After a few hours, Drake's subordinates woke up after drinking a few drops of healing potions. They helped Marianne to carry all of the enchanted weapons stored within, except for a few scrolls and books. Rey and the others from the Fifteen Dragon Wings just felt grateful to be alive, and didn't think about it or even notice it in the first place.
On the surface, Marianne was met with a pleasant surprise. 6 beastmen peak knights had successfully recovered from their illness, though the rest died. Her cold-bloodedness was now rewarded.
It then took an entire day to transport the ghoul magical cores as well as the skeleton warrior's bones to the carriage. Although most of what they transported was grade 1 magical material, it could still be sold for dozens of magical crystals.
Drake made sure to get his share as well, claiming two water tanks filled with grade 3 body strengthening fluids for himself, something that would easily cost 800 magic crystals if he just purchased the ingredients. But to get it, he would have to find an alchemist who knew how to brew it for him. As for purchasing grade 3 body strengthening fluids on the market, raw, it would cost him easily thrice this amount. Furthermore, it would take decades to find such an enormous quantity of body strengthening fluids. Each water tanks contained about 75 litres of body strengthening fluid. It would easily last for years of daily use.
Marianne looked at him but said nothing. If not for Drake's subordinates, she would have never taken so many valuable resources, much less carrying it.
Furthermore, Drake didn't show any interest in the most expensive stuff: rubies, magical gems used by craftsmen, Fallen Iron, a grade 3 material used to construct magical towers, arrays, enchanted weapons, magus-level research devices that belonged to an ancient and superior era, extinct plants and seeds that were searched by many Magi in Helios… The total value of what Marianne was transporting was overwhelming, if Drake's says were accurate, and after three months spent in the same carriage as him, she knew better than putting into question his knowledge and shrewdness when it came to money: 16 882 magic crystals.
And it was the amount she would get without counting the magical artefacts, or the extinct seeds and plants earnestly sought by Magus Kayle and others! If they scavenged the remains, the party would probably be able to gather about 300 more magic crystals, but compared to what they had already gotten, it was just scraps.
The expedition party basically sucked the treasures stored in the ancient laboratory dry. Nothing more remained. It was a quite impressive wealth, even to magi. That was the difference between Magi of this era and ancient magi. Once, rank 2 magi ruled Barnolia with an Iron fist. It was thousands of years ago. Nobles were slaves to the magi, and they obeyed their every word, exploring the lands, harvesting the resources on their behalf.
However, a war emerged between light and Dark magi, which caused both sides to severely decline, with their legacies incomplete. Furthermore, taking advantage of the magi's internal strife, the nobles slowly raised an army of Grand Knights, seeking advice from druids who lived as hermits and advocated The Order.
A second war emerged several centuries later, further destroying the magus inheritance, with the birth of Grand-knights, weapon masters and possessing bodies capable of threatening the Magi. In fact, their dangerousness didn't come from their high physical attributes. If they just possessed high physical attributes, rank 3 acolytes would be sufficient to deal with them, and at the time, rank 3 acolytes were just promising youths, completely unlike now, where rank 3 acolytes were treated as almighty geniuses, right-hands of magi themselves.
Grand knights were extraordinarily dangerous because after breaking through into this realm, they could freely use their internal energy in their body and ignite it to boost their attributes. It wasn't surprising for a Grand Knight to increase their strength by 60% for a few minutes using mysterious techniques. Considering that their strength was already on par with rank 2 and rank 3 beasts…They were just becoming monsters themselves.
The trip to return to Helios was a far more perilous, mostly because the magical treasures couldn't be hidden from magical beasts. And since the group was only defended by a handful of beastmen and peak knights, arrogant bandits who possessed over 200 underlings thought they had struck gold.
But the ancient laboratory only made Drake's subordinates stronger.
Lewis, for instance, was enlightened. His internal energy increased and his physical attributes were enhanced to the point that he had reached the peak of the knight realm without the runes. With the runes, he was probably on par with half-grand knight. It was truly an amazing growth, considering that he only broke through the knight realm a year ago, slightly after Drake.
His talent was nowhere as good as Drake in terms of internal energy, yet this life and death battle was similar to a sparkle that thoroughly burned like a divine fire and turned him into a stronger version of himself.
Second Awakening.
Most of Half-grand knights reached their levels by having a second awakening, with the first awakening referring to the knight breakthrough. However, in theory, a second awakening could be received anytime. Some geniuses even skipped the knight realm and dived straight into the half-grand knight realm in the past according to historical records.
