Chapter 137: Unexpected Transmission

Through the Test of the Book of Truth, Donald learned that both pieces of equipment were of sub-legendary artifact level. However, due to the loss of divine protection, their divine powers had dropped to the lowest level, just one step away from becoming legendary weapons. Moreover, these sub-legendary artifacts already had some damage, and repairing them required enormous amounts of energy as well as rare and hard-to-find materials. This was likely why the mages stored them here.

So, Donald chose only one sub-legendary artifact and that pile of weapon materials. In his view, the latter were the real valuable assets. With enough energy and materials, what couldn’t be exchanged for legendary weapons or even sub-legendary artifacts?

The severely damaged weapons from before, as well as those here, though no longer usable, still contained a considerable amount of rare magical metals and other materials. By disassembling and remelting them, many valuable materials could still be obtained.

Both the Ansel and other families were large and wealthy, with years of accumulated wealth, so they didn’t care much about these scraps. But Donald’s territory was still in its early stages, and only one blue-veined magic gold mine had been discovered there. His need for various rare metal materials was great, making this batch of materials very timely.

As for the altar and the somewhat strange statue, no one contested them, so Donald took them as well. Aside from the Book of Truth, no one else, including the three silver mages, detected any magical fluctuations in the statue—it was just an ordinary statue.

Donald packed away the altar, the statue, and all the broken items. By then, Edwina and the others were no longer surprised.

As for the legendary axe, Donald said in front of everyone to Sorg, the kingdom’s most famous adventurer and bounty hunter, “If Mr. Sorg is willing to join the Dalaran Adventurers’ Guild as a guild elder, I can give this weapon to you!”

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll run away with a legendary weapon?”

“It’s just a legendary weapon; it’s nothing to me. If Mr. Sorg is really that untrustworthy scoundrel and refuses to join the guild, it would actually be good for us!”

Sorg merely nodded, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. In fact, he was impressed by Donald’s straightforwardness, free from the hypocrisy of the nobles who had tried to recruit him before. He began to feel some goodwill toward this young hero of the kingdom, though he needed some time to consider it.

Horton now understood what Donald meant by wanting that legendary axe. Initially, he had thought Sorg was a talent with a reclusive personality, making it difficult to recruit him. He had even planned to use that legendary artifact to lure him into the Thorne family. Now that the artifact was in his hands, comparing it to a silver-level warrior, three legendary artifacts, and the many treasures in the ruins, Horton wisely chose the latter.
“Let’s go! There’s nothing valuable left here!”
Edwina and the others glanced around the dungeon and found indeed nothing worth taking, so they followed Donald out of the dungeon and back to the upper temple.
In fact, they didn’t realize that the truly valuable items in these ruins were already in Donald’s possession. What they were competing for was merely what Donald had deliberately given up. Even two sub-legendary artifacts couldn’t compare to what Donald had obtained. No one could have imagined that the most valuable treasures here would be that altar and the wolf-shaped statue.
Only Mesel and Kelsas, who knew about this in advance, were aware of it.
When Donald tested it with the Book of Truth, he discovered that the altar beneath the wolf-shaped statue was actually the true form of the Arcane Lock outside these ruins. The mages had used this altar of the evil god as a medium to create the Arcane Lock—its material must be extraordinary, otherwise it couldn’t support such a powerful and complex array of arcane spells. Although Donald didn’t know the true history, the Book of Truth analyzed the statue’s material and found that it contained a portion of a true god’s remains. Just that alone made its value far exceed that of two sub-legendary artifacts.
Donald realized that this mysterious ruin in the swamp had originally been a sacrificial site for a deity. After the evil god was defeated by Sera, the mages transformed it into a human city. But as the Mage Empire faced destruction, this place became one of the battlefields, with countless mages dying there. Yet, thanks to the protection of the Arcane Lock and its remote location, the city survived.
Just as the legendary stories described, Sera, the great mage and lord of this place, seeing that the collapse of the empire was irreversible and her own life coming to an end, sealed away the evil god and her sky city with the help of the Highlanders.

