NEC Chapter 119: Ruins, Lairs, and Blood Fortress

"The distribution of the seven major spiritual energy elements across the continent is not uniform. Some places have more wind elements, others have more dark elements!"

After taking a sip of warm rice wine, letting the rich aroma spread through his mouth and making a gesture of appreciation, Elliott continued leisurely, "The higher the elemental concentration in a place, the easier it is for lairs to be born."

"There are over three hundred recorded large lairs on the continent. Through special conditions, manifesting elemental creatures in large lairs can continuously harvest mana crystals."

Chen Mo immediately followed up, pursuing relentlessly, "Then, what exactly are these special conditions you mentioned?"

"Well, the most basic requirements are three conditions: find an elemental concentration zone, place a lair core, and build an activation-type spiritual energy array."

After thinking, Elliott smiled and added, "Of course, you also need to be able to defeat the elemental creatures born in the lair."

Under Chen Mo's persistent questioning, the third-circle scholar's explanations, combined with everyone else's various additions, finally sorted out the basic framework.

Finding elemental concentration zones wasn't extremely difficult, but elemental concentration zones that could support large lairs needed to be searched for by specialized mages.

Chen Mo had no such professional talent, and Downs knew nothing about this either, so they'd need to hire outsiders.

Undoubtedly, the Magic Academy could handle this job.

As for the third item, building activation-type spiritual energy arrays, this fell under enchanters' scope of work. The Magic Academy could even custom-make large composite magic arrays for Chen Mo, so this mature product was certainly no problem.

Looking at just these two items, it sounded like Elliott was drumming up business for his own organization.

However, regarding the second item, lair cores, the third-circle scholar was blunt.

"This requires developing large ruins, and the cost will be very high. Without backing support, ordinary territories can't afford it!"

Ruins, this was a term Chen Mo had heard more than once before but had never paid serious attention to.

In his mind, these should be similar to archaeological sites, underground tombs, or swamp caves and such places. These places had some magical products, ancient remains, and of course, various small monsters.

These stories widely existed in mercenaries' adventure tales, serving as the best accompaniment to drinks when they were three cups in and faces flushed with warmth.

Chen Mo had heard Little John and Little Joey tell stories of their grandfathers' and fathers' heroic deeds in developing ruins more than once. Those tales of fangs and claws, flashing swords, overnight fortunes, and heroes with beauties were mercenaries' most beautiful aspirations for this world.

They couldn't always be gathering herbs, running errands, and serving as guards, right? What would be the point of being mercenaries then?

If he hadn't established contact with his homeland, perhaps Chen Mo would have been one of them, crossing every mountain and wading through every river, pursuing those thrilling adventure stories.

Now, he could only reluctantly be a lord, living a life of comfort without waves...

Really lacking much of life's pleasure!

Well, what was the essence of ruins anyway?

In the most common terms, ruins were wild, disordered, high-risk magical lairs.

Some were formed because special natural environments spawned powerful elemental leader-level creatures at magic nodes, and these leader-level creatures gradually built their own tribes, becoming independent strongholds occupying one area.

Like the fire giant communities in Lava Valley.

Some ruins were once secret training grounds or laboratories of some mage. After the mage unexpectedly left and lost control, the magic arrays maintaining order collapsed due to malfunction, leaving behind magical items or magical creatures that evolved in the loss of control, ultimately forming magical forbidden zones where living people should not approach.

Like that Forgotten Island in Sapphire Lake.

Even more ruins originated from the remnants of war and hatred.

For example, when elves evacuated their old royal city, the final garrison detonated all spiritual energy cores in the city, and magical vortexes still roar and rage through the city today.

For example, the ice giants and snow giants who had been completely obliterated in history left lingering wraiths in their old gathering places, indiscriminately attacking every foreign race that entered, forming the famous forbidden land "Ice and Snow Valley."

The halflings who had been waiting in the corner of the banquet seemed to have painful memories stirred up, holding their heads in their hands, softly sobbing and murmuring prayers.

