Chapter 90: Five Years Later

Time flies, and years pass like a shuttle.

In the blink of an eye, five years have passed since Old Vol became a Familiar.

During these five years, the development of Spine Peak City has almost exceeded everyone's expectations.

First came city construction; with the help of that Native Holy Scripture, the already impressive construction progress received wings on a tiger, advancing at full speed like a rocket.

In just half a year, the planned city walls and city districts were completed one after another.

Especially the city walls, which were raised again on the original thirty-meter foundation, built up to about eighty meters.

The magical barrier constructed relying on the city walls was improved by the Great Magic User Fu Fu Lamei; energy supply no longer relies solely on mana crystals but can also link with the mana of all residents in the city.

With Lin Yu's true body stationed in the city, this mode is equivalent to infinite energy!

With the Forest Lord and the Great Magic User Fu Fu Lamei as backing, Spine Peak City's reputation spread wider and wider; many even called it the safest city in the world, attracting more refugees who had endured war to come and join.

Just like that, more and more people surged toward Spine Peak City.

In just two years, the city's population had already exceeded thirty thousand, reaching a nearly saturated state.

After Old Vol requested instructions from Lin Yu, he waved his hand and formulated a new Spine Peak City construction plan.

In this brand-new plan, the original Spine Peak City would be designated as the Inner City, the entire city's diameter would expand tenfold outward, and a larger Outer City would be built surrounding the Inner City walls.

To this day, the Outer City has already been completed, and the population of the entire Spine Peak Domain has reached a new high, hitting a figure of one hundred and fifty thousand people.

Do not think this number is small; in this current era, even the mighty Unified Empire only has the Imperial Capital and a few other super-large cities with populations exceeding one hundred thousand.

Some surrounding small nations might have only two or three hundred thousand people for the entire country.

Spine Peak City, supporting one hundred and fifty thousand people with the strength of a single city while guaranteeing everyone has abundant food and clothing and lives without worry, can be said to be the greatest miracle in the world today.

Precisely because of this, surrounding nations have begun to implicitly regard Spine Peak Domain as an independent nation.

Even the most powerful Unified Empire would dispatch formal diplomats to establish relations with Spine Peak City.

Of course, even with so many buffs, achieving this degree in just five years is quite difficult.

In fact, the reason Spine Peak Domain could attract so many people, besides the so-called gimmick of the "Safest City," is that a considerable portion of the credit goes to the Familiars converted by Old Vol.

After obtaining the 【Heart of the Familiar】, the first Familiar Old Vol converted was naturally his wife, Li Ya.

This was his only selfish motive.

Because from then on, his sole standard for converting Familiars was loyalty to Lin Yu!

Even his own son, Dai Meng, he was unwilling to convert into a Familiar before confirming his loyalty.

Thanks to Old Vol, the Familiars converted thereafter were almost all devout believers of Lin Yu, and among them, young people were the majority; those older people preferred the now stable life, and their faith in Lin Yu was not as fanatical as the young people's.

Such a group walking out of Spine Peak Domain, traveling the world on Lin Yu's behalf, would naturally brag that Spine Peak City was the best place in the world.

Some overly devout Familiars would even actively preach to humans outside, making them convert to worship Lin Yu...

Regarding this, not to mention the Church that worships the Goddess, even Lin Yu had a massive headache; he stated several times that he did not need faith, which barely suppressed this wave of "passing the torch."

Of course, Lin Yu actively suppressing them was simply because he did not want to be harassed by endless prayers.

If the Goddess Church or some other faction thought they were afraid of him, they were completely mistaken!

These Familiars were not so easy to deal with; although they lacked the various divine powers of Familiars, they possessed natural magical affinity and the power reborn within the Cosmic Weight inside their bodies.

In other words, each of them possessed extremely high magical talent; as long as they were willing to put in the effort and spend time, everyone could become a powerful Magic User.

Coincidentally, Lin Yu also needed these Familiars to serve as his eyes.

Therefore, before letting them go out, he specifically had his avatar make time to personally teach them magic for one year.

It was this year of teaching that gave these over one hundred Familiars sufficient self-defense capabilities; even facing a Great Magic User of Fu Fu Lamei's level, they had room to escape after being defeated.

Such an exaggerated power increase was naturally not achieved through normal means.

As the saying goes, "If the upper beam is crooked, the lower beam will be askew"; under Lin Yu's avatar's unorthodox teaching methods, these Familiars' mental states became increasingly abnormal.

Especially certain idea kings in the Familiars with peculiar thought patterns, they made Lin Yu vaguely feel like he had encountered another bizarre group.

Things like absorbing mana without limit until bursting oneself, and after rebirth, the mana upper limit would increase significantly...

Or placing oneself in life-or-death perilous situations to temper the spiritual power, causing a qualitative leap...

Various magic experiments that could be called suicide were all research topics undertaken by these Familiars possessing the power of rebirth.

At that time, Lin Yu was eager for them to master sufficient power, so he did not pay particular attention.

