NOVEL NEXT Chapter 99.5 (summary so far)
Drake's story
Drake and Helen arrive in Basindale. He breaks through to steel body realm and starts learning alchemy so he can later refine the three leaf healing pill. He learns about the hunters guild and decides to join, meeting Blaze Emberclaw – a dragon boy from the Emberclaw tribe – on the way, and the three form a party together. During their first mission, they encounter Sylvia Everglen, about to be killed by a pseudo-commander class demon, and save her. The four of them return to Basindale and they form a party.
When visiting the merchants guild, Drake and Blaze encounter a dark mage but he escapes. They then report this to Eldric Blackthorne and Ambrose Everlight – the town lord and archbishop of the Church – who inform them about the opening of an inheritance of an ancient and powerful martial arts sect, founded by a twin astral body martial artists. The party start preparing, and Drake starts succeeding in refining pills.
They then take on a mission to fight a pseudo-commander class Arachne and win, but are ambushed by Theo's party. Theo almost kills Helen but Sylvia barely saves her, and they all escape. Drake's party return, continue preparing for the inheritance.
Elwin/Myriad Sword Palace/Dalia
Sion Heart returns to the Myriad Sword Palace and informs the immortal elders of the demon tides and Elwin. They decide to send some more mage kings to investigate thoroughly and capture Damon if possible. They also talk about Dalia, wondering whether she had become an immortal as they hadn't heard about her in a while. They decide to attack her organisation – the Order of the Blood Raven – to root her out if she was alive, or destroy the Order if she had died (in the immortal ascension).
Dalia comes towards Duskville but is informed in the last minute that her Order is going to be attacked so she leaves in a hurry, telling Henry what to do in her absence, and leaving the undead Jin Tong with him. She arrives in the war between the MSP and the Order, and solo fights 6 mage emperors, and kills one – single handedly turning the tide fo the war. She then retreats to recover for a while.
Meanwhile, in the MSP, they conduct an inner sect competition to decide who will be selected to enter the inheritance. Elwin, who had become Sion Hart's disciple, is given a rank three artifact by Sion to help him win the competition, which Elwin does, ranking number 4, and he is chosen as a participant.
The mage kings arrive at the three villages just as the inheritance is due to open, discover that the dark mages had been killed by someone even more powerful, and decide to report this.
Astoria/Duskville/Henry story
Astoria and Sam arrive in Duskville. They cultivate and take on missions together. Later, Duskville's main wheatfield is set on fire by some dark mages. Henry arrives just as they leave and plant evidence implicating the Hidden Venom Cult (where Damon Rogue was from), and leaves quickly. When Cedric Ironheart (town lord) investigates this, he is informed of Astoria and Sam who reported escaping from dark mages that attacked their villages. Thinking they might be connected, he summons them and they meet, along with Elena Silverglow (bishop) and Darren Gold (head of merchants guild, Duskville branch). After reporting everything, Cedric informs them of the same inheritance.
Cedric then negotiates a deal with Eldric to send emergency food from Basindale, in exchange for giving him the Horn of Calling, a rank 2 artifact that can summon an army of servant and warrior class demons. Later on, the Ironheart families carriages and supplies continue to be attacked by Henry who uses summonings associated with the HVC, making Cedric wonder what's going on. At one point, Henry is almost caught by a passing Darren, but he escapes, leaving behind a letter which seems to have given the attacker information of the Ironheart family's movement, which makes Cedric think someone is using the HVC to target them, making the most likely suspect the Blackthorne family as they were rivals, but they also suspect the interference of third parties. Later on, Henry ambushes Sam and Astoria, and kills Sam. Astoria decides not to go to the inheritance so she can help hunt down Henry, and because she didn't cultivate martial arts much anyways.
The inheritance
The inheritance is a vast plains, very hot and covered by a dust storm in the morning, and super cold (and no dust storm) in the night, filled with servant class demon hordes. There are various ruins spread over the plains which the demons cannot enter, and the ruins have puzzles that need to be solved to obtain the inheritance within. After the inheritance is obtained, the ruins collapses.
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Drake's party is separated and he independently stumbles upon one and figures this out. After getting the inheritance, he leaves and encounters Blaze and Cyrus Blackthorne in the next inheritance, fighting Theo. Drake gets an opportunity to kill Theo, but hesitates, allowing him to escape. Blaze is mad but knowing Drake's personality, he accepts it and the three leave. They encounter Sylvia and Helen on the way and reunite. They come across an inheritance which requires pill refining, so Drake does this, and an owl artifact nearby helps him learn perfectly from his mistakes, allowing him to make very rapid progress. Cyrus notices his family and leaves to join them while Drake is refining pills. Drake ultimately refines the pills and they leave.
