Chapter 382: Teleport's Initial Display of Power, Ten Thousand Transcendent-Level Gnomes?

"Since Velesia has already agreed, there's no time like the present. Let's start now.""N-Now?"

Velesia was immediately stunned. She looked at the surrounding environment, then at the people in front of her, biting her lips until they turned pale.

"Yeah, it's still daytime right now."

So you *do* know it's daytime!

Velesia clenched her fists tightly, feeling immense humiliation inside.

Was this guy deliberately trying to humiliate her?

But even so, she had no other choice... Compared to the safety of her people, this little bit of humiliation was nothing.

"Alright..."

So, trembling, she began unbuttoning her clothes.

Lin Mo blinked, his face blank with bewilderment, so much so that he momentarily forgot to look away.

Until Ellie covered his eyes.

"Princess Velesia, what are you doing?"

Flora's face held a somewhat subtle expression. Of course, she actually knew why the other party was doing this. After all, the conversation just now was far too easy to misunderstand.

It could only be said that Lin Mo wanted to seize the initiative, but clearly overdid it.

But knowing was one thing; some polite words still had to be said.

"Y-Yeah, we're all still here..."

Finnie also pouted in anger. Who tries to seduce someone's boyfriend right in front of them?

"Me?"

Velesia felt both ashamed and angry, unable to speak for a moment.

Eve simply couldn't bear to watch any longer and said bluntly, "The little favor we need your help with is to go fight. What were you thinking?"

Velesia's expression froze. Her whole body stiffened, her momentum instantly deflating. Only after several seconds did she stammer out, "I-Is that it?"

"What else?"

The shame and indignation in Velesia's heart instantly vanished, replaced by intense awkwardness.

They clearly just wanted her help with some proper business, and she... she had actually harbored such an outrageous misunderstanding!

Was she actually a promiscuous elf?

Velesia wished she could burrow into the ground.

She hurriedly re-fastened her buttons and calmed her emotions. Ellie also released her hand covering Lin Mo's eyes.

Lin Mo glanced at the Velesia before him. The elven princess's face was still flushed red, all the way to the tips of her ears.

He suddenly remembered that in some works from his previous life, the elven race often harbored a strange persecution complex. Sometimes, even when others clearly had no strange intentions, they would always think in that direction.

To some extent, could this be considered exposing one's true nature?

Perhaps the elven race truly was a licentious race?

Hmm, if he said that out loud, the elven princess before him would probably fight him to the death.

After clarifying their needs again, Velesia nodded without hesitation. "A level 37 Magical Creature? I understand, please leave it to me!"

Although she was called an elven princess, Velesia was actually not young anymore, having just celebrated her 60th birthday not long ago.

Her talent was considered extremely strong even among the elven royal family, belonging to that type of royal bloodline with no upper limit restriction. According to the elders in the clan, she would definitely achieve a universal promotion to the Legendary Realm within twenty years.

Currently, although she still had some distance from the Legendary Realm, her level was the same as the Epic-Level Magical Creature they needed to deal with—both level 37. But Velesia was very confident in her own strength. Facing a Magical Creature of the same level, she had full confidence.

Lin Mo wasn't entirely clear about this elven princess's specific strength, but since it was Madam Elara's suggestion, it probably wouldn't be a problem.

So without delay, after the Oxivis Family delivered the Eclipse Moon Grass, they immediately set off on their journey.

After boarding the carriage, Lin Mo gathered everyone into his Portable Space.

Inside the Portable Space, Elven Princess Velesia looked around at this independent space with amazement, then turned her surprised gaze to Lin Mo, who had followed them in.

Space Magic...

In the rumors she had heard so far, there was no mention of Lin Mo having this ability.

It seemed that even those exaggerated rumors were far from being the entirety of this human.

She didn't ask further. After all, they weren't very familiar yet, and rashly probing into others' secrets wasn't a good habit, especially now that she herself needed their help.

A level 37 Magical Creature was indeed not an easy opponent to deal with, but with Lin Mo's current reputation, finding people willing to help wouldn't be difficult at all. He just needed to spread the word, and plenty would be willing to step forward.

The reason he didn't do that was simply to avoid trouble.

Lin Mo didn't really want to get entangled with too many factions. Those people who approached him all had their own agendas. Owing them favors now would inevitably lead to trouble later.

Even if he were to form connections, he would only choose top-tier factions like the Holy Light Church or the Adventurers' Association. At least these factions could offer him sufficiently significant assistance.

Of course, the Elven race was also a good target for acquaintance.

