?
“Linley, take a closer look and try to get a feel for the formation, as well as that violet longswo
rd,” Doehring Cowart said to Linley.
Linley nodded slightly. He immediately gathered wind elemental essence to him and used it to sense the aura of that magical formation and the violet longsword. Closing his eyes, Linley could sense an aura of weight and density emanating from the black platform’s magical formation, so heavy and oppressive it was stifling.
At the same time, this black platform, or perhaps the magical formation anchored on the platform, emanated waves of incredibly dense elemental essence.
“No wonder the elemental essence here is so dense, almost a hundred times that of the outside world. So this is the reason.” If he hadn’t directly and clearly attempted to probe the black platform, Linley wouldn’t have been able to understand that the platform was the origin, as the elemental essence constantly came down in waves.
In actuality, the center of the cave was where the elemental essence was the densest.
“Amongst the seven elemental essences, the darkness-type elemental essence is the strongest. No wonder both the Armored Razorback Wyrm and the Saint-level Violet Tattooed Bear both liked this place. Both of them were darkness-type magical beasts.” Linley nodded to himself.
“That violet longsword.” Linley carefully tried to sense any details from the violet longsword plunged into the middle of the black platform. “Darkness-type element… but so reserved and introverted.”
Stroking his beard, Doehring Cowart smiled at Linley. “Linley, I can tell you one thing. The value of that violet longsword is most likely not at all inferior to that of a Saint-level magicite core.”
Linley stared at Doehring Cowart questioningly.
Linley knew very well that, generally speaking, a warrior’s weapons were not very valuable. As long as some extremely hard metals were used along with some other alloys, a weapon could be made. Even his Baruch clan’s family heirloom, the warblade ‘Slaughterer’, had only cost a few tens of thousands of gold coins to make.
Afterwards, the successors to the Baruch clan had sold the warblade ‘Slaughterer’ for 180,000 gold coins, but that was primarily because of its connection to the famous Dragonblood Warriors.
Unfortunately, it had been many years since a Dragonblood Warrior had surfaced, and thus the fame of the Dragonblood Warriors was no longer worth as much. If it had been sold in the days when the Dragonblood Warriors had roamed and dominated the lands, its price would have been much higher.
The weapons of warriors weren’t worth much. But the magistaff of a magus was a different matter.
The higher quality a magistaff was, the more precious the materials for making it needed to be.
For example, the ‘divine treasures’ used by a Saint-level Grand Magus, such as a powerful magistaff, would use the magicite core of a magical beast of the ninth rank, or a Saint-level magical beast, to serve as its energy source. Next, complicated and powerful magical formations would be carved onto the magistaff, in order for it to reach its maximum potential.
A magistaff that was hailed as a ‘divine treasure’ was definitely priceless. After all, a Saint-level magicite core by itself was considered a priceless treasure.
But of course…
When discussing the relative worthlessness of warrior’s weapons, that was with respect to material weapons forged in the Yulan continent. If a weapon came from another place, such as one of the Four Higher Planes, then its value would be different.
“This violet longsword has a very unique aura. If my guess is correct, it should come from one of the Four Higher Planes. Most likely, the Infernal Realm,” Doehring Cowart said musingly.
“The Four Higher Planes?” Linley asked curiously.
His white beard fluttering, Doehring Cowart said, “If we consider the Yulan continent as a whole, at your current level of power, you can nominally be considered to be in the upper tier. I can begin telling you a few things now. Linley, you should know by now that in this universe, there is more than just one plane of existence.”
Linley nodded. “Of course I know. For example, the Netherworld.”
“You know very little.” Doehring Cowart shook his head. “In reality, within this vast, infinite universe, there are countless planes, with material, physical planes being just one of the most basic, elementary types of planes. Amongst all of these countless planes, there are Four Higher Planes of existence. These planes are the Netherworld, the Infernal Realm, the Life Realm, and the Celestial Realm,” Doehring Cowart explained carefully.
Linley listened attentively, as this information was perhaps known only to the absolutely most powerful people on the Yulan continent.
“Linley, by now, you should know what a so-called ‘god’ is, right?” Doehring Cowart grinned as he looked at Linley.
Linley nodded. “Those who have surpassed the existence of ‘Saints’ are what we call Deities or Gods.” Having read many books, Linley knew that in many books discussing power which transcended the level of the Saints, this level of power was described as the power of the Gods. A power that was so great, it was irresistible.
