Heir of Synthesis: The World Mage

The desert’s temperature dropped sharply as night fell.

As darkness blanketed the landscape, Priam stayed hidden in the shadows, recovering his Ether at a snail’s pace while letting his Nature power mend his burned flesh.

Luckily, the Corrupted Beasts in the area still hadn’t realized the giant worm was dead. That vast stretch of desert remained safe.

After nearly an entire day of lying low, Priam was finally back to one hundred percent.

”Alright... good as new. Well, almost,” he muttered, cracking his neck.

He headed toward the epicenter of the destruction.

The former oasis had been completely erased from the map, replaced by a massive, blackened crater. At its center, atop a mound of melted rock, the pool of magma still flowed quietly.

With Divine Concealment fully active, Priam slowly approached a heap of thick ashes.

He knelt down and began digging through the remains of his pursuer.

’Please don’t let everything have turned into charcoal... Leave me something, you bastard...’ he prayed inwardly.

Suddenly, something glinted beneath the ash.

”Aha!”

An intact spatial ring!

The Sacred Flame of Nature had an incredibly precise focus—it burned away a target’s life force, not necessarily everything else. On top of that, spatial rings were built to withstand insanely intense battles.

This Mage Master’s ring was high quality, and it had survived the flames... though it was now covered in cracks. It had been damaged to an extreme degree, but Priam could still empty it before the space inside collapsed.

Priam picked up the treasure, wiped away the ash, and extended his perception into the ring’s internal dimension.

What he saw inside made his jaw drop.

”Orange Prisms!”

Twenty of them.

Since each Orange Prism was worth exactly a thousand Red Prisms, Priam had just become obscenely rich by the standards of a mere Mage Disciple.

Digging deeper, he found Kiden’s Disciple Emblem—a unique, personalized item.

”Perfect. Irrefutable proof that those old bastards from the Law Sect sent an assassin after me. I’ll treasure this thing and shove it right in their faces later.”

There were also pills, potions, a high-grade spare spear, and all kinds of miscellaneous items.

Then his eyes landed on an old scroll.

”A map?!”

Priam pulled it out, his eyes gleaming as he unrolled it.

It was a complete map of the planet!

Thirteen specific locations had been marked on the scroll, each labeled:

Treasure Regions.

The planet had been fully mapped centuries ago. Areas with the highest elemental concentration naturally produced rare resources and spiritual herbs, and the sect regularly sent teams to harvest everything.

Of course, valuable treasures could still appear elsewhere, but the odds were incredibly low. That’s why nobody could have dreamed that something like the oasis was hidden in a worthless desert like this.

Finally, Priam picked up the last unusual item inside the ring.

It was a perfectly round, yellowish stone about the size of a fist. The moment he held it and channeled a tiny thread of energy into it...

’THIS IS IT!’

Priam’s eyes flew wide open.

Inside the stone rested an incredibly complex rune overflowing with power.

He recognized it immediately. Back when he’d arrived on the planet riding with the Elder, he had felt this exact energy signature whenever they flew near the Pillars.

’So this little beauty is how that bastard entered the planet? Could this let me use the inscription?’ Priam wondered.

A huge grin spread across his face.

”My dear Elders of the Law Sect... I take back every bad thing I ever said about you. Sending this assassin was the best gift I’ve ever gotten in my life!”

Without wasting a second, he transferred everything into his own spatial ring and gave the magma pool one last look.

He let out a dramatic sigh at having to leave the Sacred Flame behind, but he knew trying to touch it now would be pure suicide.

He turned on his heel and headed south, making his way back into the forest.

...

With the Leopard dead and out of the picture, the trip through the forest was a walk in the park.

A day later, Priam reached the foot of the colossal mountain where the Inscription Pillar stood.

No Corrupted Beast dared set foot within that sacred area.

Priam climbed the mountain with ease and entered the cave at the summit, finding the monumental hall built from white stone. The entire floor was covered in ancient runes pulsing with a dazzling display of magical colors.

He took the yellowish stone out of his pocket and raised it.

*Buzz*

The entire hall hummed.

Multidimensional beams of light shot up from the floor, projecting a giant holographic map of the planet in the middle of the chamber.

Priam walked closer in surprise.

Six red dots glowed across the globe, with a single golden dot shining brightly at the exact center.

The six Pillars... and the Inscription Core.

Priam walked up to the projection and, after thinking for two seconds, pointed the yellowish stone at the red dot on the southernmost edge of the map.

*FWOOSH!*

The space around him folded like paper.

Streams of light wrapped around his body, and in the blink of an eye, the spatial distortion vanished.

Everything returned to normal.

Priam looked around.

The white stone hall looked exactly the same.

He sprinted toward the cave entrance...

A freezing wind slammed into his face.

Outside stretched an endless wasteland of snow, ice, and frozen mountains.

”Holy shit... It worked! I’m at the southern Pillar!”

Priam burst into euphoric laughter in the middle of the blizzard.

He now had control over the planet’s entire teleportation system!

He could instantly jump between all seven locations!

In theory, he could head straight to the Inscription Core and return to the sect in record time...

...but he’d be a complete idiot if he did that.

Right now, the entire planet was an ownerless feast.

Besides, he still had to complete the Special Mission.

Pulling Kiden’s map back out, Priam compared the locations.

”Well, now isn’t that a wonderful coincidence...”

All thirteen Treasure Regions were strategically located near the six Pillars. The sect had built the Pillars specifically to make resource gathering easier for its Mages.

”I just hope I’ve gotten lucky and nobody’s harvested this place in a long time... I’m about to stuff myself with high-grade medicinal herbs,” Priam muttered, rubbing his hands together.

This was a million times safer and more profitable than picking fights inside random Corrupted Beast territories.

He had a little over two months before he had to return to the sect and participate in the next faction competition.

Two months to strip this planet of every resource he could find...

...and, with any luck, stumble across the Corrupt Core he needed for his mission.

”If even the Sages couldn’t find that damn Corrupt Core, then all I’ve got left is to trust my ridiculous luck... time for the plot armor to kick in!”

Priam put the map away and flashed a predatory grin.

”Let’s go farming.”

Then he shot off like an arrow toward the first Treasure Region.