The castle of the grand matriarch of the dark elves,
Countless roots covered the entire castle, absorbing vitality from everything it could and supplying it to Enuci.
Now, Enuci had turned into a tree like giant monster with ashen gray leaves.
"A battle of attrition, huh." Tirus scoffed as he increased the power of his spell, Tune of Death, killing even the microrganisms in the air.
"Damn you!" Enuci, now turned into a full blown tree monster, growled in agony as all of its vitality was disappating every second.
Time passed and Tirus was eventually unaboe to maintain his zombie form, and thus reverted back to his orginal form. Seeing this, Enuci felt a glimmer of hope appear infront of her as hundreds of blade lile vines attacked Tirus at an extremely high speed.
"You disppoint me." Tirus said in a monotone voice as he turned into a dark cloud and left the castle.
Just as Enuci was about to chase him, she felt her a sudden change in her surroundings, she couldn't tell what that change was, but she knew it was something very dangerous.
Tirus flew out of the castle and looked indifferently at it from above, in just a few seconds, he could see the dark elven matriarch trying to come out of the castle, reaching out for him in the air.
Tirus was familiar with this kind of transfiguration.
This kind of transfiguration gave its user immense vitality but at the cost of mobility. To him, victory was a certainity from the moment Enuci entered this form of hers.
"Die." Tirus murmured as he snapped his fingers and a huge explosion occured, engulfing everything. But this wasn't the end. Tirus started chanting and hundreds of black swords appeared in the air and shot towards his target which was being burnt alive.
....
In the capital of the dark elven kingdom, among the ashes of thousands of elves there was a spear erected with the head of the dark elven princess implaed on it. Infront of it stood a woman in red.
Her snow white skin, along with her cold eyes gave her a bewitching appearance. The woman had an indifferent expression on her face, but she couldn't conceal the disdain she held in her gaze.
"How weak." Beth said in a disappointed tone.
....
After the dark elven empire was destroyed, the remaining dark elves were captured by the human guilds, especially the dark dawn guild.
From this day onwards, they would live and die in the secret planes and ecological gardens of these organizations as experimental subjects.
And if they were lucky, then they'd be one of the elves to be sold on the outside as slaves.
However, nobody dared to steal the spoils of war from the dark dawn guild with a rank 3 magi as their leader and thus, they managed to capture the highest number of dark elves.
Tirus intended to build the new base for the guild in the place where the dark elven empire's previous capital was, and the headquarters inside a new secret plane.
…
4 years later,
In a secret plane,
In the new headquarters of the dark dawn guild,
"The population of the dark elves in the new secret plane has increased from 800 to 1200 in the past 4 years." Beth gave a report to Tirus who was sitting on his luxurious throne.
It had now been 4 years since the war ended. During this time, the dark dawn guild had managed to get full control over the eastern and northern twilight zones. Thus gaining many new secret planes with numerous resources.
"Hm, good."
"And also, we have found an icy cave, it's filled with magical beasts with ice radiation."
Hearing this, Tirus's expression changed a bit. Although, he would never say no to more resources.
'In the canon, Leylin spent much time on exploring the icy cave and used the icy shards made of icy jade scorpion's breaths to make potions to stabilize his emotional instability, although I don't need it, but it is important for Beth, a warlock.
Overall it would be worth it. Currently, Tirus was contemplating his decision to go explore the cave himself or not.
The emotional instability of the warlocks wasn't simple at all. It was the changes in their temper that their bloodline gave them.
For example, the serpent warlocks in the ancient times had a tendency to act cold-heartedly but due to the chaotic world will of the purgatory world and the evolutions snake dowager's descendants went through, it changed that cold temper into a fiery one.
Beth had a dragon bloodline, so her case of emotional instability was also a bit different. Making her have bouts of rage every so often.
"Keep searching the cave, and if you encounter any new lifeforms, then capture them alive if possible." In the end, he decided against it and left the task to the lower ranked magi.
"Understood." Beth nodded in agreement.
"So, have you reconstructed the teleportation formation?" Tirus inquired.
"... No, it will take almost 30 years to be repaired." She truthfully answered after hesitating for a while.
The teleportation formation they were talking about wasn't the one which they used to get here. They were talking about the ancient teleportation formation of the dark elves.
Actually, the dark elves had made contacts with the surface world's central continent in the ancient times, but the teleportation formation was destroyed in an internal conflict.
