Knight guard, entourage, assistant, Duke took the airship this time, and like other arcane mages, brought the entire team to serve himself.
Levin was also brought here, and the airship would land in Snakehead Town, just in time for Levin to go play at Xiaohewan Farm.
He himself also plans to live in a villa on the farm.
There are also spiritual plants he left behind, a 1-ring spiritual plant-monkey earrings, and a batch of 0-ring spiritual plants.
Of course, if the Black Snake family kindly invites him to live in the Black Snake Manor, he will not refuse, after all, the spiritual energy there is richer.
"We're here." Guide Vikas held the red wine glass, feeling like he was revisiting his old place, "A new adventure is about to begin."
This time, instead of just one airship, the Loop from Penrose Master Tower, five airships came to Cuihai Valley for investigation.
The Black Snake family held a grand banquet in the manor and invited all arcane mages to attend.
After the banquet was over, the Arcane mages all said their goodbyes and left. They did not choose to stay at Black Snake Manor, but instead found their own accommodation outside.
Only Duke stayed and invited Mentor Penrose and others to stay at Black Snake Manor.
"The war to open up the Cuihai Valley put our Black Snake family in an embarrassing situation in the Black Dragon River. Many arcane mages think that our cooperation with the Bernoulli Mage Tower is an act of betrayal." Muhans Black Snake, while chatting with Duke.
, said with resentment.
Duke didn't answer.
Muhans continued: "In fact, this is simply a slap in the face. Information about the spiritual spring of Cuihai Valley was leaked. No one in this city could step forward and launch a pioneering war. Bernoulli's Master Tower took the lead. Instead, it was blamed.
To us."
"It's just temporary. When the Bernoulli family integrates into the Black Dragon River, everything will return to the past." Duke comforted.
"Maybe, but thanks to your efforts to stay, Mr. Penrose would never have stayed at Black Snake Manor otherwise, let alone the beautiful girl from the Nutao family."
"I'll try my best," Duke said with a smile.
Being born in Snake Head Town limited Duke's relationship with the Black Snake family. It was too late to cut him off, and there was no need to cut him off.
Being strong yourself is the last word.
"By the way, Uncle Muhans, what changes have taken place in Cuihai Valley that led the United Tower to personally call on arcane mages to investigate?"
"Have a cup of tea first to relieve your hangover, and then I'll explain it to you in detail."
As the patriarch of the Black Snake Family, Muhans was naturally aware of the recent changes in Cuihai Valley, and immediately told Duke in detail.
"At the beginning, everyone withdrew from Cuihai Valley. Then when the mercenaries returned, they found that there was something different in Well No. 3. The originally green camp suddenly became colorful.
."
After a pause, Muhans frowned and said, "It's lichen, a kind of lichen with an evil aura that can grow sharp teeth. If you step on this lichen by mistake, your feet will be broken, and your legs will be broken."
Many mercenaries were useless because of this."
The colorful fang lichen spread from the camp in Well 3 and has spread to most areas of Cuihai Valley.
It’s hard to guard against.
"In addition to lichens, there are more things with evil auras. Although these things are not very strong, they are very unappetizing. I have seen some mercenaries infected with evil auras, and their wounds rotted and smelled.
There are some mycelium inside."
Muhans said with a look of disgust: "It's disgusting. The arcane treatment effect is not good, you have to use physical means to disinfect it."
"In other words, this is a fungal-like infection?" Duke asked.
"The high priest looked at it and didn't think it was a simple fungus. It might be a contaminant of some evil thing."
"Evil thing..." Duke narrowed his eyes.
He believes that this kind of fang lichen and the like are definitely related to the forbidden land sealed under the No. 3 well area. It is most likely caused by the shedding of ancient evil things that polluted the outside world.
However, a gag order has been signed regarding the forbidden area, so Duke cannot explain it clearly.
I can only continue to listen to Muhans's description of the various strange things that appeared in the forest and the disgusting experiences that the mercenaries encountered.
Just chatting.
Penrose's entourage came over and called for Duke to come over and assemble.
"Go ahead and be careful after entering the forest. Don't rush in." Muhans warned.
"Know."
Duke rushed to assemble, and after everyone was gathered, Penrose directly led the team towards the third safe passage leading to Cuihai Valley.
Levin went to the farm, while Mulali stayed at the Black Snake Manor, and the entourage was also left at the farm.
