I became a god through archaeology in the Wizarding World.

The Royal College's underground storage facility is located at the deepest part of the History Department building.

There was no soft glow from the magic lamps here, only the dim, tar-smelling light from a few oil-burning brass wall lamps.

The air was filled with the smells of rotting old paper and moldy wood, as well as the scent of dust that had accumulated over decades.

Rod Griffin stood in front of a row of rickety wooden shelves, holding a stained linen cloth and wiping a chipped earthenware pot.

He was wearing a uniform issued by the college to non-staff members; the gray linen robe was faded from washing, and the cuffs were badly worn.

He has been in this world for three months.

In his previous life, as a clinical surgeon, Rhodes was accustomed to the precision and cleanliness under the operating lights.

Now, he has to tidy up these mortal antiques, which the wizarding lords consider trash, in this moldy basement for a monthly salary of three silver coins.

This is the Royal Academy of the Plantagenet Dynasty, a sacred place in the eyes of mortals and a cradle in the eyes of wizards.

But for Rhodes, an ordinary person who showed no elemental affinity and whose mental strength was mediocre, this place was just a factory with a strict hierarchy.

His current position is a temporary teaching assistant in the history department. In reality, he is just a laborer responsible for moving, cleaning, and sorting miscellaneous items.

Rhodes put down the pottery jar, picked up the quill pen, and wrote in the register beside him: Mid-Third Era, mortal city-state, clay container, damaged, no magical reaction, extremely low value.

The heavy oak door was pushed open roughly, the hinges making a harsh scraping sound.

A deliberately whipped-up gust of wind dispersed the accumulated dust at the doorway, forcing Rod to squint.

A young man wearing a silk robe walked in.

He wore a badge on his chest with a simple mage's hand engraved on it.

The visitor was Kane, a senior wizard apprentice and the apprentice in charge of logistics and supplies.

Kane waved his hand in disgust in front of his nose, even though he had just cast a level 0 cleaning spell on himself to keep the dust away from his body.

"Rhodes, the cleanup progress for this batch is too slow."

Kane's voice was shrill, carrying a haughty arrogance: "Professor Isaac applied for the warehouse cleanup task, and the plan was to clear this area today. Look what you've done? Still messing around with this worthless junk."

Rod put down his quill, turned around, and his face remained expressionless.

He knew Kane wasn't really concerned about the progress; the guy just had a habit of showing off his insignificant sense of superiority in front of ordinary people.

"Manager Kane, this area has been piled up with debris for seventy years."

Rhodes' voice was steady as he pointed to the mountain of wooden crates behind him: "According to regulations, every item must be registered to prevent any items that might carry ancient curses from being overlooked. This is for the safety of the academy."

"Safety?"

Kane sneered and casually picked up a dusty, fist-sized stone from the shelf beside him: "This? Waste material that mortals use to build houses? If there were really cursed items here, a mortal like you would have died a hundred times over."

He toyed with the stone, a hint of malice flashing in his eyes: "I think you're just slacking off. According to the academy's rules, inefficient temporary workers have their monthly performance bonus deducted, and half of your salary will be taken away this month."

Half his salary means that Rhodes won't even be able to afford a black bread next month, let alone save up to buy the expensive "Basic Spiritual Training Method" on the black market.

Rhodes stared at the stone in Kane's hand, his gaze sharpening slightly: "That's not scrap."

"This is just a rock."

Kane said dismissively, making a gesture as if to throw it into the nearby waste basket: "It has no magical fluctuations, and it hasn't even been polished."

"Those are biological nodules unearthed from the red soil layer during the late Tertiary period."

Rode spoke slowly, but his voice rose slightly: "Although it doesn't have a magical reaction, according to Professor Isaac's article 'Geological Changes and Magical Tides' published last week, these nodules usually appear on the edges of ancient battlefield ruins. If you throw it away like trash and the professor finds that specimen number one is missing when he comes to inspect it, I'm not sure he'll write a note on your evaluation form."

