Cthulhu Gonfalon

As a professional mage, Palin’s magic power was much stronger than Wrought Iron’s.

Especially in recent years, no one knew why his magic power had suddenly increased rapidly, and his strength had grown by leaps and bounds. Five years ago, Palin had only been an ordinary mage who only recently entered mid-level. But now, he had become an advanced mage, even close to the advanced legendary peak. He not only had strong magic power flowing like rivers in his body, but many inexplicable spells had appeared in his mind as well. It was like someone had injected strength and knowledge into his body.

He had once consulted Sui Xiong about this. After thinking for a while, Sui Xiong had finally judged that the problem laid in his soul.

Palin had actually died in the trap of the Death Cloud Spell. Later, when Sui Xiong had arrived, his soul had no longer been in his body but had entered the underworld. At that time, Sui Xiong hadn’t known how to recall souls, so he used the scientific method from earth to resurrect Palin, relying solely on the thoughts left in his body. That was to say, at present, Palin was actually incomplete. Strictly speaking, he was only a body that could move around, similar to the undead monsters like the walking dead and the skeletons.

However, Palin was not such a low creature. He was still alive, retaining his full vitality. His body and his soul were still connected, and that was difficult even for gods to detect.

Perhaps because of this connection, when his soul became extremely powerful, it fed back the flesh and made the body grow stronger quickly.

However, it could improve the flesh from a mid-level mage to an advanced legendary peak, and he even seemed to continue improving, going on to break into the Legendary Realm. How strong could his soul be?

Sui Xiong and the know-it-all Javier had talked about this. Javier had believed that perhaps Palin’s soul was not in the underworld, but rather went to hell and had become a big man.

Hell was a special world located on the edge of the Matter Plane at the Ring of the World, adjacent to the Negative Plane. At the same time, it was connected with the Spirit Plane through the underworld river. Moreover, many places in it had passages leading to the Positive Plane which was extremely strange.

The world’s most important borders were the underworld and the abyss. In fact, it was a separation point between the underworld and the abyss.

The evil souls should have fallen from the underworld into the abyss after death, turning into demons in the abyss. However, hell stopped them and punished the evil. When the punishment cleaned the evilness of the souls, they would be sent to the underworld river, restarting the cycle of life.

Whenever the demons from the abyss wanted to make a massive invasion into the Matter Plane, they often went through hell f[1] irst. Except for some very special demons, most demons didn’t have the ability to break through the barriers of the Ring of the World. If they wanted to arrive in the Matter Plane from the Negative Plane, they could only pass through one road—hell.

At this time, the legion of hell would move out on a large scale to stop and destroy them mercilessly, repelling the invasion of the demons again and again.

In other words, hell was not only the final judgmental land of punishing the evil, but also the forefront line against the chaos.

When Sui Xiong had dragged a world from the abyss back to the Matter Plane with the help of the God of Justice, Yorgaardman, as well as several small worlds that belonged to the Positive Plane sent by the God of Order, he had neutralized the Negative Plane’s power of the world. Therefore, Sui Xiong could easily break through the barriers of the Ring of the World. This was a special case, so it was not sufficient as an example.

In general, the more powerful the demons were, the stronger the power of the Negative Plane they had in their bodies. Therefore, it was more difficult for them to get out of the Negative Plane, and the weak demons were more likely to break away from the Negative Plane. However, they were not powerful enough. Thus, no matter if powerful demons or weak demons wanted to invade the Matter Plane, most of them could only go through hell.

The supreme rulers of hell were ten powerful men who were called the “Hell Kings.” They all had strong powers even among the gods. They were the supreme judges and the supreme leaders.

Under them were the judges known as the “Hell Dukes,” the border commanders known as the “Hell Marquis,” and the local lords known as the “Hell Earls.” There was no particularly strict correspondence between the three and the knights in the human world. They were probably a little bit similar in status, but that was all.

Further down, there were the chief officials known as the “Hell Viscounts” and the military officials known as the “Hell Barons,” who often ruled together in one area as a pair.

Under their Majesties, there were many powerful soldiers called “Hell Knights,” each of whom who had been transformed by a powerful soul. These Hell Knights patrolled the territory day and night, not letting go of any sign of trouble, and not missing any clues. Not a single sinful soul could escape their arrest, and not a single demon could break through their block.

