Sovereign of the Ashes

Sein's discussions with his senior had been particularly fruitful.

The sharing of several neutralizer formulas provided Sein, who frequently underwent the Verdant Flame Body Tempering techniques, with enlightening new insights.

"These neutralizers are mostly made with hydro and cryo elemental ingredients. In addition to reducing the cellular strain from the Verdant Flame Body Tempering Technique, they can also soothe the mind," Sein concluded after his study.

He had obtained several valuable neutralizer formulas from Selphy.

In exchange, Selphy received some meteorite fragments containing Everburning Violet Flame factors, along with insights into the Thunder Body Tempering technique that Sein had uncovered during his explorations in Thunderfall World.

It was a fair exchange.

Although Selphy sounded like she did not expect anything from Sein in return, Sein was not comfortable with owing favors.

Like any other traditional mage, Sein adhered to the principle of equivalent exchange.

***

After receiving the neutralizer formulas from Selphy, Sein began to intensify his body tempering experiments deliberately.

The more rigorous regimen caused Sein's constitution to rise noticeably after a period of consistent practice, and the rate of enhancement was even faster than before.

Selphy, being only a Rank One mage, did not share Sein's fervor for body tempering.

Despite having access to Sein's detailed experimental data on Thunder Body Tempering, she did not invest much effort into it.

Instead, her interest was piqued by the meteorite fragments that she had received from Sein.

Whenever they bumped into each other in the magic tower, their conversations mostly revolved around this particular subject.

It was the second month after the Divine Tower of Verdant Flame Army entered the Verdant Wilderness World when the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring Army finally arrived.

The planar barrier above had been punctured with several holes long before their arrival.

The damaged barrier further compromised the environment and planar laws of the Verdant Wilderness World.

Strong winds began appearing in various regions. In some perennially verdant places, it even began to snow.

The onset of chaos and severe natural disasters marked the increasing plight of this low-level plane.

As a plane that had only ever produced a single Rank Four creature, supporting battles involving nearly ten Rank Four or higher beings was proving too burdensome.

This was especially true with the presence of a Rank Six being like Feylis and two Rank Five beings with formidable close-quarters combat abilities.

The turmoil this world endured was far more intense than the Viridian Venom Flame World during Sein's first major conflict.

The distress faced by the native inhabitants was only the beginning.

The Magus Civilization had only arrived and had yet to fully mobilize its forces.

Whenever two mighty civilizations clashed, the most tragic victims were the powerless caught in the fray.

What had the Verdant Wilderness World done to deserve such fate?

They had committed no wrong, yet bore the brunt of this calamity!

If the situation persisted, the downfall of Verdant Wilderness World was inevitable.

In the annals of the Magus Civilization's wars, planes with lesser capacity to withstand the onslaught of numerous elite powerhouses and vast armies often faced complete demise.

If one were to find fault with the Verdant Wilderness World, it would be its inherent weakness.

After all, the weak should be dominated!

The Divine Tower of Verdant Spring Army arrived within a space fortress.

This medium-sized fortress, which Lorianne had acquired for tens of millions of magicoins, bore her favorite shade of green.

Although Lorianne had plans to refurbish some aspects of the fortress, the sudden outbreak of the war forced these aesthetic enhancements to be postponed until the conflict's conclusion.

Over centuries of development and through several interplanar wars, the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring had evolved far beyond the impoverished organization it was when Lorianne first established it.

Now, it boasted over four thousand registered mages, with 3,175 participating in the Verdant Wilderness World War alone!

This substantial participation was largely motivated by the lucrative gains previous wars had yielded for the mages.

While mages generally preferred research to combat and disdained killing, the rich rewards on offer were too compelling to ignore!

The cold, hard reality for mages remained the fact that their magical experiments were inextricably linked to financial and resource support.

Without funds, even the simplest of experiments could not proceed.

Knights might resort to primitive and rudimentary methods of training and self-improvement when funds were low, but what of the mages?

They could not simply move their fingers and magically unravel the mysteries of truth.

This was a harsh world.

To persist on the path of truth, mages could not afford to disregard the necessity of financial resources.

As Sein had anticipated, the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring Army landed in the western part of the Emerald Forest.

Upon entering the Verdant Wilderness World, they had already engaged in combat.

As of now, a significant number of Divine Tower of Verdant Spring mages and their legions of enslaved creatures had yet to return.

Sein saw the main cannon of the large space fortress was still emitting hot air.

Due to the consistently low temperatures of this low-level plane over the past two months, a layer of white mist rose from the dark, ominous-looking barrel.

In response to Feylis, the Rank Six mage fighting in the plane, and in order to prevent the Wild Gorilla Army from escaping the Verdant Wilderness World, the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring and the other two divine towers followed Feylis' instruction against conserving energy.

At the onset of their journey into the plane, even the relatively modest Divine Tower of Verdant Spring fired three shots from the space fortress' main cannon, while the other secondary cannons and mages unleashed a torrent of elemental rain.

The other two divine towers invested no less in this barrage than the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring!

This barrage of magical strikes targeted all life in the Verdant Wilderness World, except for the Magus Civilization Army.

The main cannons of the space fortresses fired more than a dozen rounds, blasting through the planar barrier of Verdant Wilderness World, and also deeply impacted the surface of this world, striking awe and terror into every creature witnessing such a display for the first time.

As the Magus Civilization's magitech and alchemy continuously evolved, so too did the technology of space fortresses through the generations.

After investing hundreds of millions of magicoins, the capabilities of space fortresses had far exceeded the imaginations of other civilizations.

Lorianne's Verdant Spring Space Fortress was considered a relatively ordinary, standard model, yet it came with a price tag of over ten million magicoins, even at a discount.

If sold to a member of the Magus Alliance, the price would be at least three times higher, and buyers would still queue up for it!

The reason was simple—the space fortress was equipped with a main cannon theoretically capable of killing Rank Four creatures and injuring Rank Five creatures.

And that was without even mentioning the fortress' other functions, such as transportation, long-duration flight capabilities, and combat support.

This justified why spending tens of millions of magicoins on a space fortress was a sound investment for Lorianne.