Ian and Adrian continued along the wide road, the surroundings became more and more ancient and eerie, from time to time some collapsed stone pillars and badly weathered buildings appeared, and the air was filled with a thick and depressing atmosphere. The two also entered some buildings to explore, but both found nothing.
When the two passed by a plain and ordinary looking building, a system beep suddenly sounded in Ian's head:
[Detected the presence of an important item inside a nearby building, suggesting that the host go and explore it].
Ian stopped his steps and scrutinized the unremarkable building in front of him, frowning slightly, "Adrian, let's not go to the main building for the time being, this building seems to be hiding something important."
Adrian looked at him with slight confusion, "How do you know that? It doesn't even look like there's anything special here. We're not making another trip for nothing, are we?"
Ian smiled mysteriously and returned, "My intuition has always been accurate, go in and take a look. If there's really something good, I only need one thing, and the rest are all yours."
An excited look appeared on Adrian's face, "Alright, anyway, if you say so, let's go in and take a look."
The two quickly entered the interior of the building. Unlike the ordinary appearance outside, the interior was surprisingly a magnificent and mysterious altar, with the steps in the center extending upwards, and the surroundings covered with strange carvings and runes.
Adrian scanned the surroundings and said alertly, "Be careful, this kind of place is often full of danger."
Sure enough, just after stepping onto the steps of the altar, countless sharp arrows immediately shot out from the surrounding walls.
Adrian quickly released his Shadow power, forming a sturdy Shadow barrier that blocked all the arrows that came flying.
"It seems that these organs aren't too difficult to deal with." Adrian said smugly.
However, as they continued upwards, they found a huge stone door blocking the way, which was covered with complex runes. At the same time they felt as if their power was being suppressed, "It doesn't look like it can be opened with brute force." Adrian mused.
Ian took a closer look at the stone door and found that there were several rotatable discs in the center of the door, each of which had different symbols engraved on them. He pondered a little and said slowly, "It should be a combination code mechanism that can only be opened by finding the correct combination of runes."
Adrian frowned slightly, "These symbols look very old, how do we know the correct combination?"
Ian's eyes keenly scanned the surroundings and soon realized that there were many similar symbols on the walls on both sides of the altar. He walked to the walls and carefully observed them, an idea gradually coming to his mind.
"Look, there seems to be some sort of logical relationship between these symbols, with each symbol corresponding to an elemental characteristic, such as the four basic elements of water, fire, wind, and earth. If we follow the elemental patterns of the altar and combine them, we might be able to open the stone door."
Adrian nodded thoughtfully, "Let's try it then."
The two quickly spun the disk and arranged the symbols in the order of the elements, and soon spelled out the correct combination. With a dull thud, the huge stone door slowly opened, revealing the path behind it.
After entering the stone door, the two felt that their power had completely disappeared, except for their physical strength which was still there, there was no difference between them and an ordinary person, the two stopped and looked at each other, Adrian was the first to open his mouth, "Do we still need to continue, the power has been suppressed, even if a FLARE level mutant beast appeared in front of us, we wouldn't be able to deal with it. "
Ian gritted his teeth, "Continue! The bigger the wind and waves, the more expensive the fish! " Ian also wanted to know what would be the important item that could make the system put special emphasis on it.
Adrian didn't say anything more, as a qualified merchant, he naturally understood the reasoning of what Ian said, moreover, entering the relics was a risky act in itself, so he naturally didn't care about risking more.
Continuing forward, a new mechanism appeared in front of his eyes once again: the ground was covered with glowing squares, and every time he stepped on a square, it would trigger a trap on the nearby wall.
Adrian tentatively placed his foot gently on the square, and sure enough, several spikes immediately shot out from the wall. Adrian quickly retreated and dodged the attack, now that his supernatural abilities could not be used, he did not dare to use his body to harden against the attack.
"Looks like we have to find a way to go around." Adrian frowned.
Ian scrutinized for a moment and suddenly had a flash of light, "Have you noticed? These squares emit light of different strengths, perhaps stepping on the square with the weakest light won't trigger the mechanism."
Adrian looked skeptically and finally decided to trust Ian. He carefully stepped on a square with the weakest light, and sure enough, it didn't trigger the mechanism.
The two of them then carefully walked through the dangerous area in the order of light and darkness.
Finally, they arrived at the very center of the altar. On the platform in the center, an ancient and sharp lance, a set of gorgeous armor inlaid with jewels, and a seemingly unobtrusive broken pottery piece were quietly placed.
Adrian quickly walked forward in surprise, his gaze filled with excitement: ''Wealthy! The aura emanating from this lance is at least a Luminary-class weapon, and so is this armor! Ian what do you want?"
Ian listened to the system's voice in his head, quietly picked up the broken pottery piece and said softly, "All the others are yours, I'll take this one."
Adrian glanced at the pottery piece, his heart was full of doubts, he didn't think Ian was a fool, since Ian chose the pottery piece, it meant that this pottery piece must not be simple, but he didn't see any secrets in the pottery piece after looking at it for a while, so he said with full of concern, "This broken thing is for you, the lance and armor are the most valuable things." After saying that, he quickly put the lance and armor into his storage ring.
Ian looked at the pottery piece in his hand and was also puzzled as to why the system let him choose this insignificant thing, he asked the system and the system didn't tell him, it just said that he would find out later.
After completing the exploration of the altar, the two of them quickly left the building and once again set out on the road to the center building.
Adrian patted Ian's shoulder and said with hard-to-conceal joy, "This exploration was quite unexpectedly rewarding, it looks like we got lucky." So far, Adrian's harvest had made back all the resources he had spent during the defense of the City of Ashes.
"Yes, our harvest is already great, I'm sure there are more treasures waiting for us ahead."