What's wrong with me, a mage, loving to farm?

Chapter 254. The Valhalla Array, the Second Excavation of the Rock Notes

Robert had anticipated the two dukes' anger.

He knew these nobles of the Kingdom of Norland all too well. As the first generation of nobles during the founding of the kingdom, they were brave and fearless, but also extremely proud and complacent.

This is not a problem at all for nobles; in fact, if you don't have a bit of pride and arrogance, then people will look down on you.

At this time, news also arrived from Ian, who described in detail the route and plans that the two dukes would take to advance.

If it weren't for his mother being held hostage on Han Reef, Rob might have hesitated a bit more, but now that he has received this news, he immediately began to plan and arrange the next step.

"Initiate the Steel Nut Wall project, construct it at this location..."

"Mobilize the First Combat Plant Brigade and have them conduct their first battle under the leadership of the Tree Shepherd."

"Arrange for the northern residents behind the Nut Wall to take emergency shelter."

"Since they sent the peasant soldiers to attack, let's kill them all."

Orders were issued from Rob's command post, and the North's dynamic power structure immediately began to take effect.

Like a high-speed, precision gear, it begins to turn.

At his command, the apprentices immediately began to get busy.

They had far too many ways to deal with soldiers who were even slightly stronger than this.

After a brief period of activity, a spectacular surge of magical plants appeared on the Kroya Plain—

Guided by some small trees holding flutes, the first to take root were some tall, huge nuts with a metallic sheen.

After they took root, they began to merge together, completely blocking all the branch roads except the main road, forming a steel wall ten meters high.

Just like the legendary Wall of Sighs, it stretches across the land, and the only way to pass through it is by a specially opened road.

This road is only 500 meters long, but once you get through it, you will officially enter the depths of the North.

However, this road is not without its challenges.

After the metal nut wall took shape, some sharp spikes grew on the ground, lying in ambush beneath the shifting sand, waiting for the enemy to arrive.

The road 500 meters behind the wall was lined with all sorts of war-demon plants: peas, ice watermelons, lightning grass, ice windmill chrysanthemums...

These are just the most basic magical plants. If they were graded according to the level of magic power within them, they would be at most level two. On Hanjiao Island, there are countless of them.

There's no need to deploy any more powerful magical plants against these peasant soldiers. Rob wants the enemy to see for themselves what they're about to face.

When not launching an attack, the magical plants leisurely remain atop the high wall, looking down from above. However, if anyone approaches, they will immediately unleash their full power.

These magical plants were created specifically for war; they eagerly await the arrival of the enemy.

It didn't take too long.

About three hours later, the peasant soldiers who had been exiled by the two dukes embarked on this road to death.

As peasant soldiers of the Duke, they naturally received some basic training and were far superior in combat skills to the armies of viscounts and barons.

They had already scouted the surrounding area beforehand and discovered that the massive steel wall completely covered all passable roads.

There was no other way; even knowing it was a trap, we had to enter from here.

As soon as they entered, the magical plants on both sides of the high wall launched an attack—peas rained down, ice watermelons crashed down, lightning grass unleashed chain lightning, and magical windmills released by ice chrysanthemums blocked their advance.

The peasant soldiers were completely unable to resist the power of these demonic plants; even if they tried their best to rush forward, they could only postpone their death for a short time.

"what!"

"Mother!"

"Waaah..."

Countless screams rang out here, and in just a few minutes, a thick layer of corpses piled up on the ground.

Snow and ice covered them, and the vines buried underground devoured and digested the corpses. The ground became clean and tidy again, like an abyss that could never be filled, waiting for the dead to arrive.

Rob watched the transmitted images quietly, a hint of reluctance flashing in his eyes. Even though this was war, he knew very well that if these people came in, the people of the North would be the ones to suffer.

However, seeing so many people die still moves him, which does not contradict his ability to calmly issue orders.

After glancing at it a few times, he shifted his gaze to the sunflowers growing quietly on the wall, which looked almost unremarkable.

That was... a magical plant that Kroa personally gave to him.

A sunflower that can collect souls.

"Master's abilities are getting more and more outrageous; now he can even collect souls."

Robert muttered a few words, then shook his head, instructed his men to pay close attention to the information transmitted back by the Magic Ripple Flower, and slowly closed his eyes, intending to rest for a while.

……

Hanjiao Island.

Inside the secret chamber of the Mage Tower.

Kroya already knew the details of the entire war, and at this moment he was stroking the sunflower that had been urgently delivered, the same sunflower that had been on the battlefield at the beginning.

Its flower head was stained with blood and was drooping listlessly, enjoying Kroya's caresses.

"You've done a great job." Chloe gathered magic at her fingertips and gently soothed the sunflower.

Nearby, a sunflower fairy was evenly applying oil to its little brother. The oil slid across the sunflower's flower head and dripped slowly like water droplets.

The golden oil, like amber, refracted golden light as it dripped, and one could vaguely see the shadows of people inside.

Kroya looked at the oil droplets collected by the tower spirit: "Whether we succeed or not depends on this moment."