On one hand, the Elven race itself was not weak. Furthermore, as Madam Elara said, building good relations with the Elven race could be profitable.

Even putting these factors aside, Lin Mo was quite willing to increase exchanges with the Elven race. After all, the reputation of the elves' handsome and beautiful looks wasn't just talk; they were truly beautiful enough.

For example, the elven princess before him... Let's just say, character modeling wouldn't dare to create someone like this...

The return journey was somewhat different from the trip there, allowing them to save a lot of time.

The reason was simple—the spatial coordinates Lin Mo had left along the way weren't just for show; they were meant to be used.

Ever since obtaining the [Teleport] skill, he hadn't had a chance to use it. Now was the perfect opportunity to test it out, improving skill proficiency while traveling and accumulating some experience using this skill.

After the carriage traveled a certain distance, just as it passed a spatial node, Lin Mo focused his will and directly activated the [Teleport] skill.

Like the Flash skill, [Teleport] could also carry other people and objects along. However, the more targets being teleported, the greater the final consumption. And given Lin Mo's current Mana and proficiency, there was an upper limit to what he could carry. Of course, this limit certainly wasn't restricted to just this one carriage, so it wasn't a problem.

Although the consumption was higher, Lin Mo's Mana reserves were ample enough, so he could afford it.

Accompanied by a strange sensation, the next moment, the entire carriage appeared in a location 13 kilometers away.

The horses pulling the carriage were stunned, instinctively stopping in their tracks.

Lin Mo patted the horses' rumps, signaling them to continue, then looked at the message that had just appeared before his eyes.

[Teleport] proficiency +5

Only 5 points of proficiency for one teleport?

Lin Mo curled his lip. That was way too little... Perhaps because the teleport distance was indeed a bit short?

Anyway, let's continue trying...

However, the carriage had already traveled some distance. Teleporting to the next node would be a bit wasteful, and Lin Mo hadn't left nodes at farther locations... He had set them up at intervals of 13 kilometers. Otherwise, constantly recording spatial nodes would be too tiring.

So, he might as well wait until the carriage reached the next node to continue. Besides, the [Teleport] skill was difficult to use consecutively anyway...

For the rest of the journey, Lin Mo followed this approach, teleporting from time to time to speed up their travel progress.

After doing this several times, a prompt for a skill level-up finally appeared before his eyes.

"Skill [Teleport] Lv1 (20/20) upgraded!"

"Current skill [Teleport] Lv2 (0/40)"

Finally leveled up.

Lin Mo eagerly checked the skill information. He really wanted to know how much the teleportation distance had increased after the level-up.

[Teleport] Lv2 (0/40): Channel Mana, causing spatial vibrations, opening a passageway, and performing a spatial leap of a certain distance! The longer the leap duration, the longer the time required to connect the spaces (based on proficiency, Mana, and Spirit attributes). Current maximum teleport distance: 20 kilometers.

Note: Performing [Teleport] requires determining the spatial location information and precise coordinates of the destination!

The base teleport distance increased from the original 10 kilometers to 20 kilometers, meaning an increase of 10 kilometers?

That wasn't much. According to this logic, reaching the maximum level 9 would only be 90 kilometers, which clearly didn't seem right.

90 kilometers sounded good, but for [Teleport], that could still only be considered a medium-to-short distance.

So, could it possibly be doubling?

Not adding 10 to reach 20, but 10×2=20?

If that were the case, it would be much better.

Lin Mo eagerly tried out the level 2 teleport.

This time, he directly crossed the distance of two spatial coordinate nodes, traveling a full 26 kilometers!

Of course, the consumption was also a bit higher than before.

But this consumption was still completely within an acceptable range.

Most importantly...

[Teleport] proficiency +8

Although the proficiency gain didn't directly double, at least it increased. If it had always been just 5 points per use, leveling this skill would have been far too difficult.

Continuing to teleport repeatedly, after a while, the [Teleport] skill leveled up again.

"Skill [Teleport] Lv2 (40/40) upgraded!"

"Current skill [Teleport] Lv3 (0/80)"

"Gained basic attribute points: Mana +3, Spirit +2!"

Reaching skill level 3 granted a wave of basic attribute points, but the most important thing was still the improvement in the skill's own numerical values.

Lin Mo eagerly looked.

[Teleport] Lv3 (0/80): Channel Mana.... Current maximum teleport distance: 40 kilometers.

Haha, indeed!

Lin Mo's eyes lit up. He had guessed correctly. Each level-up didn't increase the distance by a fixed amount; it doubled!

If that were the case, once the level got high, the convenience of teleportation would become quite powerful.

