End of the Magic Era

It obviously couldn’t escape.

Even a Draconic Beastman couldn’t escape from the binding power of the Flame Shackles, let alone some weeds.

Under the rotation of the Magic Arrays, the Flame Shackles burst with high temperature and turned the weeds into ashes in less than a second. At the same time, a shadow escaped from the ashes. It was as fast as lightning as it instantly escaped from the binding of the Flame Shackles.

Lin Yun then saw a flower appear in front of him as it passed through the Lava Shelter, apparently planning on escaping into the forest.

But Lin Yun didn’t seem to be in a hurry.

Just as the shadow passed through the Lava Shelter, Lin Yun raised the Spiritual Magic Staff in his hand and cast Mind Intimidation. The spell didn’t have much destructive power and was typically used by mages to pressure inferior opponents. But now, only a sharp hiss could be heard as the lightning fast shadow froze in place.

The shadow stopped moving, but it wouldn’t be for more than a second.

“Syudos!” But for Lin Yun, one second was more than enough. As his Magic Arrays rotated, the Upper Rank Flame Spirit was already rushing out.

In a flash, the flame and the shadow became entangled.

Syudos, as an Upper Rank Flame Spirit, was already a very powerful existence. Although the shadow was ever-changing and had the ability to absorb the best features from all the plants that it encountered, it was still far too inferior in front of Syudos. Syudos had transformed into raging flames and wrapped around the shadow. Although the latter was still struggling, it was slowly becoming powerless…

In the end, the shadow completely disappeared in the flames, and the originally thumb-sized Syudos had now turned into a plump ball the size of a fist, while the fierce flames that had been raging seemed to have mellowed out after swallowing that shadow, as if they had eaten to their heart’s content and needed to sleep.

“Truly delicious,” Syudos lazily belched as he licked his flaming lips before returning into Lin Yun’s body. Under the help of the nine Magic Arrays, he began digesting the power of that shadow…

“…” Lin Yun scratched his cheek, thinking, ‘Why are they all gluttons…?’

“Merlin…” Solomon was dumbstruck as he called Lin Yun’s name, but he remained silent because he didn’t know what to ask…

“It’s nothing, just a spirit.” Lin Yun knew what he wanted to ask, but there was no time to go into the details. Once the soul of a Parasitic Tree disappeared, its body would wither in less than ten minutes. Lin Yun had to hurry and find the body of the Parasitic Tree during that time.

After hurriedly dealing with Solomon, Lin Yun cast eight Mage Eyes in a row, and the search was a lot smoother this time. He hadn’t even needed Solomon’s help as it only took two or three minutes for the first batch of Mage Eyes to find a short sapling not far from there.

It didn’t seem too different from an ordinary sapling, but after examining carefully, he discovered that this short sapling was growing extremely well. The branches were covered with leaves and gave off the feeling of being full of vitality. It could clearly be seen that this sapling was growing next to a Spirit Absorbing Tree. Spirit Absorbing Trees were very precious magic materials, and a Magic Staff crafted from a Spirit Absorbing Tree would sell for 10,000 golds at the very least.

Moreover, the fruits of a Spirit Absorbing Tree had some mana amplification effects. Many mages liked to have the fruits laid out when receiving guests.

But Spirit Absorbing Trees had a special characteristic.

Once rooted, they would plunder all resources nearby… Sunshine, air, moisture, mana, everything within ten meters would be used to help the Spirit Absorbing Tree mature. No other plants could exist there, not even weeds.

But now, this sapling was growing next to the Spirit Absorbing Tree and didn’t seem to be affected by it at all. And not only did it seem immune to the harmful effects, but it even was slanting towards the Spirit Absorbing Tree. From the state of the soil, it could also be seen that the roots of the short sapling were also spreading in the same direction and would soon be entangled with the Spirit Absorbing Tree.

Such aggressiveness and shamelessness, if it wasn’t the Parasitic Tree, then what else could it be?

If not for Lin Yun and Solomon, it might have slowly coiled around the Spirit Absorbing Tree, just like a spider webbing its prey, coiling and binding it before leaving it to choke.

