Supreme Magus novel Chapter 4322

Chapter 4322: Treasure Hunt (Part 2)

"The Veil also erases all traces of the tower presence, so even if someone comes checking on the geyser, they won’t find anything. Even someone as paranoid as Lith would think it was just a wild surge of world energy."

"Thanks, Mom. I will." Solus nodded.

Only a few geysers held magical resources, but she took a cursory sweep of the area with the Beacon, even when there was nothing to mine with the Watchtower. Most of the time, Solus found only things that would make an archeologist’s day.

On a few occasions, she encountered what she was almost certain had been ancient ore deposits. They were located not too deep in the ground and were surrounded by decrepit cloaking and earth-sealing arrays.

Yet what truly gave their original purpose out was the presence of massive enchanted doors guarding the deposits’ only entrance. They were made of simple silver, and no worthwhile gemstone was embossed on their surface.

After all, there was no point in building a door more valuable than the contents of the vault itself.

’Most of these deposits are centuries if not millennia old.’ The Beacon couldn’t examine things like dust deposits, but Solus had a deep understanding of runes and could identify how long each magical formation dated back based on the runes they employed.

’It’s no surprise they have been found and raided already.’ She inwardly sighed. ’When the doors haven’t been touched, you know it was an inside job. When the doors have been ripped off their hinges, instead, it has to be a lucky explorer.’ 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Solus had no idea that more than once she had witnessed Jorl’s handiwork. The Storm Griffon had used Life Maelstrom to overload the ancient arrays and brute strength to open the vaults’ gates.

He had no idea how to read runes that old, and any mistake would have triggered a cave-in, burying the Adamant under hundreds of tons of rock. Jorl solved the issue by making the focus points of the arrays implode with Life Maelstrom.

No matter how ancient, all magical formations were based on the same principles, and identifying the key nodes of outdated enchantments was easy. What once had been considered a secret of a Master Warden’s trade was now so trivial that children of any decent magical bloodline learned it from a tender age.

Jorl was responsible only for a small number of empty deposits. The rest, he was either unaware of their existence, or they were already empty when he had found them.

His energy signature had already faded days before Solus had even started looking for Adamant herself. There was no way to tell how long ago a vault had been breached unless one went there in person, and Solus had no reason to do that.

The deposits were located past the range of the Warp Mirror, and just going back and forth from all of them would have taken too long for no gain.

Solus had yet to find enough Adamant to cover the toes of one foot of her Divine Beast form when she ran out of known mana geysers in the Kingdom and moved to Jiera.

’Dammit, Mom must have pillaged most of the scrap mines back in her day.’ Solus sighed. ’To make matters worse, I have imprinted only a few geysers in the Empire and can’t use those in the Desert.

’When I asked Grandma for mining rights, I could almost feel her glare boring a hole in my skull and set my body ablaze. Maybe I should have started in Verendi, but I can’t forget what Lith said. If I find Meln’s hideout, we can get rid of him once and for all!’

’I can’t believe it. The arrays are several millennia old, yet they are still in perfect condition.’ Even from that distance, Solus perceived a regular flow of unimprinted world energy. ’Whoever built this place must have been as rich as they were talented.

’This is worth taking a closer look.’ Solus left the tower in place and the Tower Warp charged before opening a dimensional corridor as close as the Warp Mirror could to the complex.

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