Borne by power beyond mortal comprehension, the City of Alchemy rose into the sky. In the midst of its ascent, most of the buildings within turned to ash.
In the end, it vanished entirely, leaving behind only a colossal crater.
James Watson watched the terrifying scene unfold, thanking his lucky stars that he had retreated quickly enough. Otherwise, he, too, would have been swept away by that dreadful power.
With the City of Alchemy vanishing into thin air, one of the Nine Kingdoms was effectively destroyed. This would inevitably cause massive upheaval across the continent. James Watson could linger no longer; he had to return immediately to the Ryan Empire to prepare for the coming fallout.
The paladins departed as swiftly as they had arrived.
Anbaixiu returned to his castle, his heart heavy with regret.
Apart from his phylacteries, Anbaixiu hadn't suffered much loss. Before leaving home, he had known those alchemists were plotting something, so he had already moved his other valuables. He had even relocated most of his phylacteries, leaving behind only near-expired, inferior goods purely meant to swindle people.
As for the humans living on his domain, most seemed to have fled already, but Anbaixiu didn't care much. Now that the City of Alchemy was gone, it was time for him to relocate anyway.
Without a kingdom's protection, a lich was all too easily hunted down by adventurers.
Still, there was no rush. Anbaixiu needed to check his haul first.
Tearing open a spatial rift with both hands, he stepped into the special demiplane created by the Wish spell. This was a private space belonging exclusively to Anbaixiu. It was vastly larger than any mere bag of holding, roughly spacious enough to fit his entire castle.
Stepping inside, he was greeted by the sight of a genuine mountain formed from a million gold coins.
In the past, Anbaixiu would have rejoiced—a million gold coins was by no means a poor haul. But thinking of how much more he could have made, his heart twinged with unbearable ache.
Suppressing the heartache, he began searching through the space.
Before long, a smile surfaced on Anbaixiu's face.
"Formulas and blueprints!"
Hundreds of bookcases filled nearly half the private space, all packed with the City of Alchemy's classified documents. Perhaps because the sacrifice had specifically favored dense, massive matter as offerings, these lightweight papers had largely been spared.
Anbaixiu flipped through a few and easily found several valuable alchemical formulas.
The cost of the bookcases and paper was negligible, but the contents within were extraordinary.
Anbaixiu estimated that if he sold all these formulas, making a massive fortune would be child's play. In better market conditions, fetching tens of millions or even hundreds of millions wouldn't have been out of the question.
Yet after the City of Alchemy had created such a massive catastrophe, alchemists across the entire continent would likely feel the tremors. The city's destruction would inevitably bring down the kingdom, prompting other alchemists to flee en masse and causing their formulas to leak widely.
It was hard to say how much the materials on these shelves would remain worth, or how rapidly they would depreciate.
Beyond that, Anbaixiu was surprised to spot Dippel sealed away in confinement.
How had this old bastard ended up here too?
"Valuables... people count too?"
Anbaixiu could only marvel at how bizarre the selection criteria were. Still, a legendary alchemist ought to be worth something. If all else failed, torturing him would surely squeeze out a few secret vaults.
Anbaixiu looked around. Besides Dippel, quite a few others had also been swept into this mysterious space; whether they were unfortunate or lucky was hard to say.
Then there were various alchemical materials of modest value. Adding everything together and setting aside items with speculative value, six million gold coins had indeed been a fair appraisal.
Calling it a loss wouldn't be entirely fair; six million wasn't terrible, and Anbaixiu hadn't actually lost much of his own. But the earnings were far below expectations.
Yet none of these were the true prize. Leaving aside the two extra legendary boons Anbaixiu had obtained, the most valuable thing was this space itself.
Since prophecies couldn't be altered, Anbaixiu hadn't wished for gold coins, choosing instead to attach special conditions to this private space.
First, to ensure the supplies inside wouldn't spoil, Anbaixiu required the space to control the flow of time. Right now, everything was locked in temporal stasis, guaranteeing the magical materials wouldn't degrade. Dippel was also unluckily frozen in that stasis. Anbaixiu could also accelerate time—making one day outside equal a year inside, or one year outside equal a day inside. The maximum ratio was over three hundred times, adjustable to run faster or slower at will.