Elliott was quite straightforward about it, saying bluntly, "Every tribe that was severely damaged or destroyed by the human race left at least one of their 'sorrowful lands,' well... also contributing the most lair cores to the human race!"

At this point, Chen Mo had a relatively clear understanding.

Uncontrolled magic nodes were ruins, controlled magic nodes were lairs.

By excavating lair cores from disordered ruins, one could establish orderly lairs to mass-produce and farm magical materials and crystals.

Well, it sounded like a kind of farming behavior.

"I have another question to consult with Scholar Elliott!"

"Since there are so many public ruins on the continent, why... why don't the human race clear them all and turn them all into lairs?"

Elliott seemed somewhat stuffed from eating, pushed away the plate in front of him with his hands, propped his elbows on the table, adjusted his body position, then replied unhurriedly, "Very high difficulty, not much value!"

"Don't listen to those fantastical stories made up by bards, those are all meant to fool hot-headed youngsters."

"Ruins are full of various disordered magical mechanisms, strange traps, and odd creatures. Some ruins even have the power of laws mixed in."

"Take Wailing Swamp, for example. First-rank professionals cannot enter; only little ones below third-tier can go in. Facing those swamp giant crocodiles over ten meters long, what's the difference from queuing up to die?"

"Only powerful nations, tribes, or lords can develop large ruins!"

Elliott's gaze fell on Chen Mo, as if to confirm this lord's determination once again, "For these major forces, the gains from ruins compared to the investment are really... somewhat not worth it!"

"Mr. Elliott!" Chen Mo raised his eyebrows, "Perhaps I lack experience, but aren't there many ancient remains in ruins? Powerful magical tools, and even lost spell books?"

"Can't these move the kings of various nations either?"

"They have no value!" Elliott shook his head without hesitation. "Magical tools do exist, spell books also exist, but while those might be useful for some individual mercenaries, they have no value for nations."

"The magical system is not unchanging; it's like a never-ceasing flowing river. Whether it's our Magic Academy or the magic towers spread across the continent, we are constantly researching, innovating, and improving!"

"Today's mainstream magic has long surpassed ancient magic by who knows how many times in power, efficiency, and consumption. Hoping to dig up a moldy old book from ruins that could influence the current magical system? That's lacking common sense!"

Elliott seemed to realize his words were somewhat aggressive and quickly added an explanation, "The reason such rumors prevail on the continent is first because many people profit by selling information about ruins, and second... to deceive mercenaries who don't know their depth, making them cannon fodder for scouting!"

Well, Chen Mo suddenly realized that this indeed made sense.

He had indeed had little contact with high-end official institutions, heard more folk stories, and been misled by those thrilling legends.

Pulling the perspective back to reality, just like on his homeland Blue Star, finding legendary powerful "Zhuge repeating crossbow" or magical "wooden ox and flowing horse" blueprints, would they have any substantial improvement to modern military technology?

At most, they'd let some individual content creators make replicas and gain some traffic. If military departments gave them even one more glance, it would be a waste of time.

Well, certain countries that relied on archaeology to develop military didn't count. Their ancient times weren't really ancient, and their modern times were too pathetic.

Having figured this out, Chen Mo's tone became increasingly polite, "Then, respected Mage Elliott, as an experienced senior, could you give me more advice?"

"Lord flatters me!"

"All the major kingdoms and duchies have their own controlled large lairs, used to train warriors while producing crystals."

"If the lord isn't in a hurry, you can emulate common practices: select a suitable ruin, hire mercenary groups, send exploration teams to slowly grind it down, bit by bit, trying to figure out the ruin's internal operating rules, monster distribution, and danger levels. When you find the opportunity, mass your forces and take it in one fell swoop."

"Steadily developing a large ruin, grinding for three or four years, even eight or nine years, is all normal."

This method seemed indeed relatively stable, just a bit costly in terms of people... and the time was also a bit too long.

"If you're pressed for time, then just go hard, but be prepared for the consequences."

"Back then, the Snow Kite Duchy in the lowlands, because they were eager to develop a large ruin, sent all the duchy's most elite forces in there. The entire duchy was reduced to ashes!"

