Chapter 34: Losing Everything

Xiahou Yan naturally couldn’t have known what kind of chain reaction his Summoning Array had caused in the distant Demon Realm. Right now, the Lord’s mood was a mixture of relief and heartache.

He was relieved because summoning a massive tentacle to solve their problem using the Summoning Array relied on a perfect alignment of the right time, the right place, and the right people.

The Summoning Array recorded in the Ancient Ritual Atlas was notorious for its massive consumption of Magic Materials. If they hadn’t been in Adrian’s laboratory, if the senior Necromancer hadn’t left behind an entire cabinet full of dazzling Magic Materials, and if there hadn’t coincidentally been Chalk at hand to draw the Array, how could the Lord, who barely knew the basics of the Summoning Ceremony, possibly have called forth such a powerful existence from the void!

Because this opportunity was so incredibly rare, the Lord didn’t even bother to wonder whether the tentacle extending from the Void Teleportation Gate was some chaotic entity of this Plane, or simply one of the Ancient Dominators from Earth. Judging from how it had toyed with Adrian’s bronze statue like a plaything, the power of this tentacle monster was clearly beyond ordinary imagination!

Without Adrian’s life savings, the penniless Lord conservatively estimated that his chances of summoning such an Otherworld boss again in this lifetime were roughly zero. Therefore, no matter what that tentacle actually was, it was ultimately nothing more than a fleeting passerby in Mr. Xiahou’s Magic career, never to be seen again!

What the Lord felt more right now was heartache! The kind of agonizing pain that made all his internal organs cramp together!

This time, exploring Adrian’s Magic Laboratory, aside from their main quest to find the Necromancer’s Magic Rhythm, the Igor Family group had originally come with the mindset of entering the Grand View Garden to score some freebies. They had hoped to scavenge some valuable items to make up for the caravan supplies lost during the undead tide. Unexpectedly, a suddenly awakened Bronze Demonic Puppet had completely ruined Xiahou Yan’s little scheme!

What was originally the most valuable asset in the laboratory—an entire cabinet full of ancient Magic Materials—had now been fed to the void tentacle monster as Sacrificial Offerings, all thanks to the Lord’s extravagant spending. Right now, the Magic Materials cabinet had been stripped completely bare. Even a rat that had been starving for three years would leave with tears in its eyes!

If the loss of the Magic Materials could be considered a necessary insurance expense for the Lord to ensure the Summoned Creatures were powerful enough, then the consumption of a whole bag of Magic Scrolls made him want to stomp his feet and curse. The large bag of Magic Scrolls that Xiahou Yan had originally pocketed was now reduced to a few solitary pieces.

To block the Bronze Demonic Puppet’s attacks, Master Laurie and Alice had thrown out over a hundred Scrolls without pausing for a single moment! Even now, the laboratory’s air was filled with the dense Magic Ability that had erupted from the massive amount of Scrolls.

What annoyed Xiahou Yan the most was Master Laurie’s extravagant and wasteful style. In their desperation, they had thrown the Scrolls without even looking at their effects, resulting in a huge amount of unnecessary expenses:

For instance, the "Swarm Technique." The poisonous stingers of the summoned Magic Wasps couldn’t even pierce the bronze statue’s surface, making them completely useless.

Another example was the "Smoke Technique." The rising gray-white smoke screen had absolutely no effect on the Demonic Puppet, which sensed its environment using Magic Power rather than sight.

And then there was the "Blood Flowing Skill"... How exactly were you supposed to make a bronze pillar bleed?!

The ones that ultimately played a role were Magic Scrolls with physical effects, such as the "Fireball Technique" and the "Vibration Technique." But even with these Scrolls, Master Laurie and Alice’s poor coordination during casting caused a massive overlap of effects and waste.

The most frustrating part was that Master Laurie and Alice had completely good intentions. The waste of the Scrolls was also an unavoidable forced error made in a moment of panic. No matter how heartbroken the Lord felt, he had no reason to blame anyone. All of this made Xiahou Yan sadly realize that their group would probably have to return home carrying only a few pitiful Scrolls...

Perhaps sensing that the Lord was in a bad mood, Master Laurie and Alice both looked somewhat sheepish.

While Xiahou Yan’s heart bled as he calculated the battle’s losses, the archer, Chris Mann, completed the most physically and mentally exhausting task. Holding his nose, he pieced the two halves of Tom Lawrence’s body back together.

