Chapter 120: A Mountain Full of White
Before Saul could figure it out, Bill across the room walked back to Byron.
For some unknown reason, Bill was suddenly interested in Byron's mission and offered to travel with Byron.
Saul suspected at first that it might be because of himself.
But after those two exchanges, Bill never initiated a conversation with Saul again.
It made his suspicions seem a little self-serving.
Byron was initially a little hesitant about Bill's offer.
It was only after considering that Droopy Hollow had been a bit of an anomaly lately, and that the outskirts didn't seem too safe, that he agreed.
After all, three third level apprentices acting together, as long as they didn't implode, they could basically walk horizontally in the periphery of the Draped Hand Valley.
"Our mission is to capture an evil spirit." Byron declared the need first.
"It's just right that you catch the evil spirit and we pick up the corpse. Might even pick up some relics of our predecessors in the hole in the ground." Bill raised an eyebrow and looked like he was back to cooperating dutifully.
Having two more Level 3 Apprentices in the team was still favorable to Sol's plan to catch the evil spirits.
Before leaving, Bill casually threw the four people he had just killed into a hole in the ground.
Even if he destroyed the corpses.
The group departs to continue deeper into the Valley of the Drooping Hand, where the wood spiders are even more crowded, and luckily there are no fat people in this group of sorcerer apprentices.
Along the way, there were more and more holes in the ground.
Some of these holes in the ground were as thin as a small arm, some were three or four meters in diameter. Most of them were more or less bottomless.
When driving a wood spider, you also have to be careful that the spider's legs don't sink into the hole in the ground.
"Many of these holes in the ground were made by wizards for the purpose of exploration, as there is no master plan, the holes are made as they please, and the underground is crisscrossed, so it's easy to get lost." Byron chatted with Sol as he carefully piloted the wooden spider.
At the same time, he was also cautioning the two Bill, who were not too familiar with this place, not to wander around.
After walking for an hour, Nick turned on his perception meter from time to time to check if there were any spirits in the vicinity.
However, probably because the group was still in the periphery of the Drooping Hand Valley, or because the spirit bodies were not too active during the day, the perception meter hadn't responded much.
"Is this thing of yours any good or not?" Bill curled his fingers and tapped twice on the mirror of the Perception Meter when it was ready.
Byron had just frowned when Nick suddenly called out, "We've got a sign of a spirit infestation!"
Saul padded over to take a look, and sure enough, he too saw a blurry shadow on the mirror.
The reason why it was certain that it was a spirit body and not any other reflection was because the shadow was a very flat humanoid shape, without the distorted changes of the other images in the mirror.
But the shadow was not yet the same as the one Sol had seen alone before.
The shadow he had seen alone, although he couldn't see his features either, was very close to the mirror, as if it was standing right behind Saul.
The color of the shadow was also dark grey and nearly black, unlike this blurry one now, which was a light grey in color, like a puff of light smoke that would disperse at any time.
Byron controlled the wood spider to reduce its speed, glanced sideways, and said with certainty, "Yes, it's a spirit, but it's so blurry, it should have passed by in a day or two."
Bill finally got interested, "A day or two ago? Could it have crawled out of the ground then?"
Wright was sitting on the back of the mirror and couldn't see anything, but that didn't stop him from getting up to speed, "Bill, you're pretty good with those fingers, want to tap them again?"
Saul was startled, afraid that Bill would mess it up again. This kind of instrument messed up and had to be re-tuned, it was time-consuming.
Luckily, Bill heard a sign of a spirit body and his attention had been diverted from the perception instrument.
He didn't wait for the wooden spider to stop and jumped through the window.
"So what are we waiting for, let's find a hole in the ground to go down now."
But Byron ignored him, still finding a relatively flat surface to stop on not far away near the cliff.
This was their temporary position.
Saul helped Nick lift the Perceptron down to the ground, clapped his hands, and looked up and around.
There were a lot more caves here than there had been near their original camp. It was like they were on a giant cheese, and even the cliffs to the side were dotted with caves that led to who knows where.
Settling into their new campsite, Byron began to organize his tasks. "I suggest we spread out and look for caves with signs of contamination, and when we return, summarize everyone's findings and choose the one most likely to enter."