"As for being attacked from behind by long-plotting enemies during development, such examples are countless. Lord must be careful."

Before the banquet was about to end, the Magic Academy's third-circle scholar, Mage Aidan Elliott, specially offered the lord a closing remark.

"The most skilled mechanical dwarven masters can only toil in dark mines and stuffy, humid workshops. The alchemist profession that once disrupted continental warfare with alchemical war golems has now become subordinate to enchanters."

"No matter what kind of miraculous machinery you can obtain, this world is ultimately still a world of spiritual energy and magic!"

"The lord should not be overly obsessed with the mechanical path. No matter how exquisite, it's ultimately external to oneself!"

"Only spiritual energy is eternal!"

Lord Chen Mo issued the highest directive: regardless of how things stood, preparation work should begin first.

Gather intelligence, understand information.

To develop large ruins, distance was a factor that had to be considered. As Scholar Elliott said, when large forces go on expeditions, the home base was vulnerable to sneak attacks, and the external forces were also easily plotted against.

The Development Territory Protection Treaty was just a treaty, not some unbreakable fundamental law of creation.

Soon, three possible targets entered Chen Mo's sight.

Falling Feather Canyon to the south, one of the elves' former core military strongholds. At the moment when the human race launched their final assault, the falling feathers of antlered eagles and bird-bodied druids filled the entire canyon.

Spiritual energy and resentment mixed to form this large ruin.

Thunder Plain to the north.

That was once the homeland of thunder lizards. Trampled by the human race and then by the beast tribes, under repeated struggles, these massive, gentle-natured beasts finally had no choice but to leave corpses everywhere and scatter into the valleys. Their original settlement became a desolate land of constant thunder and lightning year-round.

Magic practitioners studying lightning across the continent regarded Thunder Plain as a holy land! Elliott had previously been conducting energy conversion research at the magic institute on Thunder Plain's periphery for years.

No wonder he was enthusiastic about Vast Sea Territory's electrical equipment yet felt its power was too weak.

The lightning on Thunder Plain's periphery was enough to kill people, and the lightning in the inner areas was as thick as Simple Bull's thighs, easily capable of executing first-rank professionals.

There was also Blood Fortress to the northwest.

Unlike the other two ruins, which were mainly caused by human sins, this ruin was where humans had been beaten.

Blood Fortress, originally named Razor Fortress, was the forward position of Emerald Duchy's East Pass Ridge, like a giant lock firmly blocking the starting position of Razor Corridor.

In successive orc invasions, they either smashed their heads bloody against Razor Fortress or had to go around it, spitting sand all the way south.

Then, due to wars between human races, Razor Corridor was cut off in the middle by enemy nations, and the supply line between Razor Fortress and the duchy was gone.

Under these circumstances, Razor Fortress relied on arduously transporting supplies from the desert, desperately holding out for two years, until Emerald Duchy's East Pass Ridge was gradually nibbled away. The fortress, with ammunition and food exhausted, fell amid the orcs' roars.

To completely destroy this roadblock forever, the orc army razed the entire fortress to the ground. In the ruins, lingering resentment rose to the sky, condensing into this Blood Fortress.

"From distance perspective, Blood Fortress is the closest, and because it's located in the no-man's land at the desert's edge, theoretically, it can be viewed as an extension of our pioneering territory."

Pioneering lords were originally carved out from areas not under kingdom control, so expanding further forward was reasonable, logical, and legal.

"However, taking this place means we'll likely face constant invasions from orc tribes heading south in the future."

Chen Mo's finger slowly moved across the spread-out giant map, circling several times before finally stopping on the red circle in the northwest corner.

"Falling Feather to the south is too far; if intercepted, problems would arise."

"Thunder Plain to the north is right under the orcs' noses, with research institutions like the Magic Academy watching it. No matter how you look at it, it's a place of trouble."

"Only Blood Fortress has relatively suitable distance, supply lines can be maintained, and even if attacked, we'd face enemies head-on."

"Arrange further reconnaissance and investigation!"

"I need to seek some support!"

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