32 Mysterious Mechanic

  More than 4,000 years ago in ancient times. In the western Ferens of the Niseral Empire, the floating cities of the great mages rose, and the flying ships driven by magic powers traveled through the Toriel space, exploring the mysterious vast areas of Suren and Night Sky Sea, marking the development of Niseral's magical civilization to its golden age.

  At the same time, the ancient empire of Imaskar to the east had long since delved deep into the mysteries of the planes, but unlike the Netherese wizards who studied the intricacies of spellcraft, the Imaskari focused their magical research on creating a wide variety of magical constructs. The highly industrialized school of magical engineering gave the empire an enormous army composed of thousands of golems, and those who mastered this art were known as artificers, who were generally held in high esteem within Imaskar, much like the wizards of Netheril.

  Similar to the arcanists of Nefaria, the artificers of Imaskar had a severe lack of reverence for the gods. This attitude even permeated other strata of ancient Imaskari society; it can be said that at the time, all humans in the Imaskari empire firmly believed that magical industry could do everything and that the gods would have to step aside.

  They almost succeeded, with the power of various magical instruments, they gained the ability to enter and exit different dimensions, the Qixi masters commanded the Mo army corps in those worlds, plundering humans from other planes as slaves. However, after the glory, it was inevitable that there would be a low point or destruction, 4,000 years ago, the Imaskar Empire suffered the consequences of its own arrogance - the Mulhorandi people, who were enslaved by them, summoned their racial guardian deity, and the angry extraplanar deity personally descended upon Faerun, causing the ancient empire to collapse.

  The great civilization of the past collapsed, and more than 4,000 years have passed. The history of the Inca Empire only exists in some classics that only scholars would be interested in.

  Now, there is such a 'person', who can be called a human being for the time being, claiming to be a legendary figure from this empire that has been destroyed for more than 4,000 years. Pennie suddenly had some Spartan feelings.

  But he soon calmed down, as Ferran knew of many ways to achieve immortality, from the ancient legendary spell 'Elyon's Immortal Technique', to more common methods such as cloning and stealing life, transforming into a lich, or even the secret research organization's Erlang transformation technology, and also some unconventional ones like the Twelve Princes of the Shadow Castle - their lives had been half-ethereal for thousands of years.

  There are just too many long-lived beings in Ferelden, where you might run into an old man on the street who's actually a monster thousands of years old.

  So this guy in front of me who looks more like a demon than a human can live for over 4,000 years. Thinking about it carefully, it's not entirely impossible.

  "You don't have to be overly surprised." The metallic voice of Penny continued, "As you can see, my life has been sustained in this iron body for 3854 years, 9 months, 12 days, 11 hours, 7 minutes, and 19 seconds... oh, now it's 21 seconds. You'll get used to it, no fatigue, no need for sleep, and fewer negative emotions to interfere with research, making it more efficient."

  Can calculate the time of one's own life with precision down to the second.

  This is a madman with some special thoughts.

  Penny almost immediately jumped to this conclusion and was even more unquestioning of the man's claimed identity.

  He had just helped him take down the giant magician's construct beast, and in his mouth it was actually a defective product. It can be imagined how obsessed this person is with technology. Moreover, Penny doesn't think the other party needs to lie to him, because his perceptual ability senses that the connection between the soul in this magic image and the demon net is so deep that it cannot be explored.

  This unbridled power, even if not a Qi Mei master, is a high-ranking caster whose magical abilities surpass his by several streets. What's more, having lived for who knows how many years, if his magical abilities aren't at least eighth or ninth rank, it would be a waste of the long time he has been alive.

  Thinking of this, Penny's heart felt a bit of awe and vigilance: "You're saying, this is your territory?"

  "Not bad, I've been living in this shadowy half-plane for as long as I said earlier." Sagaba Pasqua's voice was loud and clear this time, and Panni heard it clearly. It seemed that the magic image had fixed some kind of auditory spell, so it could make sounds, but one detail in Sagaba's words made him startled:

  Hemispherical shadow

  Panni looked around and saw a distant haze that seemed to be in the void, which was not the scenery that should be in the Shadow Plane.

  Although 'shadow half-plane' and 'shadow plane' have only a slight difference in prefix, the meaning is completely different. If the shadow plane is the base of the main material world, then the shadow half-plane is the base of the shadow plane. These strange half-planes are sandwiched in the time-space gap between the shadow planes, making them difficult to find. Panni had previously been puzzled by the unrecognizable magic array at Langer's house, but he hadn't expected that the destination of that array was actually a shadow half-plane.

  "Not bad, recently there have been a lot of people suddenly rushing in for no reason." The Mechanic said, at the same time Panni felt that this guy without facial features glanced at himself.

  "I intruded into your realm without permission, I feel very sorry." Pennie thought for a moment and apologized solemnly.

  He couldn't quite grasp what this guy was thinking, in his opinion, these old monsters who had lived for thousands of years usually had some kind of mental illness, such as mood swings. Especially listening to the tone of this old man, he had been living alone for thousands of years. In Penny's experience, being single for more than two years would lead to some psychological problems. This strange mechanic had been living alone for so long, and his personality was really hard to guess.

