Chapter 72 – The Ancient Elvish Language

A month had passed since Lotalan’s departure. A batch of twenty slaves and several large crates of magical materials had been delivered to the White Tower, yet no magic apprentices had been recruited. Punk’s requirements were exceptionally stringent. Although many Apprentice Rank spellcasters longed for guidance from a Formal-Level mentor, finding a magic apprentice skilled in alchemy proved far more challenging.

Despite the lack of assistants, Punk’s experiments progressed steadily.

Through repeated attempts, the flesh golem body—primarily crafted from the severed arm tissue of a glabrezu—was nearly complete. Unfortunately, Punk had conclusively determined that at his current Formal-Level capability, he simply couldn’t control the inherently evil and chaotic demonic soul. While using a soul from the same species could better harness the power and traits of demonic flesh, the profound chaos rooted deep within a demon’s soul remained utterly beyond his ability to purge.

Standing beside the experiment table, Punk gently pinched a small black gem containing the soul of a vrock—a failed experiment. Even in its shattered state, the soul struggled and writhed violently within. Its unrestrained madness served as the perfect embodiment of the demonic race.

Tossing the still-shrieking gem onto the experiment table, Punk retrieved a crystal-clear sapphire from his pocket. Hazy mist swirled inside the blue gem, where a dull, vacant humanoid soul floated aimlessly. As beings of higher intelligence, human souls—if not consumed by the River of Fate—could autonomously manifest human forms after extraction. The soul confined within this gem had undergone preliminary modifications.

Beyond the foundational process of merging ordinary souls with Formal-Level virtual souls to barely reach Formal-Level standards, Punk had also erased the soul’s original memories and emotions through spells. He’d even applied two obscure spells to alter the soul’s instincts. These valuable techniques were indebted to Mainaixi—it was through inheriting the old Formal-Level mage’s lifetime of diligently collected spells that Punk acquired such refined, niche knowledge.

Yet possessing knowledge didn’t guarantee mastery. The journey from theory to practice always demanded repeated trials and failures.

In truth, over twenty such soul modifications had been attempted within this single month. Even with resilient demon souls as expendable practice materials, and despite exercising extreme caution during the process, only the soul he now held remained intact. All others had dissipated under energy shocks—some fragile ones went mad the moment they left their bodies, overwhelmed by the void of the external world. These cheap slaves were ordinary humans devoid of any power; their low-tier souls could hardly withstand Punk’s still-unpolished modifications.Fortunately, the final soul was successfully transformed. Surviving the modification experiment was enough to prove its exceptional resilience. The soul within the sapphire now obeyed Punk unconditionally, and it even possessed a rare degree of intelligence—capable of comprehending moderately complex commands, unlike summoned creatures that proved less obedient than circus monkeys in combat!

Casually tossing the corpse and scattered demon flesh into a corner, Punk now focused on the final step of creating the flesh golem: implanting the soul into its core.

At the center of an intricate magic circle adorned with numerous geometric runes, the flesh golem was positioned as the focal point. Standing beside the array, Punk held the gem containing the successfully modified soul. His eyes shimmered with shifting azure light, while abundant mana swirled around him.

A spell, murmured like a soft dream, began slowly. As the incantation grew louder, crimson points of light ignited across the magic circle, brightening until they merged into a blurred, deep-red pattern etched into the ground. The center of this pattern was the completed flesh golem body, and the magical design rotated slowly around it, eerie runes dancing up and down as if around a bonfire.

Punk had no time to admire the peculiar pattern on the ground—he couldn’t afford distraction during such delicate work.

As the chant gradually faded to a low hum, the soul within the sapphire transformed into strands of blue thread, unraveling and “flowing” out of the gem. Guided by the rhythm of the runes, it infused entirely into the core of the flesh golem.

The golem convulsed violently, every muscle twitching, while blood-red runes flew one by one onto its skin, embedding deeply into its bluish-red flesh. At this point, the flesh golem was nearly complete.

To enhance the golem’s strength and loyalty, Punk decided to perform one final consolidation and empowerment using an extremely difficult Ancient Elven Tongue.

Throughout the vast history of the Multiverse, magical languages like the Ancient Elven Tongue and Ancient Dragon Tongue—also known as word-souls—possessed the power to alter rules and manipulate concepts. Some, like the Apocalypse True Speech, were so terrifying that uttering a few words could destroy an entire plane.

These magical languages were characterized by: immense energy consumption, power directly linked to soul hierarchy, inherent obscurity and difficulty, and—most notably—activation through mere vocal expression without the need for incantations.

As a half-Ancient Elf, Punk had inherited fragments of the Ancient Elven Tongue. His parental legacy repeatedly warned that such potent language should only be attempted cautiously upon reaching the Formal-Level. Now… he would seize this opportunity to test the capabilities of this high-level magical tongue.

Resolved, Punk fixed his gaze on the magical core of the flesh golem, aligning the still-visible array with his line of sight.As the thought of using the language of magic truly took form in his mind, a suffocating aura abruptly descended. The descending presence clashed with the energy fluctuations in the air, and Punk’s pupils were almost instantly filled with deep blue magical power. His eyes now shimmered with a brilliant blue light, like burning will-o’-the-wisps.

His lips, which had previously opened with ease, now felt as if they weighed a thousand pounds. It seemed that every slight parting required his full concentration and strength to barely achieve.

Within his soul, a vast amount of magical power was drained in an instant. The originally abundant magic was completely depleted in the blink of an eye, leaving not a trace behind.

After overcoming so many difficulties, a brief phrase in the Ancient Elven Tongue finally slowly emerged from his soul. Having recited the Ancient Elven Tongue, Punk felt both his body and mind trembling under the impact of the magical language’s syllables!

The profound and mysterious soul-voice could only be understood by the caster himself. Any creature below the Formal-Level would have their soul shattered and die miserably merely upon hearing this power-filled voice.

The meaning of this Ancient Elven Tongue phrase, which could be said to represent power itself, was actually quite simple when translated:

“My loyal servant, embrace your new life”!

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Additional explanation: Summoned creatures aren’t whatever one desires to summon. All attributes and abilities possessed by any summoned “existence” are bestowed by the spell model. Without constructing the corresponding spell model, what gets summoned is nothing but a useless 3D image. However, constructing a spell model that contains almost all the characteristics needed for a summoned creature’s combat capabilities is already difficult enough. Even directly “borrowing” models already “invented” by predecessors requires extensive practice to accomplish, let alone “inventing” one from scratch.

If using predecessors’ invented “templates” for summoning is comparable in difficulty to “cloning” a creature, then inventing a “template” from nothing for summoning is equivalent to creating a creature out of thin air – something those not skilled in spell research cannot achieve.

Theoretically, one could summon Transformers, but actually accomplishing this would require the inventor of the “Summon Transformer” spell to fully understand the nature, attributes, abilities, principles, and even soul characteristics of Transformers. Finally, all these complicated elements must be perfectly represented in the form of a spell model without any errors. This level of difficulty is at least beyond Punk’s current capabilities.

Of course, once a template has been invented, later practitioners can mechanically follow the steps to construct it in their souls and perform the summoning, even if they have no idea what a “Transformer” is.

In reality, all so-called “learned” spells are merely following the path laid by predecessors step by step. If a mage wishes to reach the Legendary level, truly understanding spell principles and being able to extrapolate and invent spells are essential conditions.

Finally! The author isn’t fond of Transformers, and such stylistically discordant “elements” will absolutely not appear in this book!

(End of Chapter)