Chapter 1085 - 885: Wise Stone Ore Vein

Three days later, the Duke opened his eyes in the Light God Court and first activated the Divine Revelation Mark to glance at the rankings.

His name remained at the top, with no change in points, but among the top one hundred, many people’s points had soared significantly one after another over the past three days, with each surge ranging from tens of thousands to over a hundred thousand, mirroring the pattern when he first obtained the key.

The window for acquiring the second-level keys has evidently fully opened, and these people should have already secured their tickets to the next level.

He couldn’t continue lingering on the first level; the resources on the second level were more abundant, and if he went late, the best things might already be taken by others.

The Duke conducted a last check of his status, confirming that his Spiritual Power and Magic Power had both recovered to their peak, the six Rule Branches operating stably, and the Life Rules had solidified further on the Level 3 Initial Stage basis.

After leaving the Light God Court, nothing around him had changed.

He no longer had the desire to continue exploring the first level; he raised his left hand and activated the transmission option within the Divine Revelation Mark to the second level.

Silvery-blue transmission light gushed out from the mark, enveloping and swallowing his body.

The moment the transmission light dissipated, a wind so dry it was nearly violent rushed toward him, bringing fine grit that struck the Duke’s face.

He did not move immediately but instinctively lowered his center of gravity as his Spiritual Power, like a finely woven web, rapidly spread around him.

Underfoot was a cracked, ash-grey Gobi Desert, the fissures spreading in all directions like the Earth’s palm lines, each crevice bottomless.

Above was an extremely high and clear deep blue sky, with sunlight pouring straight down, creating a layer of distorted heat waves over the desert.

No greenery was in sight, no rivers or traces of man-made constructions, just endless piles of rocks and wind-eroded stone pillars.

Yet the concentration of Free Energy Particles here was far higher than on the first level, reaching an extremely high level.

Even just standing here doing nothing, one’s body would automatically be soaked by the Energy Particles in the air.

The Duke stood in place for a moment, confirming there were no direct threats around before transforming into a nearly untraceable breeze, skimming across the surface of the desert forward.

After flying for half an hour, he suddenly captured an extremely subtle, somewhat familiar message.

The signal was so weak that if he hadn’t mastered the Life Rules and developed an almost instinctual sensitivity to the flow of Life Force, he would likely have dismissed it as ordinary noise among the countless stray energy fluctuations on the desert.

The Duke restrained the wind, descending from low altitude to the edge of a rocky, desiccated riverbed.

Among the debris in the riverbed, a small piece of dark red fragment lay quietly among the grey-white gravel.

Only the size of a fingernail, with rough edges, obviously naturally flaked off a larger crystal, it was inconspicuous among the surrounding rock debris.

Yet the Duke could clearly sense the extremely faint Life Energy wave unique to the Philosopher’s Stone within this fragment, identical to what he saw in the Count’s Treasure Vault on the first level, albeit less pure in Life Force than that condensed in Victor’s statue.

He pinched the fragment between his fingers, frowning slightly.

He remembered clearly that Count Cadwell had to sacrifice hundreds of lives in a specific ritual array to refine even a thumb-sized piece of Philosopher’s Stone.

Yet here, in this barren desert, a small fragment of the Philosopher’s Stone lay casually among riverbed debris, buried by wind and sand for who knows how long.

The Duke continued flying forward for less than a quarter of an hour when his perception of the Life Rules was triggered again.

This signal was stronger than the previous fragment, and as he descended, he found another small fragment of the Philosopher’s Stone buried in the gravel, slightly larger than a fingernail, with a few extremely fine natural crystallization lines still visible on its surface.

After flying a bit further, he stopped again and found another piece hidden within the cracks of weathered rocks.

The Duke stood on the scorching desert, weighing these fragments in his hand, his gaze sweeping over this seemingly barren yet secretly mysterious land.

On the first level, a Philosopher’s Stone could only be refined with war as the crucible and thousands of lives as fuel, but on the second level, they were scattered in the wilderness like this.

The Duke suddenly came to his senses, realizing it was as if there were a Philosopher’s Stone ore vein here.

If that were true, it meant that the Philosopher’s Stone reserves on the second level were enormous, so vast as to form an independent ore vein system, so vast that the fragments scattered at the veins’ edges were not worth picking up by anyone.

And the distribution of the Philosopher’s Stone ore veins would undoubtedly become the core resource contested by all local factions on this level.

He stored the fragments in his Space Ring, transformed once more into a breeze, and continued forward.

The scattered fragments of Philosopher’s Stone on this desert seemed to silently point in a certain direction.

After flying for quite a while, something different finally appeared at the edge of the desert.

A series of undulating low hills, with an ancient riverbed, dry for who knows how many years, nestled between them.

Artificial excavation marks began to appear on the rock walls on both sides of the riverbed, with several half-collapsed entrances to abandoned mining sites among piles of debris, the stone beams above the entrances inscribed with ancient runes, long eroded by the wind and sand.