Start by logging into the Old Man's Ring at Hogwarts

Not long after, Zikomo arrived at the bottom of the Shifra River. Deep within the Ancestral Forest, Zikomo found a hidden passage. This passage led to the former aqueduct of the Eternal City.

At the waterfall at the end of the water-guiding bridge, there is a stone coffin that can be floated upstream, allowing one to reach the deep roots.

In addition, deep within the sewers of the royal city of Rodel, there is a hidden passage on the side of the entrance to the Madfire Seal that leads to the deepest levels of the roots.

Zicomo's reason for choosing to go down into the deep roots from this side is simple: since there are normal roads to take, why choose to go through the sewers?

The royal city's sewers hadn't been thoroughly explored by Chicomo, partly due to their intricate network of routes. But the main reason was the sheer filth and stench of decay permeating the air.

Chapter 154 The Difference Between Forging Stones, The Powerful Death Prince's Staff

Zicomo has a slight obsession with cleanliness and simply couldn't stand the environment there.

Although Zicomo knew he would explore the place sooner or later, it was better to postpone it as long as possible. Besides, with Melina around, he couldn't get too close to Madfire, lest that blockhead have some wild ideas.

At the entrance to the waterfall deep within the aqueduct, Zicomo saw a naked man sitting there quietly, without saying a word.

Zicomo knew he was D's twin brother, and that if he gave him D's armor, he would inherit his brother's will and become a Deathbringer hunter.

But Zicomo didn't do that. No way! That was his payment for helping D collect the body; why would he give it to this naked man in front of him?

Besides, he's currently on the side of the Sleeping Girl, so how could he possibly help someone who's against her?

Upon entering, after defeating two gargoyle bosses, Zicomo lay down in the stone coffin at the foot of the waterfall. Accompanied by a feeling of extreme gravity, the coffin ascended the waterfall to the deepest part of the roots.

Geographically, the Deep Roots lie above the bottom of the Sylph River, while the ruins of the Eternal City are located at the bottom of the Sylph River. This demonstrates the ruthlessness of the Supreme Will, which caused Estelle to slam the Eternal City so deep underground.

The deep root layer is located directly below the royal city of Rodel, and is the growth area of ​​the golden tree's roots.

So when Zicomo emerged from the sarcophagus, he saw the tangled roots of the golden tree, and a golden tree avatar lingering not far away.

These incarnations can be found under small golden trees in various locations along the border; they are monsters created by the golden trees to protect themselves.

However, as the original Golden Tree, it was protected by the Beast of Elden, so it naturally didn't need a small Golden Tree incarnation. Therefore, it was thrown to the deepest part of the roots to guard the tree roots.

After dealing with the golden tree avatar, Zicomo continued forward, walking on the thick roots of the golden tree.

The roots of these golden trees are over a meter wide at their thinnest point, wide enough for Zicomo to even run a horse across them.

Not far ahead, Zicomo spotted a cave entrance to his right. Upon closer inspection, he found the entrance wasn't deep; he could see the end from the entrance.

At the end of the path was a ball of light radiating golden light. Zicomo approached and touched the ball of light. A golden light flashed, and a new method for using a prayer appeared in his mind, named "Elden Meteor".

If he hadn't played games in his past life, he really wouldn't know why there would be a prayer here out of the blue.

"Elden Meteor" is the oldest golden tree prayer, not created by humans, but formed naturally at this location.

In the past, the Supreme Will sent a beast to the borderland on a golden meteor. The meteor transformed into a golden tree upon reaching the borderland, while the beast became the Elden Ring, also known as the Elden Beast.

The "Elden Meteor" is a prayer formed from the remaining power of the golden meteor. Its effect is to create countless golden meteors that attack the surrounding area.

Zikomo has no shortage of area-of-effect attacks, and he prefers magic to prayer. So even though "Elden Meteor" is the oldest Golden Tree Prayer, it's destined to gather dust in Zikomo's skill set.

