Chapter Thirteen: Lake Sora and the Mysterious Hand
"What I mean is that since you two have brought us here, there is no need to participate in the rest of the journey."
The early morning breeze blew across the quiet lake. Dulan could not imagine that such a clean and beautiful land could exist in such a weird and gloomy mushroom forest - the giant mushrooms seemed to be isolated by a magical power.
There were some gray stones scattered around the lake named [Sora]. The surface of the stones was dull. Duran noticed that the surfaces of these stones were very smooth, but if they were lifted up
If exposed to the sun, a faint texture will appear under the surface of the stone.
"It's a rune." Dulan made an identification in his mind. He didn't recognize this kind of rune. It should be one of several advanced runes in ancient magic. The presence of a rune means that he is far away from the rune master.
Ravenjin's Tower of Shadow is not far away.
At this time, Sola Lake was quiet and peaceful. Dulan and his party stood by the lake, looking at the dark shadow in the middle of the lake. There, a small island was suspended in the middle of the lake. On the island grew a tree that covered the sky.
Big tree in the sun.
"No way, we wanted to go to the island to play before, but we were stopped many times by that bad guy Stuka. Another time he almost ate us both. Since you want to deal with him, of course we have to take a good look at this
How did you teach the bad guy a lesson!" said the little fairy Lulu with her hands on her hips.
"Oh? Do you really believe that we can defeat the tree demon?" Duran turned around and asked a little strangely.
Another ice fairy, Nana, intervened and said: "Stuka didn't catch us, but you did. So you are a bad guy who is worse than him. The big bad guy is of course more powerful than the bad guy."
Dulan smiled bitterly, the goblins' thoughts were really weird and unpredictable.
At this moment, except for the two ice fairies flying up and down, Tiepi was still suffering from indigestion and stood timidly behind Dulan with a big belly. He looked much better now than last night, but his belly was still bulging.
, being able to move reluctantly is already great news - this also makes Dulan secretly wonder that the ogre's digestive ability is indeed extraordinary, and it can even digest stones!
Ironhide was not proud of this. After being teased by the two goblins, the courage he had just summoned suddenly disappeared. When he saw Lulu and Nana, he trembled all over and was so scared. Kate looked at him pitifully.
, comforted him with a few words, but it had no effect except getting Tiepi's grateful look.
"This guy is useless," the silver-haired warlock said.
Duran shrugged noncommittally: "That's not necessarily the case - I mean, he has been like this from the beginning. I have never seen a day when he was not useless."
Listening to the conversation between Dulan and Kate, Tiepi's face was flushed with embarrassment. The vows he had made to himself before were still in his ears, but his body and mind seemed to be involuntarily, and he instinctively felt scared - Dulan knew this was
The sequelae of hallucination, because he did not walk out of the realm of nothingness alone, his will and spirit will be weakened within a certain period of time. This is why in many legends in remote rural areas, people who are captured and played by goblins are released after
, most likely because of a serious illness.
The ogre's physique is far stronger than that of ordinary humans, so getting sick is definitely not a problem, but a period of depression is inevitable.
…
According to the introduction of the two goblins, the dryad Stuka occupies the island in the middle of the lake and regards the entire Lake Sola as its own territory. If any creature dares to break into the island in the middle of the lake, it will be mercilessly devoured by the dryad.
.Because the distance between the two sides was too far, Duran's visual inspection skills could not be used, and he could only learn the approximate strength of the dryad from Lulu and Nana.
"At least it's a gold-level monster. It's a bit tricky!" Dulan squinted at the quiet tree on the island. If it hadn't been for the reminder of the two little goblins, no one would know about such a quiet paradise tree.
It turned out to be a monster that eats people without blinking an eye.
Although plant monsters always have some shortcomings compared to animal monsters, since this paradise tree tree monster has been able to dominate Lake Sola for so long, he must have very powerful abilities. Unless it is absolutely necessary,
Under such circumstances, Duran did not want to conflict with this behemoth.
He came to find the entrance to the Valley of Shadows. The motto on the parchment did not say that the entrance to the Valley of Shadows was on the island in the middle of the lake. In Dulan's vague memory, there seemed to be no monsters such as tree demons guarding the Valley of Shadows.
Entrance - If it's just near Sola Lake and you don't have to conflict with the tree monsters, this would be the best thing.
Duran took out the parchment scroll and read it again in the sunlight. His eyes swept around Lake Sola. As if to confirm the motto of the parchment scroll, Lake Sola was surrounded by clean gravel with special symbols.
Wen's stones are dotted among the gravel, like the most beautiful beach, except there are no fine stones——
[The shadows of holly trees wrap around the stone-free lakeside]
Dulan recited this magical motto softly, and the others fell silent instantly. He looked to the right, where a few unremarkable holly trees stood less than two feet away from Sola Lake.
Ten feet away from the lake. Not far away, in the gaps between the rune stones, several bright flowers quietly grew - white roses on the left and lilies of the valley on the right. The power of the runes came faintly from the stones.
, there must be some unknown force that gave birth to these two completely different flowers.
