133 Shapeshifter

But then again, of the three, Andoine was probably the most suitable to get this Crystal of Eternity.

The Crystal of Eternity was really good stuff. Besides the permanent preservation of potions, it could also slowly improve the efficacy of the potions. For a pharmacist, this was a dream treasure. The temptation of this thing to pharmacists was something that Lin Li had personally experienced. He had once sold a small piece of it back in the Endless World. He didn't expect then that what was originally a tentative move had attracted numerous pharmacists, and the price that he sold it for was unbelievable to Lin Lin himself.

But the one in front of them was even bigger than others. Lin Li dared not imagine how many pharmacists would have a heart attack if such a large piece of Crystal of Eternity was brought out.

But because it was too big, Lin Li insisted that it was only suitable for Andoine.

Indeed—the bigger the Crystal of Eternity, the better it was. But when it reached a certain extent, its actual value would be greatly discounted. For example, the Crystal of Eternity before them was big to a scary extent. If it were to be carved into a potion bottle, it could be carved into at least ten bottles, from big to small, to make a whole set.

However, what about that?

A whole set of potion bottles carved from the Crystal of Eternity was really perverted and violent, but that was all. Besides being used for showing off, Lin Li really couldn't think of any other use for them.

To preserve potions? There was no need for it at all. Apart from a few, how many potions had to be preserved with the Crystal of Eternity? A glass bottle was more than enough…

To improve the efficacy of potions? Stop kidding… It would take months to turn a bottle of Mana Potion into an Awakening Potion. It was better to just concoct hundreds of them—it'd be more than enough for them to drink one bottle and throw one bottle away. Was there a need to spend a few months on it?

This fellow was a real pharmaceutics guru; apart from those master grade potions, how many were worth it to be contained in the Crystal of Eternity?

For Lin Li, the size of the Crystal of Eternity was actually irrelevant. One bottle of potion carved from the Crystal of Eternity was enough for him. If he was given a set of bottles of different sizes, he'd have a headache instead. What if he broke one, or what if others were jealous of him? The less trouble you had, the better.

Lin Li hated trouble, so he did not hesitate at all, and pushed the Crystal of Eternity to Andoine.

"Hahaha…" The old man held the Crystal of Eternity in his hands, and laughed so hard that his eyes narrowed. "If old Burnside could see it, I wonder if it would frighten him out…"

"You should accumulate some virtue…" Lin Li looked at the crystal, and suddenly sympathized with Old Grimm. As a potion master, it would be strange to see such a large Crystal of Eternity and not be scared into a heart attack by it.

After a long look at the Crystal of Eternity, Andoine finally opened up his spatial equipment. With a cautious look on his face, he kept the king of all crystals away.

The old man's spatial equipment was similarly a ring.

Nevertheless, compared with the Ring of Endless Storm, the space of this ring was much smaller. A mere Crystal of Eternity had occupied almost half of the space. In the end, Andoine was forced to clear out several magic books from it.

And at this time, Lin Li held the Dragon's Eye in his hand.

To him, this was the best choice.

Compared with the giant Crystal of Eternity that was filled with an upstart temperament, this Dragon's Eye was much more low-key. It was yellow and slightly dim. It might be mistaken for an amber stone by someone who had no knowledge of gemstones.

Only those who really knew magical gemstones understood the huge gap between the two gemstones.

The amber stones were usually used by mage apprentices because they were too weak to control the mana contained in the magical crystals. Therefore, ordinary mage apprentices used mageweaths set on the magical staff to control the mana contained in amber stones. This control was simple, and did not require too much skill.

The Dragon's Eye was at the other end of the pole.

Especially the one before them—it was so big that it was scary. Lin Li was almost certain that it contained a spell of at least a Magic Shooter level!

Lin Li had already thought about it—it was impossible to set such a large Dragon's Eye on a ring. He'd probably have to try on a staff when he returned. Anyway, magical crystals were of little significance to him; they were only a source of mana. To a monster with infinite mana like him, whether the staff was inlaid with a magical crystal or not made no big difference.

So, for a long time, Lin Li seldom used the magic staff. The reason why he always carried the Winter Staff was merely to make himself look more like a mage.

However, if the magical crystal was replaced by the Dragon's Eye, then things would be different. That was some real combat effectiveness—if used skillfully, one could even defeat an Archmage.