Second, it offered exceptional security. Aside from the gods, it was practically impossible for anyone to infiltrate this space, ensuring the supplies within would never be stolen.
Third, the space retained the potential for future expansion. The rationale he gave was that materials inside might very well expand—wasn't it perfectly normal for an alchemical concoction to blow up with a bang?
These three absurd justifications granted Anbaixiu's private space several characteristics of a divine realm. Only because Gary Watts was on his side had Anbaixiu been able to press so many unreasonable demands, with Watts likely shouldering the consequences of realizing the Wish.
Or perhaps the gods, fearing Anbaixiu might throw up his hands and refuse to cooperate with only a six-million-coin yield, had pinched their noses and indulged his wish.
Either way, Anbaixiu had profited. A highly secure private space with adjustable time flow and room for future expansion—if not for the fact that it couldn't be transferred, it would make every powerhouse of the legendary realm green with envy.
Beyond that, the two legendary boons were the most valuable prizes.
Anbaixiu took out the gold coin and linked his soul to it.
Instantly, countless shimmering lights burst from the coin, displaying over a dozen different legendary boons—naturally, all related to alchemy.
"Let me see. Construct Repair: perfectly repairs one's own creations. Trash. Doubled Yield: substantially increases the output of alchemical experiments. Somewhat interesting. Material Attribute Modification: a bit ridiculous, worth considering. One Hundred Percent Experiment Success: the council president's ability, isn't it? Impressive, let's keep that as a tentative choice..."
After examining them meticulously for a long time, Anbaixiu narrowed his selection down to three legendary boons.
The council president's One Hundred Percent Experiment Success was exceedingly powerful, verging on divine authority. It possessed two distinct effects: first, accurately deducing the probability of an experiment's success, and second, forcibly modifying that probability.
However, the larger the gap, the greater the price paid.
Anbaixiu didn't know what price the president had paid previously to adjust the success rate of godhood to one hundred percent. He only knew that for him to use this legendary boon, the cost was gold.
The lower an experiment's natural success rate, the more gold it consumed. The description was quite vague, merely stressing that vast sums of gold coins were required. But as long as one had enough money, no matter how outrageous the experiment, it would succeed without fail.
The second absurd legendary boon was the ability to alter the attributes of matter. This also touched upon divine authority. For instance, when Dippel's golem puppet was dismantled, the president had rewritten "damaged golem puppet" into "a pile of spare parts." It sounded similar, but that change thoroughly nullified Dippel's legendary boon.
The golem was no longer considered something he had built, so his repair ability naturally failed.
Altering the attributes of matter went even further. Anbaixiu could designate a pile of steel and imbue it with the concept of "skeleton." Theoretically, after that change, Anbaixiu's Simulated Soul could use the steel just like bone.
Yet this, too, stated that it required vast sums of gold coins, without providing any clear pricing structure.
The third option was far more practical: at set intervals, one could comprehend a new alchemical formula. Which formula one obtained was random, entirely dependent on the God of Alchemy's mood. Anbaixiu didn't harbor much affection for this former teacher of his, sensing that the old man hid countless secrets from him. But it was undeniably cheap—costing merely a few hundred gold coins for a monthly blind-box pull, with a chance at hitting the jackpot. What if it yielded an extraordinary formula?
Compared to these three, the other legendary boons were either useless or offered negligible effects. Legendary boons of alchemy were somewhat underwhelming, mostly skewing toward utility, leaving Anbaixiu indecisive.
"Forget it. I don't have to choose today; I can take a few days to mull it over."
Anbaixiu put away the gold coin and produced a scroll that radiated golden light.
This was the other reward he had obtained: a second advancement to the legendary realm, granting a second legendary boon.
This would be the key to shedding the label of an inferior legend, and perhaps make up for the losses brought by abandoning the power of prophecy.
Without hesitation, Anbaixiu activated the power within the scroll.
A burst of golden light enveloped his body, and the wondrous sensation from his first legendary advancement washed over him once more. Anbaixiu felt as though his soul were merging completely into the fabric of the world.
In a daze, he seemed to see countless living beings prostrating at his feet. Like a colossus, he sat high upon a throne forged of gold, looking down upon hundreds of millions of believers.
Chapter 88