Chapter 208: Breakthrough, First-Level Liquidation

Chapter 208: Breakthrough, First-Level Liquidation

Hearing the patriarch utter the word "surrender," the other three Russell family wizard apprentices all breathed a sigh of relief.

They were truly terrified.

These two puppet maidens were terrifyingly strong!

Not only could they not defeat them, but they couldn't even escape.

Not to mention the army outside, ready to pounce at any moment.

If they continued to resist, they would all lose their lives here.

The Russell family was merely cooperating with the coalition, not willing to sacrifice their lives for it.

"A wise choice," the Red Widow smiled sweetly.

Farkado let out a bitter laugh, his mouth filled with the taste of defeat.

Only now did he deeply realize how foolish their actions had been.

Not long ago, they had thought that by combining their forces, they could match Su Nan.

But reality had slapped them in the face, making them understand the meaning of overestimating themselves.

Su Nan hadn't even shown up; he had just sent two puppets, which nearly wiped them out completely.

Farkado wasn't foolish enough to think that a wizard capable of creating such powerful puppets would be weaker than the puppets themselves.

The power of a full-fledged wizard was truly far beyond his imagination!

Thinking about this, Farkado couldn't help but feel disheartened.

He had once believed that his own power was at the top of the Starlight Continent, that even if he wasn't as strong as a full-fledged wizard, the gap wouldn't be too great.

Now, he realized how arrogant and foolish that thought had been.

Not far away, seeing the battle end in less than ten minutes, with assassins either dead or surrendering, Brad and his companions exchanged glances.

To be honest, when the Red Widow had arrived with only two puppets, they hadn't said anything openly, but they had been deeply worried.

But they hadn't expected these two puppets to be so powerful.

They had utterly crushed the attacking wizard apprentices, like a force of nature!

It was truly astonishing!

"Lord Brad, my mission is complete. I need to return with my people and report back. I'll take my leave here."

The Red Widow's voice snapped Brad out of his thoughts. He quickly bowed slightly, his expression sincere.

"Thank you for your assistance. Please convey my regards to Lord Su Nan."

The Red Widow smiled and nodded, then turned to leave with her puppets and the Russell family members.

Watching them go, Brad finally turned his gaze back to the battlefield.

"Send in the reserve forces. It's time to end this war!"

Gordon immediately drew his weapon and said, "I'll lead the charge. After watching that battle, I'm eager to get into the action and stretch my legs."

This time, Brad didn't stop him, simply waving him on.

With the reserve forces joining the fray, the empire's army intensified its assault, and the coalition began to show signs of collapse.

In the coalition's rear, Eadis watched the scene and immediately understood that Farkado's mission had likely failed.

He sighed deeply, his face turning ashen.

The coalition was finished.

---

In the Lightning Elemental Plane, within a certain elemental space.

Boom!

A brilliant bolt of lightning tore through the void, striking a massive steel golem. The golem's body instantly melted, turning into a mass of half-liquidized scrap metal.

But more golems charged forward without fear, their enchanted fists, dealing minor elemental damage, striking the elemental spirit.

A fierce battle raged on the desolate landscape.

Golems were continuously being reduced to scrap, while elemental spirits let out mournful cries as they dissipated into the air. The elemental dust they left behind was immediately collected by an invisible force and transported to the back of the battlefield, where it vanished into Su Nan's palm.

Looking at the mountain of elemental dust in his spatial ring, Su Nan's face broke into a faint smile.

After discovering the method of synthesizing elemental cores from elemental dust and absorbing divine energy from them, he had devoted most of his energy to hunting elemental spirits.

To improve his hunting efficiency, Su Nan had deployed a golem army, spreading his energy fluctuations to lure the elemental spirits. The golems then dealt with them, while he focused on being the lure and collector.

This method greatly increased the efficiency of gathering elemental dust.

The downside was the consumption of golems.

But compared to using enchanted gems to hunt elemental giants, the cost was negligible.

Before long, all the elemental spirits within a ten-kilometer radius had been eradicated.

Estimating that the area was now clear, Su Nan recalled the golems, opened a spatial channel, and returned to the Dragon Skeleton Tower.