Duke only took Vivian and other six knights to protect him, and he was not shabby at all compared to other arcane mages.
Of course.
It cannot be compared with Kiria Furious Wave. In addition to five 1st-level knights, she also has two 2nd-level fantasy beast knights.
This is the "Guardian Knight" selected by the great nobles for their potential descendants, to protect the descendants so that they can more securely enter the spiritual arcana.
"What a luxury. The 2nd-level phantom beast knights serve as guards..." Duke looked at Kylia not far away and sighed in his heart, "But it also shows that the knights are really in decline. The 2nd-level phantom beast knights are all gone."
They can only serve as guards. It is said that more established nobles will even choose 3-level high-level fantasy beast knights as guardian knights."
Fortunately, the Dragon Knight is just a legend, otherwise a real arcane mage might choose the Dragon Knight as the guardian knight for his descendants.
"This era is the era of spiritual arcane magic and the era of arcane mages."
After gathering his thoughts, Duke followed the team closely. Such a mixed team of arcane mages and knights felt very safe.
Safety Channel No. 3 has been repaired by mercenaries.
On the wide weedy road, within a few hundred meters, except for a few weed leaves, there was nothing taller than a calf.
Among the team, there is also a Black Beetle car that follows as a mobile laboratory.
Occasionally, you can see black beetle vehicles on the road, pulling huge corpses of spiritual beasts, tightly wrapped spiritual plants, and other strange things.
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"Stop here and start the investigation from here." Instructor Penrose announced the start of the investigation when the team reached the foot of the mountain.
Opposite the mountains ahead is Cuihai Valley.
This can only be regarded as the outskirts of Cuihai Valley, and the mysterious changes in Cuihai Valley have extended to this area and are expanding outward every day.
Duke had accumulated a lot of jungle experience when he was dormant in the countryside, so he quickly led his escort knights into the jungle next to the safe passage.
Xiaoyi hangs up and plays "Rainfall Breathing Method", and can control all situations within a radius of 500 meters.
Immediately.
The Dou Qi holographic screen in the field of vision outlines a map.
On the map, gray represents normal areas, while colors represent abnormal areas. For example, red represents spiritual beasts and green represents spiritual plants.
But at this time, there was a large area of black on the map.
"Master, the breathing resonance in these areas is abnormal, and there is a special breath suppressing the natural power emitted by the plants."
One of them is black, right at Duke's feet.
He squatted down and saw a layer of light yellow and light pink fungus lichens growing on the ground, which was completely different from the surrounding surface.
It's a bit like the slime mold often used in experiments.
"Is this the fang lichen that Hans mentioned?" Duke put on his gloves, squatted down, thought for a moment and activated the fighting spirit armor.
However, the fighting spirit armor at this moment is not spread over the whole body, but concentrated on the hands and arms.
Then he stabbed the fang lichen with a dagger. The next moment, the fang lichen seemed to come alive. It quickly expanded from the stabbed position to a large mouth full of fangs and bit Duke's hand.
Duke faced the fangs and opened his mouth and punched him.
The fighting spirit armor was covered with fists, and the mouth of the fang lichen was directly smashed into a big hole as big as the head: "Disgusting thing."
Juice splashes everywhere.
They were all blocked by Duke's fighting spirit armor.
"Sir, what is this thing? It's actually a living thing?" The female knight Teasi, following Duke, frowned and asked, "I have never seen such a strange thing before when I ventured into the forest.
, a living thing like moss."
"Who knows, go and get the collection test tube for me." Duke ordered.
The knights acted as his research assistants and quickly collected the test tubes. Duke took some of the fanged lichen that he had smashed on the ground and stuffed it in with tweezers. Then he screwed on the lid of the test tube and put in a piece of spirit.
In a package carried by a horse.
Soon he found various colors of fang lichen nearby. A small piece of fang lichen cannot grow fangs and big mouths, but only a large piece of fang lichen can grow fangs and big mouths.
He collected some samples of various fang lichens.
"These things make me feel angry." The great knight Damon brandished his knight sword and slashed at the fang lichen on the ground.
Fighting swords are radiating with radiance, and lichen slime is flying everywhere.
"Damon, stop it, it's disgusting to have mucus on your body." Affleck, another knight, frowned and scolded.
Vivian said solemnly: "Follow me, everyone, protect me!"