Until later, when these idea kings' thinking patterns solidified and began considering how many lives it would cost when encountering difficult magic experiments, Lin Yu only then belatedly realized that he had actually cultivated a group of Fourth Calamities!

With matters at this point, Lin Yu could only accept reality and, gritting his teeth, released this group of Familiars.

Since then, a new race calling themselves the "Immortal Race" began walking the outside world, becoming the third immortal race in the eyes of the world besides Elves and Demons.

The term "Immortal Race" was naturally requested by Old Vol from Lin Yu.

When Lin Yu bestowed the name, he never expected them to be so rowdy; the title was truly wasted on them.

In just a few years, these Immortal Race people traveled north, south, east, and west, living up to expectations by creating many troubles, making many factions, including the Goddess Church, extremely resentful.

In the eyes of the people outside, these Immortal Race people were much more difficult to deal with than Demons!

Demons only wanted human lives and did not care who that person was.

But the Immortal Race was different; their worldviews were so upright they were twisted; whenever they encountered injustice, or felt a certain city's system was too exploitative, they would truly take bold action, using physical means to clear their minds.

The thing was, these Immortal Race people were all powerful Magic Users; when fighting, they feared no death and did not care about their own lives at all.

Even more terrifying was that many rumors related to the Immortal Race proved a fact—

That they seemed to truly be immortal existences!

Among them, the two most widely circulated were: first, the eighteen warriors who once caused a huge uproar, saying that eighteen Immortal Race members went as a group to the Demon King's Castle to fight the Demon King, and as expected, were wiped out by the Demon King.

Just when the northern cities were deeply regretful and commemorating these eighteen warriors, they came out of Spine Peak City lively and well, continuing to be active in this world as if nothing had happened.

The second legend concerned a certain young Imperial Prince of the Empire.

While traveling in the north, he personally witnessed his Immortal Race friend being killed by Demons.

The young Imperial Prince was heartbroken and, traveling a thousand miles, returned his friend's bones to his hometown; but upon arriving at Spine Peak City, he was shocked to discover that he had actually received a warm reception from the friend himself...

In short, various rumors confirmed the terror of the Immortal Clan.

All major powers, including the Goddess Church, were extremely troubled.

They could not fight them, could not kill them, and no one cared about their insults; they could only find ways to avoid the Immortal Clan and deal with these oddballs with strange thought patterns cautiously.

Of course, there were not a few who took action to capture Immortals alive, attempting to probe their secret of immortality.

But whenever anyone dared to do so, Lin Yu would send Old Vol and Lord Lord Longlongyan to visit personally.

The so-called great figure who last dared to capture an Immortal alive, along with his nation, had vanished into the river of history...

However, as long as the bottom line was not touched, the attitude of Ridge Peak City toward the Immortal Clan was to let them be.

Whether they lived or died was the fate of the followers themselves; whatever choice they made, they had to bear it themselves.

And all Lin Yu did was treat them as eyes, silently observing their fate and the fate of the world.

Another morning, three figures appeared on the main road north of Ridge Peak Territory.

Gazing at the magnificent city wall at the end of their vision, Fu Fu Lamei could not help but look moved.

Five years ago, she had also come to Ridge Peak City along this road.

But back then, the scale of Ridge Peak City was not so vast; the inner city wall had not yet been built, and from such a distance, one could only see the lush forest ahead, with not a shadow of Ridge Peak City in sight.

Now, as soon as they stepped onto this road, they could see the three-hundred-meter-high Clock Tower in the city.

Stepping into the forest north of the city, the hundred-meter-high outer city wall rushed toward them with overwhelming pressure...

Gazing at the clearly outlined city ahead, the silver-haired elf girl could not help but smile and urged, "Teacher, the Lava Street Lava Furnace Hotpot Restaurant usually opens when the sun rises; if we enter the city now, we can still catch the freshest batch of ingredients!"

"..."

Fu Fu Lamei came to her senses and sighed, "I really don't know why you like the food at that restaurant; they put in the lava peppers there as if they were free, desperately throwing them into the hotpot, afraid they won't make their diners spicy enough to die."

The tall warrior beside her laughed, "What does it matter? Anyway, Frieren won't order a spicy pot."

Fu Fu Lamei shook her head, "Then there's even less reason to go to their place!"

Frieren said seriously, "Even the clear soup pot is the most authentic at their place... don't you agree, Dai Meng!"

Upon saying the last sentence, Frieren turned her head to look at the warrior beside her.

That's right, the warrior accompanying this master and disciple pair in recent years was Dai Meng Stone.

After all, Fu Fu Lamei and her master and disciple were both mages and still needed the protection of a vanguard when fighting powerful enemies.

Considering this, after receiving Lin Yu's commission, Fu Fu Lamei immediately began recruiting a vanguard in Ridge Peak City.

At this time, Lin Yu remembered his past agreement with Dai Meng, so he suggested that Dai Meng accompany them on their adventure.

(End of this chapter)