Hail the King - Chapter 159.1

Chapter 159: Vigorous Change PART 1

After returning back to the mountains of bones, Fei found the Priestess and the “obscene” old man crawling up at the middle of the “mountain” trying to dig up something. From their expressions, they looked like they were two abandoned dogs who were digging up treasures from a pile of garbage. Under the mountain, there was already a temporary tent constructed close to it. There was even a blacksmith forge, anvil and all the necessities required for blacksmithing set up in front of the tent. With help from a few female rogues, the female Blacksmith Charsi was already swinging her hammer and forging something with tinking sounds resonating in this space. In front of her, there was already a big pile of white bone weapons.

The heavy magic hammer was very agile in Charsi’s hands as it turned into a dark shadow. Fei couldn’t even spot it. This beautiful female blacksmith was definitely used to forging these bones; when she swung the hammer, Fei felt like he was watching a graceful angel dance. Her red hair jumped in the air like cute fairies and made the audience feel like they were watching a dazzling beauty.

After Fei completed all the quests in 【Rogue Encampment】with all seven of his characters, everyone in 【Rogue Encampment】had their skills leveled up; Charsi’s forging skills, Akara’s potion and scroll creating skills, Old man Cain’s magic researching and item identifying skills, and the fatty Gheed’s lying and cheating skills were all upgraded. Therefore, Fei already expected Charsi to get used to forging these [Remains of Demons]. This female blacksmith’s forging skilled leveled up at least one level, and she was able to forge more powerful items and magic items.

“Mister Fei, you finally returned?” After seeing Fei walking back, Charsi waved and said to him excitedly, “Aunt Akara and Mister Cain made new discoveries. Look around at these stone pillars; it’s unbelievable that they are all made from 【Black Stone Essence】ores…” As she said, she took out a piece of black stone and showed Fei. “Look, it is the magic metal that only exists in legends. Although it’s not as hard as [Remains of Demons], it has a better plasticity for being forged into armor. On the Rogue Continent, many legendary weapons and items were made from this rare metal!”

“Uh… I didn’t expect that this space would be filled with treasures. No wonder why this is called the Mythical Ruins that could create numerous super powerful empires!” Fei thought as he grabbed the stone and rubbed it with his fingers. As he was feeling the firmness and coldness from the stone and his joy, he suddenly thought of something and asked, “Wait, then how do we forge these ores? Are there some f*cked up requirements?”

“Bingo! You got it this time!” The old man Cain suddenly appeared behind Fei with a brand new bone cane that Charsi made for him. Fei turned around and got scared for a second. This old man was completely white; white hair, white beard, white cane, and a white robe. If this old man also jumped around, he would find the White Emissaries from Ancient Chinese Legends and compete on who better satisfied the job criteria. The old man looked around at the huge stone pillars with greedy lights shining from his eyes as he said, “These 【Black Stone Essence】are hard to forge. If you want to extract these essences, you will need to use the fire from the deepest part of hell – 【Flame of Earth Core】!”

“Flame of Earth Core?”

“Eh, it is a terrifying flame that uses the demon’s forces as fuel and has devastating power. According to rumors, it was said that this flame could burn everything in this world. According to legends, there is a 【River of Flames】at a place called 【Pandemonium Fortress】that is at the far east from 【Rogue Encampment】, and the river is filled with 【Flame of Earth Core】that will continue burning forever. If you want to forge these rare ores, you will need to get that flame!”

“It sounds very complicated!”

Fei rubbed his chin out of habit as he spoke. If he remember everything correctly, there was a place called 【Pandemonium Fortress】in the Diablo World. That was the fourth map and hardest map in the Diablo World after he completed the first three maps: 【Rogue Encampment】,【Lut Gholein】, and 【Kurast Dock】. The second quest in that map was called 【The Hellforge】, and he would have to go to a river called 【River of Flames】that was located in a dark underground world there orange lava floated everywhere. The fire in that place was probably the 【Flames of Earth Core】that the old man Cain was talking about. But it was way too hard for Fei to get that fire! Fei just entered the second map【Lut Gholein】and was still far away from the fourth map 【Pandemonium Fortress】; the most optimistic estimate would be a year before he could get to that place.

“It is really hard; almost no one was able to get from Rogue Continent to 【Pandemonium Fortress】alive in the legends. However, hehe, the situation isn’t as bad since we are in the place that you call Mythical Ruins. Come and talk a look…” The old man Cain poked his white bone cane into the cracks on the ground as he said. “There is something very interesting!”

Fei had already paid attention to the strange ground; he had noticed that there were cracks thinner than the width of two fingers everywhere on the ground, and it looked like the river bed dried up after a big drought, creating cracks all over the place. Also, what was different was that there were dark red lights flashing though these cracks irregularly, and some heat would come up from these cracks… “Could these strange cracks be related to 【Flames of Earth Core】?” Fei thought.

“This really is a strange space. I felt some sensation of 【Flames of Earth Core】from these cracks. According to legends, some rare treasures that were formed naturally would form together. Since there are a ton of 【Black Stone Essence】, then it is not too surprising to see 【Flames of Earth Core】here too. However, these cracks are too deep and the ground here contains many hard stones. It would be hard to pull up some 【Flames of Earth Core】from these cracks!” The old man stroked his long white beard as he shook his head and said, “I will try to place a small magic array on the ground to see if I can pull some 【Flames of Earth Core】up.”

