Ben easily repelled the wolves with his revolvers. They aren't strong enough to kill high-class creatures like them that have tough skin and fur. But the revolvers can injure them and scare them.
"It seems I need to travel by foot now. The car's noise must've alerted them and caused them to notice me. I can handle the continuous attacks of those weak creatures. But those high-class guys are troublesome and will continue to be troublesome." Ben muttered.
Ben then took his luggage out of the car and initiated a defense system to protect the car. He wrote some magic letters to create a barrier around the car. It will protect the car from the magical creatures while he left it there.
Building a formation of magic letters is easy for him. He has learned it ever since he started creating magical items. Developing magic also needs high mastery over magic letters. With A.I Chip's help, it became even easier.
After finishing the barrier, Ben left his car behind and followed the route. It will be slower now, but he can avoid contact with wild creatures a lot easier now. He can hide his presence and move stealthily.
On his way there, Ben saw many creatures that were unique to this area. There are some that he knew about from books, but the others are new. He scanned them with A.I Chip and watched them to learn a little about them.
It wasn't just magical creatures, Ben also found some new vegetation. He also scanned them and even took some samples like leaves or fruit. There is no big purpose like research, he just wanted to collect them.
Ben even found some relics scattered in many places. Then, he found ruins of a village in the deep mountainous area. It piqued his interest because it was really strange for a village to be established here.
"How old are these ruins?" Ben asked himself.
[Estimation: 450 years]
"Hmm, the Age of Dragons, huh? Maybe they established it to hide from the dragons. But they were still destroyed in the end. Still, it is strange. Why would they establish a village here while there are kingdoms that could protect them? There should be a reason and it might have a connection with my purpose for coming here." Ben theorized.
Ben checked the ruins with his Gravity Magic's help. He lifted the ruins to make his investigation easier. He didn't find a lot because these ruins are too old and the items here have been weathered by age.
What he found were many broken metal weapons, living tools and even magical items. All of those items are in poor condition because of time and whatever it was that destroyed this village.
Ben can't guess the function of these magical items, even the ones that are still in good shape. Their shapes are very different from the current magical items. If they still can be used, then maybe he can test them to know more about the ancient magical items.
"There are many magical items here. That means the people that lived here in the past were mages, at least most of them. Why did they live here of all places? Hmm, maybe there's something here that drew mages to live here." Ben guessed.
Like before, Ben scanned the magical items using A.I Chip's scanning ability. He is interested in these magical items and maybe he'll try to rebuild them in the future to know their functions. These magical items can be seen like Lost or Ancient Magic, so they're worth researching.
He resumed his journey as he didn't stop anything else here. This location was marked by A.I Chip, so he can return here after completing his mission. He also wanted to investigate this place more thoroughly.
It took Ben 3 hours to reach the valley between Mt. Aires and Mt. Marnia. It doesn't have a name on the map, so he will just call it Dark Valley because he came here to find 'The Dark Sun'. But that wasn't the only reason though.
"What the hell is this? Such a contrast in scenery." Ben said with a rather surprised tone.
In front of Ben was a span of burnt land. The ground was charred with thin smoke coming out of it. There's no vegetation or living being, only charred tree trunks. The temperature was high before Ben even entered the village.
It contrasted with the surrounding areas that has the green luster of trees and grass. While the valley looks like a forest that was burned this morning. This location looked like the border of heaven and hell.
"No wonder I didn't see any creatures when I get closer to this place. The temperature here is too hot and it has an eerie vibe. Hmm, it looks like a location for horror games." Ben said while looking around.
Ben entered the Dark Valley and felt the temperature rise significantly. Previously on the border, it was still warm, but now it feels very hot. A.I Chip detected that the temperature is 78 degrees Celsius, the temperature of hot water.
Fortunately, it wasn't a problem for Ben, who was a Sun Dragon Slayer. Heat is one of his powers and he is immune to it. He can even withstand 4000 degrees Celsius, so 78 degrees Celsius is nothing.
Ben checked the charred ground and tree trunk. They were burned to charcoal and they're still hot. The tree trunks break easily because they're just charcoal. Some parts of the trees have even turned into ash.
As he walked further along, the temperature continued to rise. Ben thought the center of this place was the hottest area. The number of charred trees were also reduced because many of them were burned to ashes.
After walking for 5 km in the Dark Valley, Ben found a human skeleton. It looks like a man's skeleton that was big and tall. It also wore magical armor, but Ben could see that the quality is low.
Ben can't guess when the man died because the skeleton was in poor condition. It was slightly charred due to exposure to the heat. Most of the magic armor was charred.
This place's temperature was 500 degrees Celsius, 5 times higher than the outer area. The deeper area should be even hotter and Ben didn't know the peak temperature in the valley.
"Did this guy try to find the same thing as me? Hmm, if so, then maybe this armor has heat resistant or heat repellent features. But it seems 500 degrees Celsius was too much for this cheap magical armor. Or maybe it's defective, poor guy." Ben said as he investigated the skeleton.
Ben didn't find anything else from the skeleton. Maybe someone else has taken it in the past. If this guy came here, others probably did too.
"I hope no one was successful so far or this will be a pointless journey." Ben said while walking away from the skeleton.
There were more skeletons on the way to the location. The skeletons were in a similar condition to the first one. All of them seem to have died because they couldn't handle the heat.
For those guys, this place was like hell, but for Ben, it's just a playground. The heat that killed them didn't affect him at all, even after reaching 1000 degrees Celsius. The ground here had turned red like hot metal instead of black like charcoal.
Fortunately, Ben's clothing was specially made to withstand high temperatures, so he won't get naked because his clothing won't burn or melt. They won't repel heat, but they can survive up to 5000 degrees Celsius. They're made because of the high temperatures produced by Ben's magic.
3 hours after entering the Dark Valley, Ben finally found the target location. It was located in the center of the Dark Valley and has a temperature of 2000 degrees Celsius. He is stunned to see the thing he had been searching for this whole time.
There are a lot of human skeletons in this place, but that's not the thing that shocked him. It's because the thing he was looking for was a black stone coffin that's placed on a stone table. He can feel the heat that spread to this area coming from the coffin or to be more precise, the thing inside this coffin.
"Is this truly the reason why everyone came here? Just what is inside this coffin?" Ben asked while walking closer to the coffin.
Ben approached the coffin and saw some writing on the sides of the stone table. He read the writing and what he read shocked him to the core.
"Fucking hell."