"[Lily of the valley and white roses are connected side by side], it's really a surprising creation." Kate also saw two kinds of flowers growing in the rune stone pile. She walked over and lowered her head to open the gap in the stone pile. Two clusters of flowers were at the roots.
Tightly connected and deep into the thick sand. There is no doubt that it is these strange runes that blend the lily of the valley and the white rose into one. What Kate praised was the masterpiece of the ancient rune school mage.
[The gate of mysteries always welcomes true wise men]
[The mysterious hand points to the final entrance]
In Dulan's view, the third sentence is useless, and the real key lies in the [mysterious hand] mentioned in the last sentence. The group of people looked around at the quiet Sola Lake for more than ten minutes, but nothing happened.
Nothing related to the mysterious hand was found at all.
"Damn it, what's on this parchment can't be a hoax, right?" Lulu pointed at the shadow document in Dulan's hand, akimbo and said, "Nana and I often wander around Lake Sola, there is no such thing.
Have you seen any mysterious hands?"
Another ice fairy also nodded vigorously in agreement and waved her fist: "Instead of looking for some mysterious hand here, why don't we rush to the island together and defeat that nasty Stuka!"
Dulan smiled slightly: "You two can go by yourselves."
The two little guys suddenly withered. They had lived in the mushroom forest for a long time. If they could defeat the dryad, they would have driven him out of the island in the middle of the lake long ago. How could they wait for today? Fairies are indeed masters of playing with people's hearts.
That's true, but whether the dryad has a heart or not is still a matter of two minds, not to mention that Stuka has a power comparable to gold, so small illusions are not worth mentioning at all.
"Dulan, looking like this is definitely not the way. Maybe this is another puzzle? Maybe we missed something." Kate reminded.
Dulan nodded and pondered for a while.
"Let's sort out our thoughts first. Everyone, what do you know about the mysterious hand?" Dulan was ready to brainstorm ideas.
"Abu Abu!" The fire-eating beast's opinion was the first to be ignored by everyone. As the only being in the group who could not speak Common Language, his opinion in such a small meeting was obviously destined to be ignored.
Tiepihan laughed twice: "In our ogre customs, the term mysterious hand only appears in the knowledge related to ancestor worship. It seems that the ogres who are appointed by the mysterious hand will have some extraordinary abilities.
strength."
Hearing this, Dulan's heart moved: "How do you know this?"
Tiepi said with a blank look: "I don't know very well. There is some knowledge that seems to be stored directly in the depths of my soul. It may not be needed at ordinary times and will not appear, but once a relevant situation is encountered, this knowledge will be available."
It will come out on its own initiative, as if I have understood it for a long time. But most of the knowledge I gained is about the key points of ancestor worship."
Duran touched his chin. Ironhide was able to automatically inherit knowledge from his bloodline, which was a good sign. Anyone who could inherit knowledge through bloodline was an extremely powerful race in the multiverse - the most intuitive example was the dragon race.
Although the ogre race is relatively discriminated against, it does have a certain probability of blood inheritance.
"Is it possible that this guy's elite template is actually a rare ogre ancestor priest?" Ogres, like barbarians, are ancestor-worshipping races. In Duran's impression, there are several ogres in the history of Feinan Continent.
The ogre ancestor priests are all very powerful heroes. Most of them have unique titles - such as [Roaring War Priest Michael], or [Thunder of Thunder] who led the Gray Plains tribe to repel the invasion of the Plague Land.
Beast Priest Hollande】.
These are all famous heroes who spanned civilizations and races in history, enough to make future generations stand in awe when they read their names. But as long as Duran thought about whether this guy Ironpi would be titled as an ancestral priest.
When watching [The Witty Cowardly Priest Sanders Ironhide], he couldn't help but laugh out loud.
…
Directly skipping the two noisy goblins, Duran fixed his gaze on Kate. The demon warlock spread his hands: "My bloodline has only inherited various talents and spells for me. As for knowledge, I
It’s just an average level among the people in black. I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about the mysterious hand. But I’m curious, what do you know, Dulan?”
Dulan sighed and said, "Well, it seems I still have to talk to myself."
"First of all, everyone, let me introduce to you the allusion of the four words mysterious hand."
"In history, the earliest record about the [Mysterious Hand] appears, which is generally believed to be the chapter in the seventh volume of the Pearl Tower Ten Thousand Years Book about the ancient holy king Abak obtaining the Flame Apostle's Sword - '...the holy king at that time
Falling into the abyss of darkness, there is no top, no bottom, no left or right. Two roads diverged in the fire, and the Holy King was guided by the mysterious hand...'"
"Legend has it that before he obtained the Sword of the Flame Apostle, Abak was once very poor. Once he was hunted down by demons and hid in the endless underground abyss. He was in panic all day long. At this time, he got the [Mysterious Mystery]
The guidance of the hand] gained eternal life in the fire.”
"Later, the mysterious hand gradually evolved into a symbol. Scholars believe that it means an invitation. Ancient wise men believed that some secrets must be hidden in the safest place and cannot be made public. To protect these secrets
People must be wise and virtuous among human beings. Wherever a mysterious hand appears, the owner of ancient wisdom invites future generations to share this treasure. As long as you can find the mysterious hand, you can find the entrance to the treasure.
