Chapter 580: Ruins of the t.i.tans
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
“I’ve coincidentally chanced upon a notebook from the Dark Age. It was originally written in High Elves Print, but some anonymous person has translated it. From my research, this notebook was Osric’s personal adventure diary from before he had gotten famous. Perhaps very few know that Osric was an adventurer who had gone to almost every corner of the Anril Continent before he became the Highlord.
“Although part of the notebook was damaged, the part recording his adventures in the Haiga Mountain Range was preserved in perfect condition—”
Laughing, Gold-maned Lion King Baldela abruptly cut in. “My old friend! How ancient is this notebook? Not to mention when Osric became the Highlord, it’s still more than 1000 years from now counting from the end of the Dark Age. How do you know if the hill he mentioned hasn’t smoothened out, or if the pond he mentioned hasn’t dried up? It will be like finding treasures according to the clouds in the sky if we rely on this outdated information to find the Immortal King’s treasure.”
Although the others didn’t say anything, they had the same thoughts as Baldela. Even Lin Li found Cheyenne’s information from the notebook too unreliable. 1000 years was enough to change much of the landscape, even if Anril was a magical world.
However, Cheyenne wasn’t angry that he was cut off. Instead, he looked at Baldela with some contempt and smiled. “Did I say anything about Haiga Mountain Range’s geography? Baldela, your tendency to make a.s.sumptions didn’t change at all!”
“Oh? Then tell us what made you so confident.” Although Baldela was a Warrior by profession, that didn’t mean he was rash. Otherwise, it would’ve been impossible for him to reach the Legendary-realm. So, he wasn’t bothered by Cheyenne’s sarcasm.
Cheyenne smiled and shook his head. He unhurriedly said, “The Haiga Mountain Range is dangerous even for Legendary powerhouses like us because of those prehistoric magical beasts. Even Legendary magical beasts aren’t few there, not mentioning the herds of level-17 or 18 magical beasts. This is the first challenge we will face. If we cannot get past this obstacle, we shouldn’t talk about the Immortal King’s treasure at all.”
“Right. If not, we wouldn’t have invested all our elite power into this.” Borg and his companions agreed with Cheyenne’s words. After all, Legendary powerhouses weren’t G.o.ds. If they had wasted too much effort on the way, how could they defend themselves from the dangers at the location of the Immortal King’s treasure? Hence, both factions had made a big move, and concentrated almost all their elite power here.
“If you think that this power is enough, then you are wrong. I’ve thought so earlier as well, but I realized after reading Osric’s adventure diary that even the combination of the power of our three factions isn’t enough to overcome the dangers we will be facing. Also, these kids are the most outstanding talents each of us has. I think all of you also don’t want to be the only ones reaching the destination.” Cheyenne looked around, sweeping his glance past everyone, and eventually focused on Lin Li.
Cheyenne couldn’t help feeling a sense of injustice when he saw Lin Li sitting there calmly. What he had just said was only relevant to the Dark Blade and himself. It was meaningless to this Master Felic, since he had cunningly brought along only one attendant.
The three leaders of the Dark Blade noticed Cheyenne looking at Lin Li and looked over too. What they were thinking was surprisingly similar.
Lin Li seemed to be oblivious to everyone’s stares, and earnestly said, “Oh, please continue, Master Cheyenne.”
Cheyenne gritted his teeth, and felt a sense of helplessness. After all, the original copy of the treasure map belonged to Master Felic, so he couldn’t be petty over the fact that he didn’t contribute much manpower for this collaboration. Thus, Cheyenne continued, “This adventure diary of Osric contains detailed descriptions of the majority of the Legendary magical beasts in the Haiga Mountain Range as well as their weaknesses. Although they might have changed after all these years, we can still reduce much danger with this information.”
Cheyenne didn’t take out the notebook to share with the rest. Instead, he just mentioned a few rare magical beasts, and marked the areas where these beasts might probably be on the map lying in the middle of the tent. As for the actual value of this notebook, they had to wait till the exploration to verify that.
Looking at the marked map, everyone briefly fell into silence. n.o.body doubted the authenticity of Cheyenne’s information. Osric’s adventure diary didn’t get circulated around, because people were crazy over power and strength after the end of the Dark Age. This kind of adventure diary that was unrelated to magic wasn’t important to many people.
