This plain-looking stone was a teleport stone that could send a person to the Tower of Fate — at the very center of the Lost Continent — in an instant.

In its day the Tower of Fate had held down the terrible Eight Demon Kings and a host of savage demon beasts, which made it the first forbidden ground of the Lost Continent to begin with. And after the upheaval three years ago it had become a forbidden ground among forbidden grounds — the guard stationed there had been multiplied several times over, and no one was allowed in at all.

Yet this stone could ignore every barrier and slip past every force set in its way, delivering a person directly into the Tower’s interior. According to the village chief of Novice Village No. 60001, Wuming — acknowledged as the strongest human being on the Lost Continent — was the only one ever allowed inside, and in the end even he had come away with nothing.

And now, of all people, it was Ye Tianxie who could walk right into the Tower of Fate.

As the War God’s departed spirit had said, this was a forbidden thing that must not fall into anyone else’s hands, and by rights it should have gone on sleeping in this earth after the War God died, and never surfaced again. But one impossible event had set off a chain of consequences that should never have followed. And so the Tower of Fate Teleport Stone had come into the world, and into Ye Tianxie’s hands.

“The Tower of Fate Teleport Stone… the things sealed inside the Tower of Fate are the most terrible demons there are. Why give this to me?” Ye Tianxie closed his hand tight around the stone and asked.

The War God’s departed spirit answered him in a voice full of expectation. “The power of the Hour of Fate is immense. With that power in place, the Eight Demon Kings should never have been able to break the seal on the Tower of Fate. There has to be more to it than anyone knows. What I hope is that on the day you are strong enough, you will climb the Tower of Fate yourself and find out what happened inside it. The Tower of Fate is the core tower of the Lost Continent. It carries the faith of countless people, and it is the tower that seals the demons in, and without it they cannot be held at all. It must not be destroyed, and still less can it be allowed to fall — the consequences would be beyond imagining. I hope you can uncover why the seal was broken open, and put a stop to the disaster at its root.”

Ye Tianxie was silent for a while… The reason the Tower’s seal had been broken open was, in fact, about as simple as it could get. The strongest sealing force of all, the Hour of Fate, had vanished from the top of the tower… vanished into his own hands. But the War God had plainly never laid eyes on the Hour of Fate — or rather, nobody ever had, because what he was holding at this very moment was the Hour of Fate… only with six of its Fate Cores missing.

For that matter, he wanted just as badly to know what had happened inside the Tower of Fate, and why the Hour of Fate had turned up at his side.

“You know better than most people alive how dangerous and terrible it is inside that tower. What makes you think I’m the one who can find an answer nobody has found yet?” Ye Tianxie raised his head and asked.

“Because even the class power of my own ‘Soul of Guardianship’ could be rejected by your instincts. The strength hidden in you goes far beyond any prodigy I have ever heard of. When the day comes that you are strong enough, you will be standing on a peak others could not reach in a whole lifetime of climbing. So you can do it. You certainly can.”

“All right.” Ye Tianxie asked nothing more. This was, after all, a monstrously powerful item that had no business being in a player’s hands. Apart from being quietly thrilled, what reason did he have to refuse? “In that case, I’ll do everything I can. I won’t disappoint you.”

“…Thank you for granting me this.” The War God’s departed spirit sounded glad. “Before the last of my consciousness scatters, I would ask you for one final favor…”

The white light that had appeared before began to rise again, gathering swiftly into a silver shield. The War God’s departed spirit put out that half-transparent, ghostly hand and cupped the silver shield in it. At once the silver shield melted into his hand as though turning to fog, and thinned slowly away like mist over water… and in its place a silver scroll took shape between his fingers.

He pushed with that hand, and the silver scroll drifted slowly forward and came down in front of Ye Tianxie, who reached out and took it.

“This is the scroll that seals my power… Since you cannot carry that power yourself, then I hope you will give it to whoever it suits best. I trust your eye. Whoever you choose will not disgrace this guarding power of mine,” the War God’s departed spirit said. His voice was noticeably fading now. With the power gone out of him, his departed spirit had lost what was holding it together, and it could scatter completely at any moment.

Class Scroll — Soul of Guardianship: A class scroll sealing the power of the “Soul of Guardianship.” On use, grants the class “Soul of Guardianship,” built primarily on powerful defense and the power to guard.

A class-change scroll for a hidden class. The Soul of Guardianship had not come to rest on him — but in the end it had come to rest in his hands all the same. Ye Tianxie put the scroll back into his pack — the kind of scroll that would drive any player in the world out of his mind — and its destination was already decided.

Keep it in the family; never mind whether the man he picked would shame the War God’s name or not. This scroll would naturally go to Zuo Pojun, who had chosen a guarding class.

And at the same time another thought came to him, quietly. If even a hidden class could reject him, then what on earth was the second class his body would take? Was it possible that the only class his body would ever suit was Rebel-Boned Evil Dragon?

“Go in peace. I’ll see that it reaches the person it suits best,” Ye Tianxie said plainly.