Then, there was also the choice of evolution routes.

Please choose evolution direction—

Evolution Route 1: Long-Distance Teleport II: Teleport distance increased by 45%!

Evolution Route 2: Rapid Teleport I: Teleport speed increased by 30%!

The level 2 "Long-Distance Teleport" only provided an additional 15% increase in teleport distance, but Lin Mo was still happy to choose it.

After all, at least for now, increasing teleport speed didn't seem very necessary.

It was still hard to use in actual combat anyway, and even a 30% increase wouldn't change that. So he might as well continue increasing the distance.

Lin Mo decisively made his choice. Thus, the current maximum teleport distance became 40×1.45 = 58 kilometers!

This distance was already quite good. The [Teleport] skill was beginning to show its initial power.

Thanks to this, their travel speed for the rest of the journey became much faster. In the end, the return trip took only one-third of the time of the initial journey. Moreover, during the continuous travel, the Teleport skill smoothly leveled up to 4.

[Teleport] Lv4 (15/200): Channel Mana.... Current maximum teleport distance: 80 kilometers

The Teleport skill at level 4 once again doubled its maximum distance, thoroughly confirming Lin Mo's idea: each time this skill levels up, its maximum teleport distance doubles.

By the time they reached Nasadok Town, it was already getting late. Moreover, Lin Mo had been using the Teleport skill continuously along the way, consuming a significant amount of Mana. So, it definitely wasn't suitable to set off to explore the Nasadok Dungeon at this time.

So, they went to find a lounge in the Adventurers' Association to use as a base, then rested for the night inside the Portable Space.

Last night, Lin Mo didn't "go to work" as usual. The accumulated fatigue from the journey made him just want to rest properly, and everyone understood.

Thus, early the next morning, everyone got up early, ready and prepared.

The purpose of this trip to the Nasadok Dungeon was very clear: to collect the materials needed for forging.

The most crucial were naturally the materials from the Sunflame Tiger King, but besides that, there were also several lower-level materials that needed to be collected. At the same time, Lin Mo could also properly grind his skill proficiencies.

Ever since his universal promotion to the Transcendent Level, he hadn't leveled up even once.

Having been here once before, they were already very familiar with the process of entering the Nasadok Dungeon.

Soon, they arrived at the dungeon's 24th floor, where the Magical Creature holding the first required material resided.

The Magical Creatures on this floor were somewhat overpowered for Ellie and the others, making them difficult to deal with. However, with their combined efforts and Lily responsible for protection on the side, they could still put up a fight.

Lin Mo was responsible for the final cleanup, grinding his skill proficiencies.

He now had a vast number of skills, sometimes not even knowing which ones to use. So he simply stopped overthinking it, practicing whichever skill caught his eye, as they all provided attribute points anyway.

The number of Magical Creatures on the 24th floor of the dungeon wasn't as high anymore, but the proficiency each creature provided was still decent. After a period of exploration, many of Lin Mo's excellent-grade and Exceptional-Grade skills leveled up, granting him basic attribute points.

His Strength and Agility attributes were the first to reach the level-up standard.

"Promotion conditions met. Profession Warrior (lv21) promoted—Current profession Warrior (lv22)"

"Gained profession attribute enhancement: Strength +15, Agility +7, Constitution +8!"

Going from level 21 to 22 provided a total of 30 attribute points in enhancement. The Assassin and Ranger professions were the same.

"Promotion conditions met. Profession Assassin (lv21) promoted—Current profession Assassin (lv22)"

"Gained profession attribute enhancement: Strength +10, Agility +15, Constitution +5!"

"Promotion conditions met. Profession Ranger (lv21) promoted—Current profession Ranger (lv22)"

"Gained profession attribute enhancement: Strength +10, Agility +15, Constitution +3, Spirit +2!"

After the universal promotion to the Transcendent Level, the attribute enhancements gained seemed more balanced than before.

This also aligned with the needs of the vast majority of Professionals: when their level wasn't high and their strength wasn't that great, the most important thing was having a sufficiently strong specialty; but after reaching a certain level, compensating for weaknesses as much as possible became a very important matter.

The Warrior and agility-based professions had already completed their level-ups, so next it was the turn of the Knight profession and the magic-based professions.

Since all professions needed to complete their promotions simultaneously anyway, Lin Mo simply decided to develop all professions evenly. This would save him the headache of figuring things out every time he was close to a promotion.

So next, Lin Mo planned to focus first on raising the most difficult Knight profession.

However, the objective on the 24th floor was already accomplished. They had successfully obtained the required material, so it was time to continue downward.

27th floor...

