The Elven Cultivator

A flicker of understanding crossed Anton’s eyes.

He knew a thing or two about the Fallen Dragon Association’s Torchbearers.

Within the Fallen Dragon Association, this title represented a certain status and position.

It was second only to the First Torch, the person in charge of a branch.

Each branch of the Fallen Dragon Association had no more than twenty Torchbearers.

And for a newly established branch like Eldron’s, the number of Torchbearers was likely in the single digits.

Becoming a Torchbearer meant his status in the Fallen Dragon Association had surpassed that of most ordinary members.

”A Torchbearer’s main duty is to serve as one of the branch’s top combatants. They don’t participate in miscellaneous affairs and are only responsible for carrying out important missions.”

Summers, unaware that Anton’s knowledge of the Fallen Dragon Association far exceeded his expectations, carefully explained the duties of a Torchbearer.

”Torchbearers receive a fixed amount of Contribution Points each month, with additional points for completing missions. These can be exchanged for various resources within the organization.”

Anton nodded slightly upon hearing this.

’This arrangement suits me quite well.’ he thought.

His main purpose for joining the Fallen Dragon Association was to obtain resources and intelligence, and in return, he would occasionally help them complete some missions.

He would definitely be unwilling to participate in all sorts of miscellaneous tasks and low-level operations all day like a regular member.

But being a Torchbearer was different.

They were only responsible for important missions and had plenty of free time otherwise.

It was exactly what he wanted.

”Also,” Scott interjected, ”we’re still looking for those materials you asked us to find. It’ll take a little more time, but we’ll notify you as soon as we locate them.”

”Thank you for your hard work.” Anton nodded with a smile.

Scott and Summers were clearly busy, so after concluding their business, they hastily took their leave.

Anton didn’t linger either and returned to the Silver Moon Forest.

With the Magic Cores in hand, he could now continue refining the Five Camp Divine Soldiers.

These Daoist Soldiers were extremely effective against Golden Peak experts.

Judging by their effectiveness against Marcus, if he could assemble 625 Five Camp Divine Soldiers to form a Five Elements Array, it should be enough to briefly suppress a Golden Peak expert.

If he could gather 3,125 of them, he might even be able to kill a Golden Peak expert.

This was all assuming the opponent’s awakened Power of Law wasn’t too high-level.

...

Time flowed like water, quietly passing through the riverbed of years.

「Summer, Year 9332 of the Chenxi Calendar.」

「Silver Moon Forest, in the treehouse’s artifact refining room.」

Anton sat cross-legged before the refining furnace, his eyes fixed on its interior.

Deep within the furnace, a fist-sized, bell-shaped object floated in the core of the Five Elements True Flame, bobbing slightly.

The body of the bell was a dark, cyan-gray, its surface covered in Runes as fine as hairs.

The refining of the Soul-Suppressing Bell had reached its final stage.

All the restrictive seals had been carved; only the final step of combining the seals remained.

Anton held his breath and focused, condensing his Divine Sense into a single thread. Like an invisible string, it passed through the layers of seals, linking them together one by one.

The seals lit up one after another, and a cyan-gray light flowed within the bell’s body, like stars igniting in sequence in the dead of night.

The moment all the seals were lit, the light abruptly retracted.

The bell’s body jolted violently and let out a low hum. The sound wasn’t loud, yet it caused the very air in the artifact refining room to tremble.

Inside the furnace, the Five Elements True Flame slowly receded.

The Soul-Suppressing Bell rose gracefully from the heart of the flame, hovering in mid-air and rotating silently. Its entire body glowed with a soft, unobtrusive cyan-gray light.

Anton beckoned with his hand, and the bell floated down to hover above his palm.

He stared at it intently.

The Soul-Suppressing Bell was only the size of a fist, its walls as thin as a cicada’s wing. The Runes on its surface were layered, spreading outward like ripples and contracting inward like tree rings. Just looking at it calmed the mind and dispelled distracting thoughts.

’It’s finally done.’

A smile touched Anton’s lips.