Long ago, he tried to use his eternal magic as the basis of a magic circle to artificially create a "underworld" where souls could exist for a long time.

Olivier and Duke Nar were right; Kroya was indeed kind at times, even unwilling to let his apprentices, whom he had painstakingly trained, die.

So after a long talk with the angel, he shamelessly begged the angel to give him a special magic called "Drop of Faith".

It is said that the deceased must cross the River of Death in the underworld on their way to the underworld in order to truly cross the boundary between the underworld and the world of the living.

Some angels from divine kingdoms would stay there for a long time, looking for souls that believed in their main god. If they found any, they would use this magic to gather them into droplets and pull them away from the dead river of the underworld.

This method allows the soul to temporarily disregard the laws of the underworld and successfully enter the divine kingdoms of various gods. Once inside a divine kingdom, one becomes a subject of the gods.

It sounds special, but it's actually just using advanced magic to temporarily sever the connection between the underworld and reality. Gods can do it, and so can Kroa.

Kroa specially imprinted this magic on the sunflowers, replacing the dewdrops of angels and gods with the sunflowers' golden oil.

His request was to collect all the souls scattered across the battlefield and bring them all back.

If it were anyone else, human life would just be a consumable, a number. How could they be like him, having arranged methods to collect souls?

"I have painstakingly nurtured you all, and of course, I cannot allow even your souls to be taken away by Heaven or the Underworld..."

He took a deep breath and instructed the tower spirit, "You can activate the magic circle now. My requirement is that it must succeed."

This is a very, very unreasonable request. How can a magical experiment succeed on the first try, especially a special experiment that has never been performed before?

However, souls cannot remain in the prime plane for long unless they become completely undead. But once they become undead, they will eventually be filled with negative magical energy, gradually becoming beings that have lost their humanity.

Time is of the essence, so we have no choice but to give it a try.

He was unwilling to let his apprentices become ghosts, losing their humanity under the corrosive influence of negative energy.

The Tower Spirit was well aware of Kroya's urgency.

It immediately began activating the magic array inside the mage tower, and golden light belonging to eternal magic surged from the flute holes of the five Orpheus Swan Flute Trees.

"The permanent barrier is being erected..."

The golden light gradually covered every corner of the place, leaving no gaps. Its effect was to create an absolutely stable environment to prevent magical disturbances from affecting Valhalla.

"Valhalla magic circle trial activation, first attempt."

The surface of the small, dark hall, seemingly built of black mud, which was enveloped in the deepest part of the Golden Apple's dream power, gradually lost its moonlight mist.

Its surface, covered with countless intricate wing-shaped magic patterns, is opening its small portal, revealing a three-dimensional magic circle carved from sunflower seeds inside.

Now comes the most crucial step: only if the magic within the Valhalla array can make contact with the outside world can the soul be sent inside.

If that doesn't work, then this thing is basically useless.

Kroya stared intently at the magic circle, which was being activated for the first time, and even he didn't know if it would succeed.

However, the magic power within the magic circle still showed signs of fluctuation, and the deep black water that constituted the underworld environment of Valhalla seemed to boil and surge.

"Hmm."

The tower spirit immediately warned, "The magical environment of the Hall of Heroes array is fluctuating; emergency measures are required..."

It activated its contingency plan: to introduce more dark water into the moat outside Valhalla, increasing the dosage and stabilizing it.

With the addition of more dark water, the once boiling moat finally calmed down, and the gates of Valhalla barely opened a small crack.

"The Valhalla array has started stably. The estimated stabilization time is 30 seconds."

"Master! Please cast the spell immediately!"

Seeing this, Kroya could no longer restrain herself and personally waved her hand, using magic to send those oil droplets, which looked like golden amber, into the container.

They dissolved into the ground the moment they entered, and the black mist-like humanoid figures inside also merged into the array made of crystal, gradually flowing into a pool of water at the very center of the Hall of Heroes array.

Then the doors of Valhalla closed completely.

"Valhalla has been successfully opened for the first time. Experiment results are being recorded..."

After summarizing the experiment log, Taling transformed into a chubby shark and rubbed against Kroa's cheek.

"Master, aren't you going to reward me with something?"

What do you want?

Kroya was in a good mood; with this successful attempt, he would be able to conduct more experiments.

In particular, he had already made arrangements for all the souls within the sunflower he had instructed Robert to arrange.

"I want to go play with Sister Muyao for a few days."

"Didn't you make a golem that allows souls to enter? We want to go to the front lines and see for ourselves."

"..." Kroa glanced at the shark. "The golem is still unstable. Are you sure you want to go in?"

"Yes!" The shark nuzzled Chloe's neck again. "Don't worry, we'll be right back if there are any problems."

"Alright, alright."

Seeing it acting so affectionately, Kroya felt helpless. He knew that this guy didn't just want to go out for a stroll; he was testing whether the golem could carry a soul.

Because it knew the plan that Kroya was carrying out: the souls of those who died on the battlefield would be collected to further refine the Golden Apple dream.

