"Not a single person is willing to take even one fragment of a legendary item?" Shi Feng's heart jolted.
He didn't believe Xia Lian was deceiving him.
He had already seen for himself just how extraordinary the Sword in the Stone was. Even Xia Lian, a fourth-tier High Priest, couldn't analyze it. And the only reason he himself had been able to identify it as a heritage item was sheer luck — he possessed the Golden Holy Mark. Otherwise, he never would have known.
"Good thing I came here, or things would've been really bad." Shi Feng gazed at the Sword in the Stone, secretly relieved.
He had originally thought that with a reasonable cost, he could hire three fourth-tier NPCs. But now it seemed that even if he somehow found three fourth-tier powerhouses, they wouldn't be able to get the job done. He certainly didn't have three legendary item fragments to pay them with.
And even if he did, it still wouldn't work…
"Alright, let's begin. I'm quite curious to see what this thing really is. Stand back a bit."
Xia Lian was now filled with curiosity about the Sword in the Stone. As she spoke, she tossed the twenty-one magic crystals into the air. Chanting an incantation, the crystals shot outward in every direction. Fortunately, Xia Lian's house was large enough. After flying roughly twenty yards, the crystals halted midair and began slowly rotating. Silver-white light emerged across the floor beneath them.
Shi Feng immediately retreated beyond the range of the magic circle and watched quietly from a distance.
As the twenty-one magic crystals floated and spun, the Sword in the Stone slowly drifted to the center of the formation.
Then Xia Lian let out a soft cry, and the entire room seemed to freeze in place. Dense, overwhelming magical power filled every corner, producing a groaning, creaking sound.
Moments later, the twenty-one magic crystals shattered as though they could no longer withstand the tremendous pressure, dissolving into streams of gray smoke that burrowed into the Sword in the Stone.
The moment a single crystal's powerful mana was fully absorbed, a deep thud resonated — like the beat of a heart.
At first, Shi Feng thought he was imagining things.
But the heartbeat grew louder with each crystal absorbed, more and more powerful, as if something ancient and colossal were being roused from slumber.
Yet as the crystals merged one after another, Xia Lian in the center of the magic circle grew increasingly frail.
After seven crystals had fused into the sword, Shi Feng could clearly feel the room's terrifying pressure drop by nearly half. Xia Lian looked visibly weakened. After fourteen crystals, her face had turned deathly pale. By the time all twenty-one magic crystals had been absorbed into the Sword in the Stone, she seemed on the verge of collapsing — as though the slightest breeze could knock her over.
Only then did Shi Feng realize how far from simple the awakening of the Sword in the Stone truly was.
Just activating a magic array had drained a fourth-tier powerhouse to this extent. No wonder Xia Lian had said that even other fourth-tier NPCs wouldn't agree to it easily.
At the same time, Shi Feng was stunned.
Something that required three fourth-tier professionals — and Xia Lian had managed it alone. Her strength was terrifying.
"Who exactly is Xia Lian?" Shi Feng grew even more curious about her identity.
An ordinary NPC couldn't possibly have grown this powerful so quickly. Moreover, in the Divine Realm, he had once seen a woman who looked exactly like Xia Lian. The current Xia Lian was still far from matching that slumbering woman's heaven-defying power, but the pressure they each gave off felt identical — only different in intensity.
While Shi Feng pondered Xia Lian's identity, the awakening ritual had already concluded, and the silver-white magic circle faded away.
Boom!