Chapter 81: The Missing Meteor, The Golden Leaf

“After that...”

Ol’ Amos’ eyes were deep and bottomless. As he sank into far, distant memories, his voice also turned aged like that of someone who’d lived through a great many changes.

“In the 10-odd years that followed, the whole continent turned into a nation of frost. Countless living things died, and all the major empires and every single race suffered heavy losses.

“Among which, the Beast People Empire had the highest death toll. According to the post-event statistics, 3/4 of Beast People Empire’s commoners had died, and 1/5 of their nobles were implicated.

“The Beast People Empire was awfully powerful back then. The power that their empire held firmly outstripped the Dragon God Empire’s and the Titan Empire’s. However, this event dealt the Beast People Empire a heavy blow that shook their very foundation, and they ended up becoming the weakest power among the four great empires.”

“3/4 of the commoners... How merciless!”

Meng Lei was incredibly blown away. No matter where commoners were always the social strata with the highest population count. According to statistics, there were currently more than 200 billion commoners in the Beast People Empire!

A death toll that reached 3/4 of the commoner population...

Hiss!

That was a whole 150 billion people!

If all the other commoners that’d died in the whole continent were to be included, this number would probably be multiplied several times. One could see from this just how merciless that disaster had been!

“It was very merciless, indeed. We Magicians study the intrinsic nature of the heavens and earth, hoping to get a glimpse of the true essence of nature. Yet in front of the universe, we are simply so insignificant...”

Ol’ Amos shook his head lightly. “Even a powerful Saint Domain wouldn’t count as much in the presence of the universe. They are nothing but a drop of water in the vast sea, a speck of dust in the universe.”

“And then? What happened after that, Ol’ President?” Meng Lei asked eagerly.

“After that, in order to improve the situation, the four great empires started to cooperate with one another. They assembled all the earth-elemental, water-elemental, and ice-elemental Magicians in the whole continent to lay down the dust and make it settle. The Magicians then gathered the moisture in the air and began a grand, spectacular dust-clearing operation.

“Something worth mentioning here is that our Fire Dragon Magic Academy, as well as many other magic academies, were precisely established during that period of time, with the objective of grooming Magicians, especially earth-elemental ones.”

Ol’ Amos continued to go down memory lane, and he said, “Thanks to generations of predecessors’ consistent and persistent efforts, sunlight began to shine upon the earth again. The sun rose in the east once again, the ice and snow melted, and the temperatures turned warm and mild.

“Everything finally returned to what it was like in the past.

“We had succeeded, succeeded in chasing away the ice and frost!

“It was just a pity that the lives that have already disappeared would stay forever buried in the ice and snow, never to return again.”

“How horrifying and heartrending!”

Meng Lei heaved a small sigh, his emotions rather complex.

“Ever since then, all the races in the continent busied themselves with licking their wounds and recovering their strength, and Heaven’s Vault Continent instead welcomed a rare era of peace. It was exactly during that period that I’d broken through to Saint Domain.”

Ol’ Amos said with a sigh, “After I achieved Saint Domain level, I headed to the Meteor Plains right away. I wanted to see for myself just what exactly the star from beyond the heavens that’d caused such a huge ruckus was.”

“The star from beyond the heavens?”

Meng Lei’s eyes lit up.

“Yet when I arrived at the Meteor Plains, the star from beyond the heavens had already long since vanished, leaving behind only a massive impact crater!”

Ol’ Amos shook his head and said with a smile, “At that time, there were many other people with the same thoughts as me. In fact, a lot of people believed that the meteor capable of causing such a disaster must surely be some kind of impressive treasure.

“This resulted in experts from every nook and cranny of the continent constantly making their way to the Meteor Plains to survey the place and search for fallen treasures in the following several hundred years. However, despite searching everywhere, they returned empty-handed.”

“Why didn’t they find anything?” Puzzlement filled Meng Lei’s eyes. “A gigantic meteor like that couldn’t have possibly been fully destroyed upon landing, right? Who could’ve taken it?”

