Desolate Era (Book 36 - Book 40)

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Ning fought for the amount of time needed to boil a kettle of tea before finally capturing the last of the four golems. The reason it took this long was because two of the golems had transformed into invulnerable forms, making them quite difficult to catch. Ning was forced to use his secret arts and his heartworld projection to furiously deplete their energy stores. Only when their energy stores were depleted was he able to capture them.

Ning bound all four of the golems to himself, making himself their master.

“Master, you aren’t going to wipe out our golem-spirits, are you?”

“Haha, no need to worry. The three great clan leaders of this world were worried about their secrets leaking out, which was why they wiped out those golem-spirits in the past. I’ve already wiped these ruins clean; what would be the point of doing that? And, if I did, the new golem-spirits would start at a very low level of intelligence and insight. It would take forever for them to reach your current level of power.” Ning smiled. “I’m not going to cause trouble for myself like that.”

Only then did the four golems calm down. In truth, they were indeed willing to accompany Ning. That way, they wouldn’t be forever trapped within this tiny little area! However, they had to obey the orders of their masters to resist any intruders with all their might. To be able to leave would be absolutely blissful! However, it would be a tragedy if their golem-spirits were erased; to them, this was the equivalent of a cultivator losing his truesoul.

“Master, when can we leave?” the tall, skinny golem asked.

“Soon. I’m going to do an in-depth sweep of this place and take away all of the Emperor-class golems. After that, I’ll go with you,” Ning said with a laugh. “Ninedust and I already swept through all of the treasures in the ruins, including the various corpses. There probably isn’t much left.”

Last time, Ning and Ninedust had done a fast sweep of the area before leaving. This time, they were planning to do a more thorough inspection.

“Master, this warship was named Tigerhill. It was an extremely powerful weapon of war which the Sithe used in their conquests. However, the main systems of the warship have been completely destroyed, and many of its critical components have been takean away,” the axe-bearing golem said. “Although not many valuable treasures are left, based on what we know there should be one of exceeding importance.”

“Exceeding importance?” Ning’s eyes lit up. These four golems were responsible for guarding the restricted areas; they naturally knew quite a bit.

“Yes. Master, as you may know this place used to house over thirty thousand Sithe. There were many barriers protecting it, but the barriers stretched out to cover a great amount of area and were extremely strong. They had to have energy sources, right?” The tall, thin golem continued, “The energy source is located below the entire palace complex.”

Ning revealed a look of delight. “Lead the way!” Ning instructed.

“Yes.” Golems were absolutely loyal and devoted to their masters. They previously were completely devoted to the Sithe. Now that Ning had bound them, they were completely devoted to Ning.

“Master, the energy sources for the barriers consisted of a total of eight ‘sparrowfiend gems’. They are located in eight different parts of the palace complex. This place here is the very first one.” The tall, skinny golem pointed to a tattered palace off in the distance. “If you dig through the ground, you should be able to find a sparrowfiend gem somewhere within a hundred kilometer radius.”

“Ah.” Ning nodded.

“Let me do the digging.” The spear-wielding golem looked at Ning, who nodded. The spear-wielding golem immediately plunged his spear into the ground, breaking through the layers of stone and tearing through the ground. The palace had already been in very bad shape. Soon, an enormous crater had been dug in its foundation, revealing a sparrowfiend gem at the bottom.

The giant crater held a black altar which was covered by countless runes, and the runes all led to a completely blood-red gem. The vague outline of a bird could be seen flying within it.

“When Autarch Bolin wrecked this place, he destroyed all of the formations, making the energy sources irrelevant.” Ning nodded slowly. “Right. Tell me more about the sparrowfiend gems. Are they very valuable?”

“Highly valuable,” the spear-wielding golem said. “The Tigerhill was divided into a ‘combat zone’ and a ‘habitation zone’. We are currently within the habitation zone, and it was powered by this sparrowfiend gem! The outer layer was the ‘combat zone’ and it was more important, meant for combating against opponents. Thus, it used the even more powerful ‘dragonprime stones’. A single dragonprime stone is worth more than ten sparrowfiend gems, and the combat zone had a total of ten of them. They made the Tigerhill completely invulnerable, allowing it to easily travel between realmverses and slaughter countless foes.”

“Dragonprime stones?” Ning’s eyes lit up.

“I imagine the dragonprime stones were taken long ago. They are simply too obvious and eye-catching. Amongst the Sithe, a single dragonprime stone is enough to trade for a Black Emperor body,” the spear-wielding golem said. “However, it is probably impossible for cultivators to unleash the true power of a dragonprime stone. All you can do is perhaps plant them into some of the Sithe warships and vessels which the Sithe left behind.”

Ning nodded slowly. He couldn’t help but ask, “Why are the Sithe so much more advanced than us cultivators in so many areas?”

“The Sithe had an extremely stable foundation. Artificing, construct-making, blacksmithing… they vastly surpassed the cultivator civilizations in all these areas. They created countless golems on our level! However, the ‘Autarchs’ of the cultivators were simply too powerful. Although the Sithe did have supreme powers who were capable of battling Autarchs, they were still weaker… and the cultivator civilizations continued to give birth to more and more experts. One batch would die, followed by the rise of another batch. If the war dragged on for long enough, the Sithe would invariably be the ones to lose.” The greataxe-wielding golem chuckled. “This is what we conjectured when we chatted amongst ourselves. To be honest, the Tigerhill was wrecked long ago by one of those Autarchs, and so we aren’t sure why or how the Sithe ended up losing. All we know is that the Sithe feared the Autarchs very much, and they also feared how quickly the cultivator civilizations propagated.”

Ning nodded. Every planet and star was capable of giving birth to extremely large numbers of cultivators. If one chose to transmit the best legacies and techniques to them while holding nothing back, it would definitely be possible to allow a large number of powerful cultivators to arise from each world.

Now that the cultivator civilizations had actually won, they became stingy and miserly in transmitting techniques to others! Acquiring supreme legacies was extremely difficult, which was why the rate at which powerful cultivators rose had slowed down dramatically compared to before.

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