Half-Grand Knights were individuals who were too strong to be called peak knights, since their strength usually exceeded 8 points, yet too weak to be called a Grand-Knight. Only body refinement acolytes like Drake and wasteful heirs would reach the half-grand knight realm through the consumption of magical elixirs, magical beast meat and using runes, which were mostly external means. It wasn't like it was a bad thing. As long as it strengthened you, any means was good. And Lewis getting stronger really made Drake joyous.
[Human Male. Name – Lewis
Age – 41 years. Rank: Half-Grand Knight.
Status: Left hand crippled.
Attributes
Strength – 6.8 (+3.0) | Dexterity – 2.2 (+0.4) | Constitution – 6.0 (+1.6) |
Internal Energy – 19.1
Skills: Improved Kadac Swordsmanship (Knight-level, Proficiency: Expert), horsemanship (proficiency: Expert), Butler (Proficiency: Expert), Barbarian Strength (+1 point of Strength), Geography (Proficiency: Advanced), Tactics (Expert), Trading (Proficiency: Advanced), Running (Proficiency: Expert)…
Perk: Runic Barbarian Tattoo – Sky Eagle Blood Runes (+2.0 Strength, +0.4 Dexterity, +1.6 Constitution)]
Bandits could not scratch what remained of the Fifteen Dragon Wings.
As for magical beasts, Drake enjoyed killing them for his consumption. The stronger he was becoming, the bigger his appetite, to the point that it was abnormal. Very few acolytes would dare to eat rank 2 magical beast meat after grilling it slightly and seasoning it with some high-quality spices. After all, most of rank 2 magical beast meat would be poisonous to normal human beings. Unless it was cooked following a very specific method that neutralized the toxins, it would be quite harmful for a human to consume it.
But Drake could no longer be considered a human. He possessed 11 points of constitution, which was just a step away from the Grand-knight realm.
[Beep! Research has been halted to analyse Magus-level knowledge stored in [ancient laboratory books and scrolls] folder! Progress: 3%]
As the group reached Helios, Drake was grinning. In less than a year, he would have finished decrypting this magus-level information, something that Marianne and Magus Jackal would most likely fail to achieve in decades. Ancient Magi were on a completely different level compared to those who lived in Helios. They fought their way to the top, stomping on geniuses to reach their level.
Anything they found, they would find methods to conceal it from others. After all, if Magi were known to be sharing, the Magus Community would have never decayed over the years.
Drake felt a bit apprehensive upon returning to Helios.
"Marianne, would you make me a favour?", Drake asked hesitantly.
Marianne squinted, not trusting Drake anymore. If before, she had some thoughts of stopping his assassination to turn him into a loyal subordinate, she only wished for the trip to end quickly. She had experienced how terrifying he was at rank 1, so she didn't want him to grow. The quicker he died, the better it was. Be it breaking the mana lock in a matter of minutes, or his ruthlessness to get stronger by killing Jane, he was too smart for his own good, he was too similar to herself.
"What is it?", she said in a bored voice.
The trip was long and boring. Besides the few encounters with magical beasts, it was dull and since Marianne was injured, she mostly meditated to recover from the recoil of her extraordinarily potent spell.
"My achievements…will you reveal them to your grandfather? Just like I promised you not to tell a soul about Magus-level information, I would like you not to reveal the 'mana lock' incident' to your grandfather, or our special agreement"
"You didn't promise me anything. You signed a contract. But even if you didn't ask, I would have barely mentioned your name to my grandfather, since it would attract his attention. I don't want him to sniff around our expedition. Anyways, with the harvest we got here…I think he will just grin and pat me like a good granddaughter I am!"
Writing down the content of Magus-level information would be nearly impossible. First and foremost, it was written in an ancient language called Death Words. Just copying nonsensical characters would take more than a few months. Furthermore, the true worth of these books and scrolls was the spiritual energy stored in the writings. Each word would most likely trigger an epiphany from the lector, something that would be lost in a copy.
But Drake could memorize them and decipher this long-forgotten and encrypted language. This was the difference between him and normal humans.
Drake could already guess the content of the books: Necromancy, Ghoul Creation, Skeleton Warrior manufactory, controlling an army of undead…While these fields were very attractive, Drake lacked the Shadow element affinity that was the bare requirement to turn this knowledge into strength. However, it was still a mind-opening research, and the biochip was probably going to benefit a lot from this.
Drake was actually looking closer to a specific scroll that was mostly deciphered by the biochip: [Phantom Doppelganger], a very ancient method that consisted in raising a ghost doppelganger of oneself, in a pure spiritual form. By doing so, the user would earn a loyal subordinate that would be mostly insensible to purely physical damage.
The growth rate of the Phantom Doppelganger seemed to be limitless, thought it was incredibly costly to create and raise. It required souls and magical cores, but the higher the talent of the user, the faster its growth rate.
'Amazing…'
It truly was.