Because of the frequent fighting, the strength of the innocent souls in hell tended to rise very quickly, especially those who worked in the border areas. Some could be upgraded from mortals to barons or even marquises only in a few decades.

Javier had guessed that perhaps after Palin’s death, his soul had gone to hell and became a knight against the demon invasion on the border. After more than ten years, he had made a lot of military achievements, so his strength had greatly improved. Recently, he had been appreciated by a marquis and had become a Hell Baron.

If this was the case, then the feedback from his soul would have greatly upgraded his physical body, so his strength had advanced rapidly and reached the present level.

Of course, all of that had been just a guess. Hell rejected the visits of the gods. Although it did not attack them like the abyss, if a god arrived in hell, they would surely be overwhelmingly observed by the mighty Hell Kings. In a short time, they would get out of the way silently.

Sui Xiong felt that his hide was thick enough, so he had planned to go to hell to find Palin’s soul. However, Javier had advised him to dismiss this idea.

“Suppose that you’ve found him, so what?” Javier had asked at that time. “Put him back into flesh and bring him back to life? Don’t be silly! He has already been a Hell Warrior, even a Hell Baron in high status. He may become a Hell Marquis in the future. Why would he give up everything and return to the human world to work as a mage managing the library?”

Sui Xiong thought about it, and what Javier said seemed to be the truth. Therefore, he had given up the idea.

Later, he had told Palin about those things. Palin also felt that since he had lived well passing so many years without a soul, there was no need to find it back. And if he had found the soul, which would be the main force, his soul or his flesh? This problem would be difficult to solve. Anyway, he wasn’t willing to bow to the guy who might have been fighting in hell for more than a decade; he might be devoured or even destroyed.

For Palin, the only effect had been that his strength was greatly improved. This was a great advantage that he gained without efforts.

At this moment, with his strong magic power, it took only a short time to pour in the magic power required for the magic furnace. Then, under the guidance of Wrought Iron, he had operated the furnace. With the original black furnace revealing a red light, strong magic power started to flow in it. Soon, a high temperature was generated, burning the iron ores inside to melting.

The first thing that had melted were the rocks with a lower melting point; they turned into viscous magma. When the rocks were completely melted, Wrought Iron instructed Palin to open the discharge gate and dump the magma.

After the magma was initially drained, the discharge gate was closed, and he started the second magical array on the furnace. Therefore, the temperature in the furnace was further increased, and the iron in the compound state was slowly melted and mixed with the residual impurities. In this process, a large amount of toxic gas was generated. Fortunately, the furnace had a filtering function, so he just needed to pay attention to the hot exhaust gas that had not been discharged to avoid getting a burn.

After a while, the iron in the furnace was completely melted. At this time, the third part of the magic array was activated. The molten iron and the useless residue were separated. The molten iron flowed through the discharge gate into the stone trough covering with soil to isolate the heat. It turned into iron ingots, and the residue was subsequently poured into the waste pit.

After a set of processes was completed, next came the usual step of cleaning the furnace. Wrought Iron didn’t allow Palin to do that because even though Palin had become very strong, his body was still thin and weak. Cleaning the furnace was not an easy task, and so it was not suitable for him, a frail-looking scholar.

In the next few days, Palin had lived in Wrought Iron’s blacksmith shop. He operated the furnace twice a day, once in the morning and the other in the afternoon. When he wasn’t doing that, Palin carefully thought about and studied the principle of forging iron and considered the problem of the “blast furnace” under the research of His Majesty, the Void Mask.

He had drawn a lot of pictures, analyzing and studying the magic furnace from various angles. Then, he compared the dwarven forging technique with the magic furnace, trying to find similarities between the two.

He also ran to other blacksmith shops, paying the blacksmiths some money to learn their forging methods.

Of course, those blacksmiths couldn’t afford magic furnaces. They used traditional techniques to create balled iron filled with holes like sponges; they also had strong iron ingots through forging.

Palin constantly studied, trying to integrate various technologies and eventually merging them into Sui Xiong’s “blast furnace.”

It was a long project, so he still couldn’t find many clues until the day when the retirement ceremony was about to take place.

These days, if he had made any achievements, they would be the iron ingots in the blacksmith shop in addition to some piecemeal notes without visible value for the time being.

At least for a long time in the future, old Wrought Iron didn’t need to operate the furnace to forge again. These iron ingots were enough for him to use for a while.