  For now, let's just apologize and make a good impression first, at least showing that I don't have any hostile intentions.

  "You're quite polite, I just sensed that a few intruders had entered and saw that there was a good show being performed here, so I came over to take a look." Qixiashi's tone became somewhat strange: "I didn't expect the intruders would fight each other."

  "I'm a human, and they're trolls. And you... uh... sir, it's quite clear we're not on the same side." Penny felt like she was suddenly speaking a different language, her face turning rather strange.

  "Maybe I was wrong?" The tone of the mechanic's voice was suddenly enlightened, but he shook his head again: "But what's the difference between humans and demons? In my opinion, things with blood and flesh are all about the same."

  Pang Ni broke out in a cold sweat, and afterwards his thoughts were stern and he became even more vigilant.

  From this sentence, he judged out a fact.

  This cyborg has already lost its former self-awareness as a human being.

  When he first met this strange mechanic, his vigilance was not heavy because the other party did not show obvious hostility, but now, his vigilance has reached its limit.

  The behavior and thoughts of this strange mechanic who has lived for nearly four thousand years, seemingly completely losing his humanity, can no longer be inferred by common sense.

  "Considering you're being so polite, I'll treat you to something."

  Penny was thinking fast about how to deal with this guy, but before she could come up with a plan, Sargeras Pasqua waved his hand and a magic circle appeared on the ground. Penny's vision blurred for a moment as her body felt weightless, and when her sight returned, she found herself in a corridor.

  At the entrance of the corridor, three bodies were lying on their backs. Upon closer inspection, they turned out to be Anel, Sally, and Cera, who had scattered earlier. All three bodies were stiff, and Penny could tell that they had been petrified by a spell, temporarily turning them into stone statues.

  At this point, the Qigong master Sargaba Pasqua pointed to Anel's side and said to Sally Fen, who was holding her hand in a spell-casting pose:

  "These intruders are too detestable! This blood-magic user, upon seeing me, didn't even bother to greet me and directly launched a magical attack on me."

  "This guy." The mechanic pointed again, with a hunchbacked posture and his palms facing forward, like a thief's Anel: "Dare to sneak in here trying to steal my treasure."

  Pang gazed at the petrified thief with admiration, but when his eyes turned to Cera, who was still in a sword-chopping stance, cold sweat instantly flowed down.

  "And this damned guy, who actually left an undeserved scar on my refined and well-trained body! She must die!" The Mechanic slapped his chest, where a huge gap had been torn open, and shouted in true anger, his voice filled with rage through the Phantom Sound Technique.

  "I will extract their souls, as material for the next batch of experiments. These two female bodies are to be used as samples for hellish creature hybridization. This despicable thief is to be used as bait for shadow hounds."

  Pannie's forehead was dripping with cold sweat. He had originally wanted to probe the strange mechanic's intentions, to see if he could save these people. Now it seemed that if he didn't draw a clear line between himself and them, he would likely become experimental material as well.

  "Well then... Mr. Pascal, what can I do for you?"

  "Well, the reason I didn't think of using you as experimental material is indeed because I need to borrow your strength." The Mechanic nodded his shiny bald head and said so.

  In short, Penny almost became a test subject, and this discovery made Penny extremely relieved, secretly letting out a sigh of relief. In any case, his own life would not be lost here for the time being, as long as he could survive, there was hope to continue dealing with this monster.

  "I've been preparing an experiment recently, and I just happen to be short of an assistant who understands mechanics. I was originally going to go out and catch a shadow mage, but when I saw you, I felt that there's no need to run so far." The mechanist said.

  "Do I have a choice?" Penny asked tentatively.

  "You could also choose to be my test subject." Sagopa Kajmer said in a flat tone, as if it was the most natural thing.

  "Alright, I'll help you." Penny felt he had no choice.

  Needless to say, his magic had already been exhausted, and even if his magic slots were full, could he still deal with this old monster?

  The wisest choice is to take it one step at a time.

  "Alright, follow me. Before we start the experiment, we need to do some preparation..." Sagaba said as he walked forward, his metal body clanking against the corridor floor with a hollow and eerie sound.

  Panni looked out the window, and the entire dark hemisphere was faintly visible. It seemed that he was in a high place at the center of this dark hemisphere, most likely the residence of this strange mechanic.

  Unlike the floating city of the great occultist, Imaskar's clockwork mages' abode is filled with a unique steam punk style, with steel plates and gear mechanisms everywhere, giving Penny a sense of temporal dislocation.

  Pannie followed the Qixi Master, turned a corner and saw several freshly killed human corpses on the ground. Fearful and also somewhat curious.

  "They were assistants I brought in last month."

  Sagga Pashka seems to have noticed this and is also willing to explain the origin of these corpses: "They are a bunch of fools! A small decimal point after four digits can also be wrong! Not even clear about the most important principle - rigor! Is rigor!"

  In the end, he became emotionally agitated and bellowed: "This group of fools almost ruined my experiment!"

  Pang Nian felt a chill run down his spine.

  ……

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