"Copy that, Captain." Damon took back his knight sword and muttered, "The smell of these fang lichen makes me smell uncomfortable."
"I can feel that the breath it emits has an evil smell." Zoe, the female knight, sniffed her nose and said, "It smells like a spirit beast that has been dead for more than ten days, and the body has rotted. Smelling it too much makes me feel uncomfortable.
I feel uncomfortable all over."
The last great knight, Matt, held the knight's sword and looked around, not participating in the discussion.
Three female knights, Vivian, Tejasi, and Zoe; three male knights, Damon, Affleck, and Matt.
These are Duke's six escort knights.
He ignored the discussion of the great knights and simply said hello: "Follow me, there are new things ahead that need to be collected."
Then he walked forward quickly.
Matt and Damon quickly rushed in front of Duke, using the knight's sword as a machete to cut through thorns and weeds and create a path for him.
Continuing two hundred meters deeper, Duke arrived at the small black dot displayed on the Dou Qi holographic screen.
Just now, Xiaoyi detected a special area ahead through breathing resonance. The breath fluctuation was similar to that of Fang Lichen, but slightly different, so he set it to a beating black dot.
At this time.
The little black dot has been exposed in Duke's eyes.
It is a huge weird flower that grows on the trunk of a dead tree. It has no leaves, only a stem in the form of a slime mold similar to the Tooth Lichen, and its roots are deeply rooted in the trunk.
"This flower is really big!" Damon choked out an adjective, "And it also smells really bad."
"It looks very much like a konjac flower. Some konjac flowers smell bad, but this one should be contaminated by fang lichen." Duke stimulated the weird konjac flower with a stick, and the next moment the konjac flower popped.
Explode.
The arcane shield was instantly activated and stood in front of Duke, absorbing most of the mucus produced by the explosion.
Only a small amount of it splashed onto the armors of the two great knights, Damon and Matt. The strong smell made them vomit on the spot.
Although Vivian and other high knights scattered around were not splashed, the smell still made them want to gag.
Duke, who was on the front line, showed no reaction at all.
Because Xiaoyi had already activated the "Fighting Qi Armor" at the first moment of the explosion, covering his whole body, especially his face.
The vindictiveness completely blocks out the odor.
"Everyone, please be careful and cover your mouth and nose as much as possible. These weird plants may be infectious. But if you go back and circulate your fighting energy a few more times, and there are no obvious wounds on your body, you will basically be fine."
The mercenaries gathered in Cuihai Valley have explored these weird things, and they are not fatal yet.
At most, the wound will become ulcerated and infected, requiring flesh cutting and amputation.
Because the explosion was so complete that even dead trees were broken and the trunks were blown into pieces, Duke could only scrape a little mucus from the ground as a sample.
Then head deeper into the forest.
In the Dou Qi holographic screen, there are a few more small black dots in front of Xiaoyi that cannot be identified, waiting for him to personally investigate and sample.
"Sir, what's the use of studying these things? I feel like they have no effect except nausea." Teyasi watched Duke rush towards a new strange plant and couldn't help but ask his own doubts, "They are different from spiritual beasts and spiritual beasts."
Zhi is totally irrelevant."
As Duke walked away, he replied calmly: "Any new thing has its inherent value. It depends on whether you can discover it."
Walk closer.
It was another big tree with yellow leaves, and a small mutated konjac flower grew on the trunk. Duke immediately approached it cautiously.
With a simple touch, the small mutated konjac flower did not explode.
The reason why the mutated konjac flower exploded before was probably a sign of maturity, and the explosion was used to spread seeds or spores.
"Bring me the oversized collection test tube."
"Sir, here we come."
Duke directly dug out the entire mutated konjac flower from the trunk of the big tree, and stuffed it into an oversized collection test tube along with the surrounding rotten wood.
Just at this moment, there was sudden movement in the bushes nearby.
Vivian immediately led the knights to search the bushes, and returned a moment later carrying a dying beast with a knight's spear.
"Sir, it's a muntjac," Vivian said. "It seems to be infected by these fanged lichen-like things. It's lying in the bushes and twitching. It's not dead yet, but it's almost there."
Duke knelt down and examined the infected muntjac.
There is a huge cut wound on the muntjac's hind leg, as if it was injured by a mercenary and then infected by something like fang lichen.
The hind legs are already covered with fang lichens of different colors, like a large group of squirming slime mold.