After getting more than a dozen various colored rubies, the old man started to use his white bone cane as a pen and slowly drew a magic array on the ground. The cane that was made from [Remains of Demon] was very easy to use. Cain felt like his magic energy flowed easily in the cane, and the cane even had some additional benefits towards drawing magic arrays. One end of the cane easily drew out a series of delicate, yet fine patterns on the ground smoothly on the hard stone-like ground. Fei had to admit that old man Cain’s magic array knowledge was at a very high level.

This was also a rare learning opportunity for Fei, so he observed earnestly.

After following the Priestess around, Fei had learned a lot of knowledge about magic, and he had acquired some basics regarding magic arrays. He was no longer the brainless idiot who only knew how to cast all kinds of magic spells, but didn’t have a clue about the fundamentals and theories. There were six kinds of magic arrays: Five-pointed Non-elemental Arrays, Six-pointed Elemental Arrays, Assembly Arrays, decomposed Arrays, Symbol Arrays, and Physical Combination Arrays. Each one of them had different effects and different powers. Because 【Flame of Earth Core】contained the power of the fire element, the magic array that the old man Cain was drawing on the ground was a combination of Six-pointed Elemental Array and Physical Combination Array. During the process, Cain put away his “obscene” expression, and a rare serious and careful expression took over. He was very concentrated as he was trying to avoid condensing the magic elements at the wrong locations, which could cause an explosion and put everyone in danger.

After half an hour, a mystic magic array that was about a meter in diameter was finally engraved onto the ground.

The outer-most layer of magic arrays was almost always circles; circles represented circulation and could prevent magic power from dispersing into the air. Inside the circle, there were magic loops; they were the conductors that made sure magic power would flow smoothly in the array. The more the magic looped, the more complicated and higher level the magic array was, and the more magic power and energy was required to drew them. Normally, gem powder grinded from Magic Stones was needed to draw Magic Arrays, but since Cain had the white bone cane made from [Remains of Demons], he was able to skip this step. Also, the power of a magic array was dependent on the quality of the gem powder and the mage’s magic power… It didn’t matter if it was on Azeroth Continent or in the Diablo World, these were all the basic knowledge and fundamentals of magic arrays.

The old man Cain was so tired that he was breathing with his tongue out like a dead dog. After some rest, he carefully placed six red [Chipped Rubies] into the six corners of the Six-Pointed Elemental Array and followed it up by injecting weak magic power into it.

Then, something magical happened –

The magic array was stimulated and started to function. The Rubies had a light red fire flashing on them as magic energy surged strictly according to the patterns and loops on the ground. A series of thin red lines started to appear, and they all merged at the center of the array. A red light suddenly emitted from the magic array and shot up towards the sky, and a huge suction force and vortex arose from the magic array. After the ground shook for several minutes, a light orange-red flame gradually appeared from the very center of the array.

“It came out… Hahaha, look! It is really the 【Flame of Earth Core】!”

The old man Cain was so excited that he started to stomp his feet forcefully on the ground. But soon, he was like a crowing rooster who had its neck pinched as his cheers instantly paused. At the critical moment, for some reason, all the lights that were emitting from the magic array dimed down and soon lost their magic energy surge. As a result, the weak orange-red flames that finally appeared after all this work disappeared from the air.

“Ah, the level of these magic gems are not high enough…” After old man Cain walked up to the array to inspect it, he realized that all six [Chipped Rubies] were depleted of magic energy and turned into ordinary grey stones.

“Then I have no solution then. I don’t have six higher leveled rubies. Let’s try tomorrow!” As Fei saw this scene, he suddenly remembered that he had copied down the magic arrays from the stone rooms on the other side of the abyss, so he took it out to show this magic maniac.
“Uh? What is this? Strange, this pattern is very familiar to me…”

Old man Cain’s occupational disease instantly appeared. He had this habit; every time he found something that interested him, he would enter a mad state where he would ignore everyone. Unless he actually figured out what he had in his hands, he wouldn’t acknowledge anyone. Therefore, he ditched Fei who was standing beside him for an answer and turned around and went through the teleportation portal far away to go back to 【Rogue Encampment】to research and study the magic arrays on the sheet.

Fei turned around, and he saw Priestess Akara who was stilling on the mountain trying to select top quality bones greedily. He shook his head as he saw this and went back to 【Rogue Encampment】as well.

For the next five or six days, Fei’s findings and discovery speed toned down; he made no new discoveries.

After he formed enough [Perfect Gems] by using the Horadric Cube, he returned to the corridors on the other side of chilling abyss. There were some changes after he placed five [Perfect Gems] into the five spherical stone pillars and activated all five magic arrays. A crystal blue pattern appeared on the stone tablet that had no words on it. No matter how hard Fei tried to understand it, he got nowhere. From the first impression, he felt like it was a magic array, but it couldn’t be further away from the truth. The pattern didn’t have a circular outer layer, and all the magic loops on it were different. It was probably an unknown map and not a magic array. With all the thin paths and complicated lines, it looked like a circuit board that Fei studied in his previous life. What was special about this map was that there was a little eye-catching red dot.