I can see experience bars after being transported to another world.

Lu Yuan's eyelids twitched.

Inside the box, two bottles of medicine lay quietly.

One of the bottles contained a light gray potion with a neutral scent, carrying a certain understated quality that was easily overlooked.

The other bottle of medicine was far more terrifying. It resembled a living thing, its entire body composed of an unidentified, swollen, intertwined structure and a glass bottle. Rather than a medicine, it was more like a still-moving insect, a description that better captured Lu Yuan's first impression of its appearance. Moreover, it was slowly and continuously wriggling in Lu Yuan's sight.

"This thing is a plague potion?" Oden's voice echoed in his mind, tinged with surprise. "How come there's some sign of life in it?"

Lu Yuan was a little unsure at this moment. He focused his gaze and saw gray and white characters slowly pop up in his vision.

[Special Alchemical Structure Detected: Delusion of the Dead Land (Diluted Version)]

[A peculiar artifact unearthed from a desolate land contains a plague powerful enough to shake the world.]

Then, a series of medicinal herb names appeared in the gray and white text.

【██████... Rotten Grass, Plague-Crying Mushroom, Gray Anthracnose Vine... One of them is in a black lump state.】

The gray text did not show all the ingredients for these potions, nor did it specify the brewing methods.

Looking at the unidentifiable medicinal herb, Lu Yuan immediately realized that something was wrong; it was another special material involving forbidden ingredients.

The fact that the gray text cannot be displayed indicates that it is contaminated to some extent, and the source of this material should also be related to this so-called desolate place.

This time, Lu Yuan didn't hide anything. After the light in his eyes faded, he directly asked Auden in his mind, "Auden, do you know this place?"

Auden saw the glint in Lu Yuan's eyes and understood. Lu Yuan must have activated his ability to see other people's information again. This time, Auden neither asked nor paid any attention.

However, Lu Yuan's sudden question startled Auden. The Land of the Dead? He didn't seem to have heard of this place. He did know about various forbidden places, but he wasn't very clear about some smaller or renamed places, especially the Land of the Dead, which he had never even heard of.

"I haven't heard of it." Auden hesitated for a moment, "But it's most likely from the spirit world, an otherworld related to death and disaster. I didn't discover it during my lifetime. If I had to say, there are indeed similar places in the spirit world, which may have appeared after my death."

Lu Yuan pondered for a moment. If even Auden didn't know, then that was a bit troublesome.

He didn't know where the Dead Land was, so he didn't know what the last ingredient was. If he didn't know what the last ingredient was, it was wishful thinking to try to make a near-perfect formula for the potion. At least for now, he couldn't achieve a very effective ratio.

But what exactly is the spirit world?

"The spirit world is a place similar to the sea of ​​knowledge, but it is not a forbidden place. Rather, it is a world that transcends the outside world," Auden explained. "In places with war, plague, and high death toll, the spirit world may be opened, but it itself is not polluted. Its appearance is more like a result of the high death toll. Therefore, the spirit world is a special place that extraordinary people can go to, but no one will go there. Its appearance is also random."

Lu Yuan understood this.

However, Lu Yuan thought again. Although he couldn't create a near-perfect solution, he could create a formula that could alleviate the effects to some extent. After all, he still had research to do.

For example, if one can identify a person infected with the plague, then based on the person's condition, a suitable medicine can be formulated with a high probability. Since this medicine can help the plague in the person's body to a certain extent, it means that the formula used by Lu Yuan can be adapted to more people as long as it is modified.

But it seems that there are no people infected by the plague at the Knight Academy, right?

This is giving me a headache. I can't just drink it myself, can I? That would be too stupid.

Lu Yuan felt somewhat melancholy, but since he couldn't conduct in-depth research for the time being, he decided to write down the materials he already knew and see if Auden had any understanding of them.

So Lu Yuan took out a piece of paper and copied down the names of several medicinal herbs that he could perceive in the delusion of the desolate land. This time, he didn't hide anything from Auden or explain anything; he simply laid it out on the table after writing it down.

"This is the medicinal ingredient formula I can detect in this potion, but it's not complete. Can you see if you can discern anything?"

Auden was taken aback when he saw the list of medicinal herbs that Lu Yuan pushed over. "You can actually see the detailed information?" However, Auden did not ask this question directly. He just looked at the note and read it word by word.

"Rotten Grass, Plague-Weeping Mushroom, and Gray Antler Vine—are these all materials related to plague? No, that can't be right. How could such materials exist? If I remember correctly, the latter two shouldn't exist anymore, right?"

Oden frowned; these medicinal herbs were quite dangerous.

"The former, the Rotten Grass, is a bit better. This kind of medicinal herb can still be found in places where there are many dead people and decaying. But the other two medicinal herbs, normally speaking, should not exist in this world."

"Take the Plague Crying Mushroom for example. This thing can only grow in places where there is a plague, and it must be a large-scale plague that lasts for a long time. Human and animal corpses are piled up together, and amidst the wailing, it is possible for this mushroom with a certain degree of sanity shock to grow from human mouths. It is so rare that a person may never see it in their lifetime."

"However, plagues were basically resolved in my time. Even if they existed, they were small-scale outbreaks, not large-scale ones. But without such plagues, the Plague Mushroom would not have the environment to grow, so this is a contradiction."

Oden paused for a moment.

"Could it be that your empire has been struck by a plague? That shouldn't be the case. If there were a plague, there should be some news about it. But judging from the time we've been here, there doesn't seem to be any. So there's only one possibility: a plague has broken out somewhere else."

Lu Yuan didn't interrupt; he knew Auden hadn't finished speaking.

"Secondly, there's the gray anthracnose vine, which is quite rare." Oden's tone turned somber.

"It must be a very special kind of plague that spreads on a large scale and causes widespread death. Only then can this thing grow from the spine of the dying. This thing is less of a vine and more of a special material resulting from the mutation of the spinal cord and tissue in the human spine through the plague. It has extremely terrifying plague properties, and its production is extremely rare."

"So, if the materials you've seen are correct, there's only one possibility: a plague has broken out elsewhere, and someone is deliberately spreading the plague and collecting plague-related medicinal materials, preparing to spread it in your Oris Empire."

Lu Yuan frowned slightly. What Auden said did make some sense, but he didn't think so about the plague.

If the neighboring Vesalion Empire were to truly attack its own Oris Empire, it would be utterly foolish to allow the plague to rage within its own empire and then rush into Oris to plunder its territory.

Even if this world is a supernatural world, and a Western world at that, the leader of an empire would never allow his empire to be ravaged by plague while simultaneously waging war against neighboring countries. Lu Yuan couldn't think of any reason to do so, except to destroy his own country, unless he had shit for brains.