Kane's hand froze in mid-air.

He was just a senior apprentice, spending most of his time practicing those pitiful tricks and currying favor with his mentor, and never bothered to read Professor Isaac's papers.

Even though Isaac was just a mortal, he was still a tenured professor hired by the college and had the right to submit reports to the academic affairs office.

For apprentices, any negative feedback from their professors can affect their eligibility for promotion or access to resources.

Kane wasn't sure if Rhodes was telling the truth, but he didn't dare gamble.

He looked at the ugly stone in his hand, then at Rod's calm, almost indifferent black eyes.

"snort."

Kane withdrew his hand and slammed the stone heavily on the table in front of Rhodes, kicking up a cloud of dust. "Consider yourself lucky; you know some useless, dead knowledge. But don't think that's all. If these shelves aren't cleared by sunset tomorrow, you're packing your bags and getting out of the academy."

After saying that, Kane turned and left, the hem of his robe sweeping across the ground.

The basement fell silent again once more after the heavy wooden door closed once more.

Rhodes stood still, showing neither anger nor fear despite the earlier conflict.

Anger is the excuse of the incompetent, and fear can cloud judgment.

He knew very well that he had only temporarily fooled Kane by exploiting the information gap.

In this wizarding world where strength reigns supreme, knowledge without the support of power remains nothing more than a castle in the air.

Rhodes lowered his head, his gaze falling on the stone that Kane had slammed onto the table.

He wasn't completely lying just now; it was indeed not an ordinary stone, but it was definitely not some kind of biological tuberculosis either.

He noticed this object while tidying it up. Its texture was denser than the surrounding rocks, and although its surface was rough, it had a vaguely unnatural pattern.

Rod reached out and picked up the gray stone.

He took out a small steel chisel and a stiff brush from the tool bag at his waist.

This was a habit he retained from his previous life as a surgeon: no matter what he was dealing with, his hands had to be steady.

He began cleaning the years of accumulated grime from the stone's surface.

As the dust was gradually brushed away, the original color of the stone was revealed.

It was a deep, metallic grayish-brown.

In the dim light, it didn't look like a stone, but rather like a piece of dried, petrified flesh.

Rod carefully removed the mud and sand from the crevices with his pick.

Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his finger.

The knife slipped, and an extremely sharp protrusion on the edge of the stone cut his index finger.

Bright red blood gushed out instantly, dripping onto the grayish-brown stone surface.

Rod frowned, preparing to put down the stone to treat his wound.

An anomaly has occurred.

The drop of blood that fell on the stone did not slide off; instead, it was absorbed by the stone instantly, like water seeping into a sponge.

Immediately afterwards, a hot, warm current flowed back up from Rhodes' injured finger, surged wildly up the nerves in his arm, and rushed straight to his brain.

Rod felt a sudden darkness engulf his vision, and his body staggered backward two steps uncontrollably before he managed to grab the shelf behind him to avoid falling.

There was no loud sound, nor any dazzling light.

Deep within his consciousness, in a void of darkness, a thick, dusty ancient book slowly emerged.

The book cover was made of some kind of unidentified leather, covered with mottled wear marks.

At the center of the cover is a relief sculpture depicting countless twisted and bizarre creatures that have long since disappeared from this era. They are intertwined and roaring, as if they are about to burst out of the book cover.

Species Atlas

An ancient script was immediately imprinted in Rhodes' mind. He had never learned this script before, but he instantly understood its meaning.

By extracting the genes of the species, we can obtain its capabilities.

Rhodes' breathing became rapid.

As a time traveler, he had always hoped for some kind of turning point, but he never expected that turning point would come so suddenly and so strangely.

In my mind, the ancient book moved without wind, its heavy pages slowly turning.

The first few pages were blank until I turned to the first page.

As the warm current flowed in, ink lines began to appear on the originally blank parchment.

The lines were drawn rapidly, eventually forming a lifelike anatomical diagram.

