The duo walked on the dark corridor in complete silence. Only the sound of their footsteps rang out, echoing with a sense of melancholy.
Without anyone noticing, Zick's eyes turned hollow. A sense of fatigue and gloominess filled his head.
It has been nearly a week since Zick started creating the team to defeat the demon lord, the meatshield.
For his well-being, Zick resolutely decided to deploy any means possible to make them join. But even with that determination, Zick was starting to feel tired.
Zick's gaze fell automatically: 'Every time I open my mouth, only cliche words leave it. I already have the urge to give up on this plan. Sigh.....'
Zick was mentally worn down to the point that discarding this plan didn't seem that bad in his eyes.
'But...I can't do that. Losing them wouldn't matter right now, but it would harm me in the long term.' Zick's eyes narrowed behind the mask.
He thought of it differently. What was necessary for the demon lord was very simple.
It was strength.
Zick's eyes burnt with a dim black light: 'Eating dragons to increase my strength can get me out of this situation, where I have to keep relying on others' strength.'
Zick wanted to just do this. But the vigilant nature that he cultivated for a while was against it.
'Normal dragons can be taken down with the help of Yuriel, Levienel, and Cat, but the problem is the ancient dragon.....'
Normal dragons have grandmaster-level strength, excluding whatever the origin power that Levienel was talking about.
But an ancient dragon is a being who is undefeatable among the normal dragons, their strength was hard to speculate.
If Zick killed its brethren no doubt the ancient doubt would come seeking revenge madly.
Zick thought for a while and then looked at Yuriel who was just a few centimeters away from him.
'She got close to me so quickly....' Zick could only shake his head internally.
Sometimes, being perfect was not a good thing. Yuriel was the best example of this saying.
With her emotions on the same level as humans, Yuriel could succumb to her emotions quickly. She had no experience in dealing with this kind of thing in the slightest. Even controlling a little of her emotions had been hard for her, which Zick saw from his observation.
'Fortunately, she learns fast. She will probably grow fully used to it in a few days.' Zick thought before asking his question.
"Do you have any data on Ancient dragons?"
Yuriel's red eyes shone for a second, before dimming again.
"There is a record of an Ancient dragon battle located in the data. This data was gathered when the dragon race moved to annihilate the dwarf race." Yutiel answered with a calm look.
"Then...What are the chances of you winning against it?" These questions answers would decide Zick's future course of action.
Hearing Zick's serious voice, Yuriel became tense too. Her mind started stimulating at an extreme speed at once.
After three seconds, Yuriel opened her mouth: "Winning chances are 28 percent, and defending chances are 69 percent. This outcome is calculated by taking the ancient dragon's data into account, the chances of it being wrong are high." Yuriel was also surprised internally looking at the outcome. She felt a little dejected thinking there were beings who could defeat her.
"I see...." Zick looked forward again while walking.
'I will stick to my original plan then. I will get a chance to eat a dragon when I am going to fabricate a demonic race attacking them, so I just have to wait.' Zick threw the last of his hope into the trash can.
The hollowness in Zick's eye increased by a level. He just had to persevere until the demon lord is defeated, thinking this, Zick increased the speed at which he walked.
Another door appeared before them, which was immediately broken by Yuriel.
They arrived at their destination. It was a huge room with many golems placed within it for guarding, but they were lying on the ground like some waste toy right at the moment.
Not only could Yuriel disable them, but she could also even control this golem after she came in contact with them physically once.
Looking at the hundreds of materials and magic devices kept in order before him, Zick felt his mood lighten up a little.
'Even If I can't recruit Veurin, I must take all the resources from here.'
Putting all the things in the vault in his space ring, Zick made his way through the vault room quickly.
After putting all the material, magical devices, and alchemy instruments in his space ring, Zick took out the pocket watch.
Seeing the time, Zick considered: 'This much time should be enough for them to notice I guess.'
With the tower genie not operating, the alchemist would find out something to be amiss sooner or later. That was also the reason, he was walking leisurely.
Destroying and killing everyone in this alchemy tower wasn't the main thing, to begin with. He was just preparing a show for Veurin.
"Is it over?" Zick asked calmly, not tense at all.
In the corner of the room, the golems had already gathered into a formation. They were being controlled by Yuriel right at the moment.
