Chapter 134: Alchemy Factory and Magic Crystals

After Donald and the others emerged from the sorcerer’s residence, they saw the scene before them. The Ansel family, represented by Edwina, and the Thorne family, led by Horton, were gathered outside the courtyard gate, confronting two puppets and construct creatures. The courtyard was in disarray from the earlier battle between those two massive foes, so Donald and his group didn’t know whether these people had clashed with the Shield Guardians or the war puppets. However, judging from their serious expressions, it seemed they might have suffered some losses against the Shield Guardians and war puppets and now realized the strength of those two giants.

“Donald, are you all okay? My mother and I heard the commotion over here and rushed over right away! But with these two golem guards here, we can’t get in!” Horton said the same thing from the other side.

Of course, Ferdinand’s concern was genuine, but the Thorne family’s motives were likely less pure. They must have heard the unusual noise here and wanted to see if they could reap some benefits.

Donald smiled and said, “Apologies for worrying you all! We weren’t hurt at all; in fact, we gained a lot! These two giants are puppets and constructs under my control. They won’t attack without my orders!”

Donald didn’t hide his gains. After all, he had obtained them through his own efforts. With the help of the Shield Guardians, his side, though the smallest in number, was now the strongest among the three. As long as the two silver mages were occupied, the remaining swordsmen and other classes could be easily held back by just one Shield Guardian.

Edwina and the others were envious upon hearing that Donald had not only acquired such powerful magic constructs but also the blueprints for creating them from an ancient sorcerer. However, since the two silver mages and their families weren’t famous for alchemy, having the most valuable blueprints wasn’t as useful as getting the finished products directly. With their abilities, it might take them decades to create them, and hiring an alchemist wasn’t reliable either.

But in the hands of Donald and Messel, who were both skilled in alchemy, those blueprints might soon be turned into finished products. With their friendship, they could easily pay to acquire them.

As he spoke, Donald waved his hand, causing the massive war puppet to retreat.

Only the Shield Guardians remained behind. The two-meter-tall Shield Guardians were much smaller in size, making it much easier for them to move around in the ruins compared to the War Puppets.
War Puppets were not true living beings; although they had souls and intelligence within their energy cores, their bodies lacked any vitality. That’s why they weren’t affected by storage spaces—entering one wouldn’t kill them; instead, they would enter a dormant state. As long as Donald took them out again, they would wake up immediately.
“Let’s keep moving! The real treasures are still ahead.”
With that, the group advanced once more. Inspired by Donald’s recent discoveries, the three groups searched the buildings on either side of the road. Indeed, the higher they got toward the center of the ruins, the better the quality of the items they found in these buildings.
Along the way, they gathered many broken experimental devices and materials, as well as several finished weapons and equipment.
Many of these weapons were made from rare metals or even magical metals. Though they had some value, it was difficult to remelt already-formed weapons, and it would result in significant loss of material. Moreover, although both Ansel and the Thorn family’s silver mages had space equipment, their storage capacity was limited. So they didn’t want to undertake such costly efforts and abandoned these broken weapon materials.
However, for Donald, who had a tool as extraordinary as the Book of Summoning, these broken weapons were materials with 100% recyclability! Once purified and recycled, they could save tens of thousands of gold coins in the long run, which could otherwise be spent on purchasing materials.
So, despite the strange looks from the others, Donald collected all these discarded weapon materials. What surprised them was just how large his space equipment must be—since arriving at the Twin-Legged Dragon Swamp, they couldn’t even estimate how much stuff he had stored. It seemed enough to fill a medium-sized warehouse.
To the disappointment of the Ansel and Thorn families, they never encountered any more buildings guarded by Shield Guardians. After all, Shield Guardians were usually guards who fought alongside their masters, not ones meant to protect buildings. Donald’s possession of one was probably an exception.
The Thorn family, on the other hand, found one Construct each in two buildings, but both were lower-tier Steel Guards compared to Shield Guardians.

Compared to Shield Guardians, Steel Guardians are truly full-body knight armor sets. They resemble undead creatures clad in armor, always wearing the weapons and armor from their lifetimes, but in reality, they are armor imbued with magic. This is somewhat different from golems.

