Book 03, Mountain Range of Magical Beasts Read online

  Based on Doehring Cowart’s calculations, Linley’s sculptures were definitely qualified to be displayed in the hall of the masters, with a valuation of around a thousand gold or so each. Killing a magical beast of the sixth rank, in terms of difficulty and danger, was something that was far deadlier than sculpting.

  “At the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts, my primary goal is to train myself. Acquiring magicite crystals? That’s just a side benefit.” Linley said to himself as he looked at the other three.

  Delsarte and the others were engaged in enthusiastic speculation. Clearly, they were very excited about acquiring magicite cores.

  “The magicite cores of magical beasts of the third, fourth, and fifth ranks aren’t worth much. Even cores from beasts of the sixth rank are just worth a thousand or so.” Delsarte said, shaking his head unconcernedly. “If we can kill a magical beast of the seventh rank, then we will be rich.” When he said these words, Delsarte’s eyes gleamed.

  Just like humans, where between magi of the sixth rank to the seventh rank was a huge gap, magical beasts of the sixth rank had a huge gap in power compared to magical beasts of the seventh rank.

  The magicite cores of a magical beast of the seventh rank were worth tens of thousands of gold pieces.

  If they could kill just one, in the countryside, they would be considered extremely wealthy and not have to worry about money for the rest of their lives.

  “A magical beast of the seventh rank? Based on our ability, that would be a deathwish.” Linley said casually.

  Linley had witnessed the power of the Velocidragon, a magical beast of the seventh rank. Linley, at his current rank, probably couldn’t even break through the Velocidragon’s terrifyingly protective scales. If he couldn’t even pierce its defense, how could he possibly try to kill a magical beast of the seventh rank? How was that possible?

  That sly-looking fellow, Matt, nodded. “It’s hard to say if the four of us would even be able to defeat a magical beast of the sixth rank. Fighting with a magical beast of the seventh rank is suicide.”

  “I’m just making small talk.” Delsarte rubbed his head as he pursed his lips.

  Just as the four of them were talking and laughing, in a mountain forest a hundred meters behind them, a man wearing green clothes and with leaves covered all over his face was staring coldly at them.

  This man’s mouth was moving nonstop, apparently mumbling the words to a magical spell.

  At the same time, the longbow in his hands had been pulled to the limit. Suddenly, the arrow shot out, flashing with a cold blue light. It tore through the air at a terrifyingly rapid speed, traversing the hundred meters in the blink of an eye.

  Linley, who was engaging in idle talk with the group, suddenly felt all the hairs on his body stand up. His heart immediately reached a maximum level of tension.

  “Danger!”

  Linley quickly dodged to the side. “Whooosh!” That high speed arrow shot past him like a bolt of lightning, piercing through the body of the robed Delsarte. It pierced through his torso, leaving behind a gaping hole as it flew another few dozen meters before halting.

  Clutching his throat, Delsarte’s eyes turned round. Some indistinct words gargled in his mouth as fresh blood spewed forth from the wound in his chest.

  “Urg… urg… ” Delsarte’s eyes were filled with a longing for life. They were filled with horror and fear, but as the blood continued to pour out from the gaping hole in his chest, quite quickly, all life fled from Delsarte’s eyes, and he collapsed.

  Linley, Kava, and Matt all quickly flattened themselves against the grass as they alertly looked behind them.

  *

  Book 3, Mountain Range of Magical Beasts – Chapter 8, The Journey (part 2)

  “A wind-element magus-archer. Based on how that arrow of his melded both the ‘Supersonic’ and ‘Precision’ spells, this wind-element magus-archer must have at least reached the fifth rank.” Doehring Cowart’s voice rang out in Linley’s mind. “Based on this fellow’s prowess, if he gets within fifty meters of you, even if you are able to dodge, you will still suffer a severe injury. Flee!”

  Linley’s heart trembled.

  “Give up all your valuables, and I’ll spare your lives.” A cold voice rang out, and then over ten men dressed in dark green burst out of the forest. All of them were wielding longbows, with shortswords at their waists. These ten people stared coldly at Linley and the other two while pressing closer and closer.

