City of Sin

Miscalculation

Nyris was well aware of the powers of Life’s Bane… If the rune could be layered… A doubling in attack speed wasn’t just a doubling of one’s damage output. There were also the other effects; the more runes that were layered, the more likely one of them would be triggered.

He gained a renewed understanding of just how much of an impact powerful runemasters had on the empire.

Nyris stopped eating as well, struggling internally for a long time before asking, “Father, should I find a way to Faelor and join Richard’s expedition?”

Philip cut a kilogram of meat out and threw it into his mouth, “Faelor is vast, only one step away from becoming a primary plane. Such a place is priceless, worth more than dozens of ordinary secondary planes. Are you eyeing its riches?”

Nyris smiled, “There are more planes than true runemasters. If I wanted to develop a plane, couldn’t I just ask you?”

Philip nodded, “Then why do you want to go to Faelor?”

Nyris grew solemn, “A truly strong bond is formed on the basis of friendship mixed with benefits. I cannot make a true friend of Richard just through business.”

Philip smiled, "You’re already smarter than your brothers, but… Hmm, still not enough. Well, do whatever you want. I’m increasing your allowance by 30% for this year.”

“Thank you, Father!” the prince exclaimed in excitement. All noble youths knew that a greater allocation of resources would stabilise growth.

……

As dusk approached, the Deepblue in the distant Floe Bay suddenly burst into an uproar. Her Excellency Sharon, who had been gone a long time, had appeared once again. The legendary mage looked just as haggard as before.

Sharon unloaded a ridiculous number of items from her spatial equipment in front of the grand mages, forming a small hill in the meeting hall. These were all items she had dredged up from various planes or odd spacetime turbulence. Some could be priceless, others worthless, but even the things proven to be useless would sell for a high price.

Anything the legendary mage fancied had to be special. Other high-level mages placed a high value on such items; even if these items had no true purpose, just proving that alone was extremely valuable. Opportunities were rare to research items from spacetime turbulence; such objects could allow one to look past the laws of the plane.

Sharon had never been one to work this hard. Grand mages from all around had gathered in the Deepblue in recent years, waiting for the next auction. Of course, to Sharon it was just clearing out the scraps. Although the legendary mages of the continent cared too much about their reputations to make a trip personally, most of them had sent over capable representatives to bring some treasure back.

“Your Excellency! Your fruits!” Blackgold had learnt from the previous instance. He gave her a filled spatial ring before she even finished unloading the items.

The legendary mage was startled, taking the ring and wearing it on her middle finger alongside two others. Seeing this tiny detail, the grand mages knew she had grown stronger once more. Even though the legendary mage hadn’t grown in level, every additional ring she could wear meant her power had grown accordingly.

Seeing her about to leave right away, Grandmaster Fayr stepped forward and said hastily, “Your Excellency, there is a letter for you! It is very important, from—”

“I’ll read it next time!” the legendary mage said lazily. The silhouette of a portal had already formed between her hands.

“Richard!” Fayr finally mentioned the most important thing.

Sharon trembled, subconsciously waving both her arms to forcefully toss the partial portal out of the window. The violent mana expanded rapidly as it flew a few kilometres away, eventually growing too unstable and exploding.

An extremely dazzling beam of light lit up the sky above Floe Bay. What seemed to be a black sun gradually rose into the air, guzzling up energy endlessly even as its edges erupted with golden lightning. By the time the sun faded away, the entire space seemed to have been distorted. What followed was a blinding white flash that lit up the entire world!

When the shockwaves hit the majestic tower of the Deepblue, all of the defensive formations were triggered. For a moment, it was as though a hurricane had swept past them, causing a violent reaction from the cloud of mana that lingered around the tower’s roof all year round. The brilliant colours were glistening indefinitely, as though a heavenly being had descended upon Norland.

Huge waves over dozens of metres tall surged from the sea’s surface, pushing towards the coast before smashing into the steep cliff.