Sitting cross-legged beside the elemental pool, Su Nan took out the elemental dust and synthesized an elemental core, then immediately began absorbing it.

After nearly a year of hunting and absorption, his mental condensation had already reached the brink of a breakthrough.

As more than ten standard units of divine energy were assimilated and fused, his mental power finally broke through the barrier, undergoing a qualitative transformation.

Deep within his consciousness, the gaseous mental energy that had been slowly flowing around the innate crystal suddenly paused. It then condensed like it had encountered a cold front, forming tiny droplets that rained down.

Before long, the mist vanished completely, replaced by a stream of water that circled the innate crystal like a galactic band.

The water was crystal clear, flowing slowly around the innate crystal, and one could almost hear the pleasant sound of trickling water.

"Success!"

Su Nan opened his eyes, summoned the interface, and looked at the [Liquification: 0.01%]. A genuine smile of joy spread across his face.

Finally, a breakthrough!

From becoming a wizard to now, it had only been twelve short years.

In such a short time, advancing from the first stage of gasification to the first stage of liquification, he could already be considered highly impressive in any era of wizardry, except for the True Spirit descendants.

Although the quantity of mental power seemed to decrease when transitioning from gas to liquid, the quality increased significantly, more than doubling the overall strength compared to the gasification stage.

At the same level, a first-stage liquified wizard could completely overwhelm a first-stage gasified wizard, regardless of any hidden cards or ultimate techniques.

After a while, Su Nan calmed down from his excitement. Seeing that there were still five standard units of divine energy left in the elemental dust, he absorbed them all at once.

His mental condensation increased to 0.2%.

"About fifty standard units of divine energy are needed to increase the mental condensation by 1%."

As expected, after breaking through to the liquification stage, increasing mental condensation had become much more difficult, just as Su Nan had anticipated.

However, he quickly regained his spirits.

With the method to synthesize elemental cores, he could break through to the first-stage crystallization in about fifty to sixty years at most.

This speed far exceeded that of most first-stage wizards.

Especially in the current Starlight Continent, it was almost unimaginable.

"After breaking through to the first-stage crystallization, I need to construct a second innate crystal."

"I need to decide what model of innate crystal to construct first."

Among the innate crystal models he obtained from the Starlight Tower, the best one was only intermediate, which Su Nan naturally found unsatisfactory.

He still planned to synthesize a super innate crystal model similar to 'liquid metal.'

Before breaking through to the crystallization stage, it would be best to prepare the corresponding innate crystal model.

Researching the innate crystal model, hunting elemental spirits, and constructing a wizard tower—all these tasks suddenly made Su Nan realize he had quite a lot on his plate.

And each one would consume a significant amount of time and energy.

Fortunately, the Star Alliance and the surface world didn't require his attention at the moment, or he would have been busy to the point of neglecting one task for another.

Stretching, Su Nan looked at the elemental pool beside him.

After expansion, the energy absorption rate and capacity of the elemental pool had significantly improved, increasing by about 15% compared to before.

Don't be fooled by just a 15% increase; the various gems and rare metals used were worth over 2.3 million gold coins.

However, the results were very noticeable.

The increase in energy capacity was self-evident, and Longlin now had more leeway in energy usage.

Most importantly, the efficiency of meditation and the speed of mental power recovery had also improved.

"Unfortunately, it hasn't reached the standard size of a small elemental pool yet; otherwise, the effect would have improved by at least 50%."

Su Nan estimated that the elemental pool of the Dragon Skeleton Tower could still be expanded to enhance its effects, but the cost-effectiveness was extremely low. It would be better to use the gold coins to build a wizard tower and construct a new elemental pool as soon as possible.

A standard small elemental pool would significantly boost his cultivation efficiency.

"For now, I can only use fourth-stage soul crystal potions; fifth-stage potions require the mental power of a first-stage crystallization wizard to handle."

"Engraved gems, forbidden zones, and Black Thunder can also be synthesized and upgraded further."