  But the speaker did not appear.

  Linley and the others glanced at each other. They didn’t hand over their valuables. They only watched warily as the archers approached.

  “Fire!” That cold voice rang out again. The wind-element magus behind them was quite decisive. Since Linley and the other two didn’t immediately surrender, he immediately issued the order to kill.

  “Twang” “twang” “twang” “twang”.

  With abruptness, the archers all shot their arrows, and the arrows soared towards Linley’s group, who hurriedly dodged. In addition to dodging, Kava also used the huge warblade in his hands to block some arrows.

  Linley executed the wind-style spell ‘Supersonic’, allowing himself to dodge aside easily while still maintaining enough presence of mind to watch the other two. Matt was dodging nonstop, quite precise and quite careful, while also using his shortsword to deflect arrows.

  But Kava was not as agile. While wielding a giant warblade, he clearly could not move very quickly. He was primarily using his giant warblade as well as a thin layer of battle-qi to defend himself. And indeed, the threat of those arrows was not too high; a warrior of the fifth rank could withstand them.

  “Raaawr, die!” Kava roared furiously, charging forward towards the archers with his warblade in hand.

  Seeing this, a killing gaze appeared in the eyes of the wind-style magus-archer hiding in the forest. He once more drew the bowstring to his longbow and began to chant the words to the ‘Supersonic’ and ‘Precision’ spells, causing his longbow and arrow to glitter with gold and blue light.

  Roaring furiously, Kava continued charging towards the archers, but halfway there, he suddenly sensed a blue gleam flash before him. Before he was able to react, the arrow was right there, in front of him, terrifying him to the point that cold sweat instantly drenched his clothes. He immediately lifted up his giant warblade to block. But however…

  “Argh!”

  The arrow pierced straight into his skull.

  “Ah… ” Kava stood there stupidly, his eyes filled with disbelief. He clearly had been able to use his warblade to block the arrow. How did it kill him? His eyes filled with disbelief and questions, all the light faded from his gaze and he toppled down, like a collapsing mountain.

  The far away Linley felt his heart tremble.

  “The wind-style supportive spell, ‘Precision’. It really is precise!” As a wind-style magus, Linley knew very well that this supportive spell, ‘Precision’, when used to support an archer, could cause the archer’s arrows to undergo minute course corrections enroute to its target.

  For example, just now, Kava did indeed get his warblade up in time to block, but just by adjusting its direction slightly, the arrow went straight through Kava’s skull.

  “Wind-style magic, when paired with a longbow, really is terrifying.” Linley felt secretly shocked, but in the next instant, he immediately began to chant the words to a magical spell.

  “The two of you had best surrender obediently.” That cold voice rang out once more from the forest, and the ten or so archers also laughed arrogantly. A wind-style magus-archer required both powerful magical abilities as well as sufficient physical strength to utilize a longbow properly.

  A wind-style magus-archer was an extremely terrifying long-range attacker.

  A murderous gaze flashing through Linley’s eyes, as he stared at those ten archers as though they were just corpses.

  “Crack!” “Crack!” “Crack!” “Crack!”

  Sudd
enly, the earth trembled, and one earthen spear after another erupted from beneath the ten archers. One sharp, gleaming stone spear after another pierced into the legs and chests of the archers, filling the ground with fresh blood and the air with their screams.

  Earth-style spell of the fifth rank – Earthen Spear Array!

  “Ahhh!” Miserable cries split the air.

  Dozens of earthen spears had erupted simultaneously from beneath them, each spear over a meter high. In the blink of an eye, the troop was pierced by the dense array of spears, which had caught them unawares, like a devastating ambush. All of the ten archers entered a state of pain and despair.

  “Leader, save us, save us!” A man who had been impaled in the stomach cried out miserably.

  “Ah, ah!” Another archer who had been pierced through in his thighs also cried out with pain.

  Of the troop of archers, four died on the spot, while nearly ten of them were severely injured. Their combat ability had essentially been destroyed.

  “An earth-style magus!”