Refining the Soul-Suppressing Bell hadn’t taken as long as the Separation Fire Shield, but it still took over a year. Now, it was finally complete.

’Time to test its effects.’

With a mere thought from Anton, the Soul-Suppressing Bell shot up and hovered above his head.

An invisible wave emanated from the bell, spreading in all directions like a ripple in water. Wherever it passed, the air seemed to grow a little heavier.

He focused his senses and could clearly perceive an invisible barrier enveloping him, forming an airtight defense.

This was ’Soul Guard,’ one of the Soul-Suppressing Bell’s core functions.

It could protect the Divine Soul from harm.

Anton nodded in satisfaction and retrieved the Soul-Suppressing Bell.

’With the Soul-Suppressing Bell protecting my Divine Soul, the Mind Flayers’ psychic attacks are no longer a threat.’

Now that the Soul-Suppressing Bell was complete, his expedition to explore the Dark Nether Realm could be scheduled.

However, Anton didn’t set off immediately. Instead, he continued to refine the Five Camp Divine Soldiers, preparing to use up all the Magic Cores he had on hand.

In addition to the Magic Cores the Fallen Dragon Association had initially compensated him with, he later spent his monthly Contribution Points to exchange for more from them. Adding the ones from the Clan’s storeroom, after refining them all into Five Camp Divine Soldiers, the number he possessed had surged to over three hundred.

It was enough to form three Five Elements Arrays of 125 units each.

Only after making thorough preparations did Anton begin to act.

But before that, he had to inform the Elder Council first.

The next morning, Anton went to the Eternal Hall and found the three Elders.

When they heard that Anton planned to enter the fissure and explore the Dark Nether Realm, all three Elders frowned in unison.

”Anton, that fissure leads to a Mind Flayer city-state. It’s too risky for you to go alone,” the Great Elder said, shaking his head. ”Let Cedric and Elena go with you.”

The Second Elder and Third Elder also nodded repeatedly.

It had been over a decade since the fissure was discovered. Although there had been no problems, they had never truly been at ease.

The Silver Moon Forest was adjacent to the Thousand Rock Hills. If the Mind Flayers were to invade the surface through the fissure, the Silver Moon Clan would be the first to suffer.

This fissure was a sword hanging over the Clan’s head.

They couldn’t rest easy for a single day until it was completely resolved.

Anton shook his head and said, ”I’m better off acting alone. Bringing others would only slow me down.”

His words were so blunt that the three Elders fell silent.

If anyone else had said that, they would have considered them arrogant. But coming from Anton, it was hard to refute.

Over thirty years ago, Anton already had the strength of an Upper Gold.

Now that more than three decades had passed, his strength had surely advanced even further.

In the entire Silver Moon Clan, the only one certain of defeating Anton was the Great Elder.

Only Anton had the standing to call the two captains of the Forest Guard a burden.

Seeing their hesitation, Anton softened his tone. ”Rest assured, Elders. I won’t act recklessly. I’ve been preparing for years and recently finished refining an Extraordinary Level piece of Magic Equipment specifically for defending against psychic attacks. With it, the Mind Flayers pose little threat to me.”

’Another Extraordinary Level item?’

The three Elders were all visibly moved.

Anton had already refined one piece of Extraordinary Level Magic Equipment, and now there was another?

And a rare one that defended against psychic attacks at that?

’Where did he get the main materials?’

The three Elders looked at each other, their expressions complicated.

Despite their doubts, they didn’t press the matter.

The Great Elder gave Anton a long, deep look before finally nodding slowly. ”Be extremely careful.”

The Second and Third Elders exchanged a glance and also stopped trying to dissuade him.

Anton nodded to the three of them and turned to leave.

...

「The Thousand Rock Hills, deep within the mining area.」

At the end of the main mine tunnel, the fissure that once led to the Dark Nether Realm was gone, replaced by a smooth rock wall.

For over ten years, the warning Array had never been triggered.

The subterranean creatures on the other side of the fissure had not discovered its existence.