Because the blade of Adrian’s statue had been far too fast, the cross-section where Lawrence was cut in half was incredibly smooth and even. Not even his internal organs had spilled out, which made Chris’s work much easier. After the two halves of Lawrence were put together, apart from a faint blood-red seam at his waist, the middle-aged Guard’s corpse looked as if it hadn’t suffered any injuries at all.

The Lord stood before the corpse with a gloomy expression. He recited the Resurrection Technique Spell with familiar ease and watched the phantom of Lord Yama appear and disappear, already accustomed to the sight.

Under the illumination of the Resurrection Technique, the seam at Lawrence’s waist rapidly healed back to normal. Immediately after, the Guard trembled all over. Under the speechless gazes of the crowd, he jolted upright and sat on the ground, looking around in bewilderment.

The Igor Family’s Guard, Tom Lawrence, was declared resurrected for the second time. Of course, he was still in the state of a living dead without a heartbeat or body temperature.

However, before Lawrence could calm down from the joy of his resurrection, he heard the Lord ask coldly from the side, "Can either of you tell me why Senior Adrian’s Demonic Puppet was suddenly activated?"

Tom Lawrence opened his mouth silently. He suddenly felt that it might have been better to just continue playing dead...

Lawrence and Chris, one older and one younger—two rascal Guards—knelt before Xiahou Yan in fear and trepidation. They reported their previous conversation to the Lord word for word, exactly as it had happened.

Upon hearing the part about "being dragged away to warm the Lord’s bed," Alice Comstock’s pretty face immediately turned into a cute red apple. The female Swordsman gripped the hilt of her broken sword tightly, clearly suppressing the strong urge to stab these two bastards to death.

Upon hearing that Adrian’s statue was activated by the word "virgin," Master Laurie’s expression became incredibly complex.

As for the Lord, who stood to the side with his arms crossed... His expression had shifted from his initial fury, transforming first into a cold sneer, and then settling into complete impassiveness—as cold and ruthless as the thousand-year Profound Ice of the Cold Bone Mountain Range.

"You two!" Master Laurie stomped his foot and scolded, beating the Lord to the punch before he could explode. "Look at what you said and how much trouble you caused! Looking down on Senior Adrian and looking down on virgins? We Mages spend our entire lives delving into the mysteries of Magic! When the hell do we have time for romance? Looking down on virgins? Bah! There are only so many girls on the continent! If it weren’t for us virgins graciously stepping aside, would it ever be your turn to pick up girls and get married?!"

Lawrence and Chris lowered their heads, silently taking the scolding, but they couldn’t help but feel... Hadn’t Master Laurie gotten the main point a little wrong?

"Given the lack of class you both showed, even if Senior Adrian’s statue had chopped you down with a single stroke, it would be completely justified and reasonable!" Master Laurie ended his furious denunciation aggressively, then turned to the Lord with an apologetic smile. "Lord Eliot, we managed to survive this ordeal, so at least the outcome is good..."

"The outcome is good?" Xiahou Yan sneered. "We went through all this trouble, walked back and forth from the gates of hell a few times, and not only did we fail to find the Magic Rhythm, but we also lost a large batch of Magic Scrolls and Magic Materials that were already in our hands. Who’s going to pay for this mess?"

Lawrence’s and Chris’s heads drooped even lower. Knowing they had caused a huge disaster, the two of them didn’t dare to breathe a single word.

Xiahou Yan took a deep breath, finally ready to put his hands on his hips and launch into a tirade, but Alice tugged at his sleeve and said, "Lord Eliot, look!"

The blush on Alice’s face hadn’t completely faded, but she extended her finger, pointing toward the spot where the bronze statue had originally stood. After the statue had been uprooted by the tentacle, the pedestal it had stood on was also tilted to the side, revealing a massive, pitch-black hole in the ground!

Embedded in the inner walls of the large hole were metal rungs for climbing, indicating that if one followed this cavern all the way down, there was clearly another hidden world waiting below. To think that beneath this bronze statue, a secret passage had been hidden all along!

Xiahou Yan and Master Laurie exchanged a glance, both catching a glimmer of hope in each other’s eyes.

"The time to atone for your crimes has arrived." Xiahou Yan turned back, looking at the two unlucky Guards with a cold sneer. "Which one of you is going to lead the way and climb down to scout?"