Chapter 512 - Yongye City
Chapter 512: Yongye City
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
Dark incantations echoed in the air, while silver-white ancient runes started appearing in the sky. Healing, Protection, Curse, Instant Death, and other such magic spells activated as the dark city was surprisingly covered in a shield of light. This was enough to make anyone’s eyeglasses fall off in surprise... if the undead needed eyeglasses.
Yongye City was a floating city with an area of twenty-one square kilometers. If you only looked at its area, it could only count as a small- to medium-sized city. However, it came complete with alchemy laboratories, potion laboratories, mage towers, and all similar facilities. I had created it using the Cloud Tower’s most basic blueprints on floating cities.
The city’s population was a grand total of three... myself, Harloys, and Mars. If you counted the Goddess of Order, I suppose you could stretch it and say the population was four. That was because Yongye City typically remained within my personal Hell dimension. As another part of Hell, its aura of death wasn’t something that any ordinary mortal could tolerate.
What I was the proudest of was the fact that the entire building cost for this city was only five thousand gold coins!
That was right, you didn’t read wrong. It didn’t cost five million gold coins, or five thousand platinum coins. It cost a mere five thousand gold coins!
“...It’s nice to have so many friends. Everyone is a good person that loves to help out.”
“Don’t you actually mean that you’re the most shameless person who’s ever lived? Are you certain that your friends won’t actually hunt you down to the end of the world?”
“Haha, haven’t you noticed how I’ve been concealing my identity? They’d have to find me first.”
The base city was a floating city that I obtained through Wind Elemental God Camdian’s Winged Tribe. The main mage tower was actually Undead Emperor Aso’s mage tower from the Mage Country. One sub-tower was a Soul Summoning Tower that I’d personally constructed out of Harloys’ and Amelia’s inheritances from the Mage Country. As for the all the main facilities such as experimental laboratories and the equipment within, I had robbed— I meant, borrowed them long-term for free from certain warm and friendly mage organizations.
There were so many robbery victims of such high levels that this incident had set a new record for robbery in history. This was also one of the main reasons why the gold reward on the wanted posters for catching me had increased at such a furious rate. It was said that after I finished, the Cloud Tower and Xiluo Empire had to completely redraw the maps of their mage districts. Similar angry roars of rage could be heard everywhere there.
“Roland, you won’t die a good death! You... it would have been fine if you just stole a few scrolls and spellcasting ingredients, but you actually stole my entire residence and mage tower!”
Bystanders found it quite difficult to understand why all the super-famous archmages, great liches, and wise scholars suddenly ignored their public image and kneeled in public while crying and roaring in rage at the heavens. But at the very least, the name Roland was now all mages’ worst nightmare as public enemy number one.
Cough, I should really stop mentioning such an annoying part of the past. It was all their fault for setting so many magical traps and mechanisms. Since it was too much of a bother to circumvent them, I simply took their entire homes... Cough, cough, getting back to the main topic, as a mage, how could I not have a mage tower for myself? After the bothersome creation of Hell was finally over with, I finally had the time to create a flying home for myself.
And since this was my first personal mage tower, of course I wouldn’t create it out of random odds and ends. If I created one, I wanted the very best! So I would steal, and steal the very best!
“The magical library? And the mega-large astrology prophecy observatory?”
“Margaret— I meant, a certain saint donated it to me. At any rate, she hasn’t had the time to read for such a long time already, so I’m putting it to good use for her sake.”
“The astronomy observatory and large-scale replica of the constellations?”
“The Fate God Church donated it to me. They were truly such nice people. Besides, their True God has now joined as a Hell God, so Catio won’t be observing the stars to make any prophecies anymore.”
“...Are you really sure that directly taking the main astronomy observatory in their church headquarters at the Cloud Tower counts as them donating it to you? Are you certain that the Riddle Knights (the Fate God Church’s version of Holy Knights) going crazy looking for you everywhere are looking for you just to thank you for your kindness? Do you dare to have a personal chat with the God of Fate Catio himself?”
“Of course... not. Hey, isn’t this all because you strongly requested a nice astronomy observatory? My prophecy magic skills are so garbage. I wouldn’t need such a high-quality astronomy observatory if it wasn’t for your needing one. If I’m the main culprit, you’re an accomplice!”
The silly cat fell silent for a moment. She then changed the topic to the tallest sub-tower in Yongye City.
“That Soul Summoning Tower? Well, I suppose that was one of the only things you’ve obtained legitimately because Lionheart was willing to give it to you. A gigantic Soul Summoning Tower that’s more than three hundred meters tall? Just one soul summoning could probably empty all the graveyards in an entire country. He actually gave you such a large-scale weapon to play with? He really spoils you too much.”
“What do you mean, spoils me too much? This is my personal charisma! Little Lionheart respects and trusts me, and believes that I’ll put this tower to good use! This is trust! Do you understand?”
“Trust? Then what’s this shield of Holy Light around Yongye City? You took the entire Saint Laivent Cathedral from the Church of Holy Light! Since when did you and Pope Caloma have a ‘trusting’ relationship? And, if I’m not mistaken, that ancient Tree of Life should belong to the wood elves.”
