Adam went to drop Zak to school while Sophie went to wash the dishes. Julia and Aditya on the other hand were staring at the black sword.
"Can you pick it up?" Even the floor had cracked like a spider web when the black sword fell down.
'System add my remaining free stats points to my strength.'
[Ding! Strength- 235 → 260]
Dragon transformation!
Aditya left arm transformed into a dragon claw. He then grabbed the tilt of the black sword which was lightly curved.
"Still too heavy." Aditya's left arm started bulging as veins started showing all over his right arm. He gritted his gritted and used his power to the maximum.
Julia was surprised to see Aditya slowly lifting up the 3 tons black sword.
[Adamantite Doomblade]
[Mid 5-star]
"You're late."
"Sorry grandpa, I was trying to lift a 3 tons sword."
"So he really gave you the Adamantite Doomblade." Previously Adam had discussed giving the Adamantite Doomblade to Aditya with Tobias. The Onard family only had seven 5-star weapons yet Adam did not hesitate to give one of the 5-star weapons to his son-in-law.
"Alright, let's resume where we had stopped yesterday." Aditya nodded. After receiving the Adamantite Doomblade, he was thinking of engraving the black sword with runes which would make the sword even more powerful.
Just like yesterday Julia also opened her laboratory. People were willing to stand in this rain to get to request pills. Compared to yesterday, today the number of people that stood in a line had doubled. From Peak 1st-order cultivators all the way to Peak 3rd-order cultivators, every cultivator was here to request a pill from the Goddess of alchemy. The line was only getting bigger with each passing minute.
The rain showed no signs of stopping. The rain continued without the people noticing what actually was going on. More and more mana was being sucked. As time passed, the mana suction only continued to increase. At some point, all the mana within the 20km range was rapidly moving in a single direction.
"Lord Adam, I have some urgent news."
"What is it?" Adam asked while writing a letter of invitation. As his daughter's birthday was approaching, Adam was writing personal letters to invite all the nobles of the Empire. Since Adam was going to announce his daughter's engagement, he wanted to invite every noble regardless of whether they are his friends or his enemies.
"A huge vortex has formed 20 km away from Apogale city. The vortex is sucking a huge amount of mana from the atmosphere."
Drop!
Adam dropped the pen he was holding. He widened his eyes. He looked at Eddie like he was looking at his worst nightmare.
"This is really bad." Adam hurriedly walked out of the room leaving Eddie confused. "Eddie, call Aditya."
About 30 minutes later, the whole family was standing on the walls that surrounded the entire Apogale city. "Adam, why did you call us here?"
Instead of replying, Adam pointed in the direction of the west. Aditya instantly frowned feeling all the mana in the atmosphere was rapidly moving in the direction of the west. "Uncle, do you know what is happening?" Aditya has never heard of this kind of strange phenomenon.
Adam also looked in the direction of the west. "I don't know. I have a feeling that this is not a good sign."
"Let me check it." Two pairs of red wings appeared on his back. The next moment Julia and Zak found Aditya feeling in the direction of the west.
"Aditya wait." Julia tried to stop him but he didn't stop.
"I will also go and take a look. Eddie, you wait here. Close the city gates and do not allow anyone to neither enter or exit the city. Shut down the teleportation array as well. Also, make sure to keep the defensive barrier activated." After saying those words, Adam also ran off in the direction of the west.
It did not take Adam to catch up to Aditya. "Uncle do you know why this phenomenon is happening?"
"I am not sure. Let's ask uncle Tobias." Tobias was an old Vampire who has lived for a long time. He must know what is going on.
Both Aditya and Adam traveled 20 km in an hour. Adam adjusted his speed to match Aditya's speed. Both father and son-in-law moved through the forest and finally reached the area where all the mana was being sucked.
"What the hell is this?" Aditya and Adam looked up at the giant vortex that was rapidly sucking all the mana. Aditya and Adam realized that mana near the vortex was several times denser. They could see the spiraling ripples around the vortex.
"Uncle, did you notice one thing?" Aditya asked while looking at the gigantic vortex. The vortex was at least 50 meters.
"What is it, kid?"
"Even though this is a forest where magical beasts live, we did not encounter even a single magical beast on our way. It's almost as if all the magical beasts in the forest had disappeared."
"Or maybe they have left this forest knowing that something dangerous is coming." Magical beasts had much better senses of their surroundings compared to other intelligent beings. It is believed that Magical beasts can sense if any natural calamity or disaster is coming.
Aditya and Adam were still standing 1 km away from the vortex. Even from his distance, they felt a strong force pulling their body. "Even if a Peak 5th-order steps near the vortex, I wouldn't be surprised if I saw that 5th-order cultivator's body is torn into pieces. Fortunately, this vortex did not open anywhere near the cities, otherwise, it would be been a huge disaster."
Aditya looked at the 50 meters giant vortex which was 100 meters above the ground. The mana from the surroundings was rapidly being sucked. The closer Aditya got to the vortex, the denser the mana kept on becoming.
"Alright let's go back." After taking one more look at the vortex, Aditya realized that the vortex has been expanding. Even though the expansion was really slow. The spiraling ripples around the vortex were expanding.