“Right. But above the level of the Deities, are the Sovereigns. And above the Sovereigns, there are the Overgods!” Doehring Cowart sighed. “These Four Overgods are truly eternal presences which surpass everything else in existence.”
This was the first time Linley had ever heard of the existence of the Four Overgods.
“Overgods? Are they more powerful than the Radiant Sovereign?”
“Haha, the Radiant Sovereign?” Doehring Cowart began to laugh. “Regardless of whether we are discussing the ‘Radiant Sovereign’ of the Radiant Church or the ‘Shadow Sovereign’ of the Cult of Shadows, they are nothing more than Sovereigns. To us, and to any ordinary Deity, a Sovereign is an all-powerful entity. But they still require the power of faith from their followers.”
“But the Four Overgods are different. They neither require followers nor faith. Their power is all-encompassing and all-ruining. Sovereigns such as the Radiant Sovereign or the Shadow Sovereign would most likely only be worthy of being servants for the Four Overgods. And that would be only if the Overgods found them worthy.” Doehring Cowart spoke with absolute certainty.
Linley’s heart trembled.
“The Netherworld, the Infernal Realm, the Life Realm and the Celestial Realm. These Four Higher Planes were created by the Four Overgods. In the past, I had once had the chance to sense the aura of these Four Higher Planes, which is why, immediately upon seeing that violet longsword, I felt certain that it hails from the Infernal Realm.”
Doehring Cowart stared suspiciously at the violet longsword plunged into the round black platform. “But I, too, am suspicious. How did something from the Infernal Realm come to be here?”
“Linley, think about it. This is a magical formation which is more powerful than even forbidden spells. For it to rely on this violet longsword as a supplemental source of energy, in terms of energy levels, this sword should at least be on par with this magical formation. I strongly recommend… that you drip your blood on it and see if you can bind it to you.” Doehring Cowart’s eyes were gleaming.
“Bind it?” In Linley’s heart, there arose a desire to acquire this treasure.
“Don’t be afraid. No matter what this magical formation is meant to do, for such a huge formation to be activated would take a long period of time. This will give you enough time to run far away. First drip your blood onto it and see if this sword already has a master. If it has no master, you can take it away with you. There definitely won’t be a problem, and no one will find out,” Doehring Cowart said with absolute confidence.
A divine sword which could be bound with blood was no ordinary thing.
When worn, nobody would be able to tell what it was. In the eyes of others, it would be as ordinary as the Coiling Dragon ring.
“Alright.” Linley exerted control over his Dragonblood battle-qi, and instantly, the scales on his arms and his upper body began to vanish.
The second form of the Dragonblood Warriors: the
Demidragon form.
Linley could now perfectly control which portion of his body would transform. The rest of his body was now the same as a normal person. After using his teeth to cut his finger, Linley directly leapt up and flicked a drop of blood onto the violet longsword, which had been there for who-knows-how many years.
The drop of Linley’s blood landed on the dust-covered violet longsword, which had been there for countless years. It absorbed his blood like a sponge, easily drinking it in. At the same time…
“Ting!” The violet longsword rang out with a clear sound, and at the same time began to tremble.
All of the dust stuck to its surface suddenly flew away, and at the same time, a strange, bloody aura began to circulate on top of the sword, as though fresh blood was flowing all around it.
“An item with no master.” Seeing this, Doehring Cowart felt surprised and pleased.
Doehring Cowart knew very well that if this sword had a master, then Linley would’ve had no hope at all. But if the sword had no master, then in the future, Linley would possess an extremely useful tool.
“Linley, quick, pull the sword out, and then leave this place immediately!” Doehring Cowart urged.
“Got it.”
Linley once more leapt up, this time directly grabbing the violet longsword and giving it a powerful tug. “Shrrrring!” With a clear ringing sound which seemed to carry boundless joy, it came out.
Earlier, when Linley’s blood had been absorbed by the violet longsword, Linley immediately knew… that this was a flexible sword!
But upon exerting battle-qi, mageforce, or any other sort of force through the sword, it could instantly become firm and rigid! It could be flexible or hard!
Pulling the sword from the black platform, Linley landed on the ground. As he landed, with the flick of his wrist, Linley wrapped the violet longsword around his waist, using it like a belt!
“Bebe. Let’s go.”
Picking up his backpack with one hand, Linley immediately ran for the tunnel exit. At the same time, he began to cover his entire body with scales once more. Bebe, as well, instantly jumped atop Linley’s shoulders.
Coiling Dragon_Book 1 of the Coiling Dragon Saga Page 54