The eyes are red, the hair on the body is falling off, and the skin is rotten to varying degrees.
Waves of stench emanate.
"It's so disgusting!" Damon wanted to gag again.
Duke frowned. This infected muntjac reminded him of something - a zombie, a zombie muntjac infected by a fungus.
"Give it a good time." Duke has no interest in research.
He is not a life scholar, and he likes to study these special life forms the most. This time he followed Penrose for investigation, mostly to feel the atmosphere.
At the same time, we also want to see if we can find new spiritual materials to improve the effect of card production or reduce the cost of card production.
Damon heard this and beheaded the zombie muntjac with one sword.
At this time, a fang-like mouth suddenly grew out of the zombie muntjac's hind legs, and it bit Damon. When Damon saw this, he stomped directly on the fang-like mouth with his feet wearing spiritual gold iron boots.
Pfft!
The thick juice splashed everywhere, and the deer's hind legs were stamped into a pulp.
"Damon, you are so disgusting." Zoe and Tejasi cursed at the same time.
Vivian also looked at Damon speechlessly: "Why bother and spoil the fun."
"Sorry, I'm short of feet." Damon raised his hand to apologize, then stamped his feet vigorously to shake off the juice splashed on his legs.
Duke, who was walking forward, suddenly paused.
Xiaoyi was giving him feedback: "Master, in the area three hundred meters ahead, a special smell was found, which greatly interferes with the respiratory resonance."
At the same time, a purple light lit up and flashed crazily on the Dou Qi holographic screen.
This purple light spot is not stationary, but is moving quickly, getting closer and closer to Duke's location.
"Be careful, something is coming!" Duke scolded.
Vivian immediately ordered: "Assemble and protect your lord!"
The great knights changed their previous laziness and maintained a high degree of alert. They slowly approached Duke and protected Duke in the center.
Duke himself is also on high alert and has the sand eagle in his hands.
In a moment, the purple light spot on the Dou Qi holographic screen moved to the vicinity of Duke. At this time, a tiger-like monster quietly pounced over in the area ahead.
The knights quickly stepped forward and blocked the tiger monster with their shields.
Bang!
The tiger monster was knocked away by the shield and rolled over on the ground.
Only then did Duke see clearly what it was. It looked like a tiger but not a tiger. It just had the general outline of a tiger, but in fact it looked like a huge bug squeezed out of the tiger's body. It was a very weird combination.
There is no fur, only a skin similar to that of a caterpillar. Although the colors are colorful, there is no beauty, only deformity and ugliness.
And it has a strong pungent smell.
It's not a pungent smell, but a psychological pungent that makes Duke Linghai, blood sea, and air sea produce a strong sense of discomfort.
"Evil aura..." Duke held the sand eagle and stood silently examining it.
The great knights had eliminated two of them three times, and pinned this ugly tiger-like insect to the ground with their shields and spears.
"Sir, are you going to kill me?" Affleck asked.
"Let me take a look first." Duke walked closer and carefully looked at this weird "tiger insect". He had a guess in his mind that this should be caused by the contamination caused by the shedding of ancient evil things. He didn't know if the original body was real.
It's a tiger.
The tiger insect was pressed by the shield and opened its mouth angrily, but it could no longer make any sound, as if its vocal cords were rotten.
There is only the sound of puffing and puffing.
Hiss.
Duke reached out directly, pulled out one of the tentacles on the tiger insect's head, and then injected spiritual energy to explore the situation inside.
I found that spiritual energy is obscure and difficult to operate in it, and it cannot operate at all.
"This is not a spiritual material, it is even a 'super spirit body'!" Duke quickly made a judgment in his mind. Spirituality is everywhere, and there is basically no object that spirituality cannot penetrate. If there were, such a thing would be called
It is a supreme spirit body.
There are very few records of the Absolute Spiritual Body.
After some arcane mages researched it, they believed that the Absolute Spiritual Body was not a thing from this world, but might be an extraterrestrial object carried by meteorites.
Spirituality cannot penetrate, it is like a spiritual black hole.
The tiger insect is not such an absolute spiritual black hole, but it is difficult to penetrate spirituality. Duke's spiritual energy can only be probed on the surface of the tentacles.
He also tried to pierce the psychic energy from the broken wound. He also penetrated to the superficial level, but was blocked by the obscure feeling, making it difficult to penetrate even further.
