Above the mage!

Chapter 473 Fifth-Order Extraordinary Materials
"My king, I'd like to go ashore and take a look. Would you like to wait on the ship, or..." Lanwen, who was already prepared, stood at the bow of the ship and asked Gaode for his opinion.

"Let's go together." After thinking for a moment, Gao De decided to go and take a look as well.

Although his mage level is not high, with the Mandora's Eye, Lanwen might not be better than him in terms of reconnaissance.

In addition, it's also a good opportunity to go to the island and relax.

“Okay.” Lan Wen naturally chose to follow Gao De’s suggestion.

He didn't think that he would encounter a threat he couldn't handle on a random deserted island at sea.

Prudence is necessary, but excessive prudence is unnecessary.

"My king, shall I take you there?" Lanwen glanced at the land that was still not far from the Columbus.

"No need." Gao De waved his hand, and before Lan Wen could ask any more questions, he cast [Wild Agility+], summoned the Storm Soul, and under Boeing's possession, his figure was already soaring into the air.

Lan Wen's eyes widened in shock upon seeing this.

Flight is the signature ability of a third-ring mage.
However, under the influence of the deeply ingrained worship and "myth" of the King in the North, many people believe that no matter how "outrageous" Gaode does, it is reasonable in their understanding.

Although Lanwen is a fourth-circle mage, he is one of the people of the North who have "suffered greatly" from this.

Therefore, he quickly reasoned with himself: As the king, it is reasonable for him to do anything astonishing. The king cannot be measured by ordinary standards!

He immediately stopped thinking and used the [Flight Technique] to catch up with Gao De, and flew side by side with Gao De towards the deserted island.

The two landed quickly at the edge of the island.

Just as Gaode had previously observed, the entire island was devoid of any signs of life, except for its dark green icy limestone and ice layers.

The only thing worth taking a second look at was the enormous skeleton of a sea monster beneath the ice.

From a distance, in Gaode Maps' view, the frozen skeleton appears as nothing more than enormous and twisted.

Now that it was right in front of him, Gao De realized that the skeleton was even more grotesque than it had appeared from a distance.

The skull of the corpse was enormous, with a spiral-shaped horn protruding from the center of the frontal bone.

The horn is covered with triangular facets, with dark green seaweed fragments stuck between them, as if they were scraped when it was forcibly dragged ashore from the deep sea, frozen together with the ice, keeping it in its original state.

One can imagine that before the corpse died, this giant horn must have been its powerful weapon, possessing terrifying power.

The hollow eye sockets of the skeleton were large enough for two people to stand side by side, and there were several deep grooves on the bone walls around the eye sockets.

The cervical vertebrae are like a string of giant stone rings, with each vertebra having outward-spreading wing-like bone plates, the ends of which are serrated.

The most terrifying part is the coccyx at the tail. That bone is flat and paddle-shaped, with five forks at the end, each fork bearing two rows of barbed bone spurs.

Just by looking at the size of the corpse and the shape of the bones, one can tell that it must have been an extremely powerful sea beast in life. I wonder what it went through to die on this deserted island.

Lan Wen reached out and gently touched the ice surface that covered the corpse. The moment his fingertips touched the ice, he jerked back as if bitten by a venomous snake.

"Such powerful icy erosion," he said, looking at the white frost that had instantly formed on his knuckles. "Ordinary creatures would probably be seriously injured if they touched it."

Upon hearing this, Gao De's eyes flickered slightly.

This is good news for him.

If the icy erosion is so intense even in the edge areas, then the ice cave must be of a very high grade, and may even produce fourth-grade icy erosion.

He also reached out and gently touched the ice.

Sure enough, a chilling aura, carrying a murderous intent, traveled along the contact surface between his fingers and the ice, sweeping over his entire body as if countless ice needles were traveling along his meridians.

However, with the [Intermediate Ice Protection Body], although the chill was terrifying, Gao De's expression did not change at all.

However, it's not entirely unscathed.

The skin on Gaode's arms turned bluish-black.

This is caused by the erosion of evil energy.

Although it looks terrifying, the evil energy does not actually harm the body. It targets the mind. Being in an environment surrounded by evil energy for a long time can easily make one irritable and mentally unstable.

However, both Gao De and Lan Wen possessed sufficiently high mental strength, so this bit of malevolent energy would not affect their will.

Gao De's reason for "testing the law with his own body" was certainly not just to verify the ice-fiend power that Lan Wen spoke of.
His magical power flowed, and orange-red flames suddenly rose from his fingertips.

