Every local subring of a field is dominated by a valuation ring with fraction field . Order local overrings by inclusion and contraction of their maximal ideals; chain unions are local, so Zorn's lemma gives a maximal one. For each , at least one of the extensions of its maximal ideal to and is proper: otherwise two least-degree relations for with maximal-ideal coefficients reduce one another to a smaller-degree relation. Localizing the proper extension gives a dominating overring, so maximality forces either or into .
If an element of the fraction field is absent from a valuation ring , its inverse belongs to the maximal ideal. A monic equation for , multiplied by a power of , would put in that maximal ideal. Thus is an integrally closed domain, without a discrete or Noetherian hypothesis.