“That’s hard to say.” Ol’ Amos shook his head with a laugh. “There’ll always be someone stronger out there, and there is no limit to how high one can go. In the whole of Heaven’s Vault Continent, there are certainly people who were capable of taking the fallen meteor. At the very least, I was capable of taking the meteor during my pinnacle!”

“Fine!”

Meng Lei curled his lip in response. It was only then that he remembered that he was currently in Heaven’s Vault Continent, a powerful advanced martial arts world where individuals’ offensive abilities could reach terrifying heights.

Meng Lei asked again, “What happened after that?”

“After that, over the course of time, the treasure-seeking trend gradually died down, and no one paid any more attention to the Meteor Plains,” answered Ol’ Amos.

“So, that’s the history of Meteor Plains,” muttered Meng Lei to himself.

Then, he looked at the parchment in his hand again. “So, this parchment manuscript is a map of Meteor Plains?”

“Yes! During my time, exploring Meteor Plains was something very trendy. How did that saying go again... ‘You can’t call yourself an expert if you’ve never been to the Meteor Plains’?”

Ol’ Amos nodded and said with a smile, “It was exactly because of that that maps of Meteor Plains were everywhere. Even a Meteor Plains map bought from a roadside peddler would be way more detailed than the one depicted on that parchment manuscript in front of you.”

“Sigh! So, after all has been said and done, this is just an ordinary map. And here I’d thought that I’d gotten some kind of impressive treasure!”

Meng Lei was greatly disappointed. A bout of flames burst forth from his palm, and he promptly burned the parchment. Ol’ Amos didn’t stop him, either. He’d explained so much only because he’d found the map familiar to the eye earlier, and not because there really was something unusual about the map.

Burned? So be it, then. No biggie!

As the parchment burned into ashes, a golden sheet of unknown substance dropped out of the parchment and fell onto the ground.

“What’s this?”

When Meng Lei picked it up, he discovered that it was actually a leaf about the size of an infant’s palm. It looked like an elm tree leaf, except golden-yellow throughout. It was full of dense, packed veined patterns and seemed as if it was forged from gold.

“Let me take a look at that!”

Ol’ Amos took the golden leaf from Meng Lei. He held it in his hand and began to inspect it closely, but the more he did, the more astonished he became. “How strange! This thing can actually shut out my spiritual power!?

“This is really weird. I still can’t get through it!

“But that shouldn’t be the case...”

For a brief moment, Ol’ Amos mumbled to himself, failing to make any discovery even after half a day. This greatly surprised him, and he remarked, “This golden leaf looks ordinary, but it’s a unified entity and can completely shut out my spiritual power. I can’t tell what it’s really made out of at all. Even this old man here has no idea what it is!”

“Even you can’t tell what it is, Ol’ President?”

Meng Lei examined the golden leaf closely, his eyes glittering brightly. “Might this be some kind of treasure? Hehe, let’s give it a go right away!”

Meng Lei bit on his finger and broke the skin surface. Then, he dripped a drop of blood onto it.

“What are you doing?” Ol’ Amos was bewildered by Meng Lei’s actions.

“Dripping blood to claim ownership, of course!” Meng Lei smilingly explained, “There is a group of well-read and knowledgeable amazing people in my hometown. After much painstaking efforts and observing innumerable predecessors and almighty masters, they’ve concluded this bit of wisdom—when one is dealing with things they are unfamiliar with or things that are difficult to make an accurate judgment of, dripping blood to claim ownership is the way to go. If you can really successfully claim ownership of it, you’ll strike it big. Even if you can’t, you don’t lose out at all!”

“...”

Ol’ Amos was rather dumbfounded. He criticized, “What kind of weird theory is that? Dripping blood to claim ownership? Do you think this is a divine weap—”

Yet before he could even finish, the blood that had dripped onto the golden leaf was actually absorbed into the leaf, and it vanished without a trace!

“Hahaha! Didn’t I tell you?” Meng Lei was overjoyed. “My hometown kids me not! Kids me not, I say!”

“I’ll be damned...”

Ol’ Amos was dumbstruck!