674 Progress (1/2)

Without any notice, Sandro quietly left the Northlands right after the new year.

We discussed many things and made various agreements, in a way that both of us were happy.

During all of this, both of us tacitly forgot about a certain missing Undead Emperor… Since I would never be willing to release Conservation, avoiding this dead-end of a topic would itself be a negotiation technique.

According to our agreement, Sandro would send a group of high-level undead to the Northlands within two months. These undead would nominally belong to the Xiluo Empire, and they would bring large amounts of resources and magical data, especially magic textbooks that would be important for training human undead mages.

As for me, Sandro was indeed quite generous with what he gave me. He wasn't stingy even in the slightest, being willing to teach the new generation. Harloys and I both learned much from him. Of course, in exchange, we also gave him some of our research results.

”Permanent magic effects…”

In a way, Undead Emperors were so dangerous because their research results had already surpassed the limits of the Creator Goddesses. It was often the case that even something seemingly insignificant would also become incredibly dangerous as long as one researched it long enough.

This was a real world, where you would die if your head was cut off. This was no game world where people would only die when their hit points reached zero. Trying to figure out combat strength and levels would be laughable. As long as you could strike a vital point, a rusty dagger would be no different from a forbidden spell.

Sandro's personal research focused on making the magic effects of buffs and debuffs permanent. Basically, he studied why some magic spells were able to affect a person for a long duration, and why others would last only an instant.

Then, he progressed in making short-term magic spells' effects permanent. It was a miraculous specialty that started from the mundane… Well, if you readers have difficulty understanding this, let me give you an example. For instance, if you made a fireball spell into a permanent buff magic spell, then the buffed person would constantly emit flames as if that person was a burning sun.

”Transforming the living into a state of energy, and then a state of magic… it's almost inconceivable.”

As for how Sandro accomplished this? He didn't explain it to me. I figured that it would be quite difficult to explain regardless, just as how it would be quite difficult for me to explain using words how I created my Seven Original Sins.

So, let's ignore the process and only look at the results. The end result was that Sandro abandoned his physical body and transformed into a being of pure magic. His current entire physical body was just a spell—an ultimate withering magic spell.

Withering magic would be a seven-circle magic spell in undead magic. It wasn't particularly rare. However, it would be incredibly deadly to anyone living. Sandro specialized in draining all the water from all life forms within a certain radius around him, withering them to death. This would be incredibly effective against anyone living, but limited in attack power against the undead… But of course, with Sandro's power level, it would be quite easy for him to wither even skeletons into dust. The undead wouldn't be able to handle his withering, either.

Sandro's physical body, which appeared to be corroding, was a constantly progressing withering spell. It was forever active and constantly changing. Previously, the fairies' combat report had said that he instantly cast a forbidden spell. However, what really happened was that Sandro showed his true form, a withering spell that could envelop the entire plains, which allowed him to forcefully resist the archmages' forbidden spell and injure/kill ordinary warriors in an incredibly large radius.

This was no major secret of undead society. Anyone who had records of fighting with other people would naturally see parts of their fighting style exposed. This was why Sandro had nicknames such as ”The Witherer” and ”Waterless Dust”.

This was also how Sandro had broken past the natural barriers that undead would face with their physical bodies being unable to reach the peak. He had already transformed his physical body into pure magic, so why would he be limited? From a certain standpoint, he technically wasn't even undead anymore. It could be said that he was technically an entire new species of his own.

I had long since learned this information on Sandro from Aso's inherited memories. This was why I mentioned previously that Sandro would be more dangerous than 10 Conservations put together. Human mages would have all sorts of restrictions when casting forbidden spells, and would always be significantly weakened for a lengthy period of time after casting a forbidden spell. Yet, Sandro could instantly transform himself into a forbidden spell with basically no restrictions. If he truly attacked with his full power, and started slaughtering the living, he would become an unstoppable calamity.

However, the price for Sandro's transformation into pure magic was that it appeared that Sandro was no longer able to use standard undead magic. However, when compared to the destructive power of his forbidden spell form, this restriction would barely matter.

