Chapter 246: Treasure Hunt
Evolving in this situation?
Auric asked, "Do you know the risk of evolving in this place? Or do you want to go outside first and evolve?"
Vera answered, "I understand your confusion. I will follow your request, but I’m thinking about the space between this place and the Wind Temple. What do you think? It’s not outside both ruins, so there should be no problem in that place, right?"
Auric contemplated for a moment.
Lindwurm, on the other hand, said, "To be honest, even if you want to evolve inside the ruins, it’s possible. You don’t have to worry that the density of that particular element will harm your body or cause the element to behave abnormally. After all, you just have to create an enclosed box for me to activate the store authority."
Lindwurm was the one who created his store, so it was only natural that he could do it.
Still, if Vera could evolve, her fighting power would increase. The group would be stronger and could hunt much better.
In addition, this place was also quite good for Eric. There should be a lot of beasts or artifacts that could help Eric increase his element.
However, forcefully raising one’s element would be quite disastrous for a person. After all, Eric needed to get used to the amount of an element while also honing his fighting skills.
If he truly wanted, Auric could definitely use this place to bring Eric to rank 3, but Eric probably didn’t want to. After all, his goal was rank 5, or even rank 6. To do that, he needed to forge a stable path.
Auric asked, "You should know what happens if you eat damaged material, right?"
"I know. Your body will be quite damaged because of the residual element within that material. Can you do something about it?"
"So that’s why you don’t mind paying more."
"Yes." Vera nodded with a serious expression. "I intended to hunt some beasts here and evolve after the hunting event was done, but since there’s an evolution master like you with me, I’m thinking about going for a bolder strategy."
Auric contemplated. "Okay. I can help you with that."
Vera’s face brightened. She smiled excitedly. "Thank you. Then, about the payment..."
"We’ll talk about that later." Auric waved his hand.
"I understand."
Vera immediately rushed back to finish her work.
Ellia just glanced at both of them together before going back to work.
Once they had cleaned up the area, they started moving toward the mountain.
However, they might have underestimated Auric’s ability as well as the ruins’ ability.
The ruins were extremely large. A lot of students were exploring the area, but for ruins this big, it was impossible to search every nook and corner.
It was especially true in such arduous terrain. That was why a lot of spots were left untouched.
In other words, the opportunity to find artifacts in this place was much higher than in any other ruins.
And that was why Auric went crazy.
"Hey, guys. Look at this!"
"Oh my, I found this!"
"There is such a thing hidden in this tree!"
"There is an artifact under the rock!"
"Your wife is an artifact!"
Auric kept finding one artifact after another.
Ellia could only smile, knowing this was bound to happen when they reached this place. It was clear that this hunting event was more like a treasure hunt event for Auric.
They were just there to ensure that nothing happened to him.
Vera and Katarina were completely dumbfounded.
Even Katarina couldn’t help but ask, "Vera... is finding an artifact that easy?"
"No way. Even if you bring an evolution master into the ruins, there’s no way they can find all these artifacts. At most, they can find twenty to thirty percent more artifacts than a treasure-hunting team." Vera shook her head helplessly.
"It hasn’t even been one day, and he’s found eleven artifacts already. We’re only going around the ruins, aren’t we? If we do this for thirty days..." Katarina sucked in a cold breath.
"In just one month, he can produce hundreds of millions, if not billions. There must be rank 3 or even rank 4 artifacts." Vera nodded.
Katarina looked at the points they had received.
Silver Wing - 378 points Guardian Angel - 299 points Zeroth - 295 points
"It looks like that Jackson guy is doing his best."
"Almost a hundred points difference." Vera took a peek at the ranking. "How about us?"
"We?" Katarina scrolled down.
Night and Day - 161 points.
"Heh?" Vera scoffed. "Earning points is indeed hard."
"These points are for killing beasts. We’re not counting the artifacts."
"I know. If we want the artifacts to be counted, we need to submit them to the military. On the other hand, there are plenty of people who don’t plan to submit them because they either want to use them or sell them." Vera nodded in understanding.
"Yeah. If we submit those five rank 2 artifacts and six rank 1 artifacts, we would get an additional 1,300 points. However, this is too unnatural. After all, normally, people will only find two or three artifacts a week, even for an expert team." Katarina chuckled.
"Yeah. Some people are even willing to kill other people to rob them of their artifacts." Vera sighed.
"Meanwhile, we can get all these artifacts because of Auric. Since when has finding artifacts become this easy?"
"Don’t ask me. That only applies to that guy." Vera sighed. "I bet he’s going to send a portion of them to the Relesha family."
