For a period of time, Simon lay immobilized on the ground in the cave, taking his time to slowly recover.

After all, what he had just casted was a tier two spell, and one of the strongest ones at that!

This spell, Twin Dragons Quintessence, was actually famed to be the most complex and powerful second tier spell in his previous world. Such a spell in his hands was actually as strong as a spell from a fourth star core mage, or a grandmaster mage.

Naturally, as a mere mage with one star in every element, he did not have the natural means to activate tier two spells. But yet, as a mage who previously had six or more elemental stars in every element, he could actually cast spells of a higher tier forcefully - so long as he paid a certain price!

In this case, since he had only overdrawn himself by a single tier, he suffered a setback of half of his mana draining and a feeling of weakness that would only be dispelled after one day of recovery.

Despite the steep price, he felt that it was certainly worth the investment!

After all, if he only relied on his prowess as a single star core mage - without the capabilities to pull off tier two spells, he might have fallen to the Corrupted Celestial Sky Wolf

It has to be known that the beast was unproportionately powerful, which certainly puzzled Simon. It was even to the point that he felt a serious risk of dying in the fight, and any typical Master Mage would be forced to flee! Only Grandmaster Mages at full strength were definitely capable of defeating the wolf.

In such a situation, if he tired himself out too extensively from casting too many spells, then he might have found himself unable to activate a tier two spell, even if he wanted to!

In fact, had he not made the split second decision to immediately go for the kill after testing the wolf’s capabilities, then he might have joined the countless bones in their eternal rest on the cave floor… Such a thought was truly alarming.

Eventually…

“Ughhh” Simon groaned as he pushed himself up from the ground.

His entire body was aching and he felt like every inch of his flesh was on fire. But nonetheless, he forced himself to move.

By now, the entire cave system was miraculously lit up, so he could finally look around unimpeded.

Naturally, when he looked in the direction of the corpse of the beast… A pile of loot was visible!

As he slowly trudged over, his anticipation only grew.

‘I seem to recall that the system was quite generous in its rewards and spammed my inbox with notifications. Serves me right, that was way too f*cking hard!’ he thought, recalling the system notifications that he at the time, had not paid much attention to amusingly.

Soon enough, he managed to reach the wolf's corpse.

In the center of the bloody pile, a few shiny items could be seen. After bending down, Simon promptly picked them up one by one, starting off with a coin.

Upon picking this exquisite golden coin with the dog’s face atop of it, he received yet another system notification.

[Detecting the presence of an artifact. Grade: B-. Rewarding 1024x [Ancient Shards]]

Suddenly, Simon’s hand started shaking.

‘What?!’

He immediately inspected it with [Appraisal], and anxiously waited for it to load…

-----

[Tier 1 Wealth Token]

A legendary token that represents ultimate wealth. Eligible to be traded with the system for 1,000 gold coins.

-----

“...”

Simon rubbed his eyes, unable to believe what he saw for a moment. But he was not hallucinating!

“Holy f*ck I’m rich!” he finally exclaimed whilst laughing contently.

1,000 gold coins… That was a truly substantial amount of gold! With that much, he would be able to boost the progres of his island by at least a week…

After containing his joy, he stuffed it into his bag and inspected the rest of his items, one by one.

-----

[Monster Core]

A mysterious and ancient monster core. It’s origins are unknown, but the power contained within is incomparably pure.

-----

-----

[Biome Blueprint]

A redeemable voucher that allows one to convert 1% of one’s island into the [Blood Jungle] biome permanently.

-----

-----

[Ruin Deed]

A redeemable voucher that allows one to merge the F-Tier Ruin, [Eternal Fiend Ruin] into one’s island.

-----

With every subsequent item appraised, Simon’s eyes only grew wider until it seemed that his eyes would burst out of their sockets!

As it turned out, the Wealth Token was only the start of the benefits...

‘A supremely powerful monster core? A biome blueprint?! A RUIN DEED?!’