Such force…

All the grand mages were silenced in an instant. The sheer amount of mana within that portal was beyond imagination, leaving them so excited they even forgot to protect themselves. Their mouths were lying wide open, their eyes dull; they didn’t even notice their staffs falling to the ground.

One of them finally spoke up in an extremely hoarse voice, “Is that… a legendary spell Her Excellency developed recently?”

“That…” another murmured, “Was it even magic?”

No one answered his question.

The seventeen grand mages of the Deepblue were all standing in the meeting hall on the top floor, completely stupefied. All kinds of expressions filled their faces, and they couldn’t control themselves for a moment.

Sharon’s expression had been no different, but she recovered a split second faster. Using that slight time difference, she immediately wiped the cold sweat off her head and put on an expression of casual arrogance.

All of the grand mages then turned their heads, gazes landing on her.

The legendary mage already had both hands on her waist, saying aggressively, “What are you looking at, huh? I just used a spell, what’s the big deal? And you, Fayr, remember to get straight to the point next time. Don’t always be so slow!”

All gazes immediately gathered on Fayr. The instigator could no longer maintain his calm, forehead beading with sweat as he agreed with a forced smile. He then handed Richard’s letter to the legendary mage.

Sharon snorted, opening the letter and reading it repeatedly. There was only a single line within, but she read it a dozen times.

Richard had inscribed a complicated spatial formula into this letter. Solving it would allow one to obtain a set of planar coordinates. As fast as she was, Sharon took some time to decipher the code; an ordinary grand mage wouldn’t be able to perform the calculations even if they saw the formula. Even legendary mages without expertise in planar travel or spatial magic would have to rely on alchemic equipment and spend a lot of time.

The legendary mage’s face suddenly started glowing all of a sudden. “My little Richard actually got himself a plane!” she cheered, “I have to go see! You lot, get busy with your stuff!”

Sharon conveniently took a beyslace spider crystal off her ponytail, something she had learnt to use as an ornament from Mountainsea. Fortunately, the legendary mage only wore a single large ponytail; if she had seven or eight small ones like Mountainsea, such a thing could not be maintained.

Her slender fingers dug into the spider crystal, immediately releasing an extremely dazzling flash of light. The terrifying energy contained within the crystal was stimulated completely, turned into the required spell in an instant.

A beautiful rainbow of colour appeared between Sharon’s hands, stretching out from the window and leading directly into the sky. The legendary mage stepped on the rainbow bridge and turned into one herself, quickly breaking through space.

“Rainbow Bridge!” exclamations rang out in the Deepblue once more, “The legendary spell Rainbow Bridge!”

“Her Excellency can already cast Rainbow Bridge?!”

Rainbow Bridge was a legendary spell that was used to determine the location of a plane from its coordinates. Although the spell had caused everyone to exclaim, it actually wasn’t as terrifying as the space explosion earlier. Its advantage lay in that it was quick and straightforward, not requiring a complicated portal, but the cost was too high; one needed at least one spider crystal for every teleportation.

Even a few minutes after Sharon was gone, the grand mages in the meeting hall still couldn’t move. Grandmaster Fayr finally said something everyone was unwilling to express, “I think we need to have Her Excellency change the teleportation location to the roof next time…”

“That should keep Floe Bay safe…” of course, the grand mage immediately realised his slip of tongue.

However, looking at the formidable power of that space explosion and recalling that Sharon always opened the portal right in front of them, the grand mages truly felt that such a thing was pointless. It was very likely that an explosion of that magnitude would directly destroy half of the Deepblue, and they would not be spared.

“Her Excellency’s teleportation magic… Could it be that it will never fail?” one of them asked helplessly. Sharon used planar teleportation all the time, and it was only now that they had seen what would happen if it failed.

All of the grand mages focused on Blackgold; they all knew he was the one who Sharon best. Blackgold was constantly wiping the sweat off his forehead, but he couldn’t get it clean. Noticing the inquiring gaze from his peers, he smiled awkwardly, “I think… Her Excellency has never considered the idea of her spells failing…”

The conference room suddenly fell into silence.

This was truly scary.