Leaving the cave, Zicomo continued towards the main root of the golden tree. After crossing a cliff, he was surprised to find the ruins of a building submerged in a pool of water.

Moreover, the architectural style is extremely similar to that of the Eternal City, which puzzled Zicomo greatly.

The deep roots are clearly located directly beneath the royal city of Rodel, so how could there be ruins of the Eternal City here? Could it be that there was once an Eternal City here?

Zicomo could not investigate this matter, because the other two Eternal Cities at least still had survivors and artifacts left for Zicomo to examine.

This nameless, eternal city left nothing behind. Only swarms of suddenly-dead frogs, constantly spewing deathly gray mist, and a group of ants larger than rhinoceroses.

What's even more chilling is that when Zicomo killed these ants, he was able to collect runes from them. This makes one wonder if these ants had eaten the rare people.

Rumor has it that the rare people are descendants of the Eternal City. Zicomo is somewhat skeptical. Could it be that all the remaining inhabitants of this nameless Eternal City have been eaten by the ants here?

Following the slanted roots upwards, Zicomo found a corpse in a place resembling a mage tower, with a strangely shaped staff placed beside him.

After picking it up, Zicomo learned about its information through a system scan.

[The Death Prince's Staff: The top is inlaid with a mottled piece of amber, a part of the Death Prince's body. It is one of the heretical magic staffs not recognized by the academy. It can enhance magic related to death, greatly increasing the power of all spells.]

This greatly surprised Zicomo. Who was this amazing magician who dared to come to such a place and use a part of the dead prince's body to make this wand?

Could this be the person lying on the ground?

If that's the case, then it's quite pitiful. Possessing such exquisite wand-making skills, able to create wands using the body of a demigod, yet tragically dying here.

However, this benefited Zicomo. Since it was a wand crafted from the body of a demigod, its amplifying effect was also effective on him.

Zicomo held the Death Prince's Staff in his hand, and he could feel that the boost it provided to him was significantly greater than that from Luther's Radiant Stone Staff.

This is a wand that hasn't been enhanced yet.

If you take it to the Round Table Hall and have the blacksmith Xiu Gu upgrade it to +10, and with its amplification of death magic, Zikomo might be able to unleash a spell that instantly kills a demigod.

The only downside is that there's very little magic related to death in the borderlands. So far, Zicomo only possesses "Summoning the Wraith," which he found in Stoneville earlier, and "Ancient Wraith of Death," which he obtained after killing the Killing Bird in the Lake Lienia region.

Both of these death spells summon vengeful spirits to attack enemies, making it hard not to suspect that there is some connection between them.

Having acquired such a powerful wand, Zicomo naturally wanted to enhance it first.

It just so happens that he recently found a piece of ancient dragon rock discolored forging stone in the Blood Dynasty of Monger.

Zicomo never used it after obtaining it because he didn't have a weapon he liked.

He was also thinking that if he still didn't find a weapon he liked after a while, he would use the forging stone on the Darkmoon Greatsword that Lani had given him.

That was a weapon his wife gave him, so using the forging stone on it wasn't a bad deal.

However, now that he has the Death Prince's Staff, the task of upgrading the Darkmoon Greatsword can be postponed. After all, while the Ancient Dragonstone Discoloration Forging Stones in the Borderlands are rare, there's more than one. That's enough to upgrade all his commonly used weapons to +10.

Incidentally, besides the Discoloration Forging Stone, there is also a regular Forging Stone used to enhance ordinary weapons, which can enhance weapons up to +25.

The two types of forging stones belong to different enhancement systems and are not interchangeable.

Don't be fooled by the fact that ordinary weapons can be enhanced to +25 while special weapons can only be enhanced to +10. In reality, most ordinary weapons enhanced to +25 are not as strong as special weapons enhanced to +10.

Zicomo's yew wand was enhanced using ordinary forging stones and is currently enhanced to +24. The final level requires an Ancient Dragonstone forging stone, which is even harder to find than the Ancient Dragonstone Discoloration forging stone. Zicomo has not yet obtained one.

