Chapter 208: Eighty

“What do you mean?” The battle had been going on for so long that even Solomon was already numb. He only knew how to keep casting, as if everything else had nothing to do with him. Even when he heard Lin Yun’s rejoicing voice, Solomon only dispiritedly asked this question.

But after asking, Solomon seemed to realize something, and he quickly recovered. “You got it?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Great…” Solomon truly was almost tearful.

As the two talked, the hundred or so lesser arrays Lin Yun had drawn on the tree trunk started working. They were used to sever mana transmission, destroy mana circuits, bypass mana, and attenuate effects. It was accurate and complex, like a machine with countless components.

As the lesser arrays operated on the True Spirit level array, the originally methodical mana flow suddenly became chaotic. All the mana circuits seemed to be blocked, unable to smoothly connect as they had been able to before. In a blink, several hundred mana nodes were terminated, and even the ones that hadn’t been terminated were greatly weakened, unable to display their desired effects. In this short moment, the entire True Spirit array began to shut down.

After losing the support of the True Spirit array, the almost tangible aura of life started dispersing. At first, it was only thinning to some extent, but as the hundred lesser arrays continued to do their work, the life aura dissipated faster and faster.

The dense beast tide also seemed to feel it…

Most of them were frozen on the spot, feeling hesitant… On one hand, they felt the power that had been strengthening them now dissipating, but on the other hand, they would hate to part with the prey right before their eyes.

But now that Lin Yun was free from having to work on the array, it wouldn’t be as hard as before. The Spiritual Magic Staff appeared in his hands, and Syudos came out of the Magic Arrays, spreading a sea of fire in the forest.

This was enough to turn a dozen magic beasts into coal.

“Still not fleeing?”

As if startled by Lin Yun’s cold snort, the horde of beasts suddenly retreated. That last prey’s display was too frightening. When Solomon recovered, not one living magic beast was left in the surroundings. Only blood and corpses filled his sight, all of which had been the result of the previous battle.

“Xiuban, gather the mana crystals.”

“Sir…” Xiuban was lying on the ground, panting heavily. After going through such an intense battle, the Draconic Beastman only wanted to lay down to nap. Hearing Lin Yun’s order to gather the mana crystals, he looked up sullenly, about to complain.

“You can have a quarter of them after gathering them all up.”

“I’ll go immediately, Sir!” When the half-dead Draconic Beastman heard that, he suddenly got up, no longer showing any signs of fatigue.

‘Sure enough, using the carrot and the stick is the most efficient way to deal with a Highland Beastman.’

“Merlin, the camp…” Although the beast tide here had already been taken care of, Solomon was still worried about the camp.

“There shouldn’t be any problem with the camp. You can go back to take a look if you want.” Lin Yun was quite positive about that. After he cracked the True Spirit array, the aura of life disappeared and the Four Seasons Canyon seemed to return to normal. There was no longer the vigorous mana and crazy vitality pervading the area.

“What about you?”

“I want to research this array.” Lin Yun shook his head. He didn’t plan to leave for now.

For a Master Alchemist, being able to research the array of an Artisan was a very rare opportunity.

Especially now, it was even more rare to be able to study an Artisan’s array that had been cracked.

This was like fully displaying the workings of the True Spirit array in front of Lin Yun, leaving all the secrets and details were plainly visible to him.

This was a temptation that a Master Alchemist couldn’t resist.

How could Lin Yun give up on such an opportunity?

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About ten minutes later, Xiuban finished gathering the mana crystals and took his share without being polite. Moreover, Lin Yun noticed that the greedy Draconic Beastman took the mana crystals with the best quality.

Fortunately, due to Solomon and Badrack’s powerful backgrounds, they didn’t consider the pile of mana crystals as anything particularly valuable. To them, it was only a small, unexpected windfall, so they turned a blind eye as Xiuban stuffed his pockets and just took their own shares before rushing out of the field of corpses and blood.