It was a creature that resembled a lizard, but whose body was covered with a thick, rocky shell.

Its limbs are short and powerful, its claws are sharp as hooks, and its eyes have degenerated into two slits.

[Species Included: Stone-skinned Ground Lizard]

[Status: Extinct (Ancient Low-Level Creature)]

[Completeness: 12% (only petrified skin fragments obtained)]

[Description: Cave-dwelling creatures living deep underground in the Third Era, feeding on minerals. Their skin has evolved over a long period, becoming one with granite, giving them extremely high physical defense.]

Below the text, a complex pattern emerged, resembling a tattoo of a broken rock.

[Extractable Feature: Petrified Skin (Fragmented)]

【Whether to extract? 】

Rhodes suddenly opened his eyes, his consciousness returning to the underground warehouse in reality.

He was panting heavily, his linen robe soaked with sweat.

He looked at his right hand, where the grayish-brown stone had turned into a pile of dull, grayish-white powder, which slid through his fingers.

Everything that just happened was not an illusion.

Rod stared at the remaining powder in his hand, his heart pounding.

He could feel that the book was still floating in his mind, and the extraction option was waiting for his confirmation.

In this world full of magic and danger, mortals are as insignificant as ants.

Even an apprentice like Kane, who only knew a few tricks, could decide his fate at will.

If he wants to survive and take control of his own destiny, he must seize every opportunity.

"extract."

Rhodes silently recited this in his mind.

A sharp pain suddenly erupted from my heart, spreading through my blood vessels to the skin all over my body.

The feeling was like countless tiny grains of sand rubbing under the skin, or like being thrown into scalding lava.

Rod gritted his teeth and gripped the corner of the table tightly.

He didn't scream; his yearning for extraordinary power gave him superhuman endurance.

The pain lasted for about ten seconds, then subsided like a receding tide.

Instead, there was an unprecedented sense of solidity.

Rod raised his right hand and observed in the dim light.

On the surface, his skin didn't seem to have changed much; it was still the same pale color that comes from not seeing the sun for a long time.

But he could sense the difference.

A thought crossed my mind.

The skin on his right hand instantly developed a grayish-white sheen, and the original soft touch disappeared, replaced by a rock-like roughness and hardness. The texture of the skin became deep, like the cut surface of granite.

Rod looked at the steel scraper on the table, which was used to remove dirt.

He stretched out his grayish-white right hand, grasped the blade of the razor, and squeezed it tightly.

There was no feeling of being cut; instead, the steel in my hand groaned under the strain.

Rod released his hand.

The steel-forged razor blade was bent and deformed, with several clear fingerprints on it.

Not even a white mark was left on his palm.

Is this extraordinary power?

Although it's just the most basic physical enhancement, without any dazzling magical effects, it's already a qualitative leap for a mortal.

Rhodes took a deep breath, controlled his mind, and the grayish-white color on his right hand quickly faded, returning it to its original appearance.

However, that sense of power still lurks beneath the skin.

He glanced at the stone dust on the ground, picked up a broom, swept it clean, and dumped it into the trash can.

Then, he picked up his quill pen again and drew an inconspicuous strikethrough after the entry for the stone in the register, writing in the remarks column: "After secondary identification, it has been confirmed as ordinary sedimentary rock and has been disposed of as waste."

Having done all this, Rod closed the register and blew out the wall lamp.

Darkness enveloped the underground warehouse, but Rhodes' eyes shone exceptionally brightly in the darkness.

Kane said the place needs to be cleared out before sunset tomorrow.

"Then let's clear it out."

Rhodes spoke softly into the darkness.

Since a fossil of a stone-skinned ground lizard can be found here, perhaps even more valuable things are buried among the mountains of mortal garbage forgotten by wizards.

Having tasted success, Rhodes worked extra hard in the subsequent cleaning, but Lady Luck did not smile upon him again.

After cleaning up, Rod shook his head, stopped thinking about it, and pushed open the warehouse door to walk out.