Chapter 423: Formula
"Keep searching—there might be a clue somewhere..." Leon was starting to get frustrated. He had no idea what King Ronan of the Caucasus was thinking; the man clearly meant to leave his magical legacy in Northend, yet he’d set up so many convoluted obstacles. Leon thought it over carefully. That most important magical inheritance couldn’t have just vanished into thin air.
Huh?
Suddenly, a faint magical fluctuation rippled through the air. Leon couldn’t help but let out a soft sound of surprise and immediately walked over to investigate. He discovered an alchemical array carved into one of the walls, emitting a weak magical pulse. It was a teleportation alchemy array. This discovery delighted Leon—though he still didn’t know where the array would lead, at least the clues about the Sixfold Meditation Codex hadn’t dried up yet.
A bit of trouble doesn’t matter—the most important thing is finding that Sixfold Meditation Codex...
"What’s going on here...?"
Leon stared at the teleportation alchemy array before him. This array had to be at least a thousand years old. But soon he noticed that the mana circuit connecting to the source had been deliberately severed. Frowning, he took out a quill, dipped it in ink, and began to repair the broken mana circuit.
Ten minutes later, Leon let out a gentle breath, put away the quill, and checked the teleportation array once more. Despite its age, it was still in decent condition. Just then, a strange pulse emanated from the array...
"Damn it!"
The instant he sensed that pulse, Leon instinctively staggered several steps back, his face pale with shock. Heart pounding, he stared at the teleportation array and spat out a curse. Only then did some color return to his cheeks. That pulse was terrifying—it was the aura of the Apocalypse Plane!
So, this teleportation array leads to the Apocalypse Plane...
Right now, the Apocalypse Plane is undergoing a rebirth—its laws are in complete chaos, and everything there is converted into chaotic power. Forget Leon—even a Sky Rank master would perish in that place...
If you teleported there now, you wouldn’t even know how you died.
Luckily, someone had severed the mana circuit in the teleportation array. If I’d activated it right away, I don’t even want to imagine the consequences...
Relieved, Leon nevertheless felt a bit annoyed—this meant the only clue to the Sixfold Meditation Codex was cut off. There was no way he’d risk the Apocalypse Plane, not for any meditation codex, no matter how precious. Life was worth more. He grumbled inwardly at King Ronan of the Caucasus—of all places to hide that codex, why pick the Apocalypse Plane?
Now what...?
He’d come all the way from Auckland to the Turin Mountains for that Sixfold Meditation Codex, and now the trail had gone cold.
But soon, Leon pushed thoughts of the codex aside and fixed his gaze on the teleportation array. After the Long-Legged Emperor and King Ronan of the Caucasus had settled their score, they both vanished into the depths of the Turin Mountains. Now that the array led to the Apocalypse Plane, Leon couldn’t help but wonder—did King Ronan really go to the Apocalypse Plane?
"Merlin, come take a look. There’s a hidden door over here..."
Just as Leon was lost in thought, Anderson’s surprised voice snapped him out of his reverie. Leon turned toward Anderson and, sure enough, spotted a hidden door.
The hidden door led downward, about a meter wide. As soon as Leon stepped inside, a wave of scorching heat hit him, making him frown and glance back at Anderson. "Go on in and take a look..."
Only after Anderson returned to the Arcane Wheel did Leon enter the passage. It was a series of utterly ordinary steps, yet astonishingly, these stairs had lasted for at least a thousand years—without a single speck of dust. The moment Leon took his first step, his eyelid twitched; he’d just sensed a clear, twisted spatial fluctuation. It almost felt as if he’d crossed from one space into another.
With each step, that sense of spatial distortion grew stronger. Every move made Leon’s heart pound—he dreaded accidentally stumbling into a spatial rift and being lost forever in the chaos.
The deeper he went, the hotter it became. Sweat soaked his mage’s robe, the fabric clinging uncomfortably to his skin. He didn’t bother wiping his brow, just kept descending the spiraling stairs. After half an hour, the temperature peaked—he felt like he was standing next to a furnace, cheeks flushed, and the sweat on his robe had long since evaporated.