However, despite this, the +24 yew wand still doesn't provide the same boost to Zicomo as the +9 Luther's Brilliant Staff.

Getting back to the main point, having obtained the Staff of the Dead Prince, Zikomo had been exploring the Borderlands for quite some time. So he temporarily left the Deeproots and returned to the Round Table Hall. After having the blacksmith Xiu Gu upgrade the Staff of the Dead Prince to +10, Zikomo logged off to rest.

…………

The next day, Zicomo was having breakfast at the main dining room when he looked up and saw Harry walking in with Ron, who had a bruised and swollen face.

The two sat down opposite Zicomo, who asked curiously, "What happened to Ron? Did he fall down the 4.5-meter stairs?"

“There’s no way you could fall down the stairs and end up like this,” Ron complained. “It was Malfoy’s two henchmen. They asked me out alone last night, saying they wanted to duel me.”

As soon as I stepped into the empty classroom they had arranged to meet, they ambushed me. They put a sack over my head, beat me up, and then ran away.

Ron grew angrier and angrier, and finally he stood up and said, "No way! I'm going to take them to the professor and have a serious talk with them!"

Zicomo rolled his eyes and said, "Come on, you don't even have any evidence. Guess why they covered your head and beat you? Just so you couldn't see who hit you."

“But they were the ones who hit me!” Ron said excitedly.

“But you didn’t see that even if you extracted your memories and put them in the Pensieve, the professor still wouldn’t know who hit you. Besides, the professors wouldn’t use the Pensieve for such a trivial matter.” Zicomo waved his hand dismissively.

In truth, Ron brought this upon himself. If he hadn't given Harry that dirty trick, he wouldn't have been retaliated against like this by Draco.

Chapter 155 The Naive Ron, the True Legacy of Slytherin

Yes, Zicomo was quite certain that Draco had orchestrated this. His two lackeys, whose heads were practically food containers, would never have come up with something as simple as putting someone in a sack and beating them up.

Moreover, he had recently revealed to Draco that Ron had given Harry dirty tricks. So, Zicomo wasn't surprised at all that Draco was causing trouble for Ron.

To his surprise, Draco didn't do it himself this time. It seems that after being taught by Snape, the young man has learned his lesson.

The right choice is to delegate this kind of task to his subordinates. Since he wasn't involved, any problems that arise will be none of his concern.

Of course, this is on the premise that your teammates aren't incompetent. And clearly, Draco's two henchmen are incompetent just in appearance.

And so, Draco, accompanied by two henchmen, entered the main hall, one in front and one behind.

Upon seeing Ron's face, one of the henchmen pointed at Ron and laughed, "Boss, you see, you've done what you asked me to do."

“Yeah, if Filch hadn’t been about to arrive, we could have punched him a few more times,” another henchman chimed in.

Draco slapped his forehead in exasperation; he'd forgotten to tell those two idiots to keep it a secret.

However, now that he's been exposed, he's not the kind of person who would dare to do something but not admit it.

Before Ron could question him, Draco spoke first: "Weasley, how does it feel to be tricked? This is the price you pay for instigating Potter to slap me in the face."

"You! How did you know about this?" Ron's tone was a mixture of anger and surprise.

Draco, of course, wouldn't betray Zikomo, but he still glanced at him instinctively. And that glance was coincidentally seen by Ron.

Ron looked at Zicomo in disbelief.

Seeing this, Zicomo shook his head helplessly. Draco's two henchmen were terrible teammates, and he himself wasn't much better.

“Zicomo, you betrayed me?” Ron said.

“It’s not a matter of betrayal or not; you didn’t say this had to be kept secret. Besides, Draco is my friend,” Zicomo said, waving his hand.

Strictly speaking, Zicomo's relationship with Draco was even better than his relationship with Ron.

He and Ron were at best ordinary friends; they had never even done any entertainment together. He only gave him the 'Apperd' book because of Harry and the twins.