‘Dark mages!’
They would be upon them in less than a minute!
Drake and Sylvia didn’t want to waste any more time. Sylvia shot her decimate arrow while Drake turned into a trail of dust and sparks. The naga’s eyes widened at seeing the powerful arrow and brought its arms forward to block.
BOOMMM!
The arrow tore right through its forearms, leaving two large gaping holes, before heading for its throat. At the last second, the naga mustered what strength it had left to tilt its head, narrowly dodging the fatal hit.
However, it suddenly felt an enormous killing intent appearing above. Its mind sent a huge danger signal running through its nervous system. It looked up to spot a sword covered in fire and lightning filling its sight.
And then, its vision became dark.
Drake landed on the ground and sheathed his sword. Behind him, the demon split cleanly in half with a spurt of blood, and the two halves fell to the floor. Immediately, Drake turned and took the entire corpse into his storage pouch before rushing to the gate with Sylvia.
As soon as the naga died, the gate began glowing with a brilliant white light.
“STOP!”
Drake heard a booming voice followed by the shrieks of several vulture spirits. He turned around to spot the dark grand mage appearing along with Theo and the dark mages. Floating above them were fifty vulture spirits, and galloping behind them were the rhino beetles.
Seeing the panic on their faces made Drake smirk. He grabbed Sylvia’s hand and they both jumped into the gate. As soon as they touched the light, they disappeared.
Immediately, the entire gate also vanished with a whoosh! leaving behind the dry, barren, ground.
“NOOOOOO!!!!!”
The dark grand mage was furious. He willed the rhino beetles to attack and they shot numerous arc blasts in the location where the gate was. However, the lightning balls just hit the empty ground, which only served to make him angrier.
“How could this happen!? How did they figure out the location?”
The dark grand mage was confused and enraged. All the other dark mages except Theo became anxious, thinking that he would take out his anger on them.
For several minutes, no one spoke. The dark grand mage ordered the rhino beetles to continue shooting all sorts of attacks while staring at the spot where the gate was as if he was expecting it to return.
After some time, the dark grand mage ordered them to stop. He took a deep breath and spoke very slowly and with a deep voice, mostly to himself.
“They will not leave this place alive… let’s go.”
As the dark mages left disappointed and angry, Blaze and Farisa finished clearing another inheritance. They obtained some cultivation techniques this time. One contained several martial techniques specifically for hammer users, which Farisa gladly took. The other one was for archers, and Blaze took it for Sylvia. They also obtained a lot of gold and mana stones which they split evenly.
After clearing the inheritance, they recollected Sylvia's directions and realised that the next closest inheritance was a mine almost a day away. They had spent some time recovering already, however, they slightly dreaded the idea of spending an entire day running and fighting demons.
With a sigh, they accepted their fate and started making their way to the mines.
At the same time, Elwin Reynard, Cain Roseflame and Imogen Roseflame were also working on solving the puzzle in a village ruin. They had already spent quite some time on it, but it was difficult.
Elwin sighed and raised his head. Although the dust storm was raging outside, as usual, he could now see the black structure in the distance with his naked eye. It appeared as a vague outline on the horizon, almost like a mirage, but he could definitively see the existence of something massive.
He spent a few moments wondering what could be there before bringing his attention back to the present, deciding to focus on the task at hand.
While everyone was busy travelling towards an inheritance or trying to obtain one, in a different space, a white light appeared out of thin air and shone brilliantly. It lasted for a few seconds and then disappeared.
In its place, two individuals appeared, a young boy and girl. They initially had their eyes closed but, once the white light disappeared, they slowly opened their eyes and looked around them.
“Where… are we?” Drake mumbled.
The duo found themselves in what looked like an extremely dark, underground passageway. Drake activated acute sense and looked for any danger, or the presence of anyone else. However, he couldn’t find anything. He glanced at Sylvia and she nodded at him, confirming she couldn’t sense any danger as well.
Together, they began walking.