These golems came in many shapes, some had humanoid shapes but with four or six arms or multiple heads with large bodies. There were also monster-shaped golems like wolves, and spiders, and one even had the appearance of a dragon, though truthfully, it looked more like a wyvern.
Zick rubbed his chin for a second with narrowed eyes before ordering: "Make it so that these golems don't go below the 80th floor and just made a mess in the below four floors."
There were a total of 85 floors in this alchemy tower and its width was also considerably long almost around 150 meters.
Sending out the golem, Zick didn't stop, he along with Yuriel directly headed towards the ground floor of the Jhesker tower after using Yuriel's space magic twice.
No teleportation circles leading to the underground floor appeared even in the vault.
It wasn't stored in the genie's database too from Yuriel's statement, which meant, the tower master went there by normal means.
This just showed how careful the alchemy tower master was.
Arriving at the ground floor which looked no different than a dungeon with walls, floor, and ceiling made of grey bricks, Zick looked at Yuriel. His senses were fully suppressed in these places, not being able to even sense past the fall beside him.
Some device was interrupting his senses.
"26 people hundred meters before us. 11 humans are looking like a captive, while the other 15 seem to be a guard and alchemists." Yuriel spoke more like a human now, her initial robotic voice slowly vanishing.
Yuriel wasn't tense either. She knew the strength of all the people in the whole tower was no match for her.
A sense of confidence grew within her, which didn't go unnoticed by Zick.
'She doesn't show it much on her face, but it is easy to find out with her confident body posture which is screaming she will protect me. Well, I have decided to become a babysitter so I will do my job, especially for this woman, she can be easily brainwashed.'
Yuriel dashed forward along with Zick covered in a red light, which gave out a frenzied aura.
BANG!
At once the sound barrier broke, creating a loud sonic boom.
The long hall before Zick was covered in the blink of an eye and they, now looking like a red flash, directly pierced through the huge metal door at the end of the hall.
BANG!
Stopping at the other side of the metal door, The surprised grasp and the rough breathing of the guards could be heard.
The whole room was made of white tiles along with blue and black tiles systematically placed around the walls and floor.
There were 11 people at the end of the room, being chained, and hung on the wall. In front of each one of them, an altar was placed there, with a space in cube shape on it.
The guard in the foremost was sweating profoundly with his breathing rough to the extreme.
This trained guard, who was an alchemist too, right at the moment couldn't control his emotions.
'Monsters!! They directly pierced through the Chrystelion door! I mean, what the hell!!' The guard's emotions were nothing but horror.
Chrystelion was a material that was recognized as the strongest among all the alchemist towers.
Along with the Jhesker towers hard work put on it, the door was considered unbreakable. It was the pride of this alchemy tower.
But it was broken so easily like it was a piece of paper, which made the morale of the guards fall to rock bottom.
Zick didn't bother looking at the guards and alchemists, he directly started walking toward the chained figures.
Looking at Zick who brazenly ignored them, the guards and alchemists still didn't move. It was like their body was frozen in place. Before long, their heads separated from their bodies and fell to the ground.
Yuriel killed them easily with just a wave of mana, literally, a wave of mana. This alchemist had a very weak physique.
Zick arrived before the 11 captives and looked directly at the girl with red hair. His brows rose automatically.
The woman who entered his sight had messed up red hair and aquamarine-blue eyes.
'Oh...Veurin's face is a lot more petite than I thought....' Zick was expecting a woman with a fierce look in his imagination.
But it was to be expected, Zick had come very early, and Veurin was still 19 or 20 years old right now.
These dark mages and necromancers before Zick were the only ones who were successfully able to survive after their mana turned impure. Leaving aside two to three people who were caught, like Veurin most of them were raised here.
Veurin, who had a dazed expression looking at the guard's body falling on the ground, snapped out. She fiercely looked at Zick, who seemed to be looking at her.
'Heh, her personality hasn't changed at least. Looking at everyone with hostility was her signature habit. There were only a few people who she could actually trust like Aeiron in the novel.'
'I should start acting now. Hahaha, though I feel sick of saying cliche things, I feel like enduring is important.' Zick felt like he learned something.
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As long as a person endures, the chance to accomplice their goal will appear before them at some point.
Enduring silently wasn't a bad thing, it instead showed your fortitude and perseverance.