Drake's party encounter Farisa Heartwood – no. 2 ranking member of the MSP party – and help her. She also joins them. When they encounter the next inheritance however, a dark grand mage walks out. They fight, but he is too strong and they are all defeated and Helen is captured. They leave, and meet the Silver Crane Sect disciples in the next inheritance. After clearing that inheritance, they convince the SCS disciples to work together and split up to kill Theo and his party so they can prevent them from joining with the DGM as they will become too strong a force otherwise.
Drake and Blaze go to fight Theo, Sylvia and Farisa move onto other inheritances, so they can split the treasures with the others when they return. Internally, Drake and Blaze want to capture Theo to exchange for Helen, and this is revealed when they miss an opportunity to kill Theo, and the DGM arrives, and they attempt an exchange. However, Theo kills Helen during the exchange, causing Blaze to go crazy and Drake's personality to change. The group return in defeat, and one of the SCS disciples was also heavily injured by Theo. They struggle to fight through the demon hordes but luckily, Sylvia spots them with her spirits and her party go to rescue them. However, the injured SCS disciple succumbs to his injury. Ivan Flame, a friend of the deceased disciple rages at Drake's party for letting Theo get away and misleading them about their intentions to capture Theo, and the two groups part ways.
Drake's group go to the herb garden with the Celestial Willow (key ingredient needed for Drake's three leaf healing pill) and Drake sees more dark mages there and chases them away convincing everyone to work together. They split up the herbs and Drake also obtains the seed of the Celestial Willow when leaving. Afterwards, he and Sylvia decide to chase after the dark mages while Blaze and Farisa continue. The two defeat the dark mages easily and make them confess that there's a secret inheritance and they obtain a map for it. They go there and encounter the gate but are forced to fight a guardian demon.
Meanwhile, the dark grand mage and Theo regroup with the other dark mages and they encounter Corvus Fang, the strongest disciple in the MSP party, Alistair Lockwood (ranked 6th), and some lone cultivators. Corvus is very strong but the DGM still forces him to retreat. The DGM rushes to the secret inheritance but Drake and Sylvia enter just as they arrive, causing him to rage.
Drake and Sylvia each obtain a R4 artifact and are given the chance to cultivate in the mana dense environment. Drake refines the three leaf healing pill here and restores his mana core, then continues cultivating.
Meanwhile, Blaze and Farisa encounter Cyrus Blackthorne and he says he can help them cross a large demon horde. However, he is actually a traitor working for the dark mages and leads the two directly to them. The dark mages defeat and severely injure them, then the DGM uses the HoC to summon an army to finish off Blaze because he doesn't want to personally kill Blaze to avoid his enemy of race marking skill. However, they're saved by the Silver Crane Sect disciples.
After their time ends, Drake and Sylvia are teleported near the end of the inheritance, and they encounter Blaze's group. Ivan Flame forgives Drake and they move towards the mines inheritance. Inside, they encounter black iron – a mutated form of iron that's extra tough. Drake studies and learns to summon this easily. Elwin's party (Cain and Imogen Roseflame, ranked 3rd and 5th in the inner sect competition) also arrive and Elwin and Drake reunite. At the bottom floor, they encounter 3 passageways, 2 leading to certain death, and 1 leading to treasure, with a limited time to solve it. Drake and Sylvia explore one but take a long time, so the SCS sends another disciple to the second tunnel. Drake and Sylvia encounter a large horde of powerful demons at the end and return slowly. Just as they do, the second tunnel collapses, killing the SCS disciple. They run out of time and three pseudo commander class Arachne appear, and the group are forced to fight.
After defeating them, they go to the inheritance, and encounter a lot of black iron. After splitting it, several R3 artifacts appear, but the dark mages come. Sylvia activates Dryad's avatar and kills two of the DGM's R3 spirits, and Drake kills one with his R4 artifact, causing the dark mage severe backlash. However, Sylvia is incapacitated from the use of her avatar + R4 artifact, and Drake fights him alone. At this point however, Corvus also arrives, turning the tide. DGM distracts them by summoning 100+ R2 spirits, and runs towards the R3 artifacts to try and get them, but Drake appears before him and uses his R4 artifact, and is about to kill the DGM.