Volume 3: The Crypt Chapter 6: Go with the Flow
No one knows when the Fortress of Valencia was first built. This ancient castle seems to be as old as the Utsig Mountain it guards. The walls built of huge rocks are rough and thick, and it is unknown how many years have passed.
Judging from the name, Fort Valen should have been a purely military fortress used to house troops, but that was obviously a long time ago. Today, Fort Valen is no different from an ordinary town, with shops selling all kinds of goods lined up on both sides, idle pedestrians walking on the roads in the city, and the gate made of thick beech is open, never closed, allowing people to come and go.
I have been in Fort Valencia for two or three days. This is my first time leaving the jurisdiction of Campnavia. For me, who lacks travel experience, this is by no means a pleasant long journey.
Valen Fortress is located in the mountainous area southeast of Mount Uzig. Because I have never been here, there is no mark on my magic map, so I can only move forward in the general direction like a headless fly. The rugged and narrow mountain roads made me suffer a lot. The goat paths here always disappear in the dense weeds and bushes without paying attention, so I walked to the place where there was no way to go before I found myself lost.
The worst thing is that no matter where you get lost, you will always encounter a group of wolves, poisonous spiders, wild boars or other ferocious beasts with good appetites. They are always full of touching enthusiasm for your juicy flesh and internal organs, and try their best to invite you to stay and have dinner with them - of course, if you are unlucky, you will become the dinner that is "eaten".
At the Fortress of Varennes, I first completed Mr. Gerard's request and handed over the analysis report of the rabid dog Kaplan's blood to the fortress garrison commander, Colonel Pecola. Colonel Pecola was about fifty years old, and except for his gray hair, he had no attractive features. He did not look like a soldier, but rather like a pedantic teacher or someone else.
This report did not seem to attract his enough attention. "Ah, the Withered Land, I haven't heard of this name since I was ten years old, and I almost forgot it. Gerard is always a little nervous, but I still want to thank you for bringing me this news. Anyway, I will send someone to investigate this matter...if I have anyone else to send." Colonel Pekora said to me slowly, and threw me a small bag of silver coins.
I felt that I had to tell him what happened at the bottom of the abandoned mine. The Great Soul Lich Mackenscar escaped from the 200-year seal. My intuition told me that this might be related to the mutation of the rabid dog Kaplan. But no matter what I said, Colonel Pekla always shook his head impatiently and said, "I have to check my schedule. When you are my age, you will know that there is nothing in this world that you can't forget... Hey, what did I say just now?"
I had no choice but to say goodbye to this forgetful officer. When I passed the door of his office, a traveler who was as exhausted as I was was walking in. Inadvertently, I saw what he was holding in his hand. It was a letter with a bright red wax seal on the seam of the dark yellow envelope. It looked very familiar - I mean, it looked very similar to the report I had just handed to the colonel.
What's going on? Could it be that Mr. Gerard was afraid that I would not be able to bring this report to Fort Valencia, so he sent another messenger with a letter?
"Are you also from Campnavia?" I couldn't help but ask.
"Ah..." He probably didn't expect me to ask this question suddenly. He was stunned for a moment, then nodded subconsciously, "Yes."
"Are you here to deliver the blood report as well?"
"Yes, why, you too?"
"Yeah. You don't have to give him the report again. I've already given it to him, and it's useless." I said to him. What I meant was that I had already given the report to the colonel, and the colonel didn't care much about the matter itself. There was no need for him to touch this nail again.
"Ah, no way?" He was stunned again, "I asked a lot of people, and they all said to just leave it to him."
"Hmph, look at him..." I looked back at the colonel with some frustration. He was still sitting in the large and comfortable office chair, dozing off leisurely. "...You see, it won't be of any use even if you give it to him." I said with some annoyance.
It seemed that this air operator seemed to understand something, but seemed to be even more confused. He responded with "ah, ah" twice, looked at me, then looked at the colonel, then nodded stupidly, said "thank you..." to me, and turned and walked out.
I saw this man several times on the street later, but maybe because I changed my armor, he didn't recognize me. Every time I saw him, he would stop people on the street and ask questions like "Report...hand in the mission...who to find...where..." He looked very anxious. I didn't listen carefully.
After that, I never saw this person again. But I heard that there was a bad guy in Valen Fortress who deliberately prevented others from handing in tasks and deliberately pointed people in the wrong direction, so that a poor person who was deceived had to run around the city several times before completing the task.
