This really is quite a surprise...
When Leon first emerged from the Prince's Crypt, he thought he'd left empty-handed except for a mysterious stone tablet whose purpose he couldn't fathom. Yet here he was, just ten days later, surprises coming one after another—first confirming that the tablet was actually the Sage's Chapter, the fourth chapter of the Death Tome, then discovering he'd acquired the legendary Bane of the Undead ability.
In Leon's eyes, the Bane of the Undead ability was even more valuable than Sandro's Undying Pact.
The Undying Pact only worked for necromancers. For someone like Leon, who wasn't a necromancer, even if he obtained the Undying Pact, it would just mean a few more summoned creatures. Without the boost from necromantic spells, those summons wouldn't be nearly as powerful as one might imagine.
But Bane of the Undead was different...
Now, Leon held dominion over the entire Bone Plane. With Bane of the Undead, he could conquer the Bone Plane even faster. Once he had the Death Tome in hand, along with the Sage's Chapter, his power would reach a terrifying level—Archmages would hardly be able to compare.
What's more, Bane of the Undead still held many secrets yet to be uncovered. In the golden age, the most powerful mages all believed that Bane of the Undead wasn't limited to just affecting undead creatures. If there was no truth to that, Leon would be the first to call it nonsense.
Now, Leon had plenty of time to experiment—to test whether Bane of the Undead really worked the way those legendary mages believed, and whether its effects went beyond just the undead.
With Bane of the Undead aiding him, Leon found the battles that followed much easier...
All Leon had to do was find the place with the most Skeleton Warriors and unleash his highest-level, most destructive spells in a wild barrage. He didn't need to worry about their counterattacks at all—when they charged at him, they'd immediately feel the oppressive aura of Bane of the Undead, either fleeing in terror or freezing in place.
It was a complete and utter harvest...
In just two short hours, the Sage's Chapter had absorbed over a thousand Soul Fires. Aside from a heavy drain on his mana, Leon hadn't faced a single threat from start to finish—not even needing to activate his Frostfire Shield once.
Leon checked the time; he still had about an hour left. Just as he was about to continue and reap another round of Skeleton Warriors, he suddenly realized he'd unknowingly wandered close to the Nether Iron Vein again.
The last time he'd come to the Bone Plane, it was nighttime, and his Light Spell only illuminated a few dozen meters. He'd had to rely on a half-solidified Wizard's Eye to navigate, so he couldn't see everything clearly. Now, even though the sky was still shrouded in dark clouds, it was daytime. Tossing out a Wizard's Eye, Leon finally got a clear look at the Nether Iron Vein...
The spot where the Nether Iron Vein lay was basically a flat plain, ringed by Skeleton Warriors. Thick death energy seeped from the ground, densest where the Bone Demon slumbered. The vein itself stretched for over a hundred meters, completely exposed on the surface—the kind of ore miners dream of, requiring almost no effort to extract.
And the resources hidden in this Nether Iron Vein were truly astonishing. Even from a hundred meters away, Leon could sense powerful magical fluctuations—some from the ore itself, some from the Magic Gemstones embedded within.
Leon took a deep breath, suppressing the urge to provoke the Bone Demon, forcing himself to look away... for now.
But as his Wizard's Eye swept past, Leon suddenly noticed a shadowy cave at the far end of the Nether Iron Vein—and right at the entrance, a bloodstained garment lay in plain sight!
"Damn..." Leon's eyes widened instantly. The sight of that blood-soaked clothing shocked him almost as much as seeing a flying dinosaur overhead.
What did that mean...?
It meant Leon wasn't the first human to set foot in the Bone Plane!
Of course, odds were this human was long gone. In a place like the Bone Plane, getting injured was almost a death sentence. The relentless death energy meant even a tiny cut on your finger could be fatal.
In fact, it wasn't just the Bone Plane—any plane was like this. The radically different environments meant no one could survive for long, not even the most powerful mages of the golden age.
That's why, after magic dried up in the Northend World, even those mages who fancied themselves gods eventually fell, one after another.
In those final years, countless mages went mad, desperately searching for a way out. But no one could survive in these planes—only those on the level of Charles or Sandro managed to carve out a path, slipping away into the Endless Planes, vanishing into the cracks between time and space.
But what awaited them was still an unknown fate—maybe a brand new world, maybe an eternity of drifting...
Alright, getting off track here...
Anyway, whoever left that bloodstained garment behind was almost certainly dead by now.
That much was practically beyond doubt.
Still, Leon felt compelled to go take a look. After all, this was a human who'd entered the Bone Plane long before him—thousands of years before those three young mages from the Ivory Tower. Leon couldn't help but wonder: who was this person?
With that thought, Leon guided his Wizard's Eye around to the other side of the Nether Iron Vein, following the shadowy cave entrance, intent on exploring deeper.
But then, suddenly, his vision went dark.
"No way..." Leon was stunned—the Wizard's Eye had vanished!
Leon knew it was because the Wizard's Eye had been blocked by a surge of magic...
Among all the magical constructs a mage could create, Wizard's Eye was by far the most fragile. It was formed from a mere trace of a mage's mana, and even the slightest magical interference could cause it to collapse instantly.
Leon had lost Wizard's Eyes like this at least eighty or a hundred times before; it was nothing worth fussing over. But this time, the sudden collapse only deepened his sense of unease...
A bloodstained garment was already eerie enough, but now there was residual magic lingering in the cave!
Leon thought for a moment, then muttered a string of incantations: Haste, Stonehide, Conceal Aura, Undead Disguise—one after another, he layered himself with protective spells.
Then, Leon began to slowly approach the shadowy cave entrance.
Fortunately, after his previous sweep, there were few Skeleton Warriors left nearby. Even if one or two did appear, with Bane of the Undead active, they were little more than targets for a Flame Spear or two...