End of the Magic Era

Lin Yun had already known that, and prepared a huge amount of food, which was worthless in Noscent, but the most popular currency in the underground world. No tribe had enough food in this place.

The Blood Elves' rise had a lot to do with their ability to grow plants. They were rarely short of food. Even though the foundation of their power had changed to blood, they didn't abandon the instincts of elves.

Darri was almost astounded to see such a huge amount of food. Even the Cave Gnome, who was too scared to cooperate, went crazy after seeing the food.

"Let's wait until you become extraordinary."

Lin Yun didn't accept Darri's pledge of loyalty immediately. The lizard men had a huge population, and Darri was only speaking for his own tribe. It wouldn't be easy to subdue the bigger lizard man tribes, which had more top experts.

Subduing a small tribe of lizard men was not very significant at this moment. Darri alone already sufficed as a local tour guide to show him the way.

While Lin Yun waited quietly on the surface, Bulinwon had crazily rushed back to the underground square where other Cave Gnomes had gathered.

The short Cave Gnomes had all gathered here, with all their belongings. Some were even carrying all sorts of tools, ready to dig a way out. All of them were desperate, but none thought of fighting back.

The Cave Gnomes had survived after so many years thanks to their ability of running instead of fighting. All the Cave Gnomes that fought back were already gone…

"The boss is back! The boss has returned alive!"

"Great! Let's go! We'll destroy this place and escape elsewhere. There's no way that those wretched guys can keep up with us!"

Bulinwon was quite respected in this place. All the other Cave Gnomes thought he was dead for sure, but they waited for him nonetheless. They didn't expect to see him back alive.

Immediately, all the Cave Gnomes, who had packed their stuff, ran toward the route that they had agreed upon.

"Don't go! Don't go! There's no need to run! See this?"

As he talked, Bulinwon threw out a dozen bags of food out of his space ring. The fragrance of cereals spread out like a virus. Instantly, all the Cave Gnomes went crazy, and lunged at the food greedily. In only a couple of seconds, they drowned the dozen bags of food.

Nobody listened to what Bulinwon said next. Bulinwon was so infuriated that he kicked some of the gourmets, but nobody replied to him. Bulinwon could only grit his teeth, and throw out another 30 bags of food.

"Idiots, stop fighting! There's another 10,000 bags! 10,000!"

Immediately, the underground square became awfully quiet. All the 4,000 Cave Gnomes of the tribe stared at Bulinwon with bloodshot eyes, dumbfounded.

Some of the older Cave Gnomes counted for a long time, but were unable to reach any result…

"Oh my God, 10,000 bags of food. I cannot possibly eat so much food my entire life. Where did the boss find them?"

Bulinwon climbed to a height, and looked at his dumbfounded compatriots with pride.

10,000 bags of food will be enough to keep our tribe full for every meal for a couple of years. Next year, a lot of new babies will be born in our tribe, and we won't need to worry that they might starve.

That terrifying dragon couldn't have offered me so much food because he wants to eat us or send us to death in mines. The food must be a lot even for him. It's more important than our entire tribe.

That dragon must be trying to subdue us. Maybe he wants us to build a nest for him. No, not maybe. That must be the case!

If we follow that lord, we won't ever starve, or worry that anyone might destroy our tribe…

"Listen to me, you idiots. A powerful dragon wants us to help him build a nest. These 10,000 bags of food are just his gift. If we follow this lord, we won't ever need to worry that our children might starve.

"The brutal Blood Elves have been burnt by another powerful dragon. The strong lizard man we saw just now is just a servant to the great dragon.

"Now, follow me and meet this powerful and graceful dragon!"

Bulinwon spoke quite frankly. With the food that virtually dumbfounded the Cave Gnomes, everything became very smooth. Nothing else needed to be said…

All the thousands of Cave Gnomes, including the dying ones and the little ones that were only half a meter tall, ran to the surface along with Bulinwon.

What should they be afraid of? Their boss had already returned with 10,000 bags of food. If they didn't escape, the food would all be theirs. Besides, the great dragon couldn't have given them so much food to kill or eat them. Moreover, they had never heard of a dragon that liked eating gnomes…

The 10,000 bags of food already proved his sincerity. 10,000 bags of food. That had to be a huge amount of wealth even for a great dragon…

The cowardly and cautious Cave Gnomes completely went crazy upon seeing so much food.