"Tie it up and take it back!" Duke immediately ordered.
"Yes, sir!" The knights took out chains and tied the tiger insects into a ball.
This tiger insect is not very strong, it is equivalent to a 1-ring spirit beast, and it does not know arcane magic. It can only be tossed around in front of the great knights.
The journey forward was very slow, but the journey back was very fast. Within half an hour, we walked out of the jungle and returned to safety channel No. 3.
The Black Beetle experimental vehicle is still parked on the roadside.
The other arcane mages who were investigating had not returned yet, so Duke directly asked people to put the collected experimental samples on the black beetle car, and the tiger insect was also dragged over.
"Ah." Suddenly there was an exclamation in the car.
Only then did Duke realize that he was not coming back alone. Kilia Fury was already in the experimental vehicle and exclaimed when she saw the tiger insect.
Her protective knights stayed by her side faithfully.
"Are you back too?" Duke asked.
"Yeah." Kiriya said with an embarrassed look on her face, "I encountered a situation in the forest, so I came back to clean it up."
Her clothes have obviously been changed, and her hair is wet, as if she had just taken a shower.
Duke roughly guessed what happened, but he still asked more: "What happened? You don't look too good?"
"Ah, this..." Kiriya hesitated for a moment, but overcame her embarrassment and spoke out, "I encountered a pretty disgusting flower. It accidentally exploded while I was studying it. I was drenched in some mucus and felt very uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable."
"I see." Duke did not continue to ask.
Kyria has just been promoted to arcane mage, and obviously hasn't had time to build arcane wonders yet, so there is no instant arcane defense.
"Duke, what did you catch?" Kiriya quickly changed the subject.
"I don't know, it's a very strange individual. I'm going to let my mentor take a look and see if he can figure out what it is." Duke's knowledge is limited.
I read a lot of books, and Xiaoyi's database has also been greatly expanded, but I have gained nothing about the fanged lichens, mutated konjac flowers, tiger insects and the like that are related to ancient evils.
"I don't know what happened in Cuihai Valley, but there is such a disgusting species spreading."
"Who knows."
Duke simply got into the Black Beetle. The service staff in the car poured him a cup of coffee and sipped it slowly.
Chatting with Kiriya about things that were neither salty nor bland.
The specific content of the conversation is irrelevant, the main thing is that Kiriya is too eye-catching, and every second spent with the beautiful woman is wonderful.
"Ah, you two are actually lazy." Oriana's appearance interrupted Duke's leisurely enjoyment of the good time.
"Sister Oriana, you are back." Duke said with a smile, "What did you gain in the forest?"
"Whatever we can gain, they are all disgusting things. The smell can kill people. Alas, this research trip should not be done." Oriana said with disgust, "You two are smarter and come back early to rest.
,I will go back early tomorrow too."
Kilia smiled awkwardly.
Duke asked nonchalantly: "Have you seen the tiger insect in the cage outside the car? Can you tell what it is?"
"If you're not interested, let your tutor or Leadman help you study." Oriana called the waiter and ordered a cup of green tea for herself.
Then he leaned back on the seat comfortably, enjoying the sunset in the evening, and chatted with Kiriya about the gossip of arcane mages.
Even the most beautiful girl in heaven is not immune to this kind of gossip.
Duke yawned, took the initiative to get out of the car, squatted in front of the iron cage, and studied the contaminants in the shedding of ancient evil creatures like tiger insects.
"Is this thing a living thing?" He thought of the unfriendly experience he had in the mine.
At that time, it felt like the mine was like the wriggling intestines of some kind of organism, all five senses were disturbed, and the faint roar of monsters was heard.
"So, if it is true that the ancient evil thing in the forbidden area shed its shell, leaked and infected...the tiger worm is what the tiger looks like after being infected?"
He thought silently: "If this is true, did Roroa Snow Eagle suffer from a similar infection like tiger worms when he was unconscious, so he was later taken to Runwu City... It should be that he was taken to Runwu City by those high-level arcane mages.
Slice study."
"So is this infection a mental infection, or an infection targeting spirituality?"
"There is a guardian vine of mystery in my spiritual sea. At that time, the feedback from the 3-ring tree king-the vine of mystery was a special defensive barrier."
"But when the ancient evil thing's shell interfered with me, the guardian vine of mystery had no response!"