The creators of Steel Guardians usually create them to provide better protection for their residences. These magic-powered Steel Guardians differ from ordinary creatures; those guarding mage castles, residences, or treasure rooms never take bribes, rarely make mistakes, and certainly do not steal from their masters. Of course, in terms of intelligence, they are inferior to real human or other biological guards. Steel Guardians can only follow simple, straightforward commands from their creators, limited to one or two basic concepts. If the commands are too complex or multiple commands are given at once, they will become self-contradictory, fail to accomplish anything, or even self-destruct.

Like ordinary Shield Guardians, Steel Guardians cannot speak, but they can understand the commands described in their master’s language on a mental level. In terms of combat strength, as they are designed as guardians, their defense and attack capabilities are far inferior to those of Shield Guardians, roughly equivalent to those of a bronze warrior. However, like other construct types, they are completely immune to spells related to mind control, poisons, hypnosis, paralysis, necromancy, and the like. They are also unaffected by physical attacks or damage assessment.

Generally, Steel Guardians possess only one passive magical ability: dark vision. They can detect any movements attempting to approach the area they guard within a range of about sixty feet in complete darkness.

After hearing Miesel’s brief explanation of the attributes of the two Steel Guardians he had obtained, Horden was very pleased. Although such magical constructs were not as powerful as the one Donald had tamed, they were still treasures that could be passed down through the family.

Not many modern mages could create such ancient magical artifacts; presumably, only a few existing ancient families still had some left.

Without delving into the events along the way, soon, half an hour later, the group of fourteen arrived in front of the building at the center of the ruins.

It was a structure with a style completely different from the architecture of the surrounding Arcane Empire buildings, appearing to have a barbaric aesthetic that gave off a strange sense of both eeriness and sanctity. Outside, there were still some statues of dragons and serpent monsters, fierce and menacing. From this style, it was clear that the deities worshipped inside were certainly not kind.

“Judging from its layout and decorations, it must be a grand temple of at least kingdom-level. But how could there be a temple in an archmage’s territory?” Edwina was the first to express her confusion, and the others were equally puzzled. Only Donald and the others knew that this temple was originally the shrine of a malevolent god, but later it was repurposed by the great archmage Thera to seal that god away. From the remaining grandeur of the temple, it was clear that the malevolent god, whose name they didn’t even know, must have been extremely glorious and powerful. Yet all of this was buried in these swamps with the fall of the deity and the passage of time. Almost no records of this deity could be found outside these areas. “Whatever the reason for its presence here, maybe the archmage deliberately left a temple as a monument. As long as there are treasures inside, it won’t affect us!” Ferdinand’s words eased the concerns of the others. The conflict between archmages and gods was something they were all aware of. With a temple in an archmage’s territory, those powerful archmages surely wouldn’t leave any hidden dangers, so they boldly pushed open the temple doors. Upon entering, they found that aside from the original temple columns and carved decorations, all other altar statues and related items had been removed. The place had been transformed by the archmages into an alchemy factory. Inside the vast temple, there were numerous large, unknown metal machines and alchemical instruments. Donald and his master Miesel’s eyes lit up upon seeing these facilities. They both understood the value of these alchemical devices, which, especially for an alchemist, were even more precious than a divine artifact! Donald’s thinking was even more forward-looking than his master’s. Thanks to the advanced industrial concepts from his past life, he knew that once any form of industry reached a certain scale, its value could be hundreds or even thousands of times greater than that of traditional craft workshops—let alone when it came to alchemy factory equipment used to produce magical items and alchemical creations. With these, he could establish an alchemy magic industrial kingdom in Dalaran, and it might even be possible to develop an industrial level similar to that of his past life. Of course, this was just one of his ideas. Before he had enough strength, Donald had already resolved not to introduce any overly advanced concepts or products from his past life.

Compared to Donald and the other two’s obsession with these alchemical devices, the rest of them looked around the temple with slight disappointment, hoping to find something valuable for themselves. Soon, the luckiest of them, Ferdinand, discovered something astonishing in a metal box beneath a mechanical device. As soon as he opened the box, a dazzling light and intense magic erupted from within. “By magic, these are magic crystals!” Seeing the entire box filled with neatly arranged magic crystals, the two silver mages, Edwina and Horton, turned red with excitement. Meanwhile, Miss Emily from the Thorne family was more interested in the magnificent appearance of these crystals, which rivaled even the most precious gems, rather than their actual value. This was just the first box Ferdinand had opened; there were at least another dozen metal boxes of similar size but with different patterns. If they all contained the same thing, just these alone would be enough to buy a kingdom.