On the surface, a swarm of Cave Gnomes broke out like ants from the empty cave. It was not until they came out and felt the overwhelming pressure in the air that they finally remembered they were going to meet a dreadful dragon.

In particular, after seeing the three horrifying beings on the surface, all of the Cave Gnomes crouched on the ground, showing their submission.

Thousands of ugly Cave Gnomes were crouching on the ground. Some of them carried various sorts of tools for digging. There were also shabby tools that were only used in magic building construction. It meant that this Cave Gnome tribe had been passing on their knowledge quite well.

Seeing the scene, Lin Yun couldn't help but put on a smile. The Cave Gnomes taught their descendants differently from mages. They taught their descendants how to construct magic buildings with their talent abilities, and never taught theory.

Bulinwon emerged on the surface with his tribe. Finally, he moved forward nervously, and crouched on the ground before he exclaimed, "Great and merciful Sir Merlin, Bulinwon pledges loyalty to you on behalf of my tribe…"

Lin Yun spouted a rune, and unfolded a space gate in front of him.

"Go into it with your people. That's my world, where you will be absolutely safe. There will be sufficient food and no Blood Elves."

Since he had pledged his loyalty, Bulinwon followed Lin Yun's command, and entered the Natural Demiplane through the space gate.

The Cave Gnomes were arranged in the northeastern part of the Natural Demiplane, where there were a lot of mountains. It was suitable for the guys who loved digging. Besides, no creatures in the Natural Demiplane could threaten the Cave Gnomes yet.

All the members of the tribe were sent into the Demiplane, but Bulinwon didn't enter it.

"Bulinwon, are you aware of other Cave Gnome tribes? Do you know anything about the Red-Skinned Spirit Sucker tribes?"

Bulinwon certainly knew the answers to the questions more clearly than Darri did. Now that he had surrendered, he would certainly follow Lin Yun's instruction. Besides, this was not hurting other Cave Gnomes, but helping them…

Hearing Lin Yun's question, Bulinwon had bloodshot eyes.

"Sir, this Tungus Mountain is already where most Cave Gnomes are gathered. There were five bigger tribes and 12 smaller ones here, but most of them must've been captured by the goddamn Blood Elves.

"It seems that the Blood Elves have discovered a precious mine that's hard to exploit. Half of the half-beastman slaves they caught died in the collapsed mines. That's why they're crazily hunting for us.

"Our tribe is located in the rockiest part of Tungus. This whole area in a radius of dozens of kilometers is one gigantic boulder. That's why we weren't captured…"

Lin Yun frowned. There could've only been one type of mines that was difficult to exploit and deserved the Blood Elves' attention.

It had to be a mine of Blood Essence. After a strong creature perished, and the body was buried underground, its blood and power would melt into the environment, creating ores that contained great power of blood.

The Blood Essence ores contained enormous power of blood and the special abilities that were innate in the ores. Such ores could only be used as magic tools by other creatures, but for the Blood Elves, they meant something different.

As long as the ability inside the Blood Essence ores matched a Blood Elf, then they would be able to melt the innate ability of the ores into their body while they absorbed the power of blood from the ores.

However, such ores were extremely difficult to collect because the soil in places that contained such ores was generally loose. Only half of the unskilled half-beastman slaves died during mining, which meant that the Blood Essence ores in the mine weren't very pure.

That was indeed a perfect mission for the Cave Gnomes. They were so short that they rarely caused any collapse even if they were digging underneath a desert.

There seemed to be a problem. Cave Gnomes were one of the most valuable races in the underground world for mages. After they revealed their capabilities in making magic buildings, they would hardly be found in the underground anymore. They would all be taken away by the mages of Noscent.

A large tribe of Cave Gnomes was able to build a massive magic fortress on their own, including mage towers, defense towers, magic lookouts, magic city walls, etc.

The magic fortresses that the Cave Gnomes built could resist the attack of a level-3 Heaven Rank mage even though it was only supervised by a level-9 Archmage.

Back in the Nesser Dynasty, the magic fortresses had a different name: nests of dragons.

The dragons' nests were just caves, but were actually enormous fortresses that were capable of alarm, storage, defense, counterattack, and concentration of mana. They were not really just hideouts.