Thankfully, he’d reached the end of the passage by then—but what greeted him was a shock: a library. The moment he entered, the scorching heat vanished without a trace...
Rows of bookshelves stood in perfect order, crammed with books. Leon immediately noticed the entire library was spotless—not only the floor, but even the books themselves had no dust. This library, at least a thousand years old, looked as if it had just been cleaned.
As Leon moved deeper into the library, he soon discovered there was only a single wooden table—spotless, and completely bare. He couldn’t help but marvel: could this be King Ronan of the Caucasus’s private library? Otherwise, why would there be just one table in the whole place?
Following the trail of clues to this point, Leon was nearly certain—the library’s owner must be King Ronan of the Caucasus.
Out of the corner of his eye, Leon spotted a crystal ball in the library’s corner. Given his recent experiences, he knew this was no mere decoration. After a moment’s hesitation, he walked over. When he was half a meter away, the crystal ball suddenly blazed with dazzling light, projecting an image.
It was a middle-aged man, broad-shouldered and clad in a mage’s robe, clutching a jet-black spear. Though only a phantom, his appearance brought overwhelming pressure to Leon; only as time passed did that pressure slowly ease...
Battlemage—King Ronan of the Caucasus!
The moment Leon saw the image, he knew exactly who it was: the legendary battlemage who rose above all others in the Caucasus, with strength at—or beyond—Sky Rank. Even a mere projection or avatar from someone at that level carried terrifying power.
This was the first time Leon had ever seen King Ronan of the Caucasus—even if it was only as a projection.
"If you want my final inheritance, you must pass a test. There are 3,768 books here. Finish reading them all within twenty days, and then I’ll test you myself..."
With those words, King Ronan’s image vanished without a trace.
"Three thousand, seven hundred sixty-eight books—in twenty days..."
Leon rubbed his nose. That was a hell of a workload...
Soon enough, Leon made a discovery.
The knowledge recorded in these magical books was surprisingly accurate; only a handful contained minor errors or deviations. That alone left Leon astonished. After all, this era was more than thirty thousand years removed from the peak of magic—most things were far from mature...
Every book in King Ronan’s collection was a masterpiece, with scarcely any mistakes. Even Leon, for all his experience, had to marvel. If any faction got their hands on this library, reaching the heights of Cloudspire Tower or the Black Tower would only be a matter of time.
Leon flipped through every book on the desk, memorizing every discrepancy. Soon, the desk was piled high with tomes—enough to keep a normal person reading day and night for a month. Leon finished them all in just over an hour...
A whole day passed quickly. In that time, Leon finished reading every book on two shelves, committing every subtle error to memory.
After meditating for a dozen minutes to recover, Leon went back to reading without rest...
Two days...
Three days...
Ten days...
By the twentieth day, Leon had finished every book. He placed a black thread-bound volume back on its shelf and sat thoughtfully at the desk, silent for a long time.
He sat there for a whole day, deep in thought, occasionally pulling out a quill to jot down calculations on scrap paper...
"Why isn’t King Ronan coming out? Didn’t he say he’d test you? It’s already the twenty-first day..." Anderson, now a cloud of black smoke, floated out of the Arcane Wheel and glanced at the crystal ball, his face full of doubt.
"He won’t be coming out..." Leon paused, quill in hand, then buried himself in his calculations again. It was as if King Ronan’s image appearing or not made no difference to him.
"He’s not trying to fool you, is he? No, someone at his level would never break his word so lightly..." Anderson’s three bizarre faces all frowned as he glanced at Leon, who ignored him and kept calculating. "Merlin, what have you discovered?"
"This library—these 3,768 books—are King Ronan’s final inheritance..." Leon nodded without looking up, his quill flying across the page. Perhaps only he understood what King Ronan’s true test was.
Yes—it was patience...
To read over three thousand books one by one would take ten years. Only by finishing them all could one grasp King Ronan’s intent. In other words, the formulas of the Sixfold Meditation Codex were hidden throughout these books. By combining all that knowledge and calculating, one could finally deduce all six formulas of the Meditation Codex!