Chapter 43: The Treasure of Greybeard!
Glax City.
This city is not very famous within the Underdark; compared to this grand city of the grey dwarves, it is perhaps its lord that the people of the Underdark are more familiar with.
— Greybeard!
He is a rare exceptional individual, hard to come by in a century.
Heroes and outstanding individuals always appear in every race, such as Eugene the Half-Orc, Truce the Drow, and Griffin King among humans. Greybeard is such a figure; he was born in the wilderness, and it’s said that both his father and mother were slaves controlled by mind flayer elders. During his childhood, he was constantly manipulated and tormented as an experimental subject by mind flayers. This torment changed his mind; while it brought him tremendous pain, it also advanced him to become a powerful Spiritual Sorcerer.
It may be a bit tragic.
The fate of grey dwarves has always been fraught with hardship. They were enslaved for a long time; although they eventually rebelled and defeated the mind flayers, this tragic history still brought much suffering to their race. Many grey dwarves’ minds have been utterly twisted, leading to the frequent emergence of evil madmen within the race.
Greybeard is such a product.
However, his talent is extraordinary, and this painful experience ultimately shaped everything about him!
Greybeard endured under the control of mind flayers for a long time. When his strength became powerful enough, he liberated the enslaved grey dwarves and led them to battle a formidable mind flayer lair head-on.
Greybeard became famous in battle!
Not only did he eliminate that evil mind flayer base, but he also successfully killed those mind flayer elders.
Of course.
The cost was also very severe.
Greybeard’s mind was severely damaged; his sanity occasionally plunges into a terrifying state of madness. Two permanent scars were left on the back of his head, wounds inflicted by the mind flayers’ controlling tentacles. The mind flayer elder attempted to consume Greybeard’s brain, but before it could succeed, Greybeard suddenly raged and split its skull with his battle axe.
From that moment on, the Underdark gained another legendary grey dwarf Spiritual Sorcerer.
Greybeard is not only a legendary-level Spiritual Sorcerer (Profession Level 21 or above) but also simultaneously works as a level 5 Berserk Warrior and level 5 Wizard.
The torment of mind flayers has undoubtedly granted him some abilities, but there is no doubt that he is a very dangerous enemy!
Glax City.
This magnificent city of grey dwarves was directly excavated underground. The population is not very large, probably around 10,000 to 20,000. However, there are a large number of slaves from other races.
This is a tradition of the Underdark.
Any city in the Underdark likes to capture slaves; to them, slaves are free labor and consumables.
The city of grey dwarves is somewhat chaotic.
This is similar to other dwarves, as dwarves like drinking, revelry, and fighting. As long as it doesn’t lead to d*ath, it is not uncommon for someone to end up bruised after being tossed out of a tavern. Most dwarves are tough and resilient. Fighting is not considered a big deal. Soren just passed by a tavern and saw a drunken grey dwarf being thrown out. The Underdark’s resources are relatively rich; through weapon trade, grey dwarves live relatively well, and Soren knows that Glax City is very wealthy.
The reason is simple.
There is a secret silver mine here!
Thinking of this, Soren couldn’t help but look up towards the distant lord’s fortress. There, a furnace is raised, and from afar, one can see a dazzling light of fire.
The fires here have not extinguished for over a decade!
About ten years ago, the grey dwarves in this city discovered a silver mine while mining. This was an astounding wealth, and if leaked, it could potentially provoke a frenzied attack from the Drow. Thus, the ruler of Glax City, Greybeard, immediately sealed off this news and restricted all grey dwarf craftsmen who knew the truth from leaving. Since then, the fires in Glax City have never gone out, as Greybeard is forging a powerful piece of equipment with this silver mine.
An artifact-level silver chainmail!
The yield of silver has always been very low, and its refinement is quite difficult. Even though Greybeard controls a silver mine, it was only recently that he completed the making of this equipment. [Note: The silver chainmail worn by Frodo in The Lord of the Rings is roughly equivalent to the reserves of a dwarven kingdom for several hundred years.]