And what carries their souls are the living bodies created by Kroya, flesh golems.

If the experiments on them are successful, and the flesh golems can truly and perfectly contain human souls, then the warriors in Valhalla may even be able to be resurrected in another way.

Kroa casually picked up a statue that was about the thickness of an arm and looked like a cat walking upright.

The sculpture is so lifelike that it feels fluffy and fleshy to the touch, much like the cat tribe among the orcs, only a little smaller.

A golden musical note shines brightly on its forehead.

His gaze lingered on it for a moment, and the prompt for the Celestial Spirit Imprint Technique appeared in his mind—

【Kroa's Eternal Rock Notes】

[The core of this monster is protected by special magic, which can resist the attraction from the underworld until the magic wears off.]

This spell consumes a lot of mana; please replenish it promptly.

This magic is not yet fully completed and there is a certain probability of problems occurring. Please be careful.

"Ugh."

"Still not working?"

Kroa had a slight headache.

This engraving is the result of his research into the "endless rock notes" in symphonies.

Kroa has only used it once so far, and that was on Samir.

Samir was practically dead, but he was still breathing, able to walk, and had even found a wife and planned to have a child...

The power of the Rock Notes exceeded his imagination.

This is the true divine magic that can grant eternal life—if it can be thoroughly studied, then the island of Hanjiao will no longer be plagued by death!

However, such powerful magic is extremely difficult to study, let alone unleash its power.

—That's what Chloe used to think.

Because its ability is equivalent to recreating a body with the soul as the core, it involves the concept of creation.

But after studying it, he realized he was wrong, and very wrong at that. This all started with "The Poem of the Rainbow".

So far, he has studied four chapters of "The Rainbow Poem".

"Song of the Red" includes meditation, red refrain, tranquil serenade, red echo, and a red-to-orange melody.

"Orange Song" is an ode to orange, a symphony, and a hidden chapter, a concerto of greed.

"Golden Melody" is an eternal hymn and a final hymn.

"The Radiant Green Aria" is a little special; it is a song that brings together vitality and the rainbow grass paradise that pervades everything.

Kroya used these magics to create many special things and developed many ways to use them, but he always used only a single chapter.

One day, while meditating, he suddenly thought of a very serious problem: This is originally a long article with several subsections, so why can it only be used individually?

Can't we combine them?

With these questions in mind, and since he was about to set up the Hall of Heroes, he immediately began researching the Orange Song.

The result was not optimistic. He was unable to combine the entire Orange Song, as if something was missing. He had no choice but to study symphonic music first.

A symphony consists of only two parts: one is the "ultimate convergence of thousands of notes" that can almost assimilate everything, and the other is the "endless rock notes".

Kroya had been using the former alone, but after research, he discovered that using only the former was incorrect.

The two together make a complete symphony.

After discovering this, he worked hard to research it and finally added a newly acquired rock note to the spell "The Ultimate Convergence of Thousands of Notes".

Only then was the symphony finally complete.

The completed symphony not only has a stronger assimilation ability, but also has the added characteristic of not being affected by external magic.

The once "unreachable" rock-solid notes seem to be able to be studied further.

He immediately began studying the new symphony and discovered some clues: whether it was the ultimate note or the endless rock, it all pointed to the eternity of the next chapter.

In other words, simply trying it out using the magic of the Orange Chapter is not enough.

To uncover its deeper potential, we need not only the magic of the complete orange chapter, but also the magic of the next chapter.

So he tried something else.

After much effort, they actually succeeded in condensing a special Rock Note using eternal magic. This Rock Note possessed some of the original Rock Note's abilities.

The most important ability is... life.

For example, this golem in front of us.

It was made by combining the bark of the simulated magic tree with the pure flesh and blood produced by the Zerg mother hive. But after Kroya buried the new Rock Note inside, it was actually considered a special kind of life!

In the world of magic, only a living body can contain a soul, preventing the soul from falling into the dead.

In other words, this thing can even be used as a physical body, allowing a soul to reside in it. Theoretically, even if the physical body dies, there won't be any problems as long as it's replaced in time.

But for some reason, the body he created has obvious flaws, and the flow of magic is still unstable. He has some guesses, such as whether the next chapter's Emerald Aria should be used when it comes to life.

The problem is that although he has learned the aria, he has not yet been able to truly master and fully explore it.

But there wasn't enough time.

So, out of desperation, he created this half-finished product. Of course, he couldn't bear to let his fallen apprentices go inside as guinea pigs, so he could only let those who invaded the northern border act as guinea pigs.

To be honest, they should have died, but they survived, so they should thank Kroya.

Kroya's mind was racing with thoughts, but in the end, he simply handed the two small cat-shaped statues to the tower spirit and instructed, "You must be careful, and come back immediately if there are any problems."

With a flick of its tail, the shark snatched away two flesh golems, like a child eager to play, waving its hand and rushing off.

"You bastard."

Watching it leave, Kroya shook his head with a smile and turned his gaze to Valhalla.

Now, he's going to go into Valhalla to take a look.

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(End of this chapter)