Upon stepping onto the island, Simon was greeted with yet another system notification.

[Entered F-Tier Ruin. Objective: Solve the mystery of the Eternal Fiend Tribe. Time remaining: 23:59:59]

Hearing this system notification, he nodded with a light grin. ‘Very well. I’ll see exactly what this ruin has to offer.’

Simon first planned to explore the perimeter of the island before deciding on his next course of action. Doing so would allow him to better gauge the situation on the ruin, after all.

And so, he ran along the edge of the island, quickly becoming a blur.

Woosh!

At this moment, he was running faster than any human could possibly sprint. And yet, he was easily still able to take note of his surroundings. After all, he had finally begun applying enchantments of all sectors to himself at all times, boosting both his physique and mental capacity.

...

Thirty minutes later...

Simon was currently running along the edge of the island, swift as the wind, and as naturally as a panther. The scenery around him continuously flashed by as he made his way through the perimeter of the island.

Suddenly, Simon came to an abrupt halt, having reached his original position on the island.

‘Whew!’

He paused to catch his breath.

Running that fast was not exactly an easy endeavor. The circumference of the island must have been a few dozen kilometers in length after all.

However, it was not exactly unbearable for him, as his physical body was already much stronger than when he first joined Island Ascension Online. Combined with his abundance of consumables, he naturally had no issues.

Of course, there was also the occasional beast that impeded his way. But with just a flick of a finger, they would be taken care of.

These beasts had the equivalent strength of wild animals in the real world. However, due to their low strengths, none of them dropped a monster core - but that was only to be expected.

After all, the beasts on the perimeter of the island were the weakest, while the ones in the core were more formidable; naturally, as one got closer to the middle of the island, the odds of obtaining a monster core only rose!

Meanwhile, from Simon’s observations, the entire island consisted of trees and foliage, with nothing notable along the outskirts of the island. Thus, he concluded that it wasn’t really worth exploring the perimeter of the island at all; the real treasures likely resided in the depths of the jungle!

‘Alright then, I’ll go investigate this village first. Then, I’ll make my way inland.’ Simon decided whilst observing the ruins of a village that were nearby.

And so, he quickly made his way through the jungle and up to the village.

When he stepped foot into the village, Simon was met with the sight of the sun’s rays of light penetrating through the sporadic gaps of the trees overhead, covering the ancient village with a trace of illumination.

The huts in this village were most likely originally made of wood and stone, but it was hard to see under the thick foliage. They were also dilapidated beyond compare; most of them lacked entire roofs, while sections of rot and an abundance of rubble were universal features among these huts.

Simon promptly entered the building that was closest to him, ducking beneath some vines to enter.

This particular hut was rather small with dimensions of 3x2 meters. The interior was overgrown, with plants, vines, and various species of fungus growing in the corners. As one would expect, it had an earthy and ‘wet’ smell, reminiscent of moss and soil.

Not to mention, this hut was even already occupied. A menacing snake the thickness of Simon’s thighs bared its fangs at him from a corner of the room while tensing its muscles.

Hiss!

It immediately darted towards him!

Boom!

With a quick slap, the snake’s head was crushed into oblivion, quickly becoming a bloody pulp. Before its body could hit the ground, it was already dead.

[+15 xp]

[+15 slapping xp]

‘Just a little worm.’ Simon scoffed.

After checking fruitlessly for a monster core, he sighed and began to investigate the hut itself, brushing aside the dirt and foliage to reveal what was underneath.

Eventually...

‘Did I just find one?’ Simon thought in surprise, when he uncovered a cracked, crimson pendant that was hidden beneath a slab of stone. He quickly scooped it up and at the same time, a system notification rang in his ears.

[Detecting the presence of an artifact. Grade: E+. Rewarding 80 [Ancient Shards]]

‘E+ tier, not bad at all!’ he couldn’t help but think, whilst holding up the pendant.

The crimson pendant was extremely damaged and yet, it was still considered to be an E+ artifact by the system.

He had heard from his island members that any ranked artifacts - even F tier ones, were quite valuable. Let alone ones on the verge of becoming D tier artifacts… In terms of gold, it would probably be worth at least 10 coins.

This pendant exuded a faint aura of bloodlust and fierceness. After inspecting it for a moment, Simon promptly stored it in his bag before departing from the building.

‘It’s not bad for sure; it helps a warrior unleash more of their potential for a short period of time.’

But then he shook his head. ‘Unfortunately, it’s damaged to the point of being unusable, so there's no point in keeping it. I should just sell it off’

Simon was highly proficient in many things such as arrays, combat, and research.

However, he was not omniscient; in the subject of magical artifacts and forging, he was helplessly inept. As a result, he did not possess the capabilities to fix the artifact at all.

Simon then continued on, clearing out the buildings one by one, collecting clues in the process.

The second building…

The third…

The fourth…

As he connected clues together, the history of the ruins became increasingly apparent.

These villagers were highly proficient in sinister magic, such as refining blood and worshipping evil gods to draw upon their power, as well as other similar practices.

