The tunnel was so long that one could not see the end of it. Darkness was the only thing that could be seen.
However, it was not always dark. Whenever someone came, the tunnel would be lit up to show them the way.
At this moment, the sound of footsteps could be heard in this passage.
As the footsteps went deeper, the lamps on the walls lit up one by one until the end of the tunnel was visible to the naked eye.
"So this is the Wise Ruler's arrangement?" Dorcas walked to a wall candle and observed it carefully. "It looks ordinary, and the oil is of average quality. But there's a lot of it. If I take it all, I can sell it for a good price."
"Mister Chaowei already said that the Wise Ruler's arrangement was to use the candles to guide the way forward. He didn't say that it was a gift for you." Wa was a bit speechless.
After being scolded by the Dark Earl, Dorcas became even more aggressive. He did not even want to let go of the candles. But the "gift" mentioned by the Dark Earl was not just about "magic crystals".
"The Wise Ruler didn't forbid me from taking them, right? As long as he doesn't forbid it, it means he's allowed it. "
"That's true." Angor looked at Dorcas. "But do you dare to take them?"
Dorcas mumbled for a while but did not do anything. Angor knew he did not dare to do anything. After all, they were in an underground tunnel covered by a large number of magic arrays.
But that did not mean he did not want them. She was just trying to get Angor's attention, wasn't she?
"If you say I can take them, why wouldn't I? I'm going to work for you, you won't just leave me in the lurch, right? " Dorcas' tone was firm at first, but the latter half of his words quickly turned into flattery.
Vale could not help but roll his eyes in his mind.
Dorcas used to look like a tough man who did not want to lose his freedom. But ever since he became Angor's slave and decided to "sell his labor", he became a completely different person. People who did not know better would think he was Angor's servant.
Of course, if Dorcas really "sold his body" in the future, he would be Angor's servant. But from Angor's disdainful look, Wai could tell that Angor only needed Dorcas' "labor", not his own person. The relationship between Dorcas and Dorcas was more like that of an employer.
No matter what the final result was, the change in Dorcas really did surprise Wa Yi.
"Sure," Angor said and looked at Dorcas.
Dorcas didn't move. Instead, he kept looking at Angor.
After a while, he sighed and said, "You can take it as long as you're not afraid of death."
"As I expected, there must be a proviso." Dorcas mumbled, but he did not mind. He had been tricked by Angor too many times. He did not even need his intuition to know that Angor was trying to trick him.
In other words, the calmer and more obedient Angor was, the more untrustworthy Dorcas was. The reason why he was' obedient 'was probably because he was up to no good.
"The candles are connected to the magic array, but the connection is weak."
While speaking, Angor walked to one of the candles. He casually cut off a few energy streams and took the candle down. Nothing happened.
Angor tossed the candle to Dorcas. "Since you want it so much, I'll give it to you as a souvenir. I'm sure the Wise Lord won't be reluctant to part with them. "
"I don't want just one. If it's that simple, why don't you take all of them —"
Before Dorcas could finish, Angor's smile turned into a kind one.
Dorcas quickly shut his mouth. Whenever Angor showed that kind of smile, nothing good would come out of it.
"Do you want me to spend a lot of time and mana to remove all of them for you?" Angor grinned.
"I … I … I'm just saying if you have time."
Angor continued, "With the same amount of time and mana, I should be able to make an alchemy item worth at least ten times the total cost of these candles."
Dorcas: "…" Listen, listen, is this something a human would say?
Although Dorcas was forcefully suppressing the emotions in his heart, the envy that was inadvertently revealed in his eyes exposed his thoughts.
He "politely" rejected Dorcas' suggestion and kept moving forward.
Dorcas hurriedly followed. "Since these aren't for us, what is the surprise that the Wise Sovereign spoke of?"
"You're asking me? Who am I supposed to ask?"
Angor and Count Black did talk to the Wise Lord for a while, but they only talked about the upcoming itinerary. There was no mention of a "surprise" at all.
The Wise Lord suddenly told Angor that he left a "surprise" for them, which confused Angor as well.
However, compared to Dorcas' hopeful look, Angor was not so optimistic about the so-called "surprise".
A "surprise" could be literal, but it could also be a negative one. It all depended on the context and the personality of the speaker.
Angor would believe it if it was a light wizard from an academy who said it. But the Wise Lord … Angor was still unsure about that.
"Maybe it's more of a surprise than a happy one." Wail thought the same thing. "Maybe …"
Dorcas: "If there's really no joy, then I'll …"
"You'll what?" Wail gave Dorcas a sideways glance. "You're … one-sixth?"
When he heard the words "one sixth," Dorcas became listless again. He lowered his head and sighed. Even his footsteps became weak.
But Dorcas had only taken a few steps when he heard a "bang". His head had directly hit the iron sheet.
Dorcas held his head and stepped back while cursing.
After reaching a safe distance, he raised his head and discovered that he hadn't bumped into any 'iron sheet', but rather a puppet.
It was the same alchemy puppet that was possessed by Soolin. Angor had never asked Soolin to leave the puppet ever since it was possessed.
When Dorcas asked Angor why, Angor's answer was that Soolin didn't want to come out.
Perhaps it was because Soolin had always been in an energy state, and this was the first time he gained a body. It was only a steel body, but it was still a wonderful experience for him.
It was rare for Soolin to ask Angor to keep exploring the alchemy puppet.
Of course, Angor wouldn't turn down such an unimportant request. Besides, Soolin's strength wasn't the most important thing in this team. It was his ability to sense the wind. The puppet's body didn't restrict Soolin's senses. Instead, thanks to the magic array embedded in the puppet, Soolin's ability to sense wind was enhanced.
