838 Ancient Alchemy (Part 2)

"What is this place?" Evan asked himself in confusion as he found himself inside a stone room.

The room was way bigger than the room where he had taken his first trial and unlike the first room, which was empty, there were many things inside this room.

On his right side, there was a bookshelf filled with hundreds of different kinds of books, all looking quite ancient.

In front of him, he saw a dark bronze-coloured alchemy cauldron. The cauldron's outer surface was engraved with strange runes, and just by looking at it, Evan could tell that it was not a normal thing.

Upon looking to his left, he saw a small platform where three storage rings were placed. The platform was engraved with many runes, all of which were faintly glowing.

Evan raised an eyebrow when he saw all of these things and didn't know what to do next. Just as he was wondering what he should do, the voice he heard during his first and second trials resounded inside his head.

[Collect your rewards to enter the third and final trial]

Evan wasn't surprised when he heard the voice inside his head as he was already getting used to it, but the words that he heard definitely surprised him.

"Rewards..." Evan muttered in a low voice, and his eyes lit up like stars. "So these books, cauldron, and the storage rings are my reward for completing the second trial."

Thinking about all the things in front of him, Evan was so excited that he was about to to move towards the books, but he suddenly thought about something and summoned one of his shadow undeads.

After summoning it, he ordered it to bring a book from the shelf to him.

'Better safe than sorry,' Evan said to himself as he watched shadow undead moving towards the bookshelf.

He didn't fully trust the voice that spoke inside his head, so although he didn't find any traps using his spiritual senses he still decided to act carefully.

Moreover, there was still the matter of Momon and the others. He didn't know what happened to them and why they were acting like puppets.

'What if they turn into puppets in this room after passing the first and second trials...' Evan said to himself and raised his guard even more.

He knew most people would let their guard down after hearing about rewards and would act carelessly, but he wasn't going to do that.

"I don't want to become a walking puppet like them," Evan muttered as he used his spiritual senses to look at the paper that seeped inside his hand at the end of the second trial.

The only reason Evan wasn't bothered by this paper was because he knew that he could destroy it anytime he wanted using his Primordial Shadow Energy or the World Essence.

If he had felt even the slightest threat from the paper, he would have destroyed it long ago.

After reaching in front of the bookshelf, the shadow undead pulled out a book, but nothing happened.

Evan looked at the book that the shadow undead pulled out and saw something written on its cover.

"Way of the Ancient Alchemy..."

Evan raised an eyebrow when he read the title and asked the shadow undead to pull out a few more books. The Shadow Undead followed Evan's order and pulled out a few more books from the shelf.

Evan looked at the books carefully and noticed all of them were about alchemy, and most of them had the word "Ancient" written on them.

''Is this Ancient Alchemy different from normal alchemy?'' Evan thought aloud, and seeing that the bookshelf was safe, he walked towards it and dropped all of the books inside his shadow storage.

"Amara," He said after putting all the books inside his shadow storage.

"I will check them out immediately," Amara answered in an excited voice when she heard Evan. From her tone, it was evident that she was excited about the new alchemy-related books.

After putting away the books, Evan sent the shadow undead towards the cauldron.

Similar to before, the shadow undead didn't find anything wrong with the cauldron.

Confirming that the cauldron was also fine, Evan walked towards it. As he stopped in front of the cauldron, Evan felt a strange aura coming out of it.

When he touched the cauldron, its information appeared in front of him, and Evan's heart nearly leapt out of his chest when he saw the information about the cauldron.

---) Dark Phoenix Cauldron (Low-Level Rank Four): A cauldron engraved with special runes specially created to perform the Ancient Alchemy.

"Holy Fu*k..." Evan couldn't help but swear when he saw the rank of the cauldron.

"Rank Four, this fu*king metal pot is a Rank Four artefact," Evan said in a shocked voice, feeling his head spinning. He took a few deep breaths to calm down, and when he regained his composure, he didn't know whether to feel happy or disappointed.

He was happy that he received a Rank Four cauldron, but at the same time, he felt disappointed that it was a cauldron and not another artefact that he could use.

"Seriously, now I am feeling like I should also learn alchemy so that I can use this thing..." Evan said with a shake of his head and looked at the information about the cauldron once again.

"A cauldron specially made to perform Ancient Alchemy, huh."

Now Evan was a hundred percent sure that whatever this Ancient Alchemy thing was, it was definitely different from normal alchemy. If it was normal alchemy, it could easily be performed in a normal cauldron, but since it needed a cauldron engraved with special runes, it was pretty obvious it was something different.

"I will get my answer once Amara reads a few books that I found earlier.." Evan said to himself and sent the shadow undead towards the platform where the storage rings were.

After the shadow undead confirmed there was nothing wrong with the platform, Evan walked towards the rings. He stopped in front of the platform where the rings were and picked up one of them.

[Teleporting you to the location of the third and the final trial]

The moment Evan picked up one of the rings, he heard the voice inside his head, and before he could take the other two rings or complain, a white light flashed, and he disappeared from the room.