  The archer hidden in the woods felt greatly shocked. Him and his men had been hidden here, on the outskirts of the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts, for quite some time now, ambushing and killing travelers, and had accumulated quite a bit of treasure.

  Generally, when he launched his ambush, he would first kill the enemy’s magus!

  An enemy magus, after all, could also launch long range attacks. Therefore, they posed the greatest risk. He didn’t expect that after killing one magus, another one would show himself.

  “Let’s go.”

  Taking advantage of his opponent’s being caught off guard, Linley immediately utilized the ‘Supersonic’ spell to increase his speed to its maximum limits, hurriedly scurrying away and disappearing off into the distance. Linley knew quite well that he had no way to attack the magus-archer hiding in the woods.

  Their distance was too great, and even magic had range limitations. But if he closed in on the magus-archer, he perhaps wouldn’t be able to block the assault of a wind-element magus-archer.

  Running away at maximum speed, Linley fled nearly thirty kilometers.

  “Boss, why’d you run away? That magus-archer might’ve posed some risk to you, but if I were to attack, I would’ve killed his *** easy. Why didn’t you let me kill’m?” The little Shadowmouse ‘Bebe’ mentally grumbled angrily to Linley.

  Linley knew quite well how powerful the little Shadowmouse ‘Bebe’ had become.

  When Linley was just eight years old, the little Shadowmouse already had a speed surpassing that of a warrior of the sixth rank. But seven years later, with Linley fifteen years of age, although Bebe’s physical size had not changed, his speed was almost on par with that of a warrior of the ninth rank!

  Based on the little Shadowmouse’s speed, that magus-archer probably wouldn’t even be able to aim at him.

  “This is my training excursion. I should try to resolve everything based on my own ability.” Linley explained.

  Jumping onto Linley’s shoulders, the little Shadowmouse scratched at Linley as angry squeaking sounds came from his sharp teeth. Mentally, he was angrily shouting at Linley, “Boss, you are going too far! I also need to train, I also need to fight!”

  Looking at the little Shadowmouse, Linley couldn’t help but laugh. “Fine, when we reach the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts, if we run into any powerful monsters, I’ll let you fight them, deal?”

  “That’s more like it.” The little Shadowmouse sat up, folding his little paws over his chest. His little nose wrinkled as he beamed happily.

  Just at this moment, the dark, grim sky was shattered with a ‘crash’ as bolts of lightning lit up the world, followed by the echoing thunder.

  “Looks like it’s going to storm hard soon.” Linley frowned.

  Linley immediately sped up, hastening towards the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts. By the time Linley was just ten or so kilometers away from the mountains, the first drops rain began to fall, followed by torrential showers which flooded the land.

  “Rumble… “

  The sound of thunder sounded out again and again, while the torrential rain continued to cover the lands with water. It felt as though the entire world had been flooded.

  But not much rain fell on Linley, who continued to forge ahead with rapid speed. This was because ten centimeters above Linley, there was a ‘wind shield’ of approximately one meter in diameter. The defensive ability of the ‘wind shield’ spell was quite high. Linley only had to use a tiny bit of mageforce in order to allow it to block the rain constantly.

  As the wind itself was formless, the wind shield, as well, appeared like just a translucent, faint blue streak.

  From far away, one simply couldn’t tell that there was a wind shield there. Thus, using this wind shield, Linley rapidly forged ahead. After a bit of time, Linley saw a long, sinuous range of mountains, running north to south with no end in sight. This mountain range, which virtually split the Yulan continent into two halves, was the number one mountain range in the world – the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts.

  Seeing the titanic mountains just a few kilometers away, Linley couldn’t help but hold his breath.

  “What a huge mountain range… “

  This mountain range was simply too enormous. Based on the naked eye, as far as one could tell, the mountains were limitless, and as far north and as far south as one could see, there were mountains. Seeing the boundless mountains in this mountain range was like seeing the boundless water in the sea.

  It stretched into infinity!

  “This is the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts, the number one mountain range in the continent. How many magical beasts does it hold? How many Saint-level magical beasts, for that matter?” At this moment, Doehring Cowart appeared by Linley’s side, his gaze distant and lofty. “It has been a long time since I have come to the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts.”

