Chapter 2675 A Forgotten Story <TOC> Chapter 2677 Afternoon Countryside
Translator: SumTLMan
Angel did not have a deep impression of the Second Level, because the arrangement of the rooms there was much the same as the first level, only with a few more small rooms. Besides, he did not find anything like a thin booklet on the second level.
However, Angel could be sure that there was definitely no path hidden in the void on the second level.
The changes in the layout here should also be thanks to the void storm.
Since there was no other way here, Angel did not hesitate and directly stepped onto this invisible path.
They walked for about a few dozen meters before they saw the first room floating in the void… or rather, the wreckage of a room.
There were no walls, no ceiling, only scattered fragments of the floor.
These scattered pieces of floor were basically separated, drifting about in a small area, occasionally merging. It was just like those shifting boards they encountered at the beginning when they first entered the Hanging Prison Stairs.
“Shall we go up there?” Kael looked at the constantly drifting fragments of the floor, feeling a bit uncertain.
“What, are you scared?”
A slightly mischievous voice spoke from the side; Kael did not need to turn around to know it was Daus who had spoken.
“No.” Kael shook his head. He was not exactly afraid, but seeing Vai fall into the void before did give him a bit of a shadow in his mind. At this sight of even more scattered floor fragments, he instinctively felt a bit resistant.
“If you’re scared, just admit it. It’s okay. Anyway, academic faction types are always afraid of dying, that’s well known. I won’t laugh at you.”
Before Kael could say anything, Vai whispered softly from the side: “You know, there’s more than one academic faction types here.”
Daus froze for a moment, turning around to glance back. Angel ignored him, while the Sovereign of Wisdom merely looked on with curiosity at Daus and Kael.
Daus cursed inwardly: Could this old monster possibly also be from the academic faction? Sovereign of Wisdom… usually that kind of title belongs to the academic faction, right?
Daus twitched the corners of his mouth and ultimately said nothing.
At this point, Kael finally opened his mouth: “I was just thinking… these fragments of the floor, will they keep floating around here forever? If we happen to be standing on them and they drift away, wouldn’t that mean…”
Vai swallowed and continued: “…we’d just be finished.”
Watching these two apprentices echo one another, Daus said irritably: “Don’t you both know how to judge a safe distance for yourselves? Even if those floor fragments drift away, do you think Gold would just stand by and watch you die?”
Vai immediately dropped his exaggerated expression: “That’s true.”
Daus scoffed: “What do you mean, ‘true’? You’re not even here with your true body. Believe it or not, if you jumped down crying from here, Gold wouldn’t save you… You should be begging me; after all, I’m the one who came in with you, not Gold!”
Vai just curled his lip: “If even the lord can’t find it, then there’s no point in you coming in. It’d be a complete waste of time.”
Daus’ eyes widened, and he was about to unleash a retort when the Sovereign of Wisdom chuckled: “I think he’s right. Now it’s as if all of you are searching together, and if so many people working together can’t find it, would you really be able to find it all by yourself?”
“I still have to try even if I can’t find it,” Daus countered, but he clearly lacked confidence.
The Sovereign of Wisdom continued in a mild tone: “Even if you can’t find the Wood Spirit, you’d want to bring out something else, right? Like some Dense Sparse Stones?”
Daus said nothing this time. If someone else had spoken, he could have stubbornly argued back a few words, but it was the Sovereign of Wisdom who spoke. He did not want to dig himself into a hole by letting something slip.
While Daus was being teased, Angel and the Black Count had already flown over to the fragments of floor.
Angel looked around; these remnants of the floor had little information left behind, and even the furniture was basically smashed to pieces.
All that remained on the floor were some firefly stone luminous tubes, but most of them were also thoroughly broken.
Angel went back and forth several times among the pieces of floor, and he still did not discover any clues. He looked at the Black Count; the Black Count controlled the slab and shook it from side to side.
The Black Count had come here before to search, but he had not found any clues either.
Angel sighed, then looked at the others. Daus had also flown over to the wooden boards by now, pausing now and then to take a look around, occasionally tapping on them, but judging from what he touched, it seemed he was not searching for the Wood Spirit at all. He was just curious about the material of certain fragments.
Meanwhile, the Sovereign of Wisdom and Vai stayed on the void path. Vai was worried that going over there would increase Angel’s computing burden, and the Sovereign of Wisdom was purely there to watch the fun.
However, when Angel and the Sovereign of Wisdom’s gazes met, the Sovereign of Wisdom did not remain completely on the sidelines. He said with a benign smile: “If you have questions, you can ask me. For instance, whether the Wood Spirit is here or not. Although I don’t know its exact location, I can at least give you a general judgment.”
