It was as if this Astral Plane was the universe, but this wasn’t the universe that Roland perceived in his real-world view.
At least there wouldn’t be so many bugs floating around in the universe, or some quirky fragment of life, or a slice of time, or incomprehensible and completely unintelligible ramblings and mumblings.
“Everything in the Astral Plane is dangerous,” Mordenkainen pointed to the armored dung maggots in the distance, “These bugs can eat almost anything, except spatial magic. When I first came to the Astral Plane, I wasn’t sure of the properties of these things, and I was almost swallowed by them.”
Roland looked at the bugs in the distance. Players could revive and were allowed almost unlimited room for errors, so he didn’t have much of an intuitive sense of danger, but rather the thin layer in the sky indicating the boundary aroused his curiosity.
A boundary formed by spatial magic?
This kind of magic was the most stable, like diamonds in nature, and it was, therefore, difficult to change its shape and “deform” it into what one wanted, but once the deformation was successful, the boundaries made by spatial magic were almost always the strongest.
How did Mordenkainen do this, simply by twisting spatial magic with his powerful mental power?
As Roland pondered, his attention was once again drawn to the four giant buildings in the distance of the floating city.
What’s the point of building such a large structure when there doesn’t seem to be anyone else on this floating city?
Storage of gold and wealth, of books?
“You seem to be interested in that building over there?” said Mordenkainen with a smile.
Roland nodded.
He was indeed curious, and there was no shame in admitting it.
Lamia was smiling teasingly.
Mordenkainen smiled and snapped his fingers.
A few seconds passed and nothing seemed to happen.
But Mordenkainen and Lamia both looked nonchalant.
After another ten seconds, Roland finally realized something was wrong.
A black line appeared underneath the huge building in the distance.
And the line was wiggling indistinctly and getting progressively larger.
At this time Roland could still feel some faint vibrations on the ground, and with each passing second, the vibrations became more and more obvious, while the black line in the distance also became clearer.
Those were all steel puppets, countless as if they were crashing over like a tsunami.
Rumbling.
These puppets were all bionically designed animal figures.
There were wolves, lions, leopards, bears, giant spiders, and plenty of raptors in the air. They looked the same as the animals, but with a lot of extra “equipment.”
For example, the sharp blades on the back of the wolf’s claws and the spikes on the spider, Roland did not doubt that these spikes could be launched.
The lion had long steel wings on its back and probably could fly briefly.
These enhancements were found on every style of steel puppet.
Besides, these steel puppets also had magical veined lights on them, which should be the reason why they could move. And Roland believed that these steel puppets also could cast spells. Mordenkainen should have one or two spell models engraved on the inside of these puppets’ bodies so that these puppets could cast spells as a stress reaction when necessary.
The puppets ran up to them and surrounded the three of them.
The ground shook terribly and the countless puppets brought with them the characteristic rusty smell of steel. They were overwhelmed by a sea of puppets that blocked all vision around them except for the Astral Plane above their heads.
How many steel puppets are there here, a hundred thousand, a million?
Roland subconsciously licked his lips. “Your armament could easily destroy the most powerful country in the world.”
If the floating city stopped over a strategic location and airdropped these puppets down, there was simply no country in the human world that could stop them—none!
This meant… in the time Mordenkainen was active, there didn’t seem to be any legends of heroes or knights.
It would be strange if there was. With such a strong armament, and at the time Mordenkainen was still at his peak, he even dared to fight the Goddess of Fortune. A mere Devil King that dared to come to the surface would have had it good not being captured for human experiments. There was no way for heroes or knights to enter the scene.
Mordenkainen laughed aloud. “This was just created out of pique. Back then there was a very powerful Summoner. He was arrogant in front of me, saying that Summoners are the most powerful profession—flooding everything with endless summoned creatures—and he also came to trouble me every day. I wasn’t convinced. We Mages aren’t very charismatic, and the creatures we summon are not strong or obedient, but we can build our own.”
Roland was speechless. Although Mordenkainen was ridiculously strong, his unyielding nature was almost like a child’s.
But it was also possible that it was due to this kind of personality that he ended up helping all Mages follow a special path.
Roland said with some admiration, “Looking at this, you definitely came out victorious over that Summoning Warlock.”
“Of course.” Mordenkainen snapped his fingers, and these puppets began an orderly retreat.
They returned to those giant buildings.
“I was actually at a disadvantage at first, because if my puppet was broken that would be it, and it was impossible to repair it urgently on the battlefield, while he only had to summon with all his effort.” Mordenkainen chuckled and said, “So I then invented the self-reparation technique, which allowed the puppet to repair itself limitlessly as long as it stored enough magic power. Then I just drowned that Summoning Warlock in a sea of puppets.”
At this point, Mordenkainen chuckled again. “There is nothing in this world that we Mages can’t do, only things that we can’t think of at the moment.”
Mordenkainen was very old and looked frail as though he might die at any moment. When he spoke, his voice was soft; even his chuckling was soft. It seemed to have no vigor.