As soon as they took a step forward, two torches on either side suddenly flared up, startling them. Sylvia clenched her bow and Drake poured mana into his glove, ready to strike down anything that moved. However, once they realised it was just torches, they relaxed.
With the light from the torches, they could now see a little better.
They were in an underground passageway that was just wide enough for a few people to walk side by side. Glancing back, Drake didn’t see anything, so he turned around and, along with Sylvia, took another step forward.
Immediately, another two torches on either side flared up. However, they weren’t startled this time and continued walking. With each step, two additional torches would ignite and light up the surroundings, which kept happening until they reached the end of the passageway.
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They noticed a circular clearing in front but couldn’t see many details due to the dim lighting. However, as soon as they stepped forward, torches, which were evenly placed along the walls of the clearing, began flaring up one by one around the circle, till every single one of them was alight.
The light provided by the torches illuminated the clearing, which was empty except for a large stone statue in the middle. Drake and Sylvia began walking up to it. When they were a few steps away, the air changed.
Suddenly, dense mana began filling up the underground passageway. Every second, the mana in the passageway increased, to the point where Drake felt like he was breathing in mana. At the same time, the statue’s eyes began glowing with a red light and a mysterious voice echoed from all around.
“Congratulations for defeating the guardian and finding this secret location,” the voice spoke. “You may now take the inheritance – twin dragon rings!”
Immediately, a black vortex appeared in front of the statue. Two rings floated out, one red and the other a light green in colour. A dragon was sculpted to be coiling its long body around the rings, till its head overlapped with its tail.
They each radiated the aura of a rank four artifact!
The rings floated towards them. However, Drake and Sylvia hesitated to take them. As if reading their minds, the voice spoke again.
“Unlike the other ruins you might have encountered, this one will not collapse once you take the inheritance. This passage will exist for twenty-four hours, during which time you can use the mana here to cultivate. Afterwards, you will be teleported out, close to the end of the inheritance grounds.”
With that, the voice disappeared, leaving the duo alone in the passageway overflowing with mana.
Drake and Sylvia looked at each other excitedly. He took the red ring and Sylvia, the green one. Upon trying it on, they discovered that it was a perfect fit for their fingers.
Drake smiled, unable to contain his joy.
He now had a rank four artifact!
Artifacts of this level were pretty much impossible to find in the outside world unless you summoned one yourself or were willing to pay an exorbitant price. And even then, you’d have to be lucky enough to find someone willing to sell a rank four artifact, which was almost impossible since everyone wanted to keep them for themselves.
Drake observed his ring and noticed four small runes carved intricately into its interior. As he poured his mana into it, knowledge of its abilities entered his mind. He closed his eyes and took a moment to digest the information, before opening them again and smiling.
‘This is going to be wonderful,’ he thought to himself.
He then glanced at Sylvia who was also smiling happily.
“What abilities does your ring have?” he asked curiously.
“You’ll see in time,” she giggled.
Drake expected that answer and didn’t mind it. With how many battles they were constantly fighting in this inheritance grounds, he’d be able to see her use it very soon.
“What are you planning to do now then?” he asked her, changing the topic.
“Just cultivate,” she replied, and then added, “I have been getting closer to the perfect stage warrior mage realm for a while. Maybe cultivating here will give me the boost I need.”
“I see, good luck,” said Drake.
“Thanks,” Sylvia responded, and then asked, “What about you?”
Drake chuckled but didn’t answer her immediately. He turned around and took out the rank three, ice fire cauldron he had gotten from the previous inheritance.
Sylvia became curious. “Are you going to refine something?”
“Yes,” he replied. “There is a pill I’ve wanted to refine for a long time. Now is the perfect opportunity to do it.”
Seeing the dark grand mage’s strength from earlier, he knew that restoring his mana core and getting back his mage abilities would be crucial in helping him beat the dark grand mage in battle. Moreover, it would also help him compete better for the final inheritance against all the other strong cultivators that would be vying for it.