“Merlin, you were looking for this?” Solomon looked at it for a while and couldn’t see what was so special about it. He couldn’t help frowning as he asked.

“Yes, with this sapling, I’ll be able to compound a Rebirth Potion for you once we return. If you are lucky enough, you’ll only need three months before being able to return to Okland with the status of an Archmage.”

“Allow me!” Solomon didn’t raise any objections and pulled up his sleeves to start digging.

A few minutes later, Lin Yun threw the Parasitic Tree into his spatial ring before he and Solomon started converging with Fran and Suyass.

The two seemed to also have had a good harvest, especially Fran. When they gathered, Fran’s face was so red from excitement that there was no need to ask to know that he had definitely gotten something good.

After the four of them arrived, they chatted a bit before talking about their harvest. Of course, they hid many things within their words. Who would be foolish enough to tell everything to others from potentially competing factions? Thus, the discussion could be considered rather lighthearted, as they just chatted for the sake of chatting.

“I studied the Maze Array just now,” Suyass said before fishing out a few pieces of paper from his pockets. “I found out that I seemed to have missed a crucial module, but I’m not too sure… Great Mage Merlin, take a look at it…”

“Fortune Box.” Lin Yun only took one glance and knew that Suyass indeed had made a mistake.

The Fortune Box was a small array typically inlaid in relatively large-scale arrays. It could be used as a module, but most of the time, this module was used for escaping because the Fortune Box’s only function was teleportation. It triggered random teleportation within a fixed range.

Many alchemists liked to add a Fortune Box on top of their defensive arrays so that they could use the random teleportation to escape if the defense was broken.

But to add a Fortune Box in a Maze Array was a bit reckless.

Unfortunately, the twenty members of the joint exploration team had become victims of that recklessness.

“Yes, Fortune Box, I truly didn’t think that someone would embed a Fortune Box in a Maze Array. Was he not afraid that the random teleportation function of the Fortune Box would cause the destruction of the array…?” Suyass thought about it and couldn’t understand how there could be such a reckless alchemist.

“Haha…” Seeing Suyass’ vexed appearance, Lin Yun couldn’t help chuckling.

But in his heart, he was more and more suspicious about the Maze Array. The appearance of that Fortune Box confirmed his conjecture that this didn’t suit Vaughn’s style. With Vaughn’s cautiousness, he definitely wouldn’t do something so reckless that could cause the destruction of the entire Maze Array. Vaughn was someone who pursued perfection through details.

“But since it’s a Fortune Box, the others shouldn’t have too much trouble…” Lin Yun thought for a bit before smiling.

“Yes…” Suyass was also a Master Alchemist, and his understanding of the Fortune Box wasn’t much inferior to Lin Yun’s. The random teleportation function of the Fortune Box was limited to a fixed range. The botanical garden the four of them ended up in was definitely within Vaughn’s laboratory.

In other words, the others very likely had been teleported somewhere within the laboratory. Thus, they would inevitably end up meeting each other.

“Merlin, well, you see…” Suyass didn’t dare to consider Lin Yun as a mere Great Mage anymore. He even changed the way he addressed him to be more familiar.

“We should leave this place first.” Lin Yun looked around and concluded that they were at the edge of the botanical garden. He thought for a bit before adding, “But be careful…”

“Ah?”

Suyass was a bit confused, as this was only a botanical garden. Besides all kinds of plants, they hadn’t found a single living animal, not to mention any other dangers…

“Merlin, aren’t you too careful? This is only a botanical garden, nothing more…” Perhaps due to his previous harvest being quite sizable, Fran was currently in a good mood. After not having said anything to Lin Yun for a few days, he now said a rare few words to him.

And as he said that, he brazenly stepped forward.

“Careful!” When Lin Yun saw that, he inwardly scolded, ‘Truly a pig-like teammate.’

Unfortunately, there was no time. Just as Lin Yun’s warning echoed, a ray of magic brushed past Fran’s head.

No, not just one…

There were several rays…

From the quiet botanical garden, several dozen rays of magic shot in all directions: ice, fire, lightning, light. All kinds of elemental rays suddenly shot at the four of them, making them crouch down, unable to raise their heads.