But Bill jumped in to object.
"Neither Wright nor I are good at observing spirits. If you look for them like this, you might miss the clues without even realizing it. If you ask me, let's just all find a hole in the ground together and keep going down, and if you go deep enough, you'll be sure to encounter the evil spirits."
However, Byron was a bit worried, "If we go too far deep, we might encounter enemies that we can't deal with."
Nick and Saul were both 2nd level apprentices, especially Saul, who had only mastered a 1st level sorcery, lacking the ability to defend themselves.
"If we can't deal with it, we'll run away." Bill said uncaringly, "Byron, you're just acting too conservatively, that's why you've taken so long to advance to the 3rd level."
I don't know whether it was intentional or unintentional, but Bill slapped Saul on the shoulder, "If you want to be a sorcerer, you can't be afraid of danger."
Saul had seen Bill use his purple smoke to dissolve corpses, and now being pressed by him made him a little uncomfortable.
But the diary hadn't spoken, so it shouldn't have been done in secret. It was thought that Bill wouldn't go so far as to suddenly strike out at him in front of Byron.
After some consideration, Byron finally agreed to Bill's proposal.
"You have a point, then we'd better move together and go straight into the underground. But we still need to leave one person at the camp to observe the movement of the Perceptron, so let Nick and Saul take turns to be in charge of it."
He used the effort of arranging tasks for Saul to pull Saul aside, "There's still something odd about what happened before. Tidal storms, even if they happen, rarely reach the entrance of the Drooping Hand Valley. That's why I intend to catch the evil spirits as soon as possible, complete the task and leave."
Sol nodded.
"Of course, we'll help you find a suitable spirit in the middle of the journey, but there won't necessarily be time for you to take your time and study it."
Finding a more complete spirit body for himself was just incidental, and since the situation here was a bit off, Saul naturally wouldn't force himself.
Besides, running this trip, the credits from completing the mission alone were quite a lot, and Saul wasn't too greedy.
"I'll figure it out on my own. No need to think too much about my spirit body."
Saul thought to himself, the big deal was to ask Nick to shatter his spiritual body and enhance his hands again. It was slightly wasteful at best.
It was already afternoon when the tasks were reassigned, but no one was going to waste the day, so after a quick meal, the questing party was ready to go.
The man in charge of keeping the camp today was Nick.
Wright clasped his hands to his chest and looked at the densely packed holes in the ground in front of him, a tangled expression on his pale face.
"Which hole do we ... enter from?"
Bill slapped his palm, "It's all deep anyway, let's pick the nearest one!"
He said as he pointed to a hole in the ground nearly two meters in diameter, five meters away in front of him.
Byron, however, chose a hole in the ground that was about three meters in diameter and still had some traces of human activity around it, "Better to find this kind of one that's been explored and has a lot of space, so it's easy for everyone to move together."
Saul didn't immediately participate in the discussion, he thought of what Byron said at the beginning, following the trail of contamination to trace the spirits, and his mind moved.
Observing pollution, wasn't that what he was good at?
Saul immediately half-closed his eyes and observed the human monster walking map.
At once, the world ... in front of him changed little.
Could it be that there are too few spirits in the periphery of the Drooping Hand Valley? Or has this place been reclaimed by too many people, how come it is so clean in all directions?
It doesn't look like a sorcerer's burial ground at all.
There were dozens of large holes in the ground in front of them, and more small ones, but none of them had an abnormal reaction.
Thus Saul was a bit disappointed, he turned his head and was about to put away his meditation thoughts when he suddenly saw the cliff behind him.
He noticed some strange white vapors writhing outside a few caves on the side of the mountain wall behind them.
Saul couldn't help but walk over and was about to take a closer look when those white vapors suddenly elongated one by one, turning into a thin, bone-like white hand vapors.
Those hands were as thin as wooden poles and as dense as weeds. Growing in the periphery of the craggy cave, constantly waving and shaking.
When Saul's line of sight fell on them, those arms seemed to be able to sense Saul's gaze and waved even more.
It was as if they were calling Saul to come over, or as if they were pleading for help.
(End of chapter)