Previously, I had obtained the blueprint for the original Cloud Tower from my System. But, actually, Yongye City’s functions far surpassed the original Cloud Tower’s. That was because each and every single part of this mage tower was the best quality in this world.
And now, I felt extraordinarily comfortable making use of this incredibly solid mage tower, being able to sit here so casually while casting spells. This was despite the fact that I was facing an Undead Emperor’s army.
Conservation attacked from a mega-long distance three more times, yet Yongye City was able to block all of her attacks. The outer defense runes weren’t even shaken in the slightest. After seeing that she was unable to obtain any results, Conservation unhesitatingly gave up her attacks.
The glorious runes of Holy Light protecting Yongye City were a “generous donation” from the Holy Church’s artifacts and relic storage. Thanks to the generosity of the Holy Church, this defensive barrier was the purest Holy Light. This made it supremely effective at defending against all undead magic and negative energy magic attacks.
*Boom!*
Conservation suddenly sent a surprise attack, but it failed yet again. It would seem that for the short time being, I wouldn’t have to worry about her long-distance attacks.
Yongye City as my complete mage tower was definitely the strongest and most practical mage tower in the entire world. It was all made possible thanks to my good friends sponsoring me. Thank you so much, old friends of mine!
“Heh heh, according to ancient traditions, after a mage tower’s completion, we should be inviting those who’ve helped us to drink some champagne and set off some fireworks while touring the tower.”
“...If we invite everyone, are you certain that they wouldn’t rather drink my blood and tie me to the fireworks?” I casually responded to the silly cat’s joke.
Actually, Harloys had been a great help in the construction of this entire Yongye City. She had provided me with plenty of information on “generous donors”. So, if I was caught, she wouldn’t be any better off than me.
No mage in the world would be able to resist the temptation of a mage tower. In magic society, common sense dictated that only a mage with a mage tower could be considered the real deal. A mage in his own mage tower would be able to fight off even a God. A mage without a mage tower was nothing more than a half-baked mage who could only work for others and sleep outside. Even a regular bandit could steal such a mage’s wallet while he was sleeping or slit his throat unnoticed.
Mage towers were useful to mages in countless ways. The towers weren’t simply residences for researching magic in. They were fortresses in combat, and allowed mages to cast spells in peace without worrying about their back. The towers were also mana replenishing pools that could multiply a mage’s mana by more than thirty times over.
“Super tactical spell recharged, countdown, three, two...”
Supersized versions of basic spells had always been criticized for being highly ineffective. A super version was only an enlarged version of a basic spell with limited area of effect, and if you wanted to strengthen the effects, you would have to overload the spell even more. This would have a tremendous and inefficient cost on smaller battlefields, so supersized spells were rarely if ever used there.
But on larger battlefields, supersized spells could change even the most basic magic spell into a killer ace card capable of turning around the situation.
“...One. Release, super tactical spell: Ice Wall!”
I pointed towards the holographic image of the land before me, creating an image of an ice wall spreading across the map. And within Yongye City, all the mage towers and sub-towers lit up as a snow-white glow gathered upon their tips. Finally, all the white light gathered together, accumulating, condensing, and finally shooting out a bright white torrent of light.
White snowflakes began to fall down from the sky. The undead, who didn’t fear the snow, continued on as they always did. But, suddenly, a five-meter tall ice wall appeared right before them!
Finally, when the white flow finally all disappeared on the holographic map before me, Yongye City’s energy level had decreased by 7%. The result was that an entire wall of ice had been erected in front of the entire undead army.
All the undead’s soulfire flickered with a blue-green light as they just received a direct command from their master Conservation—they had to break past this ice wall.
This would appear to be a correct decision as the undead weren’t afraid of the cold and the ice wall itself had no attack power whatsoever. It would be simple enough to climb over it.
The undead were highly on guard as they stared at the mage tower city in the skies. But, to their surprise, the mage tower city didn’t send out a single attack as the undead climbed the ice wall.
But soon, a strange change came over all the undead that were forcefully trying to climb the wall. They kept moving slower and slower, until finally their entire bodies froze into ice, with even their soulfires freezing over.
The undead climbing the wall included low-level skeletons, as well as high-level liches and death knights. However, they all froze simultaneously at exactly the same speed.
High-level undead would always have ridiculously high levels of ice resistance. Yet, they had also been frozen solid without even realizing it. This abnormal scenario struck terror into all the intelligent undead.
“Such idiots. They actually dared to touch my ice magic creation, and even stay on it for so long.”
[Hibernation Chill]—this ice magic passive ability of mine which slowly froze enemies eternally in time had stayed with me even though I’ve lost my Frigidwinter Earth. The moment that the undead touched that ice wall, the [Hibernation Chill] upon the wall started imperceptibly affecting them, slowing down their senses until they all finally went into an eternal rest.
Of course, I was no idiot antagonist who would tell my enemy about how I was winning when I had the upper hand. In my opinion, true villainy was all about killing my enemies without even letting them know how they died.
Just as I was preparing another magic spell, Conservation counterattacked.