Swoosh!!!
"Uncle Tobias, you know anything about the mana vortex?" In the evening, Adam, Aditya, Tobias, and Eddie were holding a meeting. By now the 50 meters sized mana vortex had become 60.5 meters. With each passing hour, the size of the vortex was increasing by 2.1 meters.
Sitting on the same couch as Aditya, the old Vampire sighed in depression. "Whenever a mana vortex has appeared in this world, millions of people always have died because of it. I even lost my father because of the mana vortex." Silence descended upon the living room.
Everyone had their eyes on old man Tobias. "No one really knows what triggers a mana vortex to be formed. What I do know is that whenever a mana vortex is formed, after sucking a colossal amount of mana from the atmosphere, the mana vortex will either give birth to world treasure or give birth to a dungeon or maybe even form a labyrinth."
No one dared to speak as the elder's words were like a golden revelation to them. "About 9 centuries ago, at the beast continent, a similar event took place. A mana vortex that was 300 meters in size shook the entire continent. The mana vortex gave birth to a world treasure."
"Countless tribes, kingdoms, and factions fought to get their hands on the world treasure. Even after the mana vortex disappeared, beast race people continued fighting over the world's treasure until finally one day the treasure was lost or was either hidden by someone. No one really knows what happened with the treasure. Among all that bloodshed, the Treasure seems to have disappeared like it never existed."
Aditya could only imagine what kind of artifact is called a World treasure. "Grandpa, do you know anything about the power of this World treasure?
Tobias unfortunately shook his head in disappointment. "I don't know. What I do know is that the appearance of world treasure had great a continental war which took the lives of nearly 500,000,000 million beast race people died in that war. Even after the world treasure disappeared, tribes continued fighting among themselves to get revenge for their fallen brothers and sisters."
'500 million.' Aditya gasped as he repeated this number in his head. It was not just Aditya, everyone sitting in the room had a similar reaction. To think a world treasure would become the reason for 500,000,000 beast race people to die.
"When the continental war ended, around 1/3 of the beastmen already had been killed. Some ways in a way this war also was a blessing for the beast continent."
"How can a war that has taken the lives of 1/3 of the beastmen population can be considered as a blessing?" Eddie couldn't help but ask back. Adam and Aditya also had the same question.
"As you, all know that almost all of the beast continent is only endless prairie. It was increasingly becoming more and more difficult for the beastmen to find food. Before the continental war, an estimation of 1.5 billion beastmen lived in the beast continent. It was also at that time when a large number of beastmen started migrating to other continents." Almost 99% of the beast continent's land is not suitable for farming. The continent's only food source was either imports or fishing or raising livestock.
"So the dying of 500,000,000 beast race people solved the hunger issues of other 1 billion. It left enough food for the other 1 billion." Aditya continued the last part. He had seen similar things even on earth before. On earth, things had become so worse that some people even had started cannibalism. To live they were ready to eat anything.
Tobias replied with a smile "That's correct."
'No matter which world it is. Food shortage is always a problem.' Aditya thought as he closed his eyes for a second.
"Now coming back to our discussion on mana vortex, when the mana vortex gives birth to Labyrinth, that is a blessing for the land and the continent. Labyrinths are generally made up of 10 or even 100 floors. Each floor is like a sub-world or small world where monsters live and resources can be found."
"Each labyrinth floor has a boss monster. If the highest floor boss monster is not killed the labyrinth will continue to exist. Not just continue to exist, but also continue to spawn monsters on each floor. The labyrinth will continue to respawn monsters until the final boss is not killed."
"The reason a labyrinth can bring huge fortune to the land is because of the endless number of resources found inside the labyrinth. Each floor is a small world and each small world has mines, herbs, and alchemy ingredients. Just like monster respawns, the trees, mines, herbs, water, air, in short everything inside the Labyrinth will continue to respawn endlessly." Hearing Tobias's words, Aditya felt a little greedy. If a Labyrinth were to form in his Kingdom then his Kingdom would become one of the most powerful kingdoms on the continent.
"And last we have dungeons. Most of the time a mana vortex would give birth to a dungeon. Unlike a Labyrinth, a dungeon does not have any floors. Dungeons generally contain a horde of monsters, which are led by a boss, and remain open until the boss is killed. As for how many monsters a dungeon has, I am not sure. It depends on the amount of mana that the mana vortex has sucked from the atmosphere."
Suddenly the atmosphere inside the living room becomes tense. "Since the mana vortex gives birth to the dungeon and the monsters living inside the dungeon, you can expect the number of the monsters to be at least above 1 million."
"1,000,000...." Just this colossal number itself made Adam and others' faces turn pale.
"The monster mostly has either 1st-order or 2nd-order cultivation power. But I am not sure how strong the boss monster is."
'Facing an army of 1 million 1st-order and 2nd-order monsters.' Aditya couldn't see how the Onard family was going to fight this huge wave of monsters. Even if the whole Kingdom and the nobles come forward to kill the monster horde, Aditya is still not sure if that would be enough.
Really Thank you very much to all those who sends support with valuable golden tickets. I hope we can keep it up!!!
Comments