Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
After hearing Cheyenne’s words, Lin Li didn’t look too tense, and still had a smile on his face. Of course, this wasn’t because only two people came from the Tower of Dusk so they weren’t scared that their people would be killed. Although only Lin Li and Norfeller came from the Tower of Dusk, it also wouldn’t be easy for them to escape from the combined forces of the Dark Blade and elves given the large number of Legendary powerhouses they had.
Lin Li wasn’t worried, because he knew that the Haiga Mountain Range was the legendary true forbidden zone. He looked at the worried Cheyenne, and said, “Don’t worry too much, Master Cheyenne. Even if they want to attack us, they won’t do it now. This is the Haiga Mountain Range. It’s a forbidden zone even for Legendary powerhouses. Nobody can guarantee that they can come out alive. Hence, if they aren’t idiots, they won’t do anything to us before finding the treasure.”
After some contemplation, Cheyenne nodded, and replied, “Hopefully the temptation of the treasure can repress old grudges.”
As for what would happen after finding the treasure, nobody knew. Perhaps the Malfa Family would be unlucky, or perhaps it would be the elves and the Dark Blade. Both sides might even end up in stalemate.
Just like Lin Li had guessed, Cheyenne and Lin Li saw Borg coming over from afar when they were making arrangements for their campsite. Borg didn’t change his attitude towards them because of the elves. He still put on a smile on his face like before and invited them to meet the elven leaders to discuss the ruins of the Titans.
After coming to the central tent at the elves’ campsite again, Cheyenne and Lin Li walked in with Borg.
Although both of them were Legendary powerhouses, the elves in the tent didn’t take them seriously. After seeing the two of them come in with Borg, none of the elves stood up to welcome them or even say some words in greeting.
Lin Li wasn’t bothered by this at all, while Cheyenne knew why the elves behaved like that, so both of them didn’t care about the elves’ attitude. Moreover, the elves indeed had the right to be so arrogant given their abilities.
After everyone was seated, Borg first introduced Cheyenne and Lin Li to the elves using the Elven Language. However, the elves were still very cold to them. After all, merely two Legendary-mages weren’t important enough to the elves.
Just as Borg prepared to introduce the elves to Lin Li and Cheyenne, one of the elves cut in. Although he spoke in the Elven Language, Cheyenne and Lin Li could roughly make out what he meant. He was telling Borg to talk about the matter directly and skip the introductions.
Borg looked at Cheyenne and Lin Li. With a bitter smile on his face, he explained to the two how he had met those elves.
Cheyenne and Lin Li looked at each other. With the current situation, both of them already had some ideas about this. As for why Borg was explaining it to the two of them here, evidently even the arrogant elves couldn’t underestimate the dangers in the Haiga Mountain Range. Thus, they wanted Borg to secure relations with the two of them first. After all, just as Lin Li had said, nobody could guarantee that they could return from the Haiga Mountain Range alive. It was always better to have more allies.
Cheyenne’s worry went down a little after hearing this. As for the elves’ intention to use the Malfa Family as the cannon fodder, it was too early to say that now. After all, how it was going to end all depended on each faction’s abilities.
It turned out that the Dark Blade had always been in contact with the Elven Kingdom, and they had told the Elven Kingdom about this mission. Although the Elven Kingdom wasn’t too concerned about the ruins of the Titans, they had always wanted to find a long-lost sacred relic from this sacred mountain. Thus, the two parties struck a deal very soon.
“Cheyenne, our goal isn’t just the Immortal King’s treasure. The elves’ goal to find the lost sacred relic doesn’t contradict with our goal. Now, it’s better for all of us to cooperate to get into the Haiga Mountain Range successfully and find what we are looking for rather than work on our own. What do you think?” Borg strongly hoped for Cheyenne to agree. After all, he was very clear that despite their relationship, the elves wouldn’t help out at all if the Malfa Family were to strike.
By now, Cheyenne could see that the Dark Blade and the elves weren’t as close as what he had thought. Both parties were only using each other, and couldn’t even be considered allies. As such, the balance between the three collaborating factions wasn’t affected much. The Dark Blade would still be cautious of the alliance between the Malfa Family and the Tower of Dusk.
After figuring out all that, Cheyenne naturally wouldn’t let the treasure land in the hands of the Dark Blade just like that, so he didn’t object to the subsequent collaboration with the elves. Lin Li wouldn’t have any objections all the more. He even started thinking about what sacred relic the elves were looking for. If it was useful to him…
After the collaboration was confirmed, Cheyenne heaved a sigh of relief, and left the tent with Lin Li to return to the Malfa Family’s campsite.