The spell model was activated, flowing through the magical channels to the palm of the hand, and then a cone of scorching flames erupted forth.

【Burning Hand】.

The flames, carrying the scorching heat of sulfur and lava, sizzled and crackled the moment they touched the ice.

The flames surged across the ice like a tide, instantly revealing spiderweb-like cracks in the ice.

Ice shards instantly evaporate into white mist under the high temperature, forming a rolling steam cloud wrapped around the flames. You can vaguely see the frozen bubbles inside the ice layer bursting one after another under the scorching heat of the flames.

The outermost layer of solid ice melted into murky ice water at a visible speed, meandering down the grooves of the skull.

As the flames gradually subsided, the giant beast's skull, including the spiral horn in the center of its frontal bone, was completely exposed, shimmering with an eerie light in the remaining steam.

Ignoring the rising steam, Gaode placed his palm on the giant spiral horn.

The moment his palm touched the cold bone surface, pale golden runes appeared on his fingertips.

【Identification Techniques+】

The magical power within the wood magic crystal condensed from the "Azure Wood Longevity Scripture" in the magic pool continued to flow out, seeping into the texture of this huge spiral unicorn like a fine spider web.

A faint light began to gleam in Gao De's pupils.

The mana was being consumed, but there was still no corresponding feedback.

Faced with this situation, Gao De understood that it meant the giant beast's skeleton was of an extremely high level, and even [Appraisal+] could not easily obtain information about it.

—The higher the level of the extraordinary item, the more mana will be required to identify it.

One stripe, two stripes, ten stripes, eleven stripes, twenty stripes!
After consuming a third of his magical power, Gao De finally obtained some scattered pieces of information:

The fifth-order extraordinary material features a robust energy circuit, enabling rapid energy conduction and stable energy absorption enhanced by ice-based water elements.
Fifth-tier extraordinary materials!

Gaode noticed the key information first and was startled.

This means that the owner of this skeleton was actually a fifth-tier sea beast in life.

A fifth-tier sea beast actually died on this deserted island.

Did they die of old age or illness, or were they attacked by some terrifying being?

This is destined to remain an unsolved mystery.

Judging from the appearance of the remains and the traces of bone, it can be determined that it had been more than a thousand years since it died.

Trying to deduce what happened back then based on the current clues is impossible, at least given Gao De's current mage level and the spells he possesses. However, he doesn't really care what happened to the giant beast; it's not important to him.

The reason he went to such great lengths to thaw and test the ice was...

Rather, it's because, based on his knowledge of ley line creatures, those creatures with a single horn often have that horn as the core of their power, and it's also the most valuable part of their entire body.

The most typical example is the unicorn, which the elves regard as a symbol of purity.

The test results confirmed this.

The spiral unicorn contains immense power of water and ice elements. The spiral patterns on its surface are not merely decorations, but are actually naturally formed energy circuits with extremely strong energy conductivity and stability, which can enhance the spellcaster's spell release speed.

And perhaps because its own rank was high enough, or perhaps because the freezing slowed down the ravages and erosion of time, in any case, this spiral horn remained intact and as hard as iron.

Its shape, as well as its inherent sturdiness and energy circuits, all indicate that this unicorn horn is an excellent material for crafting a staff.

The main material of a fifth-tier staff is priceless.

They've only just arrived on the island, and haven't even seen Ice Fiend yet, but they've already picked up a fifth-tier extraordinary material for free. How can that not be considered a great start?
Gao De withdrew his hand and canceled the casting of [Appraisal+]: "Deputy Director Lan Wen, is there any way to remove this unicorn?"

Even if it's not the horn that forms the core of power, the bones of a fifth-tier sea beast are extremely sturdy. For a second-ring mage like him, obtaining the material would require a great deal of effort.

Therefore, Gao De decisively passed the problem to Lan Wen, who was standing aside.

Lan Wen did not disappoint him, nodding, "My king, leave it to me."

He stepped forward and placed his palm on the extremely fine area where the horn connected to the skull.

The next moment, magical energy surged from Lanwen's palm.

Third Ring Spell: [Disintegration]

Using the spell effect of [Disintegration], Lanwen gradually disassembled the connecting parts, just like untying a complex knot, to separate the horn from the skull.

With his exceptional mastery of magic, Lanwen was able to ensure that the magic of the [Disintegration Spell] would not spread to other parts of the horn, thus preserving its integrity.

The entire process requires extremely precise operation, and the unicorn is also large enough.