However, it seemed that a catastrophe of sorts forced these native villagers to evacuate in a hurry.

They were definitely a strong group of people in terms of power, with many figures comparable to first or second star core mages in their ranks! Naturally, something that caused them to escape so hurriedly must have been a truly horrifying catastrophe.

-----

Meanwhile, at about this time, a shocking piece of information began to surface on the worldwide web...

P1: {Screenshots of a post by the fastest leveler in Island Ascension Online have been propagating recently. They called themselves the owner of the Soaring Celestial Realm, Pro Farmer 69, and they already made the first forum post on the official Island Ascension Online Forums.}

P2: {Oh sh*t, I just saw that. So they are planning on opening up their island sometime? Haha, I’ll definitely be the first in line!}

P3: {Wow, that’s the first time that this figure has revealed anything about themselves. How mysterious… It does make me curious though.}

P4: {No matter how OP this guy is, I refuse to believe that he will be able to open a teleportation array on his island anytime soon! Doing so requires one’s island to be level 15 and to have a C tier security rating by the system. Even for a legend, that should take at least a few months!}

P5: {Who knows? Maybe what happened recently was just the start! But you definitely have a point, it will not be easy.}

By now, a sufficient enough number of players had managed to reach level 3 and unlock the forums. As a result, Simon’s forum post was rapidly gaining traction.

‘It seems that it is fulfilling its purpose flawlessly.’ Simon thought helplessly.

This time, he was painfully aware, as notifications kept spamming his inbox which made a constant BRRRR sound... So he had long since disabled all notifications.

One after another, the buildings in the village were cleared out by Simon, who shook his head upon finishing.

“It seems like that first artifact was just a fluke. After clearing another forty buildings, I only managed to get another F- and F tier artifact.” he muttered to himself, feeling that he was rather unfortunate.

Though, if any experienced ruin raider heard his mutterings, they would certainly be tempted to give him a piece of their mind! After all, one would be considered lucky to even find a few artifacts in an entire run, let alone one a few tiers above the ruin...

Whatever the case, there were plenty more mysteries to explore in these vast ruins, so he didn’t linger on this any further.

And so, Simon continued to wander off deeper into the jungle, looting whatever he came across.

-----

Sometime later, the sun was starting to lower beneath the horizon of Island Ascension Online.

Woosh!

The rustle of leaves and the cracking of branches could be heard as Simon dashed through the dense jungle near the core of the island, launching through vines, and bursting through beasts.

In these past hours, Simon had run into a total of four villages and two altars.

The villages were for the most part, hazardless, while the altars were similarly nothing threatening.

However, engraved upon these altars were a series of disturbing and profound imagery depicting the rituals which once took place. Moreover, along with these inscriptions, the altars actually contained a dense aura of suffering and pain.

If he were an evil magic practitioner, he may have benefited from this trip greatly by absorbing the turbid energy present within the altars. Unfortunately, he had never touched evil techniques, and was therefore incompatible with such energies.

In any case, Simon had looted the sacrificial tools that were hidden within these two altars, which were made of a valuable material called the Baleful Blood Jade. So thankfully, he had ultimately made some gains from running into the altars.

It does have to be known that if one had a weak mind and tried to loot this ruin, they might have been deterred by the aura of altars. But Simon, a man who had endured two lives, was naturally not fazed in the slightest.

Woosh!

As Simon sent another beast flying, he frowned. ‘Where is the supposed secret of this ruin?’

All of his collective clues so far had led him to this area of the jungle, which he was promptly exploring. Though he had yet to find anything here, he was confident that something was in this general area, but it sure was taking a while.

-----

Soon, several hours passed and the sun had long since set.

While monotonously traversing the jungle, Simon suddenly felt a strange, yet faint pulse of energy.

‘Oh?’ he turned his head sharply to the west, where the wave of energy originated from.

Woosh!

He quickly made his way to the rough location of the pulse of energy and investigated the general area with vigor.

This area was a particularly dense part of the jungle, where the trees were considerably larger than the ones in the perimeter. But other than that, there seemed to be nothing worthy of notice here.

Still, Simon was sure that there was something hidden in the area! After all, the pulse had to come from somewhere. He refused to believe that the pulse had nothing to do with the ruin’s biggest secret.

Sure enough, he eventually managed to find a hidden hole in the ground that was covered with a rusted metal trapdoor.

‘Took long enough!’ he thought with a relieved sigh.

Boom!

After he ripped off the metal door, an overwhelmingly thick scent of blood, rust, and rot emerged from within.

‘Putrid!’

He immediately covered his nose and purified the air around his face. Afterwards, he cautiously peered down the corridor.

The square shaped passageway was about one meter in diameter and a rusty ladder that led downwards into the seemingly endless darkness was attached to the tunnel. Meanwhile, a thick aura of despair and lunacy emanated from deep inside the passageway which gives one an impression of horror and dread.

However, past a dozen meters, Simon couldn’t see a thing… Even after casting a light spell, the end of the tunnel was impossible to view.

Nonetheless, it was easy to tell that it extended extremely deep underground.