  A look of excitement shone from Linley’s eyes.

  “Let’s go!”

  Filled with a heroic air, Linley charged through the all-encompassing rainstorm towards the mountain range, while the little Shadowmouse, Bebe, squeaked excitedly from Linley’s shoulders. Under the cover of the rainstorm, Linley quickly entered the endless mountains.

  *

  Book 3, Mountain Range of Magical Beasts – Chapter 9, The Mountain Range of Magical Beasts (part 1)

  The Mountain Range of Magical Beasts was vast and boundless.

  Within it, Linley could see ancient pines that were centuries or millennia old, blotting out the landscape. All sorts of various grasses filled the land, and thistles and thorns were equally commonplace. Dry leaves covered the land, with each step, they crackled and popped. Ancient vines and weeds could be seen everywhere.

  “With all of these weeds, dense vines, and trees which have been around for who-knows-how-long, even if a magical beast were just ten meters away from me, I still probably wouldn’t sense it.” Linley grew apprehensive.

  Grandpa Doehring appeared by his side as well.

  “Ten meters? Linley, even in the grass right in front of you, there could be a magical beast in wait, such as a giant snake.” Doehring Cowart laughed as he spoke.

  Linley involuntarily glanced at the grassy area in front of him, which was almost half as tall as him. Such thick, tall grass really could hide a snake. Taking a deep breath, Linley stood there as he began to mumble the words to a spell.

  Suddenly, a gentle gust of wind emanated from Linley, spreading about in all directions before finally dissipating.

  Wind-style magic – Windscout!

  Generally speaking, a magus of the third rank would be able to execute the Windscout spell. But of course, the more powerful a magus was, the wider an area the Windscout spell could cover. The Windscout spell of a magus of the third rank would only affect an area of around ten or so meters around him, but the Windscout of a magus of the fifth rank had a diameter of over a hundred meters.

  “Within a
hundred meters, the only magical beasts around are a magical beast of the first rank, a Bubblerat, and a few magical beasts of the second rank, ‘Earth Scorpions’.” Linley said confidently.

  The Windscout spell could discern the aura and lifescent of any living creature.

  “Don’t be too cocky. A powerful magical beast could burrow under the earth, and some Saint-level magical beasts can even disguise their power level.” Doehring Cowart reminded, but then he chuckled. “But of course, if they wanted to deal with a little fellow like you, would a Saint-level magical beast bother to hide its power?”

  But upon hearing these words, Linley grew all the more cautious.

  “Ambush through disguising power levels? In some books, it was said that the intelligence of magical beasts rivals that of man’s. Looks like it’s true.” Linley said to himself. Glancing at the little Shadowmouse, ‘Bebe’, on his shoulders, he thought, “This little fella, Bebe, already has a really high level of intelligence. I can’t let my guard down.”

  Air swirled around Linley’s feet. This was part of the byproduct of Linley’s ‘Supersonic’ spell.

  Linley quietly passed into the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts. He carefully surveyed his surroundings, while on his shoulders, the little Shadowmouse, Bebe, also perked up and stared in all four directions, his beady little black eyes peering about him. Slowly, the two of them travelled deeper and deeper into the mountains.

  “The Mountain Range of Magical Beasts is over ten thousand kilometers long, with an average width of seven or eight hundred kilometers. In the outermost hundred kilometer region, the magical beasts are mostly of low rank. If we go more than a hundred kilometers deep, we’ll meet lots of magical beasts of the fifth and sixth ranks. If we go still deeper inside, we will see many beasts of the seventh, eighth, and ninth ranks, and perhaps even Saint-level magical beasts.”

  Doehring Cowart once more began to lecture Linley about the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts.

  “But of course, nothing is absolute. Perhaps a magical beast of the ninth rank might be bored and go for a stroll in the outer territories.” Doehring Cowart said. “And perhaps you might be so unlucky as to meet with a huge, ten-thousand unit strong pack of wolf monsters. If that happens, all I can say is, you have terrible karma.”