Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 24: Mixed Blood

At night, Harvey and Reiner bent over the laboratory table with their heads down, concentrating on looking at the drawn amber ore cutting drawings.

"Sir, I have tried my best to remove those parts that are not integrated with Mr. Asdalen's body."

Reiner scratched his smooth metal forehead, feeling a bit troubled. "But the core below the waist can't be cut at all. It will hurt him to death..."

"I doubt it's an amber mine at all."

Harvey slapped the blueprint and muttered to himself, "Could it be that this mineral, which can fuse with flesh and blood, is itself alive?"

But it was not in the form of parasitism or devouring. There were no signs of devouring on Asdalen's body below the waist, and he still maintained the shape of a normal human body.

As long as he is not cut by sharp objects or burned by flames, he will not feel any discomfort at all, he just cannot move freely.

"Sir, if it really doesn't work, then..." Reiner raised his hand decisively and made a gesture of cutting it in two.

"Huh?" Harvey was speechless. "It's not that simple. No one would be willing to give up their body unless their life was in danger. Think about your own experience, Reiner."

"What if he only gave up his lower body?" Reiner thought it was a good idea and was eager to try it out. "You could make him a completely new, uh, lower body, just like mine—strong, flexible, and durable."

Harvey smiled bitterly and shook his head. "Impossible. Without transferring his soul, if we just cut his body in half, he won't survive."

Moreover, even if Asdalen could rely on some enchanted items of life energy to complete the beheading operation.

The newly replaced half of the body is also difficult to fit perfectly with the original body, and the soul energy cannot light up the prosthetic inscription.

"The soul can only be transferred as a whole, not in pieces."

This is the absolute truth that Harvey concluded after many transfer experiments.

……

After thinking it over all night, Harvey decided to let Asdalen make the decision himself.

After all, being trapped in the amber ore and relying on his magic accessory, which was about to run out of energy, to maintain his mental strength and vitality was not the best solution.

After all, people still have basic physiological needs such as eating, drinking, defecating and urinating. In his current state, Asdalen cannot eat properly. Reiner and Pierce can only take turns feeding him a small amount of water with a dropper at night to prevent him from having accidents due to dehydration.

"This is the situation at the moment, Asdalen. This is your decision."

Harvey calmly told him his ideas and suggestions, including the success rate of the soul transfer experiment and the follow-up situation.

With Reiner's successful precedent, he believed that if Asdalen still had a basic desire to survive, he would tend to choose to transform into a cold alchemical life.

After listening to Harvey's explanation calmly, Asdalen unexpectedly rejected his proposal.

"I will not choose to convert, Mr. Harvey."

"Why? You've been trapped here for so long, don't you long for freedom and to enjoy your life more?"

Asdalen chuckled and glanced at Reiner without any sarcasm as he leaned against the huge alchemical instrument to charge it.

"Do you think that having your soul trapped in a metal body that's no different from ore is what you call enjoying life?"

"I can no longer feel cold or heat, I can no longer taste delicious food, I can no longer smell the fragrance of flowers, and I even have no sense of pain..."

He took a deep breath and continued. "Although I've lost my memories of the time before and after my entrapment, I haven't forgotten those wonderful moments of my life. If I have to live like this, I absolutely cannot accept it."

Harvey nodded gently, not trying to force his decision.

"If this is your choice, we have no right to interfere, but we will still try our best to find a way to get you out of this damn ore."

Asdaren blinked casually and said, "Of course, as long as I don't suffer too much."

Although he didn't have much hope of escaping, Asdalen still didn't want to waste the efforts of Harvey and others to rescue him from the ancient ruins.

Over the next two days, he tried his best to recall and told Harvey everything about his past experiences and the ancient witchcraft knowledge he knew without reservation.

Everything he described profoundly overturned Harvey's understanding of the world. In the past, he only knew that humans had created seven wizarding kingdoms, forming an alliance with elves, dwarves, demons, and orcs to fight against the domination and enslavement of dragons.

After about three hundred years of unremitting struggle, the brutal rule of the dragon clan on the continent was successfully ended.

But what followed was the disintegration of the racial alliance, the intensification of conflicts between humans and demons, and the start of a centuries-long war of betrayal.

The Spellcaster Union suddenly rose to prominence during this period, becoming independent of the Wizard Kingdom's rule and quickly becoming the most powerful spellcaster organization on the continent, as well as humanity's most powerful sword and shield against demon invasions.

Since then, the four forces of the Union, the Church of Light, the Wizard Kingdom and the Mortal Nobility have begun to jointly rule this vast and fertile continent south of the Divine Spine Mountains.

And what Asdalen tells is the true history that he personally experienced.

However, on some important branch lines, completely opposite trends appeared.

Before the emergence of the Federation, spellcasters, who were then called wizards, were declared by the Church to be evil and blasphemous beings. Mortal nobles drove witch hunters and trial knights who had activated their bloodline power to launch a bloody hunt against wizards.

Some powerful wizarding organizations at the time also launched a strong resistance. Some human kingdoms that openly supported wizards even expelled the church and recruited wizards on a large scale.

It was not until the full-scale war between humans and demons broke out that the conflicts between the two gradually eased and they were forced to work together to resist the alien invasion.

But unlike other wizarding organizations, Asdalen's family did not choose to integrate into the mortal political system and rule the country together with the nobles.

This large wizard family chose to live in seclusion, away from the human kingdom, to ensure the purity of the wizard's bloodline.

They moved their entire clan to the north, crossed the towering God's Ridge Mountains and the vast wasteland, and established a wizard kingdom called the City of Eternal Night.

In such a conservative and closed environment, there are occasionally some heretics who deviate from the orthodox wizarding path.

Just like in all those cheesy romance novels.

Arsdalen's father fell in love with a woman who was not of wizarding blood.

An outsider from the Land of Eternal Night, a remnant of the vampire race who was mistakenly believed to have completely disappeared since the Age of Dragons.

The ending of this story is obvious.

Women who polluted their bloodlines were imprisoned, and witches who betrayed tradition were executed.

The only surprise was the birth of Asdalen, a hybrid of human and vampire.

He was secretly sent away from the City of Eternal Night and raised by his father's apprentice assistant in a wizard's vassal territory.

He not only awakened the talents of the vampires, but also learned the knowledge of wizards.

Until a huge natural disaster befell the City of Eternal Night, destroying the entire city, and the demons took advantage of the situation to invade.

Arsdalen was led by his father's apprentice all the way south to escape...

As for his later memories, they were all lost in the long river of time because of this long imprisonment.

After listening to his story, Harvey fell into long contemplation.

"So, even you don't know what kind of accident you encountered that trapped you in the amber ore?"

"Oh my god, I never thought that the vampires... uh, blood race, who were long exterminated in those legends, actually still have remnants, hiding in the wilderness of the far north."

Harvey felt as if a breathing fossil was right in front of him.

As far as he knew, many legendary forbidden spells that had been lost for a long time required vampire blood as one of the important materials for casting.

And he actually took out such a precious thing and smeared it on the magic contract.

No matter what, we have to find a way to persuade Asdalen, this rare hybrid.

Please, don't think about dying!

(End of this chapter)