"The Sage and the Maiden ()"!
When walking in the mountains, a sudden drop in temperature or light does not necessarily mean the inevitable arrival of rain. The environment here is more changeable than in the plains. Sometimes the sun is still high but the rain is dripping. Other times the weather is gloomy with dark clouds and thunder and lightning in the distance. Even though I have been worried for a long time, not a drop of rain has fallen.
It was only ten o'clock in the morning, but the darkness of the surrounding environment made it feel like it was dusk.
Because it was still just a recent experience, Mira became more or less nervous when recalling the connection between the black clouds and snow in the past. But Henry told her that it was just an ordinary cloud. They seemed to have walked out of the area where the rift was more severely affected. The surrounding magic was full and the sage's vision was restored.
Perhaps he should have explained to the Luoan girl earlier the potential connection between the magic in the environment and the vigilance of Media. However, they had many things to worry about along the way, and it seemed that it was not too late to explain now.
Learning the new relevant knowledge made the white-haired girl feel more at ease. Because of her many years of experience and her calmness and understanding, you often forget that this is a child who is only 14 years old— —Although she will theoretically turn 15 in a while.
It has been just over three years since we met. I have traveled to the east and west coasts, seen empires and kingdoms, visited grasslands and snowfields, and now I have come to Crescent Continent. The many events and the non-stop meeting and parting of people give people the illusion that this is almost a 10-year journey. However, except for young masters from aristocratic families like Yajiro who are burdened with the burden of inheriting the family, ordinary people of Mira's age probably still stay at home and help the family. In their free time, they wield wooden sticks pretending to be swords and shout loudly. He screamed, dreaming that he would go out and become a famous adventurer in a few years and live a life of fame and fortune.
But if such children ignore their parents' objections and become adventurers at the age of 18 or 20, there is a high probability that they will die in a battle that was unexpected and for which they were not adequately prepared. Even if you survive by chance, you will become disabled. If your parents are still alive, you can go home to farm. If you still don't want to die, there are very few people who persist and get results.
Staying at the green card level all his life, and even in middle age he can still only take on small guard tasks and go about his life. Because of the unstable income, starting a family has become a luxury, so all the income is spent on enjoyment. Year after year passed in a drunken state of mind, and I grew older without making any progress. In the end, he died in a hotel room due to overdraft, or he was forcibly recruited by the nobles according to his mercenary obligations and died as forward cannon fodder, along with other faces that were younger or older and had only fear, confusion and confusion in common. Scrawled and buried.
Compared with these people, she is probably extremely lucky.
What does a risk-taker need to be successful?
A young man with a head full of fantasy and romanticism might tell you cheerfully that he is a "trustworthy companion, courageous and just-minded."
Although this sentence is indeed not entirely wrong, the more realistic answer is:
--money.
Everything requires money.
Low-end leather armor is crudely made, and may be available at a very cheap price, and the people selling them will also tell you eloquently how light and easy to wear it is and is far more comfortable than plate armor and mail armor.
You may be elated and think you've got a big deal, only to regret it when every arrow and every weapon wielded by your enemy on the battlefield can easily penetrate it and cause you fatal wounds.
The same is true for swords. Even if the output of high-quality iron ore in Rigar is greater, not every blacksmith has the ability to handle such a long piece of steel decently. Many newbies' swords look the same at first glance, until they snap and break while happily showing off in front of their peers while chopping a dummy target.
Adventurer smithies that are really geared towards novices - especially those found everywhere on the west coast of Rigal - will deliberately make the swords relatively soft and not burn them to such a high temperature when quenching them, so that the steel will not easily break. brittleness. Although it is easy to bend the blade, a bent sword can be broken back by stepping on it, while a broken sword can only be completely dismantled and re-forged.
But even if you spend a lot of money to buy serious, thick leather armor or second-hand mail armor, or buy a low-end sword with a simple, soft material but not easy to break from a reliable store, most people will still get it because He died very casually due to lack of combat-related training.
Unlike other industries, you don’t have many opportunities to make mistakes in this industry. Although it is true that money comes in faster than farming, and you can leave the same village and travel to different places to meet different people, the price is also high. Most newcomers who are ignorant and ill-prepared will learn a cruel lesson in the first battle that they will never forget. Even after - relatively speaking - stabilization, most ordinary people engaging in this industry, at the cost of risking their lives, can only get a slightly better life than farming.
The irony is that, just like other aspects of society, although ordinary people account for more than 90% of the number of adventurers, only a handful of talented people can succeed.
