He quickly caught it with both hands as the panel information appeared:
【Kunyuan Heavy Iron: Rarity: ★★★★★. A metal from the deepest part of the earth's core. It naturally contains faint rules of gravity and possesses extremely high density. It is incredibly difficult to mine and is one of the dream materials for forging top-tier equipment.】
Five-star rarity! Bai Xuan was beyond excited; this was definitely the most valuable thing he had in his hands!
If he could forge this together with the Goldsand Iron into his own exclusive weapon in the future, the finished product would surely exceed his imagination. He cherished it and carefully put it back into the ring.
Finally, there was an inconspicuous small bundle made of coarse cloth.
After taking it out and unwrapping it, Bai Xuan's eyes suddenly lit up.
Food!
A few chewy multi-grain buns, two slightly withered but still good pears, plus a leather waterskin that made a crisp splashing sound when shaken, clearly still containing plenty of water!
He suppressed the urge to eat and drink immediately and quickly used the panel to inspect them.
【Supply Bundle: Ordinary food and fresh water. No traces of toxicity, curses, or mental interference.】
Safe! Bai Xuan could no longer hold back. Using the fresh water to wash it down, he quickly ate the buns and pears.
The hard, dry food slid down his esophagus, and the cool water moistened his throat. That gnawing hunger and thirst were finally relieved.
Perhaps because of the enhancement from leveling up, his appetite was unexpectedly large. Although he wasn't full, his hunger was significantly abated.
He continued to rummage through the bundle to see if there was any more food. The layer beneath contained daily tools like a small knife, and at the very bottom lay a folded set of clothes.
Taking them out, he saw they were traveler's garments with a simple style but seemingly good material.
However, when a small piece of white underwear with delicate lace edges at the bottom caught his eye, Bai Xuan froze.
“...Uh.” With a strange expression, he hurriedly stuffed the clothes back into the bundle.
The clothing was clearly a style for a young woman. Although it looked a bit old, it was relatively well-preserved.
“The original owner of this ring was a woman? And she seemed to... pay quite a bit of attention to life's details...”
This discovery gave him a more concrete image of that mage he had never met, and it also brought a hint of sentimentality.
These clothes would likely never see their owner again.
“Looks like she was a ruthless mage who traded all her belongings for scrolls to throw out. No wonder she was simultaneously poor and wealthy.”
He glanced at the surrounding carpet of scrolls, which could be described as luxurious. “All the money was spent on these; she couldn't even bear to buy better food.”
After storing everything except the Goldsand Iron rod into the Space Ring, Bai Xuan prepared to do one last sweep before searching for an exit.
Just then, a delayed chill crawled over his entire body without warning.
He suddenly realized something was wrong.
“It's too clean.” The more Bai Xuan thought about it, the more terrifying it felt.
Aside from the signs of battle and damaged items, this place was simply too clean.
No severed limbs, no broken arms, not even a single drop of dried blood.
He recalled the same eerily clean scene on the streets when he was escaping the village. There were no corpses of villagers, only destroyed houses and combat traces.
A bone-chilling sense of dread gripped him.
This was not normal! Monsters would eat people, but they couldn't possibly eat them so cleanly that not even a scrap was left.
Battles would draw blood, yet this place looked as if it had been scrubbed by the most rigorous cleaning spell, leaving only the marks of colliding powers.
This was far more terrifying than a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.
Bai Xuan patted his face, forcing himself to stay calm.
He carefully placed the ring into an inner pocket close to his chest, gripped the Goldsand Iron rod, and began a final search through the ruins.
Bai Xuan paid special attention to the massive claw marks; each one was larger than his entire body.
The marks were densest on the rocky ground and even on the broken pillars, especially near the sealing shackles.
“What kind of monster would leave marks like these?”
As he carefully examined one of the deepest claw marks, his mind caught a hint of unusual fluctuation buried beneath the scorched earth.
He brushed away the loose soil, and a palm-sized scale was revealed. It was a deep, dark purple, with a faint metallic luster flowing along its edges.
【Evil God Inverse Scale: An inverse scale that fell off when Claudia Eternal Silence forcibly broke free from the 'God-Binding Shackles,' due to excessive extraction of source power. Its essence is lost, leaving only an extremely hard physical structure. It retains a trace of the 'Eternal Silence' aura.】
An Evil God!
Claudia Eternal Silence.
Just the name alone sent an instinctive shudder through Bai Xuan, a fear originating from the very level of his existence.
Bai Xuan used a cloth to pick it up carefully. The scale was ice-cold and extraordinarily heavy; its material gave off an illusion of being indestructible.
“With such a massive seal... how big must the main body be? Why is this scale so small...”
Thinking no further, he cautiously placed this Inverse Scale in a separate corner of the Space Ring, far from other items.
Finally, in a relatively flat area in the shadows near a wall, he found his target: a magic array hastily drawn on the ground.
The lines were crooked, the nodes were crude, and many connections were intermittent. Although Bai Xuan didn't understand arrays, he had basic aesthetic sense.
It was clear this had been completed under extremely urgent circumstances.
【Directional Teleportation Circle (Damaged): The structure is highly unstable. Requires a specific medium (Rock Seal) to activate. Can be started by consuming a large amount of mana. Estimated teleportation success rate: 70% chance to reach the creator's preset coordinates; 20% chance of spatial deviation, teleporting to an unknown location; 10% chance of teleportation failure, being caught in a spatial turbulence.】
A 70% probability... and a one-in-ten chance that he might die without even a corpse left.
Bai Xuan's lips twitched. Do I even have a choice?
Without hesitation, he stood in the center of the array and took the Rock Seal from his chest.
The moment he slowly poured mana into the seal, attempting to guide its resonance with the array beneath his feet...
The Space Ring in his pocket suddenly produced a heavy sensation that acted upon his very existence, pinning him to this space.
Then, a reverse pulling force came from inside the ring, countering the tearing sensation that the spatial teleportation was about to bring.
【Rule-Based Item 'Kunyuan Heavy Iron' is stabilizing the surrounding spatial structure... Spatial coordinate disturbance slightly reduced, base teleportation stability increased.】
The information flashed across the panel, but Bai Xuan had no time to think as the teleportation was already triggered!
The Rock Seal erupted with an intense light, connecting with the glow of the crude array beneath him, and the entire space began to warp and fluctuate.
Just a moment before his vision was completely swallowed by white light, the violent resonance between the Rock Seal and the array triggered the Inverse Scale inside the Space Ring, and several fragmented images rushed into Bai Xuan's mind:
A massive pitch-black claw, entwined with darkness that swallowed light, violently tore apart those shimmering shackles!
A blurry, slender figure draped in a tattered mage's robe knelt staggeringly on the ground under the cover of scrolls erupting with various colors of destructive light.
She was frantically drawing the final array, her voice anxiously shouting out incantations one after another...
【Directional Teleportation outlet is obstructed; unable to teleport. Performing random teleportation.】
And then, an endless spatial turbulence submerged Bai Xuan.
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