However, Roland still heard the wild, unyielding will in his words.
Because the scent of it was just too strong, too obvious.
He was quite unyielding!
Roland tsked inwardly, a little envious.
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He always knew that Mages were strong, but how strong exactly… He had never had a direct impression of what a top-tier Mage was like.
Now he knew.
A Mage like this was a one-man army, a man capable of destroying a country, a man that defied gods.
Seeing that Roland didn’t say anything, Mordenkainen continued, “I can see that you have a very good foundation, even better than when I was young. The path ahead, you can tread it smoothly on your own. All I can teach you are some techniques that you don’t know how to use, like Automatic Reparation and such.”
Roland nodded.
Then Mordenkainen took out a stapled book in his robe and handed it to Roland while saying, “People have a bad memory when they get old and tend to forget things. This should have been given to you a few days ago—remembering and forgetting, delaying this till now!”
It was a notebook without a title.
In Mordenkainen’s time, because of the extreme lack of papermaking, the price of white paper was three times the price of the same weight of gold.
This thick notebook alone was worth at least ten gold coins.
“Thank you, old man.” Roland did not turn it over; after all, there was a tradition of not opening gifts in person. He reckoned this was Mordenkainen’s core personal notes.
“This is my experience when I was building the floating city, some of the problems I encountered, and some of the mistakes I made. You can read it.”
Roland took a deep breath.
The many uses of the floating city had now been seen by Roland. Even Mordenkainen had yet to fully realize the true uses of the floating city.
It was not just an airship—it was an air fortress and a city!
Of course, it wasn’t that Mordenkainen didn’t understand the true uses of the floating city, he was just used to facing everything on his own.
After all, he was a lone wolf.
With the notes, Roland couldn’t say that he would be able to build the floating city any time soon, but at least it was a possibility, and a great one.
“You are still a hundred and eighty thousand miles away from building a floating city, but it doesn’t matter, you have the talent.” Mordenkainen patted Roland’s shoulder and said, “I have high hopes for you, so don’t die too early.”
Roland was tempted to say that he was a Golden Son, a player, and couldn’t die.
But after some thought, he just let it be.
After getting the notes on the floating city, Roland knew that he had profited greatly from this quest.
Not to mention the experience gained after completing an epic-level quest, the automatic reparation and magic sword-crafting techniques alone were worth more than a complete World Tree flower, and even if not more, it was about the same level.
And this notebook that recorded the experience of building the floating city—even if someone offered him five World Tree flowers, Roland wouldn’t want to exchange it.
Although it was quite unpleasant being used as a puppet by the Great Wishing spell, now, Roland just wanted to say… if there were still such a reward, please do it again!
The floating city then drifted casually in the Astral Plane for some time, while the odd, ubiquitous ravings of the Astral Plane grew louder and louder.
Roland already found it somewhat harsh, and Lamia, for her part, couldn’t take it anymore. She started covering her ears with a rather uncomfortable expression.
But this odd murmuring and whispering directly affected the spirit and soul, and covering the ears was completely useless.
It simply depended on the mental power of the person being attacked!
Mordenkainen walked over and smiled slightly. “You know it’s dangerous for you to come, yet you come running here.”
“But I really like the Astral Plane,” said Lamia miserably, crouching on the floor.
Mordenkainen tapped the controls of the floating city and once again the area around them distorted… Soon they were back above the city, then the entire floating city became invisible once more.
Bringing the two back to the manor, Mordenkainen first told Lamia to rest, then said to Roland, “You should also go back, I’m a bit tired. I’ll continue discussing magic theories with you tomorrow.”
Roland nodded and left the manor.
He subconsciously looked at the sky… Above were blue skies and white clouds, and at first glance there was nothing.
But Roland knew that there was a huge, floating city bigger than this whole city parked up there.
“I want to have one myself.”
Roland muttered to himself and opened the guild chat system to find it exploding.
Looking at the timestamps of the chat records, most of them were two or three hours old.
Li Lin: “Oh sh*t, why is it dark?”
Li Lin: “Are my eyes blurring? There’s a floating continent up there.”
Betta: “I saw it too, what’s going on?”
Brazil: “It’s not a quest plot or something like that, right?”
Husseret: ‘I don’t know, why not ask the miraculous Roland right now, @Roland.”
About a few minutes later…
Li Lin: “Roland’s not talking, so it probably has to do with him… F**k, the continent is missing.”
Husseret: “Roland still hasn’t spoken, so it must have something to do with him. The residents around here are pretty calm though. I asked them, they say it’s the floating city of one of the big shots in town.”
Betta: “Brother Roland’s so impressive. Maybe it’s an exaggerated plot where he inherited some ancient magical legacy.”
Brazil: “Could it be… It might be real.”
Seeing this, Roland couldn’t help but speak in the chat: “If I could get that floating city, I could destroy Hollevin by myself.”
Then soon everyone in the guild showed up, and everyone entered question marks.
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