Therefore, even though Lan Wen was a fourth-circle mage, it still took him three or four minutes of complete concentration to peel the spiral horn completely off his skull.

"My King." Lan Wen presented the perfectly intact unicorn horn to Gao De as if it were a precious treasure.

Gao De nodded slightly, told Lan Wen to put the unicorn away, and then set off again, slowly making his way towards the ice cave in the center of the deserted island.

This island was larger than any other island Gaode had seen during the previous ten days of navigation, but it was equally desolate.

"My king, look!" Lan Wen had an extremely keen eye and quickly noticed some unusual signs.

It was a scratch mark on a stone wall, three in total, almost equally spaced, but only forty centimeters long, so it was not conspicuous.

Lan Wen was able to notice this for two reasons: firstly, he was a meticulous person, and secondly, he had been serving as the deputy director of the Phoenix Police Department for over a year, and the demands of his "professionalism" had made him increasingly adept at observation.

"It should be a claw mark. Judging from the direction, it was scratched from top to bottom. At this height and angle, it is most likely a bird-like creature from the earth veins," Lan Wen gave his judgment.

However, there are simply too many kinds of creatures living in the earth's veins, so Lanwen couldn't give an accurate answer as to what kind of creature left the traces.

“And this,” Gao De noticed a layer of gray, gelatinous substance on a protruding rock next to the claw marks, “like weathered saliva from a living organism.”

Compared to claw marks, the gel-like substance actually has a very limited lifespan, generally disappearing completely after a few months.

Now that they have been discovered, it means that there have been leyline creatures on this deserted island recently.

Both of them were extremely experienced mages and were aware of this.

After exchanging a glance, Gao De decided to pause and have Lan Wen protect him, as he needed to replenish the magical power he had used to appraise the spiral unicorn.

Lan Wen naturally had no objections.

Although the environment was simple, with the blessing of his Dharma Ninja Body, Gao De quickly entered a meditative state and began to recover his depleted mana.

After replenishing their depleted mana, Gao De and Lan Wen once again explored the location of the ice cave on the island.

Having discovered traces of ley line creatures on the island, both remained on high alert.

Gaode went to great lengths to display the Mandora's Eye throughout the entire process.

However, even after carefully making their way to the ice cave, the two still hadn't found any trace of life.

As a result, both of them thought they were being too cautious, and that the traces were most likely left by avian ley line creatures that had temporarily taken refuge on the deserted island, rather than by native creatures of the island.

After all, apart from an ice cave and that skeleton, the island was barren and lacked any material conditions for life to survive.

The closer you get to the ice cave, the colder the air becomes. The chill you inhale feels like it's carrying countless tiny ice needles, pricking your throat painfully.

When we were still dozens of steps away from the ice cave, a chilling aura swept over us, several times stronger than the one we had felt at the edge of the island.

The air around the ice cave was grayish-black, a malevolent aura that was intertwined and colliding with the extreme cold, producing a faint crackling sound.

The depression where the ice cave is located looks like a deep pit that has been cleaved open. The ice-gray rocks at the edges have been eroded into jagged edges, resembling the gaping maw of a giant beast full of fangs.

“This is a third-tier ice cave, but the concentration of malevolent energy indicates that it is transforming into a fourth-tier ice cave. It may become a fourth-tier ice cave in a few decades or a hundred years,” Lan Wen said solemnly.

Gao De nodded slightly.

This precisely illustrates that this ice cave has been untouched for a long time.

The ice energy within the ice cave has been left untouched for a long time, accumulating continuously, which is why the ice cave has been upgraded.

Gao De was about to enter the ice cave when he suddenly stopped.

Lan Wen noticed Gao De's pause and his expression changed accordingly.

"My king, what's wrong?"

"Something's up," Gaode looked around, finally focusing his gaze on the left.

Lan Wen followed his gaze, only to find that there was nothing in his field of vision.

"The oxygen level is off," Gao De said softly. "There are ley line creatures lurking there!"

In his perception, the oxygen content in the air there was decreasing drastically.

This is the super-strong oxygen content perception ability that the "Empty Body" bestows upon Gaode.

Even though Lanwen was a fourth-ring mage, his perception in this regard was not as good as Gaode's after the [Adaptive] evolution, so he was completely unaware.

But Lan Wen had absolute trust in Gaode.

So even though there was nothing in his line of sight, he didn't hesitate to activate the spell model after Gao De finished speaking.

The next moment, Lan Wen waved his right hand, and a rain of ice spikes poured down swiftly!
(End of this chapter)