105. Dark Valley

Ben repels the Wolves pack easily using his revolvers. The revolvers aren't enough to kill high-ranked creatures like them that have tough skin & fur. But the revolvers can injure them and scare them.

"Sigh, it seems I need to go by foot now. The car's noise must be the one that alert them and made them notice me. I can handle the continuous attacks of those weak creatures. But these high-ranked guys are troublesome and will get even more troublesome," says Ben.

Ben then takes his luggage from his car and puts a defense system to protect the car. He writes some magic letters to make a barrier around the car. It will protect the car from the magical creatures while he leaves it here.

Building a formation of Magic letters is easy for him. He has learned it since he started to make magic items. Developing magic also needs high mastery over Magic letters. With AI Chip's help, it becomes even easier.

After finishing the barrier, Ben leaves his car and follows the route. It will be slower now, but he can avoid contact with wild creatures easier now. He can hide his presence better and move stealthily.

On his way, Ben sees many creatures that are unique to this place. There are some that he knew from books, but the others are new. He scans them with AI Chip and watches them to learn a little about them.

Not only magical creatures, but Ben also find some new vegetation. He also scans them and even takes some samples like leaves or fruit. There's no big purpose like research, he just wants to collect them.

Ben even find some relics scattered in many places. Then, he finds village ruins in the deep mountains area. It piqued his interest because it's really strange for a village to be built here.

"How old are these ruins?" ponders Ben.

[Estimation: 450 years]

"Hmm, the Age of Dragons, huh? Maybe they built it here to hide from the Dragons. But they still got destroyed in the end. Still, it is strange. Why would they build a village here while there are Kingdoms that could protect them? There should be a reason and it might have a connection with my purpose to come here," ponders Ben.

Ben checks the ruins using his gravity magic's help. He lifts the ruins to make his investigation easier. He doesn't find many things because these ruins are too old and the items here have been destroyed by age.

What Ben finds are many broken metal weapons, living tools, and even magic items. All of those items are in broken conditions because of time & whatever it was that destroyed this village.

Ben can't guess the magic items' functions, even the ones that still look quite good. Their shapes are very different from the current magic items. If they still can be used, then maybe he can test them to know the Ancient Magic Items.

"There are many Magic Items here. That means the people who lived here in the past are Mages, at least most of them. Why'd they lived here of all places? Hmm, maybe there's something that can draw Mages to live here," ponders Ben.

Like before, Ben scans the Magic Items using AI Chip's scanning ability. He is interested in these Magic Items and maybe he'll try to rebuild them in the future to know their functions. These Magic Items can be seen like Lost or Ancient Magic, so they're worth some research.

He resumes his journey because he doesn't find anything else here. This location has been marked by AI Chip, so he can return after finishing his mission. He also wants to investigate this place more thoroughly.

It takes Ben 3 hours to reach the Valley between Mt. Aires & Mt. Marnia. It doesn't have a name on the map, so he will just call it Dark Valley because he comes here to find 'The Dark Sun'. But that's not the only reason though.

"What the hell is this? Such a contrast scenery," says Ben with a rather surprised tone.

In front of Ben is a span of burnt land. The ground is charred with thin smokes coming out of it. There's no vegetation & living being, only charred tree trunks. The temperature is also high even before Ben enters it.

It looks very contrast with the surrounding area that has the green luster of trees & grass. While the valley looks like a forest that was burnt this morning. This location seems like the border of hell and heaven.

"No wonder I didn't see any creatures when I got closer to this place. The temperature here is too hot and it has a bad eerie vibe. Hmm, it looks like a location of horror games," says Ben while looking around.

Ben enters the Dark Valley and feels the temperature rise significantly. Previously on the border, it was still warm, but now it feels very hot. AI Chip detects the temperature is 78 Celcius, a hot water temperature.

Luckily, it's not a problem for Ben who is a Sun Dragon Slayer. Heat is one of his power and he has immunity against it. He can even hold against more than 4000 Celcius heat now, so 78 Celcius is not a problem.

Ben checks the charred ground & tree trunks. They're really burnt into charcoal and they're still hot. The tree trunks break easily because they're just charcoal. Some parts of the trees have even turned into ashes.

As he walks further, the temperature keeps rising fast. Ben thinks that the center of this place must be the hottest area. The number of charred trees also reduced because many of them had been burnt to ashes.

After walking for 5 km in the Dark Valley, Ben finds a human skeleton. It looks like a man's skeleton that has a big & tall figure. It also wears magic armor, but Ben can see that the quality is low.

Ben can't guess the man's death time because the skeleton's condition is bad. It has charred a bit because of the exposure to the heat. The magic armor also has been destroyed to a high degree.

This place's temperature is 500 Celcius, 5 times higher than the outer area. The deeper area should be even hotter and Ben doesn't know the peak temperature in this Valley.

"Did this guy also try to find the same thing as me? Hmm, if so, then maybe this armor has heat resistance & heat repellent features. But it seems 500 Celcius was too much already for his cheap magic armor. Or maybe it's a defected item, poor guy," says Ben while investigating the skeleton.

Ben doesn't find anything else from the skeleton. Maybe someone else has taken it in the past. If there's this guy who came here, there must be the others too.

"I hope no one succeeds so far or this will be a useless journey," says Ben while leaving the skeleton.

There are more skeletons on his way to the location. The skeletons have similar conditions to the first one. All of them seem to died because they couldn't bear the heat.

For those guys, this place is like hell, but for Ben, it's just a playground. The heat that killed them doesn't affect him at all, even after it reached 1000 Celcius. The ground here has turned red like hot metal instead of black like charcoal.

Luckily, Ben's clothes are specially made to survive high temperatures, so he won't get naked because his clothes won't burn or melt. They won't repel heat, but they can survive up to 5000 Celcius. They're made because of Ben's high-temperature Magic.

3 hours after he entered the Dark Valley, Ben finally find the target location. It is located in the center of this Dark Valley and has a temperature of 2000 Celcius. He is stunned when he sees the thing that he has searching for this long.

There are many human skeletons in this place, but that's not the thing that shocked him. It's because the thing that he's looking for is a Black Stone Coffin that's placed on a stone table. He can feel the heat that spread on this area coming from this Coffin or to be more precise, the thing inside this coffin.

"Is this truly the reason why everyone here came? Just what is inside this coffin?" ponders Ben while walking closer to the coffin.

Ben approaches the Coffin and sees some writings on the sides of the stone table. He read the writings and what he read shocked him to the bones.

"Fucking hell."

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