Sandro was a major weapon of mass destruction. He simply hadn't attacked with full force yet. If he really did, he would easily create new areas on the map filled with death, where no living beings could survive.

I should also mention that any place that Sandro used the full extent of his abilities would see the entire land, all animals, and all plants be finished. All the water in the land would be drained, transforming the terrain into nothing but desert. Even the undead would transform into dust, withered away to death. No enemies or allies of his would be able to survive. Sandro would basically create an entire new mini Death Plane.

Sandro's ability could only be used for destruction. It was impossible for him to create, but he was capable of total annihilation.

He didn't have a so-called Myth-ranked weapon. Or, maybe another way of putting it was that he himself was his own Myth-ranked weapon.

Besides, he was pure magic himself. This would mean that in order to eliminate his frightfully powerful forbidden spell, it would be impossible to eliminate his magic without eliminating Sandro himself. This would be an impossible endeavor.

The other Undead Emperors were also incredibly dangerous. However, Aso's memories unhesitatingly categorized Sandro as the most dangerous existence among them. Even the wars between Gods during the Immemorial generation hadn't managed to make Sandro as much as lower his head.

This was why I mentioned previously that I would profit so much as long as I obtained Sandro's combat strength for my side. Even in my upcoming battles against the Gods, Sandro would be one of my best pieces.Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please clickfor visiting.

Perhaps it would be impossible still for Sandro to single-handedly kill a Main God. However, he would be fully capable of destroying everything the Main God had, and it would be impossible for a Main God to kill him.

Actually, Main God was simply yet another power level assessment. Basically, Main God meant ”an existence capable of easily defeating a powerful God.” Ancient existences such as Sandro had long since been forgotten by history, and thus they weren't recorded as being on the level of Main Gods. However, not a single Main God could claim that they could easily kill Sandro.

But, judging by how Sandro had still lost in battle long ago and been exiled to the Death Planes, he still did have a mortal enemy who countered him. Of course, his mortal enemy was also one of my enemies. This was why Sandro hadn't dared to act as he pleased. Still, I'd talk about this topic at a later time.

Sandro generously gave me and Harloys much of his research data. A lot of it was too advanced for me, and I would need time to study it myself. Meanwhile, Harloys benefited much more as she discussed many things with Sandro.

In return, I also gave Sandro a new discovery of my own. Although it was only a lowly one-circle magic spell, in a way, this spell could actually change the entirety of undead magic society.

Magical bone creation, a one-circle magic spell. The caster could spend a certain amount of mana to create some bones which were capable of casting undead magic.

Alright, perhaps some perceptive readers might have already noticed that it wasn't actually my personal invention. It was really Undead Emperor Conservation's unique invention.

When I forced Conservation to the brink, trapping her in an environment with no resources to create undead cannon fodder with, she had actually managed to create something out of nothing, using her infinite mana in a state of conservation to create bones that then stacked up into undead giants as one of her final aces in battle against me.

And after she was defeated, I naturally obtained her research results.

At the time, I even scolded her for how wasteful she was being. This magic spell had the potential to change the entire world, yet she was hoarding it as one of her personal secret trump cards. That was such a waste!

Although undead magic was cheap to cultivate, it still required resources. You wouldn't be able to obtain corpses and bones out of thin air, after all. Even though obtaining corpses would be quite easy due to constant warfare all over the world, corpses were still a type of ”valuable resource” to some. As more people started studying undead magic, the nimble-footed… er, I meant graverobbers would constantly increase in number. Many problems would then arise.

Besides, the spread of undead magic meant that undead magic was no longer solely the realm of undead mages.

The development of new magical engineering techniques had brought major changes and great developments. But, no matter how technology developed, it would always be best for there to be as many mages as the source of the magic powering the new technology as possible. Since it was much cheaper to cultivate undead magic, with much lower requirements for talent as well, even an acolyte undead mage who lacked the ability and talent to become a full-fledged undead mage could easily make a living by ”selling their mana” and ”selling zombie laborers”.

Undead mages were now like cheap mana batteries who were becoming ever more common on the market.

It would be quite obvious that standardizing undead magic training would improve all of magical civilization. However, people would often mention the problem of ”resources”.