Most people who become famous have prerequisites. Better quality swords, better quality armor and shields are all clichés, but perhaps more important is education and knowledge.
Professional swordsmanship instructors almost never target civilians.
Because their charging standards are too high.
Most people who have truly learned swordsmanship are either from wealthy craftsmen's families or from the middle class, or they are local minor nobles.
Most of the 'swordsmanship lectures' that are marketed as affordable to civilians are just swindlers who don't even know the correct steps and sword grip, and will only fool you into using more strength to chop down the target.
——So she is lucky.
Whether it was a whim or destiny, she met this man who probably had the richest experience and knowledge in the entire human society, and he was not afraid to teach her.
She has learned almost more in these three years than a person who is 10 years older than her has accumulated so far.
With Mira's current level of knowledge, even if she is no longer an adventurer, her foreign language skills and social skills are enough for her to work as a translator and consultant for some kind of multinational chamber of commerce or nobles; and her swordsmanship level is not as good as that of a sage. , serving as a lecturer to teach a noble is more than enough.
Not to mention the magical bloodline that flows in the Luoan people's bloodline but fell asleep for some reason and only grew stronger after coming to Crescent Continent.
Most people dream of just one of these, and she has them all.
And still making progress.
The sound of "tick tick tick" came, and today's heavy rain finally paid off.
Although they temporarily stopped camping due to the darkness of their view and for safety reasons, this natural preparation successfully prevented anyone from getting wet when the rain came.
The canvas tents in Crescent Continent are very similar to those in Rigar. What is interesting is that even though the tarpaulins that have been used for many years are brushed with oil, as long as you pay attention to the distance, the smoky temperature of life below will not damage the alignment.
It was still early but seeing no way to move forward in the short term, the Ashigaru took out the big pot and started to stew porridge. Thanks to their excellent cooking techniques and the large quantities of various medicinal ingredients purchased, the injured witches recovered faster than expected.
Sakura, the Archmiko and Master Ken got together to study the production of medicinal herbs and care items. Yajiro's sister and Lulu also got together. The missionaries stayed in their tents to pray as always. To be honest, although she was not very interested in the white church due to her Luoan background, the piety of these people was still worthy of admiration.
The samurai checked and maintained their equipment again. The arrows had been used up, and there were only two short swords left. Each samurai had at least three sets of tachi, wakizashi, and short swords. It was now difficult to get together. Most people only had one left. A knife.
Narumi thought about how to solve it, and asked Henry about some methods of cutting wood and making it by himself. While the sage was answering, Joshua was also checking his tachi on the other side.
Milas thought about it and finally sat down next to her teacher and asked the question that had been bothering her for a long time.
"What the hell is a ghoul?"
"And those Minotaurs." Her question made the camp quiet for a while. Many people were also interested in this and listened attentively - especially Miss Doctor, who trotted and sat nearby with a book in her hands.
The nature of the monsters is originally unimportant. As long as you know what they do, how they behave, and how to kill them, it is enough for Mira, who is an adventurer.
Just like when a hunter is tracking his prey, he looks at the opponent's footprints and various types of prey, and what needs to be understood is where the key points are, rather than delving into the opponent's origin.
But the side that loves learning can never let go of thinking about the meaning of the existence of these...'creatures'.
The pyre was lit in the background and food began to be added to the pot. People need three meals, and most living things need it. You will feel thirsty, you will feel hungry, you will bleed when you are injured.
A small wound may take several days to scab over and heal, and if you don't eat, it may not heal for several days.
They were once humans. This answer is obviously not enough. What can turn a person into such a monster in a very short period of time? What's the difference between Cerberus, the Minotaur, these legendary monsters?
She instinctively felt that all this was related to magic, because the powerful vitality of the ghoul was similar to that of her teacher to some extent.
But she couldn't connect to this thread. The messy and fragmented clues were like fallen leaves floating on the water. She needed reminders and explanations.
Even if all this cannot solve the current dilemma, knowing the truth and the reasons will make people feel better psychologically.
"You still remember, you heard it a long time ago." Henry spoke with his usual steady voice.
"Magic is not given to humans by gods, is this true?" he asked, and the latter thought about it in his mind for a long time and nodded.
Henry walked to the fire--no more than a few steps away--then took a cup and came back.
He stretched out his hand and used a cup to catch the rainwater that fell from the edge of the tarp. There were some debris in it because it had washed away the leaves.
"The word 'magic' is a fairly simple and straightforward description."
