The fiery red fireball circled around Feng Yuan as he moved. Because he needed to bend down from time to time to check the soil, he didn’t choose to hide on the back of the Flame Chasing Furry Dog. For warmth, he chose to borrow the Flame Chasing Furry Dog’s power.
Xiao Ji would occasionally dart a short distance away to scout the surroundings and then fly back. It didn’t really understand what Feng Yuan was doing—why he walked for a bit, then stopped to dig up a few chunks of soil or ice to examine, only to continue moving forward again.
"You do look the part. Are you actually being serious about this?"
Veronia said to Feng Yuan with some surprise. It really hadn’t expected this guy to be so serious about it—at least from its point of view, Feng Yuan was genuinely conducting an investigation.
Feng Yuan shot Veronia a glance and said irritably,
"What else? Who would I be putting on a show for? This is strange. The soil and ice layers here aren’t showing any major anomalies, and they don’t look like fragments of the Mythical Era at all. So how did so many Divine Artifacts from the Mythical Era end up here?"
Because the heavy snow blocked his vision, Feng Yuan couldn’t see the environment outside the Barrier. But he’d paid attention when he came yesterday: the terrain here showed no obvious abnormalities. Although ravines were everywhere due to the battle, nothing appeared that violated common sense.
Except for those Divine Artifacts from the Mythical Era that had been concentrated beneath this stretch of land and then dug out. Under normal circumstances, such things should be scattered all over the place. Concentration isn’t impossible—generally speaking, if that spot was a fragment of the Mythical Era, then it would be plausible.
Yet the information from the soil and ice was completely opposite. These soil and ice layers had appeared after the Mythical Era, which meant this place couldn’t be a leftover continental fragment from the Mythical Era.
Those Divine Artifacts from the Mythical Era had also only appeared here after the Mythical Era. But being so densely packed together—was there really something wrong? With that thought in mind, Feng Yuan spread out his Divine Sense. The heavy snow couldn’t hinder spiritual power, so naturally it couldn’t affect his Divine Sense. He "saw" the large pit in the distance and said,
"Looks like there’s a Divine Artifact excavation site up ahead. Let’s go take a look over there."
Pointing toward the large pit, Feng Yuan headed directly in that direction. Xiao Ji stared at him in confusion, not understanding how he knew. Veronia and the others weren’t surprised. Even if they hadn’t sensed anything, Feng Yuan being able to see it wasn’t strange at all—his strength was right there for all to see.
Snow swirled thickly from the sky. The Big Cat and the others followed close behind Feng Yuan. Although the snowfall couldn’t cause them any substantial harm, they still didn’t like trudging around under these conditions.
In no time, Feng Yuan’s group arrived at the large pit. The pit was about three to four stories deep, funnel-shaped overall but very irregular. Agunas studied it for a moment and said,
"They used some kind of force to yank the Divine Artifact straight out of the soil. Judging from the size, it should be a large war Divine Artifact. Kind of like..."
Agunas didn’t finish the sentence; instead, it turned to look at Veronia. With a disgruntled snort, Veronia said,
"You’re trying to say it looks a bit like a Light Crystal Tower, right? Size-wise, it does match a Light Crystal Tower. Only... Divine Artifacts with similar dimensions also include the Sun Spear and Ochilrams Holy Grail."
If it were some other Divine Beasts, they might not be able to infer what had originally been here just from the pit. But for Agunas and the others, this wasn’t difficult. After all, identifying Divine Artifact traces had been a commonly used Skill even in the Mythical Era. Basically, every one of the Divine Beings had to learn how to determine which Divine Artifact it was from various traces.
They had no choice. In the Mythical Era, the power of Divine Artifacts was extremely formidable—often capable of reversing the tide of battle—so it was perfectly normal for them to pay close attention to such things.
"Whichever one it was, it’s already been taken by the Imperial People. Let’s go down and check the bottom. You can’t see anything from up here."
Feng Yuan didn’t bother guessing what had originally been here. The stuff was gone anyway; what had been buried wasn’t the important part. What mattered was how those things had appeared here in the first place.
With a light jump forward, Feng Yuan slid down the snow-covered slope to the pit’s bottom. He scooped up a clump of soil, examined it, then crushed the frozen hard earth in his hand. Frowning slightly, he said,
"No difference at all. The soil here shows no abnormalities. That’s what’s strange. There’s no way it was that ’coincidental’—those Divine Artifacts all just happened to drop right here?"
"It’s not impossible, you know. After all, they’re things from the Mythical Era. It might not have had much in the way of layout or planning."