This information was exclusive only to the grand matriarchs of the empire, and no one else. But Tirus had soul searched Enuci, the grand matriarch after killing her. So, naturally, he got this information.
"Don't worry, I'm not planning on leaving until I reach the peak of rank 3."
"Master, don't worry about me, your wish is my command and the sole reason for my existance." Beth mumbled.
Tirus had inherited the high-grade meditation technique 'record of the nameless wanderer' which had a total of 6 levels with the final level being somewhat incomplete, but it had more than enough information about cultivation from rank 1 acolyte to peak rank 4 and even break through to rank 5.
Although he'd have to complete the 6th level if he wanted to further cultivate in rank 5, currently, he didn't need to.
....
100 years passed by,
In a room, Tirus was sitting cross-legged on his bed.
'A.I. chip, show me my current stats!'
[Name: Tirus Van Elrod, Occupation: rank 3 magi; Hydro phase, strength: 25.1, agility: 30.3, vitality: 32.1, spiritual force: 349.99 (magic power is in sync with spiritual force) status: Healthy]
"I have made great progress in my body cultivation yet again, huh." He murmured.
Magi usually didn't need to cultivate their bodies, as they only used spells in battle. The only reason why Tirus was still cultivating his body was because he wanted to have a stronger body foundation than other magi; however, he didn't focus on body cultivation as much as his spiritual force cultivation.
Once he broke through rank 6 and started comprehending the power of laws, then almost all of his physical stats would be at least in the thousands, so why waste so much effort on body cultivation now? Thus, he planned to put his body cultivation on hold and focus solely on spiritual cultivation.
'If I keep cultivating like this, then I can easily break through to crystal phase in 2 years.'
During this century, he had consumed a lot of resources as well as the ancient potion 'Daelop's blood' to increase his spiritual force which proved to be quite effective as he successfully vaporized his spiritual force and even broke through to the peak hydro phase in just 100 years.
He even created a special meditation technique which could modify his heart and make transform it into the 'Dark Prophetic Heart'. It increased the accuracy of his intuition by several tens of times.
Now, all he had to do was focus on his heart, and his intuition would tell him whether something held any value for him. After cultivating the 'Dark Prophetic Heart' his originally red heart turned into an inky black one.
He went to the teleportation formation he found in the dark elven empire and used his prophetic technique.
The teleportation formation that led to central continent had already been repaired, he still intended to cultivate until the peak of rank 3 before venturing out, since it was what his gut feeling was telling him.
'Once I break through to the crystal phase, I'll go to the central continent and join the Jupiter's lightning if possible, then I wouldn't have to worry about the resources to break through to rank 4.' He thought, clenching his fists.
The reason he cultivated was not because he wanted to search for the truth. Similar to how not every doctor cared about saving lives, similar to how not every teacher cared about their student's future.
His motivation for cultivation was that he wanted power. Omnipotence was his main goal, while omniscience was just a bonus.
Those who weren't magi wanted to get a chance to cultivate.
Those who could cultivate wanted better talent.
Those who had better talent still craved resources.
It was only a living being's nature to seek for more, to seek greater heights in their lives if given the chance. So, since he had the necessary talent and resources along with a cheat like the A.I. chip, he naturally wanted to reach the apex. He wanted to experience how it felt to be at the apex.
'A.I. chip, scan her stats.' He gave an order to the A.I. chip while looking at Beth
[Name: Beth, occupation: rank 3 warlock, vapor phase, strength: 20.3 , agility: 18.3, vitality: 21.1 spiritual force: 343.7 (spiritual force is in sync with magic power)]
He looked at her stats in amazement, the help in cultivation that she got from her bloodline was immense. Her emotional instability was also resolved to a great extent due to the potions he created from the blood of those icy jade scorpions.
'I have become a potioneering and transfiguration grand master as well, I think I can definitely sell high-grade potions in the central continent to earn money even if I can't join Jupiter's lightning.' He actually had become a grand master in the field of potioneering and transfiguration 50 years ago after painstaking effort.
He had also gotten the corpse of the icy jade scorpion emperor and had deduced its memories from its bloodline. As for what to do with it, it was a matter to be discussed later.
Although he was already at rank 3 and hold his ground against any magi at the same realm, but still, backup plan was necessary after all, he was a cautious man.
To be continued...