"It’s understandable. After all, they’re the biggest distributor for artifacts in this country."
"Can you imagine how much money he can get if he finds rank 3 artifacts or even rank 4 artifacts? There are also plenty of higher-rank ruins, so he can find those powerful artifacts."
"The last rank 6 artifact to be auctioned was 5 years ago. I heard it was sold for over three hundred billion." Katarina looked up, recalling the auction.
"That’s because of how dangerous high-level ruins are. It’s not like we can bring an evolution master there, since they’re generally not good at fighting. But with Auric, who is not only good at fighting but also good at finding artifacts..."
"Yeah. I bet he can earn trillions each time he enters." Katarina nodded.
"My family’s net worth was about 70 trillion. Ellia’s family’s net worth was about 90 trillion. But we rarely had that much cash flow." Vera looked at Auric before sighing. "Now I feel poor."
"Oi, oi. If you are poor, I am what?" Katarina sighed. "In a single expedition, he can earn more money than my grandparents and parents earn in their lives."
"..." They just looked at each other before chuckling.
Eva, on the other hand, was completely drooling. This was the first time she had seen so many artifacts.
She couldn’t help but raise her hand. "Auric, no, Sir Auric, no, Master Auric! Do you still need a maid or a sugar baby?"
She felt another chill down her spine when the mysterious killing intent struck her again.
Eric wasn’t particularly interested in Auric’s ability. He knew Auric was a monster. It was good that Auric became more monstrous. He could force himself to grow even faster if Auric revealed more of his talent.
Auric just shook his head. In the end, whether he wanted to submit these artifacts or not was entirely up to him. They were hidden in Ellia’s storage, so no one would be able to see these artifacts.
If he showed everything, his situation would go even more out of control. If he didn’t show anything, he wouldn’t be able to win in this event. So, Auric knew he should submit a portion of them and camouflage it by simply saying he was an evolution master with better sensitivity than his peers.
Once the situation had settled down, they immediately headed toward the barrier.
"Hmm..." Auric asked them to wait a bit as he examined this barrier.
"What do you think? Is it safe?"
Auric extended his finger, letting the tip touch the flow of energy from the barrier. In that instant, he felt the energy flowing inside his body.
Still, the speed was much slower than the barriers that he had inspected before.
"Auric? What are you doing?" Ellia looked worried, trying to pull him back.
"Relax." Auric simply showed his finger, and the energy that had entered his body disappeared. "I’m fine. There is something I want to test."
Auric placed his hand on the ground. His barrier formed right above the ground.
Normally, this kind of power would be meaningless. The energy from the barrier would just continue to flow through his barrier.
A lot of people had done it.
However, Auric did something different this time. He formed a barrier by filling it with passive energy.
In other words, the barrier had three layers. The two outer layers at the top and bottom were made of active energy to trap the passive energy in the middle.
If it were just an active energy, the flow of energy would pass through because it was being converted by his power.
But there was a layer of passive energy in the middle. It was true that the flow of energy from the ruins would be converted because of the layer at the bottom, but Auric dissolved the bottom layer, allowing the passive energy to flow downward and countering the energy from the ruins.
As a result, the two energies clashed, and a path was opened.
It wasn’t that visible to most people. However, Auric couldn’t help but smile. His theory worked. He could intervene with the energy from the ruins by using his own passive energy.
Still, he only succeeded this time because the energy from the ruins was already weak. If this place were newly formed ruins, his energy would be overwhelmed instantly.
Auric immediately raised his hand. "Anyone want to test a new method? I’m going to open a path for you for one second. You need to pass through the barrier within that one second. And you need to make sure you remain within this area..."
Auric gestured, showing them how wide the path would be.
They looked confused, but Ellia stepped forward without hesitation. "I will do it."
Auric smiled. As expected, it would be Ellia who volunteered. "Get ready then. I will give you the signal. You can see the width from the barrier I’m going to make."
"Understood."
Auric then placed his hand on the ground, forming a barrier.
Ellia could see the barrier clearly, so she knew where she needed to jump.
"Are you ready?"
"Yes."
"Then, 3... 2... 1... go!" Auric immediately released the passive energy.
Ellia leaped through the barrier and outside the ruins smoothly before stopping. "Hmm?"
The others looked confused. There didn’t seem to be anything different from Ellia. At least they couldn’t see anything.
Ellia, on the other hand, was completely dumbfounded. "Did I just pass a barrier?"
"Yep, you did." Auric nodded.
Ellia looked confused. The words she said couldn’t help but shock the rest of the team. "Then, why didn’t the energy enter my body?"
"W-What?!"
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