But the actual situation was somewhat different from Donald’s guess. The great archmage had split the evil god into three parts, separating its soul from its body and divinity, and sealing each part at opposite ends of the northern lands. The soul of that evil god was sealed in this city. This meant that the other relic marked on the map in the far north must be the true tomb of the great archmage Sera, where the great Sky City and the divinity and body of that evil god were sealed. It made sense—even without control over its soul, a true god’s body was no ordinary corpse that would rot and decay. As long as a true god wasn’t completely destroyed, it would never die. Even if only a part of its body remained, without external forces suppressing it, a new consciousness would soon emerge from it. Once it grew to a certain extent, a new god would be born. Thus, only something like the Sky City could safely contain the body and divinity of a powerful true god. Without the protection and support of its body and divinity, even the soul of a powerful true god would gradually fade over time—though normally, that would take tens of thousands of years. By then, the evil god would have long escaped. However, the great archmage cleverly sealed the evil god’s soul within an arcane lock, keeping it under constant pressure and erosion from powerful magic arrays. If the evil god’s body still existed, such arrays wouldn’t be able to hold it for long; it could break them with a mere wave of its hand. But with only its soul left and free from the protection of its divinity, despite being millions of times stronger than an ordinary human soul, the evil god’s soul couldn’t escape this prison. It could be said that this relic remained unknown for thousands of years not only because it was located in a dangerous region like the Twin-Footed Dragon Swamp but also due to the mist surrounding it. Over thousands of years, the evil god’s soul was worn down, losing most of its memories and consciousness, until only a faint but resilient core of primordial divinity remained. Ninety-nine percent of its soul power had been converted into the power of the arcane lock, which is why the lock could persist for thousands of years without anyone maintaining or replenishing it. After being refined by the power of a true god’s soul, this originally excellent arcane lock had reached the level of a sub-divine artifact. And the statue containing a fragment of the evil god’s primordial divinity was even more precious to Donald.

“This is an unclaimed primordial divinity! With these, I can gain divine power, and the Book of Truth can even be restored to some extent, enabling even more powerful functions.” Of course, he would have to start working on these things once he returned to his territory; it was probably not safe in these ruins right now.

Just as Donald was filled with anticipation, a shout came from the other side of the temple: “Look! There’s another temple here!” Hearing the shout, everyone gathered around Miss Emily from the Thorne family. Miss Emily was standing in front of a building, having already pushed open its door. Only one person was too timid to enter right away.

When Hordon arrived, he didn’t bother scolding his reckless granddaughter; instead, he was drawn to what was inside the door.

It was a smaller temple-like structure adjacent to the side of the main temple. They had entered the main hall earlier and hadn’t noticed another temple structure on the side.

After entering, the group found that the interior was completely different from before. Inside this temple, aside from a platform that could hold hundreds of people and a strange structure in front of it, there was nothing else.

Looking at the triangular pillars embedded with crystals around the wide platform, along with the mysterious patterns cast from some unknown metal, Messehl immediately exclaimed excitedly, “If I’m not mistaken, this should be…,” but he was interrupted by Donald, who looked thrilled.

“Teacher, do you think this is a teleportation array?” A teleportation array! One of the greatest inventions of the Arcane Empire, lost for thousands of years—ranked fourth only after the Sky City, dimensional teleportation, and artificial magic crystal energy sources.

Hearing this word, Edwina, Hordon, and the others were overjoyed. They began circling the teleportation array, while Master Messehl and his apprentice stepped onto the platform to examine the patterns up close.

However, the fourth greatest invention of the Arcane Empire wasn’t so easy to understand. Donald spent only a few seconds observing before feeling dizzy and forced to withdraw his mental energy from those incredibly complex patterns.

Fortunately, he still had the Book of Truth, an unparalleled cheat tool. While rubbing his temples to relieve the exhaustion from overusing his mental energy, Donald quietly ordered the Book of Truth to copy and analyze the teleportation array patterns.

Seeing that his teacher was still immersed in analyzing the patterns, he said to Edwina and the others below the platform, “According to our previous agreement, everything related to the magic arrays here must belong to me!”

Seeing the expressions change on the faces of the two silver mages, Donald added, “Of course, the two masters can also make a copy and study it at their leisure.” Hearing this, Horton and the others relaxed a bit. After all, the value of the teleportation array could be said to exceed that of the two sub-divine artifacts they had just discovered. Although they knew that even if their family obtained the array diagram, they might not be able to replicate an actual teleportation array, the value of the diagram alone could already make it a precious family heirloom. While Donald and the others were talking, the curious Miss Emily actually went ahead on her own to the strange building in front of the teleportation array. It was a stone platform built entirely of black stone, which, in Donald’s eyes, resembled the lectern in his previous life’s school. Several crystals were inserted into the platform, with a space in the center. The noble lady picked up a prismatic crystal pillar lying on top with great interest. “Don’t move!” Donald, who had noticed the movement from the corner of his eye, immediately shouted in alarm. But Donald was clearly a step too late; Emily had already inserted the crystal into the groove, and the platform was activated instantly, with all the crystals lighting up. At the same time, the array diagram on the teleportation platform also lit up as if powered on. Seeing that the teacher still hadn’t reacted, Donald sighed but chose to stay where he was instead of leaving him behind. Before the light from the teleportation array faded, two more figures rushed onto the platform, and soon all four of them disappeared into the temple.