Undoubtedly, Osric’s adventure diary would be crucial to this Haiga Mountain Range expedition. Although over 1000 years had pa.s.sed, it was nothing to those long-lived Legendary magical beasts. The aim of this expedition wasn’t hunting, but searching for the Immortal King’s treasure. It would be beneficial to everyone to avoid those Legendary magical beasts.
Maybe some beasts had already migrated, and maybe some had evolved. However, the hegemons among those beasts had reached the limit of evolution long ago, and wouldn’t have groundbreaking changes in merely thousands of years. If it had been so easy to evolve, Anril would’ve probably become the magical beasts’ playground already. After all, only intelligent beings were able to evolve through learning.
Thus, no one wanted the elites in their factions to be cannon fodder, even though they were prepared to sacrifice a portion of their people when they organized this elite expedition team. It would be better if they could reduce the casualty rate.
Cheyenne was very pleased with everyone’s reaction. After sitting back on his seat, he smiled, and said, “Borg, this is my little, insignificant contribution. I’m hoping to see what surprises you can bring to us as half a master of the Dark Blade.”
Out of the three leaders of the Dark Blade, Legendary Bandit Lansdale didn’t like to talk too much, while Sword Sage Gold-maned Lion King Baldela wasn’t good at descriptions. Thus, Legendary-mage Borg did the majority of the talking.
Upon hearing Cheyenne’s question, Borg’s smile didn’t fade, and he clapped his hands. In a calm voice, he replied, “Cheyenne, I’m indeed quite surprised that you’ve found Osric’s adventure diary, but this is good! Since what we know doesn’t seem to overlap, this means that our collaboration is very necessary. The more information we have, the higher the success rate of this mission.”
“Borg, both of us aren’t little kids, so stop saying this. Just tell us what you’ve got directly.” Cheyenne sounded rather annoyed, but was actually antic.i.p.ating the information the Dark Blade was going to present. After all, the Darkness Shrine behind the Dark Blade used to be a powerful faction that matched the Brilliance Shrine, and had an equally long history. He was lucky to chance upon Osric’s adventure diary when collecting old texts and resources by various means. With the Darkness Shrine’s rich history, Borg probably had some useful things to share.
Borg touched his beard, and suddenly asked a question that everyone knew the answer to. “Don’t be anxious, Cheyenne. Can you tell me why we are collaborating this time?”
Although Cheyenne knew that Borg had some reason for asking this question, he still couldn’t help feeling angry. Would Borg not know why they were here? Would three Legendary leaders and over 200 elites come here just to hunt?
“Are you so old that you’ve forgotten it so easily? We are here for the Immortal King’s treasure! If not, do you think we are here to chit-chat and tour?” said Cheyenne in a displeased tone.
Borg smiled and shook his head. Unbothered, he replied, “Indeed! The Immortal King’s treasure! However, based on our research, this term doesn’t describe it accurately. More specifically, it should be the Ruins of the t.i.tans!”
“The Ruins of the t.i.tans?” Cheyenne frowned a little. He was indeed surprised because the High Elves Print on the treasure map only mentioned the Immortal King, but not the Ruins of the t.i.tans.
t.i.tans had once been the rulers of Anril. However, they existed during prehistoric times even more distant than the Dark Age. Although t.i.tans had disappeared from Anril a long time ago, this didn’t mean that they weren’t as powerful as their successors.
Even the High Elves, who had once ruled over Anril and claimed themselves G.o.ds superior to all other races, never compared themselves to t.i.tans. This was because the High Elves knew clearly that t.i.tans were the true G.o.ds. If t.i.tans hadn’t disappeared, the High Elves wouldn’t have the chance to rule over this continent.
By now, even the Dark Age had been slowly fading out of history. Perhaps many people already couldn’t imagine how powerful t.i.tans were. However, when studying World Rule Power, Legendary-mages couldn’t neglect the t.i.tans who had the abilities closest to the G.o.ds.
Lin Li, who had read the Book of Eternity, knew this more vividly than Cheyenne or Borg. This was because Geresco had recorded many spells in the t.i.tans’ language, and its every line pointed directly to the core of Rule Power. Both humans and the High Elves were learning about World Rules through a.n.a.lyzing t.i.tans’ language.