The Yellow Land, 2009, early June.
Although it is called a dry land, it is full of greenness and vitality. Palms and cacti are separated by a jagged rock, tulips and larches cling to each other for warmth, and hibiscus and eryngium grow in the sand.
, red willows and camel thorns grow in puddles, epiphyllum blooms in the bright sun, hostas smile to the sun, pitcher plants and sundews spit out sweet honey to feed passing ants and aphids.
A little white rabbit hugged a pig's trotters and passed by a group of grazing wild wolves. Its mouth was full of grease stains left after chewing the bones. Not far away, its partner, a slim deer, was making an evil sound.
A grizzly bear taught a lesson to a grizzly bear who had soiled its hooves. The grizzly bear held its head and enjoyed the fawn's hooves obediently, not daring to say anything.
After Nikita landed with the captain, he saw such a nostalgic scene.
Yes, a nostalgic scene.
When she was a serious wizard, it was hard to imagine that lichs would live in such a fairy tale environment. In her imagination, lichs should live in a land of ice and snow, with a desert made of dead bones under their feet.
It is a forest where wronged souls and flesh and blood condense.
Eight thestrals pulled a large pumpkin cart and galloped across the wilderness. All they could hear was the sound of wind and the sound of golden bells coming from the grass.
The pumpkin cart finally stopped outside a three-story white tower.
This is the mage tower of the lichs.
There are many stalls scattered in the open space outside the tower. The stall owners are all lichs from the tower, old or young. Most of them wear black robes. The goods they sell are not much different from those sold by ordinary black wizards in the market.
, such as ghost flags, binlings, dominoes, painted skins, bloody playing cards, stained nooses, shrunken heads, dead man's nails, glorious hands, etc.
Here, the wizard's blood is divided into cans according to age and gender, and the corpse oil is also made into candles of different colors according to the level of cultivation. At first glance, except for the slightly sinister atmosphere in the stall, there is not much blood flowing.
Nikita lowered his eyebrows and followed Captain Misty towards the mage tower.
There is no lack of scrutinizing eyes behind her.
Many old lichs looked at the banshee's neck with malicious eyes, as if considering where it would be easier to strike. This depressing atmosphere made her feel shuddering.
The first floor of the mage tower is wide and empty, and is a huge classroom.
Floor-to-ceiling windows surround the surroundings, each of which is more than ten meters high. The huge murals hanging between the windows are said to be made of giant skin, but Nikita knows that this is just a rumor. It is not that the base of those murals is not human skin.
, it’s just that it’s not giant skin, but spliced out of ordinary wizard skin.
Giant skin is too hard to be kneaded into scrolls.
Far away from the door, there is a huge blackboard and a huge podium.
Between the door and the podium, there are rows of terraced seats. There are thousands of them, and they are so full that it seems like all the young lichs in the world have gathered here.
An old wizard was sitting behind the podium and in front of the blackboard, giving lessons to these lichs about their future.
He was very big, like a giant. Even though he was just sitting cross-legged behind the podium, his back was stretched to the ceiling, which forced him to lower his head and his gray beard fell to the ground.
His voice was rich and reverberating throughout the classroom:
"...After three years of sleeping in the mud and three years of struggling in the water, the mayflies finally emerge and fly into the sky, but they can only fly for half an hour. That is the most glorious and brilliant moment in their lives."
"The first mayflies to appear will be immediately snatched away by birds, bats, and any predators that covet their flesh and blood. But because there are so many mayflies, soon there will be so many mayflies that the birds can't do anything to them.
Any shock."
"At this time, they will calmly find the safest and most comfortable place and start to reproduce. They will shed the last layer of skin on their bodies, their originally transparent wings will flash with a bright, faint blue color, and their abdomens will pull out
A slender, beautiful tail...the two most important concepts in this story are 'accumulation' and 'balance'."
"The predators are too powerful for any mayfly to resist; there are too many mayflies for any predator to completely eliminate them. But without six years of accumulation, it would be difficult for the mayflies to fly into the sky and form a 'mayfly'
Everyone', come to protect your own safety..."
"The crowd of mayflies is such a good word, hehe."
Captain Misty's deep laughter resounded in the classroom, interrupting the old lich's lecture and making the tall floor-to-ceiling windows around him tremble:
"...But you only told these children that mayflies can win against crowds, but you didn't tell them that after they transform into flying insects, mayflies have no mouth, no stomach, and cannot eat or digest any food. Their brilliant
For half an hour, they rely entirely on the energy they accumulated while foraging at the bottom of the river as larvae... That energy is only enough for them to soar in the air for half an hour."
The young lichs on the seats wanted to angrily scold the rude guest at first, but soon, everyone lost the ability to speak under the pressure of the sea monster. They could only hold the Dharma books and try their best to keep the spiritual platform clear.
"Quiet!!!"
On the podium, the old wizard slapped the lecture notes in his hand hard, and a heavy sound wave rippled from the podium, hitting Captain Misty's laughter heavily.
The floor-to-ceiling windows finally ended their mission and turned into ashes under the confrontation between the two big men, revealing the dark and empty void outside the windows. The murals between the floor-to-ceiling windows were like tree crowns in the wind and rain, swaying from side to side, barely supporting themselves.
The young lichs gasped and took advantage of this rare opportunity to turn into clouds of smoke, disappear between the seats, and escape. This was not an incident they could interfere with.
Nikita had the same idea as those young lichs, but she couldn't leave.
Because the captain was still standing in front of her.
The captain has not spoken yet.
She could only hide under the captain's figure, folding her arms, shrinking, tightly clenching the cloth strap tied around her wrist, and scolded herself a hundred times in her heart, why she kept thinking about getting off the ship.
How safe it is to stay on board!
Until the young lichs in the classroom left one after another.
The old lich on the podium slowly raised his head, revealing a wrinkled face. For this action, his figure shrank slightly, but the momentum all over his body became thicker. The whole space seemed to be full of energy.
He was trembling under the weight of his body, and there was a faint crisp sound in the air like glass cracking:
"Tell me why you're here, Misty."
"I just want to help you expand the number of mayflies," Captain Mist showed rare slickness when there was no one else around: "...Isn't it true that more and more wizards will fall under the glory of the true ancestor?
Is it your responsibility? Ulrich!"
This chapter has been completed!