Chapter 25: Emelite Crystals
As Abium reached the end of the narrow alley, he suddenly felt that a hot gust of air washed his face.
For a moment, he thought that he had entered a desert land.
But as he looked around, he only saw nothing but dense vegetation!
'Why air is so hot here?'
He moved deep into the forest and soon saw a small pond next to a hill.
But as he got closer towards the water, he felt that his whole body was burning in fire.
'Strange.'
Furrowing his brows, he took out his water pouch, bent down towards the pond water, and tried to fill the water.
But as his hand touched the water, he couldn't help but get shocked inside.
"Something is odd. Why the water appears too cold? No. I think it's the air that's too hot." After a short pause, he shook his head at the odd atmosphere and filled the water pouch. Then, he also took out an empty wooden barrel, filled the barrel, and stored it in his space ring.
After that, he glanced at the surroundings and started walking in the eastern direction.
But just as he stepped more than 200 meters away from the pond, he again felt that the hot air disappeared suddenly and was replaced with a cooling one!
'Why do I feel a Déjà vu now?' He felt this situation somewhat familiar to him.
'Where have I encountered such a situation before?' He narrowed his eyes in suspicion and soon widened his eyes as he recalled one of his missions.
'That's it. It was the time when I went with an Official Mage Mark to search for a material called 'Emelite.'
'It was a strange crystal used for creating Alchemic Bombs. It's the reason for this type of unique atmosphere.' He hurriedly looked around and searched for any cavern nearby.
As he had suspected, he managed to find three strange head-sized rock crystals from the nearby cavern and got stunned by the size.
Although they looked just like some random rocks, Abium knew the true worth of those rocks.
'Each of those could fetch more than 10 White Gold coins!'
By normal rate means, 1 White Gold coins value should be around ten normal Gold Coins.
So, he could get more than 300 normal gold coins once he sold them to the mages.
He could even buy a small house in Roseglen City with that much amount!
'I need to store it carefully. Otherwise, it might explode when friction.'
After storing them into his space ring, he continued his journey again.
He finally reached the Borderland two hours later, peered at the desert-like land, and pondered.
The Borderland was approximately 3 kilometers, which covered the land in-between the Mainland and the Forgotten Land.
This land surrounded the Forgotten Land and completely separated it from the Mainland and Seas. It was like a cage and isolated the Forgotten Land from the rest.
In the heart of this Borderland stood some upright mysterious stone pillars.
As for the origin of those pillars, he had no idea about it.
But he knew that this Borderland was a graveyard for many mages and warriors.
The mystical sand would devour anyone who walked through this land without any prior knowledge.
In the past, Abium and several warriors came to explore the Borderland recklessly and got terrified by the strange power residing in the Borderland.
Only a few reckless warriors tried to explore the Borderland at that time. But all of them got pulled into the sand and disappeared. No one knew if they were buried in the sand or transported into different dimensions.
'No, I think everyone died at that time. Azolla also said that someone named 'Lord Varos' created this Borderland earlier, right? Hmm, I need to research more about it.' He nodded inwardly and thought about the past.
'I still remembered the time that even after we reached this land, we had no choice but to give up. That was the hardest mission I faced after I breakthrough into a third-tier warrior.' Memories appeared in the form of images in front of his eyes.
'Following years of trials and errors, I heard that a courageous guy went ahead and jumped directly into the land. He was a brave soul. Nah, a reckless guy.' He sighed deeply.
But to everyone's amazement, that guy didn't sink inside the sand. Instead, Abium heard that guy was standing there while grinning.
At that moment, everyone noticed that a shadow of that stone pillar appeared below his feet.
After that, everyone found out that shadow had some mystical power to let only the mortals walk on this land!
Unfortunately, that reckless guy wasn't a mortal.
He only managed to stay in the shadow for a few seconds before being pulled into the sand.
After that, the army of the Peral Kingdom tried to test using slaves to explore the Forgotten Land.
