Chapter 489: Wall Punching

[Spirit Fortification lvl 7 -> lvl 8]

[Kinetic Energy Refinement lvl 17 -> lvl 18]

As he looked at his notification, his mind went back to the guy who had been hidden in the upper shelves of the ravine.

Julius was immediately suspicious of the guy. His aura control was the first indicator that something was weird. It was very well controlled, like Lily Violet, kind of well.

Anyone like that was someone to be cautious of. That, or they had some fantastic tutors, which was also something to worry about. He was also too friendly and too handsome. It almost felt like this guy was purposefully displaying an affable aura. It creeped Julius out. There had to be something wrong with the guy.

However, the guy’s last name stood out to him. He felt like he had heard about House Arkwright recently. It might have been Derek or one of his family members who had mentioned them. If Julius recalled correctly, they were an important house in the Empire. To be fair, it was hard to keep track of all of these noble families. There were just too many of them.

He would make sure to ask Lily or Derek when he saw them next. He expected they would know more about it than he would.

In the meantime, there was a hidden alcove just beyond the broken stone throne, and he wanted to check it out. Thankfully, the other guy seemed to understand that Julius tried to check it out alone, and so he stayed behind.

Julius didn’t sense any movements deep into the cave, but he had already been shown that some people or creatures could avoid his skill’s detection. So with a cautious eye, he continued to make his way deeper.

It was larger than he expected, and it took him almost five minutes before he came across something. It was a small recess tucked away, but he grinned widely when he spotted all of the stuff piled haphazardly across the room.

He skipped over to the piles and started to dig around.

To his disappointment, most of the things were junk. A majority of it was the same weapons he had seen the monsters use, or what seemed like materials from dead monsters. There were also small cores littered all around the floor, but Julius didn’t have much interest in them.

However, there were some interesting things buried underneath the junk. He spotted a small plant drowned under a pile of swords. This plant caught his eye because of the dense amount of life energy he felt coming from it. It had one single bright blue bud hanging off its stem.

The plant wasn’t even in the ground anymore; it looked like it had been ripped up and tossed to the side. Yet, it was in pristine condition, as if it had just bloomed yesterday. He quickly collected it, but while he wanted to examine it more closely, he had a lot of other stuff to go through. He would look over everything else once he was done.

It took a lot of time going through everything. But in the end, he came out with around a dozen items that had caught his eye. He didn’t think they were anything on the same level as some of the stuff that Vailon had given him, but they were nice nonetheless.

One item in particular had piqued his interest. It was a plain-looking stick. Truthfully, he didn’t think it was an actual stick. From the looks of it, it might have been an old wand or a magical focus of some sort. However, it was hard to tell because it was very beaten up.

The wood it was made out of was dry and was splitting down the middle. It felt like it would turn to dust if he squeezed it hard enough. With that being said, his mana senses were drawn to the item like a moth to a flame.

Just underneath the damaged wood, he could feel a fascinating bit of fire mana radiating outward. If he looked really closely, he could see the dull orange glow flickering in and out from the core.

He was tempted to snap the wand in half to see what this core was, but he resisted the urge. There were other things that he wanted to test first. For example, the fire he sensed wasn’t just any normal fire. There were some unique properties in it that he could feel rippling beneath the surface.

Now that he had learned more about advanced fires from Cassandra, he was more aware of the different fires he came across. While he doubted this wand was made of an advanced form, it was special enough that he wanted to inspect it.

The wood did an excellent job at dampening the fire mana being emitted. If not for his physically touching the stick, he suspected he would never have noticed its special properties.

With that being said, he was definitely going to spend some time with it when he was free. He might even learn something that would help his fire.

Stolen novel; please report.

Among the other items he shoved in his ring were some herbs and various other things that were full of mana or had something special about them. He still didn’t have a dedicated analysis skill like some, but he could always take them to someone who would be able to analyze them for him.

As for the token, he looked all over the place for it. However, he realized he had completely overlooked it when he first entered. There was a small podium tucked away at the entrance. Sitting on the podium was the token.

It was the same coin that Vailon had given him, and like the previous one, it didn’t emit any mana or aura that he could tell. He knew that there was something special about it, which only made him more curious since, by all appearances, it was a simple coin.