Temple of Tyrion and Amber City

Although the Fire Mage had caused an exceptionally brutal scene, the players led by Take showed no sign of retreat on their faces—instead, there was a strange excitement.

After thinking it over for a moment, Li Wen more or less understood.

By normal player logic, the stronger the boss, the rarer the drops. Plus, some players were the type whose desire for a challenge only grew with difficulty, so it wasn't strange to see this kind of emotion.

Thinking this, Li Wen felt she had to warn them a bit more: "The mages of the Secret College are all extremely dangerous existences. You absolutely cannot underestimate them."

What counted as dangerous was relative. The Sunday Secret College was mostly filled with scholars researching magical knowledge. They wielded magic that could, at its peak, alter the entire face of the world, but they didn't easily show themselves before mortals. However, this Fire Mage was clearly not that kind of benevolent researcher. Judging from the mess he'd left behind, he might very well be a complete madman.

Take and the others nodded solemnly, apparently taking Li Wen's words to heart.

They advanced in the direction indicated by the magic potion, all the way until dusk arrived and twilight deepened, yet still found no trace of anything.

If they weren't all players, traveling under the sun for so long would have left them suffering from heatstroke or dehydration by now. But even so, they were exhausted, especially the male players carrying tents, armor, and weapons, whose faces were already lined with fatigue.

Li Wen even heard someone muttering under their breath: "Why doesn't this game have a one-click teleport to the quest location feature? So user-unfriendly."

Unfriendly was exactly right—after all, this wasn't a game at all, but a real world.

Li Wen looked up at the sky. Half the sun had already sunk below the horizon, and stars glittered in the deep blue firmament. Based on the positions of the celestial bodies, the Fire Mage's direction was to their north.

Streamstone Rift... north...

Li Wen's heart sank. Was that mage's goal also that thing?

"Set up camp here."

The male players were overjoyed. Take blinked and said, "We're stopping to rest? I think we could keep going."

"I've already found him." Li Wen shook her head. "Set up camp and rest first. Make your preparations. He's right here."

"Here?"

Take jolted in shock, her eyes wide as she nervously looked around—but there wasn't a single person, not even a living creature, to be seen.

Li Wen didn't speak. She just pointed at the solid, dry ground, the meaning clear without words.

The players quickly set up the tents. The tents weren't for resting; they served as respawn points. Just like logging off, a player's respawn point had to be established in a safe, private space. If the respawn point was destroyed, the player would often reappear in an unpredictable location.

While they set up camp, Li Wen used a random branch she'd picked up to draw neat, circular patterns on the ground, one after another. Take watched blankly from the side. Though she had no idea what Li Wen was doing, it clearly wasn't random doodling, so she tried to memorize as much as she could—who knew, maybe it was some powerful magic?

What Li Wen was drawing was a large magic circle called "Leonart's Fourth Solution." This circle was composed of up to eleven smaller circles, each containing a different symbolic pattern, such as a key, a blade, a star, an eye, a spiral, a hanged man, and so on.

In "Ritual Magic Studies," "Leonart's Fourth Solution" was often called a cheap universal formula. It had many functions and could be applied to most problems encountered in daily life. The only issue was that the entire circle had to be drawn in full—there was no simplified or abbreviated version.

Because of this, although it was called a universal magic circle, it lacked true versatility and was often mocked.

But in a situation like this, it was perfectly suited.

Li Wen needed to borrow three of this circle's functions: Manifestation, Unlocking, and Sealing.

Manifestation was to make hidden things appear, Unlocking was to open invisible locks, and Sealing was naturally to prevent anything inside the circle from escaping.

After completing the entire magic circle, Li Wen paid half of her mana.

This was one of the advantages—or disadvantages—of "Leonart's Fourth Solution": it required half of the caster's mana to activate. The circle's power depended on the caster's mana pool. For weak casters, this was a good thing, but for those with strong mana, it was absurd—since with the same mana, they could make broader, more practical choices and responses.

Li Wen was only Level 1, with a base mana of ten points. After paying half, she had only five left—enough for at most two more Prayer Incantations.

This was fatal in combat. First, Li Wen had to ensure she was protected by a Prayer Incantation. Second, she needed Prayer Incantations as her means of offense. But a single Dark Word Curse was hard to kill anyone. In other words, to handle a fight, Li Wen needed her mana to stay above six points.

And she had already prepared for this.

Li Wen took dried Mandrake Grass from her pack. As a mana-infused ingredient, Mandrake Grass was one of the main materials used to make Clarity Potions, which were common potions for mages to quickly restore mana.

According to "Advanced Alchemy," main ingredients often carried part of the potion's effects. That meant Li Wen could restore mana by chewing on Mandrake Grass leaves.

The effect might be small, but it was enough to restore her to six mana.

When Li Wen's mana flowed into the magic circle, the entire formation emitted a brilliant light like starlight. Within the range of that radiance, everything revealed its true form. At the same time, the ruins of an ancient temple appeared before everyone.

Before the Kingdom of Arthur was even called Arthur, the Noradun people built this temple, named the Temple of Tyrion. Later, when King Arthur conquered and unified the kingdom, the temple vanished in an earthquake, and the Streamstone Rift was formed at that time. Many believed the Temple of Tyrion had been buried underground, and there were countless theories about why the Noradun had built it.

In later ages, after Arthur fell, the Black Dragon rose from the Streamstone Rift, and the Temple of Tyrion, buried for thousands of years, saw the light of day once more. Then everyone knew the truth: the Temple of Tyrion was merely an entrance, concealing the existence of another ruin.

That ruin was called Amber City. In the even more distant Golden Age, it was known as the Eternal and Twilight Kingdom—the dreamland of all Elders, the City of Eternity between life and death, and the only mortal-world dwelling of the Twilight Witch.