Otherwise, the Chromatic Dragons, which even despised the pure-blood elves, wouldn't have asked the Cave Gnomes to build their nests back during the Nesser Dynasty.

With the same materials, human beings could make level-1 buildings, and the Cave Gnomes would be able to make level-3 buildings. Their special talent ability was definitely necessary for the construction of the Shelter Tower.

According to history, when human mages found the Cave Gnomes' abilities, and searched for them on a large scale, there were only some small tribes of Cave Gnomes left in the underground world. None of them had a population in thousands.

However, Bulinwon's tribe turned out not to be the biggest one. There were a couple of bigger tribes and a dozen smaller ones.

All in all, there could be 50,000 Cave Gnomes on Tungus Mountain. The number was greater than all the Cave Gnomes combined several thousand years later.

That had to be the doing of the Blood Elves. In a few thousand years, the Cave Gnomes would almost go extinct as pure mine slaves.

Lin Yun had expected to gather several thousand Cave Gnomes and let them reproduce. 10 years later, some of them would be able to join the construction of the Shelter Tower. The project could be started as soon as several hundred of them were ready.

But Lin Yun lost his cool when he heard that there were tens of thousands of Cave Gnomes. Even if not all of them had inherited their complete knowledge, it should be easy to find several hundred technicians for the construction of the Shelter Tower.

A few thousand years later, a Cave Gnome who was familiar with magic buildings and as skilled as a Master Alchemist would be hired by any major force with a generous pay. There were very few magic building architects who were as skilled as Artisans.

Even the young Cave Gnomes had the prices of True Spirit Magic Tools on the black market…

They were as precious as gold, and so many of them were still alive, but the stupid Blood Elves were already endangering them. Then it was simple.

"Bulinwon, show us the way. We need to find other tribes first. The Blood Elves are as stupid as rats. Damn it…"

Lin Yun was angry at the thought of that. While it was impossible to build a magic fortress with the Cave Gnomes and his alchemist team yet, it would be possible to create some independent magic buildings.

In a couple of years, the Cave Gnomes would be able to participate in the construction of the void fortress, which would be a super massive magic fortress that even a fleet of magic battleships couldn't overcome. It would be able to even resist level-9 Heaven Rank experts.

Lin Yun had never planned that, because he thought the population of Cave Gnomes was little. If there were only several thousand Cave Gnomes in total, only one-tenth of them might be capable workers.

They were barely enough for the construction of the Shelter Tower, and certainly couldn't be assigned to other projects.

Now that the population turned out to be a dozen times bigger, he could pick up the plans that he abandoned. There was nothing to worry about.

He would get the Cave Gnomes back from the Blood Elves' territory!

The gate to the Natural Demiplane was opened again. The 50 legion mages who were enshrouded in flames walked out first. Then, a magic battleship gradually sailed out.

The magic battleship was only 100 meters long. It was the recent product of the alchemist team, designed for battles inside planes. It was smaller and suitable for combat inside planes.

Five magic battleships sailed out. The army of alchemy puppets had already mustered in the battleships. The stock of manufactured alchemy puppets had been rising due to the lack of battles. After the magic battleships were activated, they were awakened one after another.

New alchemy puppets designed for the control and maintenance of magic battleships had been invented too. They could take care of most of the work on the battleships. Only a few people were needed for every magic battleship.

Seeing the five shuttle-like magic battleships in the sky, both Bulinwon and Darri were dumbfounded.

The magic battleships were enshrouded in the halo of mana, which was their protective shield. Every battleship had hundreds of weapon systems and three main cannons. The main cannon in the front of the battleships emitted the aura of destruction before it was activated, making Bulinwon and Darri pale.

Darri was simply shocked and a bit scared. However, Bulinwon was so terrified that he sat down on the ground. As an architectural expert, he understood the significance of the magic battleships too well.

Enderfa glanced at Bulinwon and Darri in disdain.

"What a bunch of bumpkins. They're just some small magic battleships. Do you have to be so scared? If you saw the other models in the boundless space, would you be scared to death? You're even dumber than Xiuban…" Enderfa's left face mumbled. Xiuban was secretly scorning Bulinwon and Darri too, and put on a gloomy expression after hearing that…