The number of adventurers capable of reaching this floor was already very scarce. Even those top-ranked Gold-level adventurer teams rarely ventured to this floor.

After all, everyone's main goal was to make money. Choosing such high-difficulty tasks, even if they could be completed, would inevitably result in lower efficiency. It was better to choose slightly less difficult tasks—easier, safer, and with higher task completion efficiency. The final earnings wouldn't show a very obvious difference anyway.

The Magical Creatures on this floor had already lost their value for Ellie and the others to gain experience; the gap was a bit too large. So they simply didn't stay outside to be a hindrance and went back to rest in the Portable Space.

Thus, only Lin Mo, Lily, and Velesia remained in the dungeon.

On the 27th floor of the dungeon, the distribution density of Magical Creatures had noticeably declined compared to the 24th floor. Therefore, a lot of time was actually spent traveling.

During this process, to avoid boredom, Lin Mo would chat a bit with the two beside him.

But he himself wasn't the type very skilled at conversation, and the two beside him were even more heavyweight in that regard, each more taciturn than the other.

Helpless, Lin Mo could only steer the topic toward matters related to the Barbarian Forest. That way, Velesia might be able to respond a little.

Actually, Velesia wasn't the type with a very dull personality. Back in her clan, although not particularly lively, she was still considered the relatively easy-to-communicate type. It was just that leaving the Elven Royal Court and having to interact with humans was somewhat challenging for her.

As an elven princess, and one with a very powerful bloodline at that, Velesia had been highly valued and protected by members of the Elder Council since childhood. They had never let her leave the Royal Court before, so she had no contact with humans.

Coupled with all the negative messages about humans instilled in her since childhood, she didn't have a very good impression of humans.

The repeated rejections she faced recently further deepened this.

But for some reason, she didn't seem to be able to dislike the two humans before her very much.

How to put it... From them, there emanated a faint, almost imperceptible aura that made her feel very comfortable...

Velesia didn't know if this was her own illusion, as it made no sense at all, leaving her completely baffled.

Furthermore, the aura emanating from Lin Mo was clearly much stronger than Lily's...

"Princess Velesia?"

Lin Mo reached out his hand and waved it in front of the dazed Velesia.

Velesia snapped back to reality. "Sorry, what did you say just now?"

"I wanted to learn more about information regarding the Gnome Kingdom. Although I've seen some content about the Gnome Kingdom in books before, what's recorded there is rather vague, and some of the information is long outdated. It hasn't been updated in recent years. After all, we might have to fight those gnomes later, so we should have a clear understanding of our opponents."

Velesia nodded. "I see. The Gnome Kingdom has indeed undergone very significant changes in recent years. Not long ago... around the time I was born, the Gnome Kingdom was still relatively peaceful. But starting fifty years ago, the Gnome Kingdom clearly developed expansionist intentions, constantly making small moves. This phenomenon has been especially pronounced in the last few years. Regarding their expansion, the Elven race had actually anticipated it beforehand."

Lin Mo didn't ask questions like, if they knew in advance, why didn't they prepare?

The Elven race only had so few people; what preparations could they make? Have more children? If effort alone could produce children, they wouldn't have so few people...

Go cause trouble for the Gnome Kingdom in advance? Even if they did it early, they still couldn't win, and would be taken advantage of when vulnerable.

Come directly to the human Empire to communicate? That would have been even more easily manipulated.

No matter what they chose, the result would likely have been the same.

To put it bluntly, for the Elven race, these were all choices made under extreme helplessness.

Just like sending Velesia to negotiate... Did the elven elders not know what this meant, what might happen?

They had no other choice. Only Princess Velesia had sufficient weight; others weren't qualified enough. Otherwise, would they have to let the Queen come personally?

What they had hoped for before was to see if they could buy more time, delay until Velesia grew up, to replace the soon-to-pass Legendary Realm figure and support the backbone of the Elven race.

But the Gnome Kingdom acted directly. They couldn't delay anymore, so they could only try to seek human help, at least to avoid annihilation, even if it meant sacrificing some things...

Velesia continued sharing information about the Gnome Kingdom: "Currently, based on information collected by reconnaissance teams, the expansion speed of the gnome and Goblin population within the Gnome Kingdom has been extremely exaggerated in recent years... According to preliminary estimates, the number of gnomes within the Gnome Kingdom likely already exceeds ten thousand."

Lin Mo was immediately shocked.

You have to understand, as the evolved result of goblins, gnomes start with at least Transcendent-Level strength. Ten thousand gnomes would mean a full ten thousand Transcendent-Level combatants?