After Lin Li had returned to his tent, he continued to do his daily assignment—reading the Book of Eternity. Halfway up the mountain, Lin Li had survived the Titan Spirit’s mental strength attack because of the knowledge recorded in the Book of Eternity.
After surviving the mental strength attack from a Sanctuary-realm powerhouse, Lin Li could clearly feel his improvement in mental strength. Just like how air would liquidize under strong pressure, Lin Li’s mental strength became more concentrated. This was probably another good thing that Lin Li had gained after putting in so much effort to disperse the Titan Spirit using the Requiem Array.
Back when Lin Li had battled the elven Legendary-mage Vidas in Roland City, the former had released the Lord of Nightmares, and even he had almost sunk into the endless nightmares. If he were to go fight that battle now, he wouldn’t have to put himself in such a situation given his current mental strength.
As night approached, Norfeller, who had guarded the tent all this while, turned into a bat and flew towards the surrounding forest.
Norfeller didn’t need to report to Lin Li, as this was already a routine after coming to the Haiga Mountain Range. Every night, Norfeller would turn into a bat and investigate outside the campsite. As a high-ranking Vampire, Norfeller’s abilities improved tremendously after he followed Lin Li. Now, his abilities were approaching Legendary-realm. At night, the abilities of Vampires would enjoy a considerable increase. Therefore, he could be considered to be at Legendary level now. Even the most outstanding Bandit couldn’t match his investigation abilities.
Norfeller flew past the Malfa Family’s campsite and then the elves’ campsite. With his Legendary-level power, his flying speed was so fast that he couldn’t be seen with naked eyes. After going one round around the campsites, he had only spent 15 minutes. Seeing that there weren’t any abnormalities around, he turned to go back to his campsite.
However, just as he was flying past the elves’ territory, a few arrows shot towards him with lightning speed. Although he possessed Legendary-level strength now, the sharp arrows had already pierced his body just as he wanted to avoid them.
Norfeller was shot seven times. The strange power from the arrows made him unable to fly, and he dropped down straight from the sky. Just when he landed, a group of elves crowded around his body.
“Seven shots! All seven arrows are hits! Jacques, no wonder you’re the greatest archery genius of us elves for the last 100 years!” an elf shouted excitedly and held the struggling Norfeller down.
“Of course! The Seven Star Archery Skill is one of our strongest archery skills! Even if a Legendary powerhouse came, he wouldn’t be able to escape the Seven Star as well!” Another elf looked so proud as if he was the one who shot the arrows.
Norfeller wanted to struggle, but the seven arrows seemed to have sealed his strength; he couldn’t even use his physical strength now.
Just then, another elf who held a carved longbow slowly walked towards Norfeller. Although he didn’t reply to his friends’ flattery, he seemed to be enjoying it very much. Looking at Norfeller, the elf looked disgusted. He stepped onto Norfeller’s chest hard and sneered. “Dirty Undead creature, do you know where this is? This is the Goddess’ sacred mountain! How dare you dirty this sacred land with that dirty body of yours?”
Although the Haiga Mountain Range was filled with magical beasts, the night was extremely quiet. Hence, the elves’ noisy exchange stood out during the quiet night, though it didn’t attract any people out of their tents.
Lin Li was completely absorbed in the sea of knowledge in the Book of Eternity, absorbing the precious assets left behind by the God of Mages Geresco bit by bit. Although he was very talented in magic and had outstanding achievements in other areas, he was still just a little mage who had just stepped into the Legendary-realm not long ago.
Lin Li didn’t know how good Geresco was at other facilitating occupations such as pharmaceutics, alchemy, inscription, forging, etcetera. However, in terms of magic, Lin Li was definitely very far behind Geresco. More often than not, Lin Li had to think for a long while in order to understand a few sentences in the book. After he had finally figured it out, he would feel that he had found the best solution to many of the problems that bothered him in the past.
The contentment that Lin Li felt every time he read the Book of Eternity and figured out one more problem made him want to immerse in it even more.
However, just as Lin Li was almost about to figure out a difficult problem in the book today, his heart suddenly tingled, and his thought process was forcefully interrupted. This angered Lin Li, but he realized that what had interrupted him was the fluctuation in blood-oath from his soul.