"As for this…" Lin Li picked up the Heart of Gaia after putting the Dragon's Eye into the Ring of Endless Storm. This defensive gemstone could only belong to Sean…

"I'll keep it first. I'll help you blend it into the armor when we get back."

"Orh…" With Sean's knowledge, how could he know what the Heart of Gaia was? He only knew that anything Mr Felic said couldn't be wrong…

The three precious accompanying gemstones were distributed. As for the pile of Eternal Adamantine on the ground, nothing more had to be said about it—Lin Li had swept them all into the Ring of Endless Storm.

Watching Lin Li made a sweep of the mineral stones, Andoine had the urge to curse him.

This was perhaps what was meant by "comparisons are odious"…

He was a legendary figure to say the least, but the spatial ring he had was so miserable—he had barely managed to stuff in just a piece of Crystal of Eternity. And look at this kid—the Ring of Endless Storm he had was like a bottomless pit. He could still load it with mineral stones after putting the gemstone in. If it hadn't been impossible to move the cave, the kid would have packed the whole cave into the ring.

With the Ring of Endless Storm in hand, the speed at which Lin Li swept through the mineral stones was simply astounding.

It took him only a few minutes to sweep away the Eternal Adamantine piled up all over the place a moment ago. As the last of it was put into the Ring of Endless Storm, Lin Li rubbed his sore arm, and was about to stop for breath when he suddenly noticed that there seemed to be something shining in the rubble under his feet.

This pile of rubble was located in the center of the previous vein. The whole vein had been blown up by five Air Bomb scrolls. At this time, the stones piled on the ground were those that were connected with the vein.

"Another accompanying gemstone?" Lin Li started in surprise. He hadn't expected that after coming across three of the best gemstones, there was another one waiting for him in the rubble heap.

Lin Li had quickly forgotten his sore arm in the face of this unexpected surprise. He bent down in a hurry, and moved the rocks away with his hands; soon, the shining thing showed its true self.

What lay beneath the rubble was not the accompanying gemstone he'd expected, but a glittering and translucent crystal.

It was a common crystal. It had neither a magical wave nor elemental power. Lin Li could clearly sense that it was no different from the crystal jewelry from the jewelry stores.

To be honest, Lin Li was rather disappointed.

He had a hunch that such a rare Eternal Adamantine vein would contain precious stones of at least the level of the Heart of Gaia. Ordinary crystals such as those that could be bought with ten gold coins were almost certain not to appear…

"Wrong…" Lin Li's knitted his eyebrows shortly after.

This could not be just an ordinary crystal…

Lin Li was very clear about the power of the five Air Bomb scrolls. Under the earth-shaking explosion, let alone an ordinary crystal, even pig iron would be blown up. But the crystal among the rocks was still glittering, and not even a crack could be found.

"There's a problem with this!" At the thought of it, Lin Li hurried to remove that piece of rubble. In order to speed up, he even used the Ring of Endless Storm once again.

"…" Andoine almost went crazy. Loading mineral stones into a dimensional space was something abnormal, but this kid had gotten worse—he was actually using dimensional space to load stones. Those were real stones; if he liked them, the Nightmare Mountains were full of them. He could hire a motorcade for 200 gold coins, and load as much as he wanted!

The old man was hopping in anger, but there was no time for Lin Li to pay attention to him.

The stones were moved away, and the entire crystal was revealed.

This crystal looked similar to the Dragon's Eye—both were of the same size and oval in shape. The only difference was that one was glistening yellow, and the other was shiny and glittering.

When Lin Li held it in his hand, he suddenly realized that this crystal did not seem to have been formed naturally, for its surface was covered with a strange pattern.

Lin Li knitted his brows again at the sight of the patterns.

He constantly felt the pattern was familiar. He stood there and carefully recalled it for a long while before he vaguely remembered—when he was in the Endless World, he seemed to have seen similar patterns somewhere. If Lin Lin remembered correctly, they should belong to the category of inscription.

However, even Lin Li couldn't tell exactly what the patterns stood for.

He could only vaguely guess that this should be a mageweath array because only mageweath arrays had a large number of magic circuits and a large number of magic nodes—each seemingly independent but interrelated. The source of mana that they tapped into was the same at the end of the day.

Lin Li was astonished for a moment.

It was uncommon to see a mageweath array…

The combination of more than three mageweaths was qualified to be called a mageweath array.