“Thank you… And this partner who has been at my side all along… give it to him as well. Let him guard this land I cannot bear to leave, in my place.”

An old shield with a faint gold cast floated up off the ground and was carried into Ye Tianxie’s hands. This was the very shield the War God’s departed spirit had carried in the fight.

Samsara Ward: Grade unknown. Requirements for use: a defensive class, Strength above 100. Seven hundred years ago a pitch-black meteorite fell out of the sky into the north of the Lost Continent. Perhaps it was the will of heaven that guided it, for the black meteorite came down at the place where Tie Wuya — the strongest Divine Mystery-grade forging master of that age — lived in seclusion. He took it, and refined from it a special metal with a strange power in it, which he named “Black Gold.” Its toughness surpassed every substance known on the Lost Continent, and that decided what would become of it. Tie Wuya spent thirteen years on it. He offered the blood of a thousand beasts in sacrifice, and melted into it the guarding power of several hundred mighty shields that he had spared nothing to get hold of, and in the end he forged the strongest shield of all and named it “Samsara Ward.” Once Samsara Ward came into the world, people called it the strongest shield there was, one with the power to hold back heaven itself. Later it passed to the Emperor of the City of the Lost, who granted it to the strongest guarding warrior of every generation.

Eighty years ago, Samsara Ward fell silent in the Ten Thousand Bone Ruins along with the death of its master, Zhan Wugui. Surrounded and eaten away by the dark power of the undead, its own power gradually hid itself away and went dormant.

Attributes: Defense +50, Strength +1, Vitality +1, Block rate +2%.

A shield with nothing remarkable about it at all. Its face was clouded over with a dark cast, yet it was smooth, without the faintest trace of a pattern. And this shield — plain in every way except for how very wide it was — was the strongest shield of all, the one they said could hold back heaven. It was only a pity…

“Decades of silence. To keep its power from scattering, it chose to sleep. Only the legendary Water of Life can bring back the power that belongs to it. If it can be done, I hope that one day you will find the Water of Life and restore this partner I have held as dear as my own life… And now — farewell.”

With that last sentence spoken, the War God’s departed spirit could hold itself together no longer. Without waiting for Ye Tianxie’s answer, it dispersed slowly under his gaze, like mist off water… and was gone.

Quiet settled over the place again. Only the wind, carrying its smell of rot, let out a thin whistle now and then.

The shield in his hands was a good half-meter across and nearly a meter tall; held up in front of him, it covered half his body. And it was so much like the two Heaven-Severing items he already carried — the Holy Dragon’s Fang and the Demon Dragon’s Fang. All of them had gone silent too long and had put their power to sleep to protect themselves. And waking any of them took the same thing: the Water of Life.

Ye Tianxie put the shield away and took one last look at the Ten Thousand Bone Ruins… because once he left, there would be next to no chance of ever setting foot here again. He gathered Yaoyao up in his arms and said softly, “Yaoyao, I owe this one to you.”

Come to think of it, this was only the second time he had formally called Yaoyao out to fight. Its attributes were so feeble that in a battle he would leave it out of the fight without even thinking about it. The first time had been at the Ice-Severed Wolf Den, where the environment left him no choice but to lean on its healing — and it was in that fight that Yaoyao’s power had suddenly surged and pulled them out of danger. Today was the second… and once again it had used that power of its own to work a miracle nobody could have believed. And it had brought Ye Tianxie a haul that could fairly be called enormous.

He understood clearly now what he had not before: he had been letting Yaoyao’s attributes blind him to how strong it was… This was the Mystic Spirit Snow Fox, the creature that even the mightiest Dragon God of that age had been wary of. Low numbers could not hide an edge that sharp.

Ye Tianxie opened his pack and called out the thing he had been dying to get a proper look at. One of the seven great hidden ultimate items of the World of Fate — the Wishing Glaze.

What appeared in his hand was a crystal sphere no bigger than a fingernail, a colored crystal giving off a dreamlike, glaze-colored light.

The Wishing Glaze: One of the seven great hidden ultimate items of the World of Fate. Origins unknown. How it came to exist, unknown.

There has always been a beautiful legend told on the Lost Continent. It tells of a Wishing Lake straight out of myth, somewhere on the soil of the Lost Continent, and of an emerald Wishing Tree growing at its edge. They do not exist in any one place; like weeds drifting on water they have no fixed home, and nobody knows where they will appear next. And it is said that if you can just find the Wishing Lake, water the Wishing Tree with the lake’s water, then stand before the Wishing Tree holding the Wishing Glaze in your hand, close your eyes, and make a wish with the sincerest heart you have, the Wishing Tree will hear the wish in your heart — and in the near future, it will make it come true.

Ye Tianxie: “……”

Holding that small, delicate glaze bead in his hand, Ye Tianxie was utterly stunned… To grant a person’s wish. The World of Fate actually had an item like this… an item that was completely unbelievable!!

(End of Chapter 221)