Chapter 1073 - 879: A Chance Encounter with Audric

Duke found a hidden cave deep in the forest outside Silver Shield City. The entrance was narrow, allowing only one person to pass through sideways, but inside was a rather spacious natural stone chamber. The cave walls were covered with layers of grey-white stalactites, and the air was cool and dry.

He scanned the cave inside and out with his Spiritual Power. After confirming there were no traces of indigenous activity, he set up a simple alert and protective Witch Array at the entrance, then sat cross-legged against the cave wall and took out the statue from his Space Ring.

The statue lay quietly in his hand, the sapphire in its eye sockets still emitting a deep and steady dark purple light.

Duke’s Spiritual Power penetrated into the inside of the statue, carefully tracing along the complex rune paths until he quickly understood the essence of the object.

This was not a Witchcraft Artifact; its refining method was entirely different from the Alchemy System of the Wizard Plane, which centers around Magic Models and rune arrays.

It is more akin to a manifestation of some ceremonial Rules, using warfare itself as a crucible, thousands of lives that vanish on the battlefield as fuel, forcibly merging, refining, and crystallizing Life Energy and negative emotions through ancient ceremonial Rules, ultimately concentrating in the statue’s core into a sapphire containing terrifying Life Energy.

Count Cadwell refined the Philosopher’s Stone using hundreds of human lives that could only prolong life a little, while Victor used several large-scale wars as an altar to refine the statue, whose internal Energy level far exceeded the Philosopher’s Stone; the difference between them is like that between iron ore and refined meteoric iron.

What further intrigued Duke was the way Energy flowed within the statue.

The Philosopher’s Stone is a single-use consumable, gone once absorbed, like a piece of coal burned to ashes.

But this statue is different; its core rune array is still slowly functioning, capable of continuously generating Life Energy.

This means it is a source that can continuously produce Life Force, a permanent Energy Core that can provide a stable supply for a long time to whatever urgently needs Life Energy.

However, this thing also seems to be usable as a consumable, probably what Victor needs.

But for Duke, using it as a single-use consumable is not as good as keeping it to provide a steady supply.

The World Tree’s sapling has just sprouted and is in the stage most in need of massive Life Energy for nourishment.

The Philosopher’s Stone can only provide a one-time explosive supply, gone once used, while this statue can be placed continuously beside the sapling like a never-drying spring, supplying it with Life Force continuously.

With this item, the growth speed of the World Tree will greatly accelerate, and the growth of the World Tree will, in turn, drive the expansion and Rules refinement of the Light God Court.

Duke put the statue into the Light God Court and suddenly remembered something, raising his left hand and injecting Spiritual Power into the Divine Revelation Mark on the back of his hand.

A translucent light screen unfolded before his eyes, the first row of the leaderboard clearly showing his name.

Duke, points surged by one hundred twenty thousand.

He remembered when he took those Philosopher’s Stones from the Count’s Treasure Vault, his score jumped from zero to over ten thousand, which already put him at the top of the list.

In the following months, his ranking had been slowly dropping since others were continually acquiring resources in various places on the first layer, whereas he had been observing Victor’s wars from above without deliberately scoring points.

Now, obtaining this statue, his points surged by one hundred twenty thousand, once again leaving the second place far behind.

His gaze swept further down the list, at around the eighty-something position, he found Vera’s name.

The leaderboard only displayed the top hundred names, and apart from him and Vera, Leon, Morris, Edmond, Adrian had not appeared.

This is not surprising; the Path of Divine Revelation randomly teleports everyone to various corners of the first layer. Some might have been teleported to extremely remote areas, while some might be deep in exploration without having amassed plenty of points yet.

However, given Morris and Leon’s abilities, breaking into the top hundred is likely just a matter of time.

Duke suddenly thought perhaps the key isn’t a specific item but rather high-value items.

For instance, the statue he obtained is worth one hundred twenty thousand points; only those evaluated as high-point items can be considered keys to the next layer.

In other words, the Rules of the Path of Divine Revelation imply acquiring sufficiently valuable items on each layer is the qualification needed to reach the next layer.

So there’s no specific form for the key, as long as it is an item of sufficient value.

This may explain why the Wizard Council didn’t mention the specific form of the key when announcing the Rules. Even they can’t exhaustively list all items in the remnants of Elderlands, once a top-tier Plane, that might be deemed "sufficiently valuable."

They only set a point threshold and delegated the judgment to the Divine Revelation Mark.

Duke carefully recalled his experiences over the months; he had crossed over half of the Osseron Kingdom, seen no fewer than dozens of cities and battlefields, and interacted with numerous Lords, Knights, adventurers, and civilians, yet he hadn’t encountered even one contestant from the Wizard Plane.

On the Divine Revelation Mark’s leaderboard, only names and points fluctuated, as if those people were merely abstract numbers on a light screen, never appearing within his perception.