“But the questioning remains equal in exchange. As soon as I answer your question, you must also answer one for me.”
He had already ended the reciprocal questioning earlier outside, yet now he had suddenly brought it up again. It was clear that the Sovereign of Wisdom was brimming with curiosity about the series of things Angel had done since entering the Hanging Prison Stairs.
Seeing the Sovereign of Wisdom’s bright-eyed expression, Angel said softly: “If I need to, I’ll definitely consult the Sovereign of Wisdom.”
And the same would hold in return.
The Sovereign of Wisdom shrugged indifferently. Even if Angel decided not to ask, he could still rely on observation or other means to find the answers he wanted.
Moving past the Sovereign of Wisdom, Angel’s gaze fell on the only other real person present: Kael.
At that moment, Kael was by the edge of one of the floor fragments, carefully scrutinizing every broken remnant.
Angel approached and saw that Kael held a recording stone in one hand and a device similar to a microscope in the other, using it to conduct an in-depth examination of the fragment before him.
“Are you still worried about them drifting away?” Angel asked: “Don’t worry. Although the floor is in fragments, a magic formation keeps them bound together, so they won’t drift too far off.”
Kael, seeing Angel beside him, quickly stood up: “N-no, that’s not it. I just have a guess.”
“A guess? If it’s about the Wood Spirit, why not share it?” Angel said.
“I once read a book about a heavily armored knight who went into exile in a foreign land.”
Angel raised his eyebrows: “A heavily armored knight… was it a novel called —Knight Drago and the Devil’s Castle—?”
Kael’s eyes went wide: “Y-you’ve read it too, my lord?”
Angel said: “I’ve only ever read one book featuring a heavily armored knight as the main character, though I recall it wasn’t about exile, but about him falling into some demon plane…”
“The… the Blood Demon Plane,” Kael said, scratching his head in embarrassment: “The author made it all up, so I was a bit ashamed.”
“I understand. Ordinary people’s imaginings of the extraordinary world are based on what they know. It’s usually nothing more than fights and clashes, you strike me, I strike you, conflicts of factions, and if there’s a world inhabited by humans, they assume there must be a world inhabited by demons.”
Angel spoke about these books rather casually, as though he did not think much of them. In reality, however, after he became a talent, there was a period in which he was quite fond of such novels. First, Morrow did not give him any guidance methods, so all he could do to learn of the extraordinary world was to fantasize through these stories. Second, while aboard the Bohemia, he had nothing else to do, so reading novels was his only pastime.
“So, did it give you some inspiration?” Angel asked.
“Not exactly inspiration, more a moment in the story that stuck in my mind.” Since Angel had indeed read the same book, Kael skipped any summary and went straight to the particular scene: “When Knight Drago first entered the Devil’s Castle, he was avoiding the man-eating ghouls chasing him. He hid himself in the castle’s corridor…”
After hearing Kael’s description, Angel understood his meaning.
The heavily armored Knight Drago was fully covered in plate armor. How was he to hide from the man-eating ghouls in the corridor of the Devil’s Castle? He came up with a very simple method: he donned his helmet, stood beside a painting, and pretended to be a suit of armor, successfully avoiding disaster.
Put simply, it was a case of “hidden in plain sight,” or “the most dangerous place is the safest place.”
Kael was wondering if the Wood Spirit might have done something similar. Perhaps it disguised itself as part of the wooden boards, concealing itself right under their noses.
Hence, Kael was carefully examining each piece of wood in detail.
“That’s a good thought, but the Woos Spirit likely wouldn’t do such a thing. If it hides, it literally hides. It doesn’t bother with cunning tricks,” Angel said. Then, turning his head, he added: “Sovereign of Wisdom, wouldn’t you agree?”
The Sovereign of Wisdom asked: “Is that you questioning me?”
“If you have some pressing question for me, why not ask it outright? Then I can decide whether or not I want to consider this a question,” Angel replied, locking his gaze directly onto him.
The Sovereign of Wisdom spoke in a calm tone: “We can wait until you genuinely need to ask me before we concern ourselves with that. These trivial questions you already guessed the answer to, didn’t you?”
The Sovereign of Wisdom’s words indirectly confirmed that Angel’s speculation was correct.
With the Wood Spirit’s timid personality, it would not bother with such a hidden-in-plain-sight trick. Its innate talent for hiding was sufficient; there was no need to take the extra risk. Besides, a basically blank-slate Wood Spirit would not be able to outsmart the Black Count with such a scheme. Had it been trying to hide in the open, the Black Count would surely have caught it already.