After breaking through to the liquification stage, Su Nan's mental power had clearly increased, and his load capacity had also risen, allowing him to increase the number of synthesized engraved gems and wizard artifacts.

Deciding on the next steps, Su Nan began to ponder the construction of the wizard tower.

He already had a wealth of knowledge about building a wizard tower in his head. Over the years, he had collected many books on the subject through various channels, and the books from the Starlight Tower had further enriched his knowledge. In terms of knowledge, he was well-prepared for the construction of the wizard tower.

It was time to put his plans into action.

First, he needed to consider the levels of wizard towers.

In the classification of wizard civilization, wizard towers are divided into small, medium, and large, in ascending order of scale.

The larger the scale, the more expensive the tower.

The cost of the most basic small wizard tower is measured in billions of gold coins.

As for medium and large wizard towers, their costs are so astronomical that they can't even be measured in gold coins.

Without at least two or more colonized planes supplying resources, it's impossible to construct medium or large wizard towers.

Su Nan was well aware of his limitations.

Building medium or large wizard towers was out of the question; even if he dismantled the entire Starlight Continent, he couldn't build one.

His goal from the beginning had always been to construct a small wizard tower.

As for the even more advanced floating cities, which are war constructs, they were the domain of True Spirit Wizards, a level he was far from reaching.

"Even a small wizard tower isn't easy to build."

A wizard tower can be roughly divided into three main parts: energy supply, spatial planning, and combat systems.

First is the energy supply, which can be further divided into the elemental pool, floating rings, and the central crystal energy transmission system.

The elemental pool is the most fundamental and core facility of a wizard tower, serving as its energy supply.

A complete elemental pool must connect to multiple elemental planes, drawing elemental energy to create a complete cycle, providing a constant supply of energy to the wizard tower.

To put it simply, the elemental pool is like a hydroelectric power station; as long as the elemental channels remain open, it continuously generates energy.

A small elemental pool can meet the basic needs of a small wizard tower, including recharging golems, operating combat systems, and providing regular applications such as lighting, experimentation, and transformation.

Excess energy can be stored for emergencies.

The larger the elemental pool, the more energy it can supply and store, and the more intense battles it can handle.

Typically, a small wizard tower corresponds to a small elemental pool.

However, if the construction skills and financial resources are sufficient, a medium or even a large elemental pool can be built.

But doing so would significantly increase the cost.

A small elemental pool already costs tens of millions of gold coins, while a medium elemental pool costs over ten times that, and requires numerous rare materials.

Among these is the elemental source crystal, a rare material that only drops from elemental giant elder spirits.

Although Su Nan would love to build a medium elemental pool, he simply doesn't have the means at this stage.

"I'll build a small elemental pool for now. It's enough for my needs, and I can upgrade it later if necessary."

The second part of the energy supply is the floating ring, which, as the name suggests, is the device that allows the entire wizard tower to fly.

This device requires a large amount of mithril, which is also very expensive.

The last part, the central crystal energy transmission system, is not as expensive as the elemental pool or floating ring, but it's still not cheap.

Its principle is to connect the entire wizard tower to the Crystal Vein, allowing the energy from the elemental pool to be transmitted to all parts of the tower. It's an upgraded version of the mana transmission pipelines laid in the original Base 1.

The central crystal energy transmission system is an indispensable part of the wizard tower.

Su Nan estimated that just for the energy supply alone, the elemental pool, floating ring, and central crystal energy transmission system would require at least fifty million gold coins worth of materials.

And many of these materials, even if he had the money, would be difficult to gather in a short time.

For example, mithril.

Despite the vast size of the Star Alliance, the annual production of mithril is less than fifty kilograms.

Building just the floating ring alone would require two to three thousand kilograms of mithril.

Add in the consumption of other facilities, and the total would likely exceed five thousand kilograms!

Even if he saved every bit of mithril, it would take at least a century to accumulate enough.

This was undoubtedly a heart-stopping number!

"Since it will take one or two centuries to complete the entire wizard tower, I can slowly accumulate the materials during that time."

Su Nan thought about it and decided to delay the construction of the floating ring until he had enough mithril.

(End of Chapter)

Chapter end