Greybeard’s ambitions are still quite grand.
As a spellcaster and part-time Berserk Warrior, he has always hoped to unleash his most powerful strength!
However.
This situation is hard to achieve in a normal environment. If he casts spells, he cannot wear armor, and if he wears armor, there will be a very high chance of spell failure.
The spell failure rate for plate armor reaches 80-90%, for half-plate armor it is 60-70%, for chainmail it is 40-50%, and even for leather armor, the spell failure rate is around 20-30%.
Once a spell fails!
It directly leads to backlash damage; you can understand it as transferring spell damage to yourself.
Therefore.
Almost no spellcaster would cast spells while armored, and it’s because of this that Soren has always avoided even wearing leather armor.
This is a congenital flaw.
Greybeard faces the same dilemma as Soren; no matter what, he cannot unleash his most powerful strength. To cast spells, he mustn’t wear armor, and to fight in close combat, he must rely on strong equipment for protection. To address this, Greybeard has spent a lot of energy. He defeated the mind flayer lair and gained knowledge from an ancient empire, finally finding a bit of direction.
The Mind Flayer Empire!
An ancient, now-destroyed interstellar empire!
Mind flayers once created a glorious psychic civilization; their natural psionic powers (referred to as “shade energy” during the Mind Flayer Empire era) established an interstellar empire that spanned across the astral seas and many planes.
This empire may have been more advanced than Gisz’s civilization; it likely hadn’t even begun during the Silver Era.
The evil nature of the mind flayers led to their destruction.
This ancient empire left behind few clues; it vanished into the astral sea. It’s said that the empire’s destruction was related to a kind of astral beast that can never be killed.
Even!
The materials required for the Investiture of the Gods that seized the Magic Goddess’s divine power during the Silver Era are also related to this astral beast.
Thus, the mind flayers descended into decline.
Now many planes’ mind flayers have nearly regressed to primitive races. They only rely on their innate psionic abilities to fight. Their research into knowledge has long since reached a bottleneck. Greybeard acquired some knowledge from the mind flayer lair, ancient psionic knowledge, and he plans to enchant the silver chainmail with psionic energy to completely eliminate its interference during spellcasting.
According to the original history, he eventually succeeded!
And now.
The defenses of the entire Glax City are very tight, and Greybeard has prepared for over ten years. Now that the artifact is nearing completion, he will likely be extra cautious.
Soren, disguised as a grey dwarf, already raised the guards’ awareness before getting close.
However, he cleverly pretended to pass by and walked directly past the vicinity of the lord’s residence. The defenses in this area are quite strict; with Soren’s divine-level perception, he detected at least a dozen patrol teams.
This does not include the enemies lurking in the shadows!
At the location where the furnace fire is lit, Soren can sense a hint of psionic fluctuations, as though there are spell traps inside.
“This is a bit troublesome.”
Soren felt a little headache at the moment. But soon he thought of a solution.
He plans to level up first!
As his power grows stronger, the Killing Experience required for Soren to enhance his profession level also increases. At his current level, relying solely on profession levels is no longer capable of significantly enhancing his combat power.
Nearly all abilities are comprehensive, and the combat power of the divine template is even more critical.
This is a watershed.
Only when Soren’s profession level reaches level 30 or even 40 will he significantly feel that the power of his profession level is gradually catching up with the might bestowed by the divine template.
Soren currently possesses nearly 2.3 million Killing Experience!
This Killing Experience is only enough for him to raise his Archmage profession level by one, but it can allow him to increase his Thief profession level by two.
The experience required for a Thief to level up is significantly less!
A series of data appears before him:
“Thief profession level increased to 9.”
“Gain 45 (Agility 36 + (Intelligence 27 – 10) * 0.5) skill points, health increased by 15 (professional health 6 + (Constitution 27 – 10) * 0.5).”
“You have gained a feat point!”