Though the Wood Spirit wouldn’t use that trick, Angel nonetheless searched every hiding place in that area.
The result was the same as the Black Count’s, nothing was found.
Not finding anything did not necessarily mean the Wood Spirit was absent. It could be that the Wood Spirit’s hiding talent was so formidable that none of them could detect it, even searching together.
Though that possibility existed, Angel still planned to move on from here. If he truly missed it, that would be fate.
After all, the Black Count had failed to find it. There was no shame in failing as well.
With that in mind, Angel called out to everyone, then returned to the void path and continued onward.
Since Angel was already leaving, the others had no reason to remain. They naturally followed along.
This time, they walked nearly a hundred meters through the void before they saw the second ruined room. Like the first, it was floating in midair, its broken pieces drifting about.
However, compared to the first room, this one was better preserved. Though the ceiling was gone, three of its four walls remained. It was in much better shape than the empty first room.
Moreover, there were more items left here, which gave the Wood Spirit more places to hide.
As soon as they arrived at the second room’s wreckage, Angel’s eyes were immediately drawn to a painting on the wall.
Or rather, everyone was drawn to it at once. It clearly stood out from the other rooms: the other rooms were nothing but “cells,” stark and bare, while this one contained a work of art. Naturally, it drew attention.
From a distance, the shape in the middle of the painting looked like a human figure, but it was not very clear.
Daus, emboldened by his skill, got right up close to examine it.
However, just as Daus approached the painting to get a good look, he turned into a cloud of black mist, which vanished in a gust of wind.
Before everyone’s eyes, Daus died on the spot in a bizarre way.
Kael could not help but quickly back away. He had almost rushed up to the painting himself. If he had been the one in that position, perhaps he would have met Daus’ fate, though Daus still had a chance to revive, whereas he would have died for good.
“What just happened?” Kael asked with lingering fear.
“A trap.” Angel gestured toward the painting’s frame: “He touched the middle of the frame, which set off a trap.”
“This is the same kind of picture-frame trap you mentioned before?” Angel turned to the Black Count.
The Black Count did not deny it and nodded: “Yes.”
“What kind of trap can kill someone silently like that?” Kael asked, puzzled.
The Black Count replied: “An old, stale trap that sprays a poisonous mist. The poison has actually weakened considerably and has basically no effect, other than smelling foul.”
“But that poison mist wasn’t weak for him… he just died…,” Kael said, pointing at the spot Daus had disappeared.
Angel explained: “You all aren’t entering with your true bodies, but as illusions. For the illusions, let’s just say you have the constitution of ordinary people. And for ordinary people, no matter how stale the poison, the end result is still death.”
After hearing Angel’s very matter-of-fact explanation, no one spoke, but each thought quietly to themselves: who would believe that excuse? Obviously, it’s just to save on computing resources…
Though they had their own suspicions, they said nothing. After all, saving computing power was for the sake of a better broadcast experience.
Moreover, Daus could still come back, so it was not that big a deal.
While the group reflected on this, Daus suddenly reappeared before them, seemingly having sprinted his way back quickly.
The moment Daus arrived, he locked eyes on Angel, fuming and ready to rush right over.
Angel said: “If an ordinary person sprinted up so many stairs so quickly, they might be out of breath, possibly leading to sudden death or something similar.”
At the mention of “sudden death,” Daus’ expression changed.
That was a threat!
Was he the kind of man who yielded to threats?!
Yes, he was.
Daus stopped in his tracks: “I… I really am out of breath, but I’ll be fine if I just walk it off. Just walk it off.”
He turned around at once and, without shame, moved farther away from Angel.
Seeing Daus show such tact, Angel did not force the matter any further. He once again set his eyes on the painting.
He had the vague feeling there was something off about it.
“The Wood Spirit isn’t here,” the Black Count said quietly upon noticing Angel’s interest in the painting: “That’s what the Sovereign of Wisdom told me.”
Angel had also heard the story of how the Black Count entered the Hanging Prison Stairs and interacted with the Sovereign of Wisdom before. The last time the Black Count encountered a room with a painting, the Sovereign of Wisdom had egged him on to touch its frame.
After the Black Count touched it, he triggered the trap. The Sovereign of Wisdom had claimed he was “reminding” the Black Count that a room with a trap would definitely not contain the Wood Spirit.
Since the Sovereign of Wisdom was sure the Wood Spirit was not there, the Black Count saw no reason to stay.
Angel, however, had his own thoughts, because if he remembered correctly, this painting might not actually belong to the second level at all…
Chapter 2675 A Forgotten Story <TOC> Chapter 2677 Afternoon Countryside