He rubbed his eyes once again. All of these godly treasures… He didn’t dare believe his luck!

Unfortunately, though he had obtained all of these treasures, he didn’t know the best use for them... Sure, he at least knew what they were for but… To sell them or use, to give away or keep… He had no idea what objectively, was the best choice!

“Haha, to think that I would be struggling with how I spend my riches. I guess it's better to struggle with spending, than to struggle with earning!” he said joyfully as he made his way towards the exit of the cave.

What he had obtained from clearing this ruin made him so happy that his pain no longer bothered him!

-----

A couple minutes later… By now, the sun was once again rising in the world of Island Ascension Online.

Simon took one last look at the ruin, before stepping onto his airship.

This ruin had caused him both so much peril, and so much happiness; it truly was a rollercoaster of emotions.

Afterwards, he took out the deed for the island and activated it.

WOOOOSH!

The island began shrinking and moving towards Simon, which somewhat startled him.

The process then sped up until the entire island was the size of a fist, before promptly getting absorbed into the piece of paper.

Suddenly, Simon’s gaze towards the piece of paper in his hands changed drastically.

Indeed, the entire island was absorbed into the tiny piece of paper in a matter of seconds!

‘Wow! That sure was dramatic. Anyhow, I don’t really know what I expected from it in the first place…’

Afterwards, he carefully stowed the piece of paper into his bag and set out to the endless skies once again, towards his island.

-----

Along the journey, Simon contemplated extensively about the island deed. After all, the importance of such an item was way too much to make a casual decision about.

If he were to guess, the value of the physical island must have been somewhere around a million gold. When one accounted for the fact that the resources respawned…

That million gold becomes a frightening number of millions of gold!

Of course, it was not nearly that easy to become rich; it never was.

In order to exploit the island, the amount of connections and manpower that one needed was staggering. Not to mention, the time that it would take to do the resource collecting would be similarly astonishing…

Most likely, someone like him with next to no connections and a small island would only manage to obtain a limited portion of its benefits in the short term.

On the other hand, if he tried selling it off, he would risk getting scammed or hunted down.

A slim chance of obtaining an astronomical sum of wealth, or to forever stabilize the foundations of his island... The choice was obvious!

If he could safely and reliably gain an astronomical sum of wealth, then naturally, he would need to put more thought in. But realistically, finding an organization who would buy up the deed like an honest businessman was going to be nigh impossible in this lawless world.

After all, those who possessed such a frightening measure of wealth to buy up an entire ruin likely had an equally frightening amount of strength backing them up.

To show off his riches to such powers?

Suicidal!

Therefore, even if he might later regret the decision, he decided to immediately redeem the ruin to his island.

It has to be known that when absorbing ruins to one’s island, the ruin could only be at most, as big as the original island. Thus, he was not instantly going to get an island with a diameter of dozens of kilometers.

Still, it would grow alongside his island and was bound to be highly beneficial.

Having thought this, Simon was now firm in his decision.

He would redeem the deed as soon as he returned!

-----

Sometime later, a fairly average looking figure was lazily recovering with his eyes closed on a 50 meter long airship in the endless skies…

“Eh?”

Simon immediately sat up and turned to the north, his eyelids shooting open.

In his field of vision, a singular speck could be barely seen in the sky…

This speck that was negligible to regular people, was easily seen by Simon. In fact, he could even discern what this speck was.

‘Hmm it seems that one airship is chasing another and… Oh sh*t they’re coming to me!’

This was the first time that he had truly encountered some passersby in Island Ascension Online, so he naturally was quite curious.

After a bit of thought, he decided to make a small detour to investigate.

In any case, he was not afraid of trouble in the slightest. Chances are, as a mage with a fighting prowess equal to a Master Mage, he was unstoppable in the lowest zone - at least if he didn’t run into an entire fleet or offend some bigshot.

And so, he steered the airship, now making his way towards the two ships in the distance…