If he didn’t refine the pill now, he would not be able to do so until he left the inheritance grounds, at which point it would be too late. Hence, he decided to do it now.
Drake became excited. It was finally time to refine the three-leaf healing pill!
Sometime later.
Drake was sitting on the floor with various materials laid around him. They included rare and precious herbs, parts of demons most of which were servant and warrior class but also commander class demons! Furthermore, Drake also had several jade vials containing a liquid – the mana water he harvested from the underground spring he found after defeating the arachne. Finally, he had twenty leaves of the Celestial Willow carefully placed in a jade box as well.
He had enough materials for six or seven tries. After refining the extremely complex, rank three death defying pill, Drake was fairly confident he could refine the three leaf healing pill more easily, but he didn’t let himself get complacent. He took his time processing each material carefully till he completed preparing the first batch.
Before beginning the refinement, Drake took out the bodhi enlightenment pill he had refined during the owl’s tests and consumed it to help him improve his concentration and focus. After absorbing the pill, Drake felt all the thoughts in his mind clear. His attention was drawn completely to the present moment.
‘It’s time to do this,’ thought Drake.
He poured his mana into the cauldron to activate its runes and then threw some materials inside. Drake focused on carefully controlling the temperature and combining the materials according to the pill recipe.
Ten minutes later, Drake heaved a sigh of relief as he completed the first step successfully. Then, he took some of the rarer herbs and demon materials and added them to the cauldron.
Fifteen minutes later, he managed to complete the second step successfully too.
‘Now, I have to be careful,’ he thought. Drake took out parts of the commander class demon’s corpse. This was a difficult material to get his hands on and he didn’t have a lot of it to waste. So, Drake carefully added the commander class demon materials to the cauldron.
Immediately, something unexpected happened. The mana contained within its corpse was released into the cauldron, however, it was far more than Drake expected!
For an instant, Drake lost control of the materials.
The materials within the cauldron began to vibrate and zap around chaotically. Drake flooded the cauldron with his mana, doing his best to bring them back under control. His mana summoned winds that acted like ropes, tugging on the materials to bring them under control. For a second, their speed slowed and their vibrations reduced.
‘Phe-’
BOOM!
Drake was about to relax thinking that he’d be able to bring them under control but, the next second, it exploded. A wave of mana was released from the cauldron.
Sylvia, who was meditating on the side, opened her eyes and looked at the situation, worried.
She didn’t know what Drake was trying to refine but thought it must be important since Drake opted to refine a pill instead of using the mana here to cultivate. Once she saw that Drake was safe and he still had plenty of materials, she closed her eyes and resumed cultivating.
Drake sighed.
When refining high-ranking pills, even a single, instantaneous mistake would be enough to cause it to fail.
But he wouldn’t give up so easily. He took a few minutes to compose himself before restarting the process.
An hour passed.
Drake managed to complete numerous steps successfully, surprising even himself. Before proceeding with the last few steps, he took out a vial containing the mana water and poured it into the cauldron.
The moment the mana water entered, it evaporated and diffused everywhere. When any material touched the water vapour, it cooled down. All of their movements slowed and relaxed, making them much easier to control. Drake let a few seconds pass for its effects to spread before taking out one of the leaves of the Celestial Willow.
‘Breathe…’
Drake took a deep breath and composed himself. Then, he added the leaf to the cauldron.
The leaf released a grand and radiant aura, displaying the magnificence of the Celestial Willow. Immediately, everything went out of control again. Its aura attracted the rest of the materials, and they instantly zapped towards the leaf.
‘STOPP!’ Drake screamed in his mind while pouring all of his mana into the cauldron to bring the materials under control. However, it was too late.
BOOMMM!
An even larger explosion resounded through the underground passageway.
Drake’s expression was dark.
The Celestial Willow’s aura was too powerful, far more than he had anticipated. He did not expect it to exert such a strong attractive force on the other materials.
‘This is going to be difficult,’ he thought.