Chapter 329 - 42: Legendary Strong Person’s Laboratory

Chapter 329: Chapter 42: Legendary Strong Person’s Laboratory

But Mo Ning had one lingering question. "Flower, we’re deep within the desolate Yatu Plateau. How did that group of Adventurers find their way here?"

As far as he knew, the Yatu Plateau only had human settlements on its fringes. Any deeper, and it was completely overrun by monsters.

Even starting from the nearest human settlement would require an incredibly long journey, fraught with unknown dangers along the way.

He truly couldn’t understand it. To willingly risk such a high chance of death by delving deep into the Yatu Plateau for some ruins of unknown status... ’Do these Adventurers have a death wish?’

As for the ruins themselves, their existence wasn’t surprising.

The history of the Wizard World was far too long. From the ancient Age of the Gods to the Ancient Wizard Era, countless Strong Persons had been born.

Those figures who had once shone in history would, more or less, all leave something behind.

Coupled with the fact that powerful Magic Power could resist the erosion of time, it was perfectly normal for those ancient ruins to remain perfectly intact to this day.

Flower voiced a guess:

"According to some secret rumors, during the early Era of the Floating City, the Legendary Wizard Yasuo, who oversaw the construction of the first Floating City, ’Eternal Star,’ established a secret laboratory on the Yatu Plateau in his early years.

"The construction technology for the Floating City’s core device, the ’Celestial Demon-Driving Magic Melting Furnace,’ was born there. Later generations named that laboratory the ’Furnace Castle.’

"To this day, countless people, including many Legendary Wizards, have tried to find the Furnace Castle, but no one has ever managed to unearth that laboratory from the dust of time.

"This group of Adventurers probably obtained a clue about the Furnace Castle from some ancient artifact, which is why they ventured deep into the Yatu Plateau to search for the ruins.

"Lord Martin once speculated that the ruins are an outlying facility of the Furnace Castle, and that a passage to the castle might be hidden inside."

Realization dawned on Mo Ning. "I see."

The logic immediately clicked into place for him.

A laboratory built by a Legendary Wizard would be anything but small.

According to historical records, the Celestial Demon-Driving Magic Melting Furnace was an enormous set of magical apparatuses. The number of Wizards who participated in its research must have been quite considerable.

Later, when the Furnace Castle was shut down, it was inevitable that some Wizards would secretly leave behind records of the laboratory.

It wasn’t strange that one of those records might travel through more than thirty millennia, fall into the hands of some Adventurer, and its hidden secrets eventually discovered.

In the Wizard World, there were far too many stories like this.

Countless Adventurers grew up hearing such tales, joined an Adventurer’s Guild with dreams of "discovering ruins and getting rich overnight," only to die in some treacherous wilderness, becoming food for monsters or beasts.

In a way, this could be considered a unique characteristic of the Wizard World’s civilization.

’Mo Ning even had a faint suspicion that the former director, when building the Cabin in the Woods in the Great White Birch Forest on the Yatu Plateau, might have had the intention of searching for the Furnace Castle.’

’Lord Martin was only human, after all. It was natural for him to be influenced by Adventurer culture; having such an idea would be perfectly normal.’

「At that moment.」

Mo Ning decisively issued a command: "Flower, bring me my Pilot backpack."

"Understood!" Flower replied.

Soon, with a WHOOSH of wind, the Triangular Wing took to the air. Its body quickly entered a stealth mode and shot off to the southwest.

Traveling forty kilometers on the ground might take a day, or even longer.

But flying through the sky on the Triangular Wing would take less than five minutes.

This upgrade in transportation had greatly expanded his range of activity. Otherwise, the Artificial Soul would never have let him go check on the ruins.

Mo Ning also remembered to activate a Witchcraft Item he had just obtained yesterday—the [Spirit Concealing Scarf].

This was an Excellent Quality item he had purchased from the Black Tower Secret Vault after exchanging 3,000 Black Tower Points for 3 Secret Tower Coins.

Just as he had expected, all the items in the Secret Vault were of Excellent Quality or higher; not a single Normal Quality item could be found.

The item’s Effects were as follows:

[Function: When activated, creates a "Hidden Spirit Field" that effectively conceals the spiritual light emitted by Witchcraft Items. All Witchcraft Items with a Spiritual Index below 100 are within the field’s shielding range.]

[Requirements: 2.5 Spiritual Strength, 50 Magic Pool Capacity.]

[Quality: Excellent (Spiritual Value of 285. The Hidden Spirit Field consumes 1 Spiritual Value for every 12 hours it is active).]

Back when he set out for the Goblin Tribe wearing a full set of "Divine Armor," Flower had reminded him, "From a spiritual perspective, you look like a sphere of light radiating all sorts of colors that can be seen from a great distance."

So, he had chosen this piece of equipment from the Secret Vault to shore up his final weakness.

Mo Ning tied the scarf around his neck and felt a flash of coolness from it. The space around him instantly underwent an extremely subtle change.

It was invisible to the naked eye, but his spirit could faintly sense a slight anomaly.

WHOOSH—

The Triangular Wing zipped past, and the mountains, forests, and land slowly receded behind him.

The metal dragonfly controlled by Flower was perched inside the cockpit, giving timely guidance:

"Mr. Mo Ning, see those three mountains over there in a triangular formation? There’s a stone pillar in the middle. That’s the entrance to the ruins."

As she spoke, three ’△’ symbols appeared in Mo Ning’s field of vision, marking the three small mountains.

He took a closer look and could just barely make out the "stone pillar" in the center amidst the still-lush autumn vegetation.

To be more precise, it looked more like a small hill.