"A miraculous technique that cannot be understood by common sense, a technology that causes changes, a technology that surpasses human cognition." Henry turned the cup, and rainwater mixed with debris sloshed in it.
"But it's still not all free," he said.
"It consumes magic power." The Luoan girl gave a straightforward and natural answer.
"So where does the magic come from?" the sage asked. The white-haired girl thought deeply for a moment, combined many things together, and recalled what a certain elf magister had done in the past.
"From the inside?" She blinked, feeling as if she had understood something, but also as if she hadn't.
"But why, a magician won't turn into a ghoul. Besides." She wanted to sort out the words, but was stuck.
"Suppose this is a glass of muddy water. Okay, although there is a little debris, this glass of water is still clear. But imagine this is a glass of muddy water, even dirtier water." Henry turned the cup in his hand, shaking the water Gradually a small vortex formed, and debris also blended into it.
"What will happen to it when I do this?"
"What else can I do? It's just like that." Mira rolled her eyes.
"What if I drink it?" The sage shrugged.
"I'm sick." The white-haired girl replied, holding her chin.
"So." He suddenly placed it on the ground, motionless.
"What if you leave it like this for a while?"
"After a long time-" Henry was still talking, and Mira's eyes gradually lit up.
"The sludge part will settle, and the upper layer will be clean water. Is this the part used when using magic?" She speeded up her speech, and the sage nodded: "After existing for a long time in this world, they will It blends into the environment and gradually dilutes and settles. The surface part that can be used safely by humans becomes the raw material for magicians to cast spells."
"An organ like the mana pool will gradually absorb and store the surface magic in the environment during your breathing. The food people eat every day often contains magic, so you can quickly replenish it by eating more. The magic in your body Magic is the trigger for spellcasting, they will attract the energy in the surrounding environment to achieve the goal you want - but." Henry raised a finger.
"This kind of power is not something humans should control."
"Muddy water will dilute out clean water after settling, but that's because the mud content is low. What if 80% of a glass of water is sludge?" He said: "Or you can't distinguish water from sewage visually. Where’s the mud?”
"This magical power whose essence has not been elucidated so far can not only serve as an extension of the caster's will and emotions."
"They also have their own will. They will whisper to you and convey some fragments to you. The ignorant may even think that this is the gospel of the gods." Henry's words reminded Mira of those people in Placia.
She occasionally knew how to use magic without knowing why. She was a little lucky and proud at first, but now combined with what the sage said, she suddenly felt like she was sweating because of fear.
"Ghouls are human beings who have been devoured and transformed by pure high-concentration magic power. The reason why they appear to be similar but not similar is purely because."
"The basics are almost the same." The sage continued: "This is the result of direct contact. They are not so much some kind of creatures, but rather an extension of the magical will with the appearance of creatures."
"So, what about the other creatures that seem to be more stable?" The person who spoke this time was Miss Doctor. As someone who is familiar with creatures, she obviously has more concerns about those Minotaurs and even Cerberus. 'The creature is quite curious.
"What will happen if you drink a glass of muddy water directly?" Henry asked without answering.
"Maybe he will die." Mira answered seriously.
"Then what if you drink sediment-filtered, slightly invisible muddy water, but it lasts for a lifetime or for several generations?"
"The body will adapt." Ling's eyes widened.
"Isn't that a Warcraft?" Mira was stunned.
"That's about it." Henry poured out the water in the cup, then walked over to pour a cup of tea from the tea can that the Ashigaru were boiling.
"Ghouls are unstable instant products. They are humans who have been in direct contact and assimilated by the original magic power, resulting in extreme mutations. The other monsters you see live in some areas of the world with higher magic power. , although the content is small, but years of exposure have mutated it - who knows what kind of creature it was originally." He shrugged, then blew on the tea and took a sip, but stopped because it felt too hot.
"Because mutations occur over a longer period of time, they are more like living animals than weapons."
"This is their similarity and difference." The sage said, and the great witch who had been listening quietly beside her suddenly spoke up.
"In the legend of the Moon Kingdom."
"Ushitou is the jailer who lives at the entrance to hell. When I was a trainee, I followed my ancestors to visit a place called Hirasaka. They."
"They are living over there." The great witch hesitated to speak. Obviously this kind of 'life' is somewhat different from ordinary people's cognition.
"That's it anyway."
"This power neither cares nor cares about human beings. Those who think they have received the gift will never understand the consequences of making one wrong move."
"But what else in the world is completely free." Heavy rain fell, and lightning flashed in the distance.
The group fell into silence again because of Henry's words.