Alas, the survival rate was too low.
Some missed a step and fell into the shadow-less sand, while many slaves suicide willingly to get away from the slave life.
'Only a few managed to reach the other end, but they also got killed by roaming Goblins and Orcs.' Abium sighed in pity.
Following many experiments using slaves, the army realized that they wouldn't make any progress and finally gave up!
'Anyway, all I need to do now is follow the shadows!'
If Abium wanted to cross this land, he must follow the shadow of that stone pillar. The shadow's width was minimal, around two feet, so he must be extra careful.
Furthermore, only one person could cross this land at a time.
If another person stepped onto that shadow while Abium was walking, both would be devoured by this sand.
The same goes for anyone who tries to cross this land during the nighttime.
'It's a scary place!'
One of the worst restrictions was that he would feel weakened physically and mentally once he entered the Borderland.
There was also another mysterious thing about this Borderland.
Only races like humans, elves, dwarfs, dryads, and fairies would be able to pass through this land.
Monsters, Demons, Devils, and other chaos life forms from different planes wouldn't be able to walk inside this land.
Even if they entered this land, their magic stone or the chaos stones, which was their heart core, would be disintegrated into pieces. Because of this nullification power, monsters rarely appear near the Borderland.
'But how did the Demons and monsters manage to cross the Borderland in the past? Did some high-tier demon manage to find any loophole?' Abium frowned deeply, looked up at the morning sky, and shook his head.
'I should worry about it later.'
Abium had already reached the Borderland's outer region and thought of what he had to do next.
'I should find one of those stone pillars first.' He knew one stone pillar was located around the area near Viscount Gauvain's territory from his memories and decided to search for it.
After roaming on the Borderland's side for an hour, he finally discovered a stone pillar and breathed a sigh of relief.
It stood there at the center of that desert-like land.
Abium went towards the edge of the Borderland, looked at the eastern sky, and thought.
'I need to wait here till tomorrow morning to walk on the shadow.'
A hot breeze brushed past his face as it came from the Borderland and soon went to the Forgotten Land. But unlike normal air, he felt a lack of elemental energy in it.
He stood there for a while, moved towards the nearby tall tree, and sat under its shadow.
After that, he took out the Elven Language Translation book from his space ring and placed it on his lap.
Then, he opened the book and started memorizing it using Eidetic Memory. Whenever he looked at a page, the [Eidetic Memory] ability activated on its own, photocopied that particular page, and sent it to his Sea of Consciousness.
Meanwhile, Abium's mind also activated at a terrific speed and memorized the content in a second.
He was momentarily stunned inside.
'What kind of concept is this? It takes less than 2 seconds to memorize a whole page?' He sucked in a cold breath.
'This is a powerful ability indeed.' He hurriedly flipped the page, continued to photocopy other pages, and learned the language in 25 minutes!
At that moment, countless pieces of information about the Ancient Elven Language appeared in his mind and even caused a slight headache!
'I think I can read those 43 plus books now.' He nodded inwardly, stored the language book into his space ring, and took out another one.
He then glanced at the title cover and muttered the title.
"Son of the Golden River."
It was a story about a young man's journey to becoming the King of an Empire called 'Hola.' The book also explained more about the Ancient Era's temples, festivals, languages, cultures, and politics of Elves and Humans.
Abium patiently read the whole book in the next 30 minutes and finished it.
Then, he took out another book called 'Lord of the Land' and started reading it.
For the next few hours, he remained under the shadow of a giant tree and read more than 12 books.
'It seems the whole Forgotten Land was once connected with the Mainland but got separated later. A particular Ancient God called Varos seemed to have created this Borderland to stop the demon army from entering the current Mainland and isolated this Forgotten Land for safety purposes. As for his strength, he was the only Ancient God who ruled the domains of Death, Darkness, Dream, and Night. What are these domains? Unique power? Or Land? Is he still alive?' He frowned deeply and closed the 12th book before storing them into his space ring.