Ian grabbed his head, trying to soothe his tense nerves, but to no avail. The pain was real, as it was more intense than the physical one.
Fortunately for Ian, this time, he only used a tiny strand of his mental power to test the waters.
If he had used the normal method, even if he hadn't become dumb from the heavy destruction of his mental power, he would have been seriously injured.
His cautiousness saved his life.
"There is indeed something fishy about it."
Ian cursed as getting mental power brutally destroyed wasn't a good feeling, even if it was a tiny portion.
So, he hurriedly rummaged through all the inheritances he got from the trial and stuffed all those that were useful to his mouth absorbing them in a hurry.
"Hah..."
Still, it took Ian nearly half an hour to recover.
'It seems Ethereal form isn't invulnerable, huh.'
Ian thought bitterly as he was still maintaining this form even when he was injured by the ring and was recovering.
After all, who knew if there was another booby trap behind that beam?
But if he thought about it, it seemed the beam only targeted his mental power, which he actively fed to the artifact.
So, even if the Ethereal form might be useful in other cases, his mental power was still vulnerable.
'Miscalculation!'
Ian shook his head and once again paid attention to the dark ring in his hand, which seemed no different from before.
'Fortunately, this seemed to be the only trap.'
He could see that once the beam attacked his mental power successfully, it disappeared, leaving the ring bare for his exploration.
From the way it appeared, Ian had to doubt that the method must be Dornar's.
Otherwise, how could there be only one trap inside, and such an unexpected one, triggered just when his mental power made contact?
'That bastard!'
Ian cursed Dornar shamelessly and separated another strand of his mental power again to explore what was inside.
Once bitten, twice shy.
Although it seemed there was no issue with the ring now, Ian didn't want to gamble and only used a fragment of mental power to scan the items inside while still in Ethereal Form.
After all this experience, he had high hopes for the treasures that lay inside.
'This is weird.'
However, what he saw inside made Ian totally confused, as there were no rich treasures as he had thought or hoped.
There were no large numbers of Spirit Crystals, no spell models, wands, or even a trace of inheritances.
Heck, there wasn't even any item that was remotely useful to him right now.
All he saw inside was an eerie bone mask and a compass lying around in the huge space of the ring as if mocking his expectations.
"What the hell? Are you kidding me right now?"
Ian was dumbfounded, as all this hype was for these two things, which looked clearly useless to him.
'Relax. Let's not lose hope. These two items must be something awesome.'
Ian tried to control himself and used the Analysis on the mask and compass, intending to see their information.
All was good as long as these two things were precious treasures, right?
Ian hoped so.
The moment Ian thought of using the Analysis, a blue screen appeared in his mind immediately.
[Necromancer Mask (Advanced Artifact-damaged): A bone mask made from the grotesque death ritual of a dark wizard, a necromancer. It is slightly damaged, rendering its effect low. It seems to have a lingering aura of its owner when he was alive.
Effect:
1) Aura of Fear: Exude a deathly aura of fear on your enemy when wearing this mask. The effect is highly dependent on the wearer's mental power.
2) Sight Beyond Death: Once you wear this mask, you can see the sight a normal mortal cannot see. While wearing it, seeing ghosts, spirits, or death energy is possible.
3) Mask of Deception: Can hide your identity from magical detection to a certain degree.]
'So basically useless?'
Ian was speechless after seeing that the mask seemed to be only an Advanced artifact, and that too was a little damaged.
Although those effects sounded awesome, and the artifact was of high level, for him, who was expecting more, that was clearly a disappointment nonetheless.
'Let's hope this is something good.'
With a sigh, Ian averted his gaze from the unsightly bone mask and used the Analysis function once again on the compass.
[Necrotic Compass (Uncommon): A magical compass imbued with complex dark runes. It can always point to the nearest graveyard or the presence of undead and death energy with no error.]
'This is even more useless.'
Ian almost threw the ring out after reading the information on the compass. What was the point of having the ability to find the nearest graveyard?
He wasn't a gravedigger, was he?
He hadn't stooped that low yet.
At least, if the compass could point in a direction just like a normal one could, it would have been useful in his upcoming voyage.
'What is with this ability?'
Ian smiled bitterly as he didn't find anything inside that was useful for him now.
Of course, he wasn't stupid enough to not know that these items might have some significance.
Otherwise, why would Dornar have tried so desperately to send it to his family?
However, what Ian wanted was an immediate benefit, not something that seemed to have a connection with that fourth ring wizard Kaelzor.
It seemed he had to snatch the things away from two parties' clutches to gain anything.
That was too risky for him with his strength and too cumbersome to his liking.
'What if I just threw it away?'
Ian pondered while looking at the dark ring that looked unpleasant even from the outside, with seriousness.
Really, if he couldn't gain anything from it right now, taking it out with the uncertain hope of gaining something in the future seemed unwise.
Why take risks for nothing?