If I ever meet such a boring and shameless person, I will definitely teach him a lesson.
Fortunately, not everyone is as stupid and lazy as Colonel Pecra. As the ruling official of Valen Fortress, Marquis Meneval opened the door to welcome me. He is the sponsor and supporter of Robert the Quencher, and the Marquis expressed his grief and condolences for the unfortunate experience of the dwarf metallurgist:
"Oh, my poor friend, he always likes to dig up secrets buried deep underground, but there are always some secrets that should not be discovered. May Darmos have mercy on him and hope that his mistakes will not bring us irreparable losses..."
The Marquis was a pale old man, his cheekbones were high and protruding due to his thinness, making his eye sockets deep and his eyes gloomy and calm. Perhaps the news of Mr. Willanster's death shocked him, he looked a little excited, and an abnormally strong blush appeared under his white skin, making it difficult not to worry about his health.
The Marquis promised me that he would report the escape of the Great Soul Lich Mackenskar to His Majesty the King as soon as possible, and gather all the forces of the Falvi Continent to resist the impending disaster. In return for my hard work, the Marquis gave me a piece of "exquisite chain mail". This kind of armor is made of many metal rings, and it is not very heavy, and it has a stronger ability to resist the chopping of knives and axes. Moreover, this armor is obviously attached with some special magic effect. In addition to increasing my defense by 10 points, it can also increase my health by 100 points.
I felt good when I left the Marquis's Mansion. An uncontrollable sense of pride rose from my heart. I felt that I had done something remarkable. Perhaps it was because I delivered this message to this loyal noble in time that the future of the entire continent would change. All intelligent races living under this blue sky would have a chance to join hands and stand up against the coming evil invasion. Life and freedom would be preserved, and killing and tyranny would be stopped. This was all because I delivered a message to the right person in time.
Soon after, I realized that before the real facts are revealed, all the so-called "correctness" is just a temporary and beautiful illusion. Many times, the cruel reality will tear this illusion apart in front of you, and wake you up from the illusion with painful needles, and the so-called "facing reality" always seems to be synonymous with bearing pain and regret.
It was only much later that I realized that many things in this world are already predetermined. You can't stop them from happening, change their course, or decide their end, no matter how hard you try.
If there is anything you can change, it is only yourself. Your life is like a small boat in the raging sea, destined to drift in the waves that drown time. The only thing you can do is to strengthen your own planks, control your own sails, and then pray to all the gods you believe in for your luck, so that you will not be swallowed by this irresistible wave.
That's all!
At that time, I knew nothing about the future. Ignorance is bliss, but unfortunately, for many people, this kind of happiness cannot last forever.
Just when I left the Marquis's Mansion, my magic adventure diary suddenly reminded me that I had received a message, telling me that someone had sent me some goods.
I don't know who came up with the great idea of the postal system and put it into practice, but I firmly believe that it is one of the greatest inventions ever invented. No matter who you are or where you are, you can send anything to anyone you know by person to whom it should be delivered. He can pick up the item from the postman at any time.
This is simply a crazy idea, and the craziest thing is that this idea has actually been put into practice. Whether it is humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, orcs or tauren, all intelligent races walking on the Farvi continent are actively involved in this great feat. Every village - even a small tribe with only a dozen people - will have someone who specializes in this postal profession. Apart from this, the intelligent life on the Farvi continent has never reached such a unanimous consensus on anything else, breaking down the barriers between each other. From this perspective, the "postal system" may be far more powerful than any religious belief and cultural communication, because it has successfully brought together all the races in this world for the first time.
The cost of this kind of mail is also not cheap, you have to pay 5% of the value of the items you mail. If someone is willing to carefully calculate how many people on the entire continent receive gifts from friends and relatives every day, they will find that this is an astonishing amount of money.
Perhaps this is the real power that allows the savage tauren and the proud elves to work together.
Full of suspicion, I found the postman of Valen Fortress and found out that it was Tintin who sent me the things. This slow-witted but generous half-orc miner faithfully fulfilled his promise and sent me a lot of metals and various minerals. His gifts were far more generous than I could have imagined, and I simply didn't know how to thank him. This was a kindness that I couldn't refuse at all - because all the money I had combined was not enough to pay for the postage to send these things back. So, I could only helplessly and reluctantly - and at the same time, with a little joy in my heart - put these heavy and valuable gifts into my magic backpack.