After the two left, Xiuban and Lin Yun were the only ones remaining in the forest…

The surroundings were filled with corpses, and the blood had already dyed the soil red. But Lin Yun didn’t care about that. All his attention was focused on the True Spirit array. Relying on Sharp Mind, Lin Yun started analyzing the entire array, cutting, reorganizing, and deducing…

The whole process continued for no less than an hour…

Eventually, Sharp Mind’s effect gradually vanished. Lin Yun was smiling, feeling satisfied. The gains of that hour were simply too great. The problems he had been facing before had been solved during this hour, and Lin Yun could feel that he was approaching the Artisan realm.

From now on, the Artisan realm was no longer out of his reach, it was no longer something that only existed in his imagination. Since he touched upon the Artisan realm, it would only be a matter of time and opportunity.

After digesting what he had learned during this hour, Lin Yun stood up in front of the ancient tree.

It was somewhat strange… That ancient tree’s many branches were covered with lush leaves. It obviously looked like it was in the prime of its life, but after Lin Yun broke the array, the aura of life slowly dispersed and the ancient tree’s vitality seemed to quickly drain away.

“I might as well give you a hand…” Lin Yun saw this and knew that this ancient tree wouldn’t be able to survive. Once its vitality was completely gone, it would fall on its own.

Lin Yun steeled his heart and ruthlessly cast a Wither spell…

The 3rd Tier spell was very effective against plant lifeforms, and Lin Yun used the power of his Magic Array to further increase its might. The ancient tree that had already been slowly losing its vitality was now visibly withering.

The green leaves turned yellow, the huge trunk started losing its bark, and the lush branches drooped down powerlessly…

In the end, this tree that had been several hundred meters tall collapsed with a rumbling sound.

‘I want to see what kind of secrets you were hiding…’ Lin Yun walked to the collapsed tree and summoned five Rock Puppets to unearth it.

After another hour or so and four batches of Rock Puppets, the whole tree was unearthed. After everything was cleared up, a deep tunnel over ten meters wide stretched in front of him. The bottom of the tunnel couldn’t be seen.

Lin Yun first cast a Mage Eye…

But that Mage Eye soon met a very powerful mana disturbance and dissipated before it could see anything useful.

“Eh!” Lin Yun suddenly shook. It had been a very powerful mana interference. He was now convinced that something strange was hiding down there.

After considering his options, Lin Yun cast Mage Sight on a Rock Puppet and cast a Light spell to shine into the tunnel before commanding the Rock Puppet to walk into the depths of the tunnel.

Sure enough, the tunnel wasn’t bottomless…

It took the Rock Puppet three minutes to walk to the end of the tunnel, but the only thing it found was… nothing. There wasn’t a single thing there that could have caused the Mage Eye to dissipate.

‘How could this be?’ Lin Yun felt a bit baffled. ‘Is the secret deeper? If so, the excavating might take quite a while…’

Lin Yun thought about it, but he wasn’t convinced easily. He sent the other four puppets and began searching every corner of the tunnel.

Only then did Lin Yun find a small flicker in a corner of the tunnel…

After checking it carefully, he guessed that it was a gem of some sort. It didn’t seem to be of high quality, and it was only issuing a faint red color. It was about as big as an egg, with rounded ends and a plump middle, in an oval shape.

Lin Yun hurriedly chanted an incantation and ordered the five Rock Puppets to bring the gem out.

‘Sure enough, it holds very powerful mana…’ As the gem appeared before his eyes, Lin Yun understood why the Mage Eye had disappeared. It was because of the mana emitted by the precious gem. It was a mana crystal that was at least level 25 and extremely pure, to the point that even a Magic Apprentice could absorb mana from it.

But apart from that, Lin Yun couldn’t see anything. After studying it for a long time, the fact that it had pure and abundant mana was still the only thing about it that seemed remarkable to him. Just as he planned to put it in his pocket to study it later, Shawn, who was always busy absorbing mana, exclaimed in shock, “To hell with it! Throw that away! Quick, throw that thing away! Do you want to die?!”