Anton placed his hand on the rock wall and activated his Earth-Shifting Art.

The rock wall squirmed like a living thing, cracking open as rubble trickled down. A deep, dark passage slowly appeared.

Without pausing, Anton’s figure flashed and disappeared into the fissure.

Every so often, he had to use his Earth-Shifting Art to move aside rock and soil, clearing the path ahead.

After a great deal of time and effort, Anton finally arrived at the spacious underground cavern from before.

He leaped from the passage, landing silently on the cavern floor.

Fluorescent moss on the rock walls emitted a faint blue-green glow, bathing the cavern in a hazy, eerie light.

The air was cold and damp, carrying the acrid, metallic scent of earth and minerals.

Returning to this area after more than a decade, everything seemed unchanged.

Anton glanced around but saw no sign of the Stone-blind Barbarian Race.

He got his bearings and then flitted across the cavern like a phantom, heading forward.

Anton didn’t rush toward the Mind Flayer city-state. Instead, he decided to explore the surrounding area first to familiarize himself with the terrain and see if he could gather any resources.

He was currently in the upper region of the Dark Nether Realm, just over a kilometer below the surface, but the terrain was already staggeringly complex.

Caverns were interconnected by narrow crevices, deep ravines, and winding subterranean rivers, forming a natural, three-dimensional labyrinth.

Some passages were wide enough for three Burrowing Bears to walk abreast.

Others were so narrow and cramped that he had to squeeze through sideways, their walls covered in sharp edges that could easily tear flesh.

The differences in elevation were also extreme.

One moment he would be walking through a flat cavern, the next he’d have to scale a near-vertical slope, clinging to the wall like a gecko.

There was no sense of direction, no landmarks, and no distinction between day and night.

There was only endless rock and darkness, and omnipresent danger.

It was a good thing Anton had his Divine Sense to scout ahead and his Earth-Shifting Art to clear paths; otherwise, exploration would have been incredibly arduous.

He encountered several patrols of the Stone-blind Barbarian Race along the way, but his Divine Sense detected them all in advance.

To avoid alerting the enemy, he used his Shadow Travel Skill to evade these eyes and ears of the Mind Flayers.

However, Anton didn’t spare the other subterranean creatures he came across.

Burrowing Bears, Dreadclaws, Basilisks, Giant Cave Spiders... Anton killed all these monsters and stored their bodies in his Dimension Ring.

They were all materials that couldn’t be wasted.

After less than an hour of exploration, Anton’s Dimension Ring already contained over a dozen types of materials in addition to the creature corpses.

This included Blood Moss, which could accelerate wound healing and was a high-quality supplementary ingredient for healing potions.

There was also Dark Light Mushroom, which could be made into revealing powder for tracking certain magical traces.

And Glowing Crystal, which spontaneously emitted light in complete darkness and could be used to create Low Tier light-source magical items.

...And so on and so forth.

To have harvested so much in less than an hour would have been considered lucky on the surface.

But Anton was a little disappointed.

Considering the resource richness of the Dark Nether Realm, finding so little was far too scant.

Moreover, he had found all these resources in extremely remote corners.

Without his Divine Sense, he wouldn’t have discovered them at all.

Anton thought for a moment and guessed the reason.

Although Mind Flayers were Spiritual Energy beings, naturally skilled in psychic and spiritual attacks, they were also Casters with a complete civilization, knowledgeable in alchemy and potion-making.

The Mind Flayer city-state before him had existed in this region for who knows how many years; any resources of value in the vicinity had likely been plundered by them long ago.

It was only because these resources were located in such remote spots that the Mind Flayers hadn’t discovered them; otherwise, they wouldn’t have been left for him to collect.

’On the bright side, this also means the Mind Flayer city-state has a massive amount of resources. If I can take the city, I’ll be able to harvest a huge quantity of materials all at once.’

Anton consoled himself with this thought and continued exploring.

After traveling for about another half hour, his Divine Sense suddenly caught an anomaly up ahead.