The experience in Fort Valen can be said to be a continuation of my life in Campnavia. I spend almost half of my time every day helping people in the city to complete their work and receive rewards from them. Sometimes I encounter some tasks that put me in danger, and I would rather put them aside temporarily and do something else until I find a suitable companion or wait until my level is raised enough to complete them.
When there are no suitable tasks, I will choose to go to the mountains and forests outside the fortress to hunt some beasts or monsters. There is a sticky swamp in the northwest of the fortress, which often produces some mutated giant poisonous mosquitoes and pythons. This is my main hunting place.
There is also a creature called "clay monster". These stupid guys seem to be made of clay and mud all over their bodies. When they move, they are like a bag of water rolling on the ground, making it difficult to distinguish their heads and faces. You'd better not be deceived by its appearance. This seemingly weak and strange creature will actively attack any creature that approaches them, wrapping them in its body until they are completely digested. If you observe carefully, you will find that almost every clay monster is wrapped in a few bones of varying sizes, which are the remains of the unfortunate creatures it has devoured.
Kill these monsters and you will find some mucus called "dissolving water" from their corpses, which is an important medicine for some alchemical experiments. This is why I mainly target this kind of creature when hunting.
For the rest of the time, I always traveled back and forth between Fort Valen and Campnavia. Fort Valen was not a rich city with everything. At least for me, it lacked an alchemy teacher who could guide me and was good at making explosions. It was not a difficult thing to travel between the two cities. In fact, the post stations in these cities provided transportation services. You only needed to pay a fee to rent a carriage to reach another city, and it didn't take long to travel. To be honest, it was surprisingly fast. I arrived at the station not long after I got on the car almost every time, so that I always doubted whether it had never set off at all.
Because Tintin provided me with the raw materials, I saved a lot of money on purchasing raw materials, which really helped me a lot. After four or five trips, I had learned how to make many kinds of alloys, and also learned techniques such as extracting glass from ore. The most gratifying thing was that the time and money I spent on alchemy finally began to pay off. Many people were willing to pay for the metals and some purified substances I synthesized. This money not only made up for all the expenses of purchasing alchemy raw materials, but also left a small surplus - there was no greater motivation for me to study alchemy than this.
Soon, my alchemy had reached level five. Simple material synthesis could no longer bring me any experience, and Edgewell could no longer provide me with more alchemy formulas. My alchemy learning had reached a bottleneck, and it was difficult to continue to improve - unless I could get new formulas and blueprints and make something new.
Complete quests, kill monsters, learn combat skills, learn alchemy, sell alchemy products, this is all I do every day. To be honest, sometimes I wonder why I have to live this kind of life. Is leveling up meaningful to my life? Is learning skills a necessary exercise for my soul? I work hard to make money, is it because of need or greed? Because I often have this feeling: Even if I don't do all this, there will be no problem in maintaining my life and letting me live a peaceful and ordinary life.
Then I realized that I did it not because I had to, but because that was what everyone else did—all those spacefarers, those surprising and delightful people full of adventure and whimsy. I enjoyed their company and conversation more than the dull, dreary natives. I chose my friends, and they all lived this way, so I felt I should live the same way.
This is actually a funny phenomenon. Many times, we do certain things not because we really want to, but because others do so. We are afraid of being alone, afraid of being different from others, afraid that our differences will lead to suspicion and contempt, so we have to follow the majority and become a helpless but contented mediocre person.
In fact, there are some things that we really don’t have to do; but there are some things that only we can do.
If I could have another chance to choose, I would probably make a completely different decision.
Sometimes I would think of the undead corrupted, the escaped soul lich and the apocalypse king Darendil's upcoming invasion of Falvi Continent. Marquis Meneval promised me to make arrangements to resist the invasion as soon as possible. However, I didn't see that Fort Valen was ready for a war at all - perhaps all the preparations were being carried out in private and in an intense and orderly manner - I told myself so.
In fact, even I have gradually lost my vigilance and doubted my own judgment. Colonel Pekora is right. We haven't heard any news from the Withered Land for too long. Any disturbance may make us nervous, and this kind of allergic panic is often unnecessary. For us, many things have been forgotten. And for the lives in the Withered Land, many past events may not be remembered. The war may not happen, and everything we fear may be meaningless to scare ourselves.
Just like that, in a life that was full and empty, before I knew it, my level had already surpassed level 30...