…
“Thief profession level increased to 10.”
“Gain 45 (Agility 36 + (Intelligence 27 – 10) * 0.5) skill points, health increased by 15 (professional health 6 + (Constitution 27 – 10) * 0.5).”
“You have gained a free attribute point!”
…
Without a doubt.
Soren adds the free attribute point to Agility. At this moment, his Agility has reached 37 points.
As for the feat point, Soren almost didn’t need to think twice. He directly chose the passive ability “Legendary Evasion.”
“Legendary Evasion [Epic Feat]: You possess an unimaginable reflex capability that grants you an additional +4 reflex bonus against any attacks, whether spell or physical. This ability stacks with any reflex feats and automatically replaces the effects of ‘Lightning Evasion’; any evasion ability will receive an additional bonus!”
“Finally completed!”
After obtaining this legendary feat, Soren could not help but breathe a sigh of relief.
Legendary Evasion, Legendary Reflex, Legendary Combat Skills, Epic Agility, Mastery of Reflex Evasion, Mastery of Instinctive Evasion, Tumbling Evasion, Agile Movement…
Except for the hardest-to-obtain “Sixth Sense,” Soren is almost finished filling all his passive evasion feats.
“Just missing the ‘Sixth Sense’!”
Soren looked at his attribute page and shook his head with a sigh. If a Wanderer’s evasion feats were all fully acquired, metaphorically speaking, it would stack the evasion value to over 95%!
Of course.
Reaching such a level requires either the “Sixth Sense” feat or the “Super Sixth Sense” feat.
Soren is not there yet.
If all evasion feats were calculated in a data-driven way, his current evasion value should be around 75-85%, with strong Agility providing additional evasion bonuses. If he completed the “Sixth Sense” feat ability, then his evasion value could almost surely reach over 95%!
Basically, when evasion reaches this level, physical attacks are not a problem, and even spell attacks can be avoided.
“Sixth Sense!”
“How can a Wanderer acquire the Sixth Sense feat? This thing can’t be trained at all!”
Soren looked at his feat abilities and then focused on other aspects.
For now.
Soren’s evasion ability should be the top in the material plane; in the multiverse, there are probably not many who surpass his evasion.
Reaching the limit is too difficult, and it doesn’t require putting too much effort into it at this time.
Because combat power is not solely reflected in evasion!
“Stealth is currently at 415 points.”
Soren quickly turned his attention to his own stealth; his purpose for this trip is to steal something, not to fight, so he unhesitatingly invested all his skill points into stealth.
At his current level, improving it on his own has become very difficult.
Now he can only use skill points to enhance it.
As if reaching a certain critical point, when Soren’s stealth skill reached 500 points, the surrounding space seemed to slightly distort and then returned to normal.
The power of shadows!
When stealth breaks the threshold of 500 points, it seems like Soren completely vanished.
No.
He did not disappear, nor did he even enter a stealth state.
Soren still stood in place; others could see him with the n*ked eye. However, the difference now is that Soren can be seen, but not felt.
All traces of his presence have vanished.
It is nearly impossible to sense his presence in any way; 500 points of stealth have reached a level that is almost unfathomable, making it difficult even for deities to detect Soren’s existence.
“Finally, one basic skill has reached 500 points.”
Soren let out a gentle sigh and then disappeared from his original spot, leaving no trace and giving no indication of any changes, as if he simply did not exist.
500 points in a basic skill is a watershed.
Any basic skill reaching this level is equivalent to stepping into the “Realm of the Gods”!
Looking across the multiverse, only some established deities can reach this level; even mortals, no matter how legendary, can usually only reach a limit of just over 400 points.
Soren completely vanished.
No one could perceive his existence; even the Lord of Shadows would find it difficult to detect Soren’s stealth state now.
He moved through the guards’ defenses as if unnoticed.
Soren quickly approached the location of the furnace fire; for him, all the guards were merely decorations. The only thing he needed to be wary of now were the spell traps.
…
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