Drifting over, Veronia spoke after hearing Feng Yuan’s words. After a brief silence, Feng Yuan said,
"Not necessarily. The Mythological Remnants and the Kastantos Remnants aren’t exactly normal cases. Let’s check the surroundings again. They probably didn’t bother to cover up these traces."
They went through all five large pits one by one. Feng Yuan found that these five locations had no pattern whatsoever. The Divine Artifacts that had been inside were already gone, but the types had been all over the place, completely random.
In other words, everything looked perfectly normal—no sign of external interference. But that was clearly impossible. Feng Yuan didn’t believe in such coincidences.
Back at the Ice Lotus Hot Spring, Feng Yuan focused on cooking dinner with the Big Cat while thinking things over. Agunas stayed silent at the side. Watching the quiet looks on Feng Yuan’s and Agunas’s faces, Veronia said,
"Why bother caring about all this? Even if the Eternal Frozen Soil were completely destroyed, it wouldn’t have much impact on the world."
There was no rich ecosystem here. Even if disaster struck the Eternal Frozen Soil, it wouldn’t affect humans or Wild Spirit Beasts.
It really couldn’t figure out why Feng Yuan and the Little Crocodile were so fixated on the truth behind all this.
"Strictly speaking, the impact might not be so certain. Don’t forget, the Kastantos Remnants once made use of that sealed Divine Artifact back then. There are so many Divine Artifacts here... and they don’t even know... Something feels off."
As he spoke, Feng Yuan felt something was odd. Although no one had stipulated that survivors of the Mythical Era had to know the locations where all the Divine Artifacts had fallen, the Eternal Frozen Soil was on the Northern Ice Plains no matter how you looked at it. Could the Kastantos Remnants really be unaware of this place?
Or was it that they had no means at all to detect whether a region contained Divine Artifacts?
"That one was a Divine Artifact they had sealed themselves. The Divine Artifacts here were never discovered. How could they possibly find them? No matter how you look at it, ordinary people wouldn’t even think this place might have so many Divine Artifacts."
Rolling its eyes, Veronia said testily. Methods to detect Divine Artifacts did exist, but those methods came at a high price, and to the Kastantos Remnants they weren’t all that meaningful.
Veronia simply didn’t believe the Kastantos Remnants lacked Divine Artifacts of their own. So they were unlikely to covet these unknown Mythical Era Divine Artifacts that belonged to who-knows-who. As for actively searching and pinpointing them?
You’d have to be out of your mind from overeating to do that. Unless they intended to rule the world, why bother collecting Divine Artifacts? Those things were oriented toward war.
"Do you think they might actually know what’s going on here? How about we go ask them?"
After considering for a moment, Feng Yuan said. Agunas flicked its tail and replied,
"Probably not. If they knew there were Divine Artifacts here, even if they didn’t take them away, they would have given a warning beforehand instead of waiting until the Imperial People came to fetch them."
"Come to think of it, what were they thinking at the time? This place shouldn’t need Divine Beasts guarding it, right?"
Rubbing his chin, Feng Yuan was curious how that group of Divine Beasts had discovered the Imperial People were stealing Divine Artifacts. This area was basically a no-man’s land with no Life and no Spirit Beasts. Under normal circumstances, it shouldn’t have been patrolled at all.
"I’ll ask."
Agunas hadn’t really paid much attention to this matter before, so it didn’t know the answer to Feng Yuan’s question either.
After a while, Agunas looked at Feng Yuan with a complicated expression and said,
"They sensed an abnormally strong Energy fluctuation here and came to investigate. As a result, they just happened to run into that bunch of Imperial People."
"Now that really is strange... Judging from the environment at those few spots, the Imperial People shouldn’t have activated the Divine Artifacts. Then where did the abnormal Energy fluctuations come from?"
"Even if this place is deserted, I don’t believe the Imperial People weren’t at all worried about being discovered."
Hearing Agunas’s answer, Feng Yuan was genuinely baffled. Veronia snorted softly and said,
"Looks like someone deliberately wanted them to notice the Imperial People. Could it be that they didn’t have enough strength to deal with it themselves, so they used their own methods to alert the Divine Beasts?"
As soon as Veronia finished, it found the idea laughable—if only because it didn’t even believe its own explanation. You’ve got to be kidding. An Energy fluctuation strong enough for Divine Beasts to sense it from afar isn’t something humans could produce.
Forget Legendary Level Beastmasters—even Sacred Beast Level Beastmasters wouldn’t be able to do it. The requirements on Energy and Control Power over rules would be way too high.
"So you’re saying there’s an unknown mastermind behind the scenes, with unclear motives?"
Feng Yuan rubbed his chin as he spoke.

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