This was not as simple as adding one to two. Mageweaths were extremely complex per se. The combination of several mageweaths would cause the complexity to increase exponentially. Even the level certification hall in the Emerald Tower used only two mageweaths—the Elements annihilation field and the Magical shield field—instead of adding a Magic exhaustion field to form a real mageweath array.

Lin Li knew that it was not because the Jarrosus Guild of Magic was unwilling; it was because they were unable to do it…

It was exactly this reason that Lin Li felt puzzled about.

It was only an ordinary crystal; was there a need for a mageweath array?

Lin Li stood there thinking for a long time, but could not figure out why. Finally, he shook his head, and kept the strange crystal in his pocket.

In any case, the purpose of this trip had been achieved. Not to mention a set of equipment, even two or three sets would be more than enough with the large number of Eternal Adamantine. Adding to it the few precious accompanying gemstones, the harvest of this trip could be said to be far beyond Lin Li's imagination.

"Want to take a look at other entrances?"

"No, no, it's so late. I'm going back to bed. I'm getting on with age, and can't be compared with you young people…" With the Crystal of Eternity in his hand, Andoine's heart had long returned to Alanna. He could not wait to find a jeweler to carve the giant Crystal of Eternity into a potion bottle, and then bring it to the Pharmacists Guild to show off. How could he still have the thought of exploring other entrances…?

"Then let's go back first…" Lin Li nodded, and did not force Andoine. Anyway, he still had to stay in Alanna for three months; he'd have time to explore the other entrances. They did not have to rush it today.

On their way back, Lin Li was still the one leading the way with his Illuminating Spell.

Lin Li listened intently as he walked. He wanted to know whether the voice he'd heard when he entered the cave was his misconception. But this time, the voice seemed to have disappeared. No matter how Lin Li tried to concentrate on it, there was no trace of sound in his ears at all…

It was already late at night when they came out of the cave. A crescent moon hung high in the night sky, and the moonlight sprinkled on the Nightmare Mountains like dew, adding a gentle aura to this crisis-ridden forest.

"You just cannot hold out for long as you get older. It's just past midnight, and I can't take it anymore. Bad, bad. I have to go back to bed earlier…" The old man yawned as he came out of the cave. He kept emphasizing his age while the Power of Flight was already released by him. "You two go back on your own. I won't send you…"

Lin Li was amused and annoyed at the same time. He was a legendary mage, but he was using "can't stay up late" as an excuse. Just say you're itching to go back to show off the Crystal of Eternity; do you have to find such a lame excuse…?

"Do some good, will you. Don't frighten an illness out of Old Grimm…"

"Rest assured, it won't scare him to death."

After uttering these words, the old man flew out of the forest.

Standing at the entrance of the cave, Lin Li could not help but yawn. The night's ordeal was really exhausting. Even if he was full of vigor, he was just too tired at this time. All he wanted was to go back to the Alanna Guild of Magic and have a good sleep.

But the world was as such—the more you wanted to sleep, the more it wouldn't allow you sleep.

Lin Li was yawning when he heard a terrible scream from afar.

The scream was so piercing that it scared off half of Lin Li's sleepiness in an instant.

"What the heck…" Lin Li muttered a curse, but he did not freeze as he promptly released a Warlock's Eyes.

He had heard clearly enough to know that the scream had come from the campsite.

Under Lin Li's control, the Warlock's Eyes turned into a stream of light and glided off in the direction of the campsite.

Lin Li was startled when the Warlock's Eyes approached—the campsite that was dead silent earlier on was buzzing with noise at present. From the Warlock's Eyes, there was only the glint and flash of cold steel and flickers of magic rays from time to time. Shouts and screams mingled together, and it sounded noisier than exploding the mines with Air Bomb.

This was a battle of great disparity in numerical strength. One side was a team of more than 30 adventurers, while the other side was a single magical beast.

"F*ck! The Shapeshifter!" Lin Li's eyes straightened after a thorough look at the situation.

It not for the fierceness of the battle, Lin Li really wanted to go over and interview those adventurers to ask them what gave them the courage to climb the Nightmare Mountains in the middle of the night and challenge the Shapeshifter! Could it be that they really thought it was something like a unicorn, easy to be trifled with?

"Wash up and sleep…" Lin Li shook his head, having lost the interest to continue watching. In fact, he did not need to watch—what would happen after that would be a massacre through and through.