Dorcas had no choice but to accept his bad luck. Arguing with the spirit would not work since it would not care about anyone other than Angor. As for arguing with Angor, Dorcas did not have the confidence to do so since he still owed Angor a debt, so he had to give up.
Khael walked to Angor and asked, "Did you find anything, sir?"
Dorcas bumped into the alchemy puppet because Angor suddenly stopped moving. The puppet guarding the side naturally stopped as well, causing Dorcas to be careless and run into a wall.
Angor, who had stopped moving, was looking around in confusion as if he was looking for something.
This was why Khael approached him.
"It told me there's a hidden creature nearby."
While explaining, Angor gestured with his cane. This was to tell everyone that it was the cane that found the "hidden creature". In other words, the Wood Spirit.
According to Angor, when they walked closer, the vine on the cane moved slightly and rubbed against Angor's hand.
At first, Angor thought it was the Wood Spirit acting coquettishly. But after a closer inspection, he noticed that the Wood Spirit was writing something on his palm.
It said that there was a hidden creature nearby.
Angor had been looking around for this so-called "hidden creature". But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find anything.
He then looked at the Black Earl, and the Black Earl gave the same answer. The Black Earl didn't smell anything special in the surroundings either.
"Is it those dog holes?" Vaay asked curiously.
Dorcas: "Don't you know if it's a dog hole or not? There's no dog hole around here."
Vaay ignored Dorcas and kept looking at Black Earl.
Black Earl didn't say anything. Instead, he descended from the air and attached himself to the hole where Vaay's nose was.
After fusing back into one, Wa Yi could smell the aura around him.
"There's no smell," Vaay sighed.
If even Black Earl couldn't smell anything, how did the Wood Spirit know there was a hidden creature nearby? Everyone looked at Angor curiously. If they looked at the Wood Spirit directly, the creature would get scared, so it had to use Angor as a messenger.
Angor didn't answer right away because the Wood Spirit's "writing" was too slow. Angor tried to ask it to speak, but the Wood Spirit wouldn't listen.
After a long while, Angor finally finished reading the message.
"That's because the concealment method used by that creature is the same as that of the wood spirits. That's why the Wood Spirit could sense it. "
As for why a creature with the same ability as the Wood Spirit, it must have something to do with the Wise Ruler.
When the Wise Ruler taught the Wood Spirit, he also studied the Wood Spirit's abilities and took away the Wood Spirit's spawn.
The Wood Spirit didn't care about the Wise Ruler's spawn. After all, the Wise Ruler was the Wood Spirit's teacher.
As for the wood spirit, it could smell that the aura of the hidden creature contained the scent of its Derivative.
"In other words, the hidden creatures were the work of the Wise Sovereign? It can't be that this is the pleasant surprise that the Chief Sovereign of the Wise was talking about, right? "Dorcas wondered.
"Yes or no, we need to find it first."
"If the Wood Spirit can sense it, we can just ask it to find it."
Angor was thinking the same thing, but …
"The hidden creature keeps moving. The Wood Spirit's writing speed won't make it in time."
Earlier, the Wood Spirit mentioned that the creature was right in front of them. But after a while, it changed its mind and said that it was on the right.
More importantly, the Wood Spirit seemed to have "OCD". It insisted on writing the prefix.
It could just use the vines to indicate the location, but the Wood Spirit didn't want it. Every time, the Wood Spirit would write something like "it's at so and so".
The prefix was unnecessary, but the Wood Spirit kept writing it over and over again. This meant that the Wood Spirit's writing speed couldn't keep up with the creature's movement speed. Under such circumstances, it was difficult to rely on the Wood Spirit to find the hidden creature.
"What should we do then?" Dorcas asked.
Angor considered for a moment and looked at the long corridor in front of them. "Surround and hunt."
Surround and hunt was a term used by hunters to limit the movement range of their prey so that they could surround and eliminate it.
Angor didn't really mean "surround and hunt". He wanted to "surround and hunt".
Since they couldn't find the creature, they might as well limit the range. As long as they kept reducing the range, they would eventually be able to trap the creature.
Of course, if the creature really wanted to run away, it could.
However, the creature had the scent of a Wood Spirit, and it might be related to the Wise Ruler. Although Angor said he wasn't sure, he still believed that this was the "surprise" the Wise Ruler mentioned.
Since it was a surprise, whether it was a surprise or not, Angor had to make contact with the creature to find out.
If the creature wanted to make contact with Angor, it wouldn't just focus on running away. As long as they set up a circle and slowly reduced the creature's movement range, they would be able to find it sooner or later.
It was a stupid idea, but it was a good one in this situation.
They all knew how strong the Wood Spirit's stealth ability was. Angor only met the creature by luck.
But now, another creature with the same stealth ability as the Wood Spirit showed up. Since they couldn't find any more tricks, they had to rely on the stupid one.
If the stupid one didn't work, and the creature still didn't want to show up, then … forget it.
As Angor said, he wasn't expecting any surprises.
It was good to be surprised, but it wasn't bad to be unsurprised either.
…
Since they were in a long corridor with a ceiling and walls on both sides, it was easy to surround and hunt.
Angor used his feet as the boundary and connected the left and right walls to mark out half of the area.
As for the other half, Angor used Speed Spirit to move forward and find a place where he could overtake the creature.
If Speed Spirit tried to overtake the creature, the creature would surely notice him. If the creature ran away, Angor would forget about it and pretend nothing happened.
If the creature didn't run away, the hunt would be half done.
The hunt had officially begun. Angor easily set up a boundary while Veling controlled the alchemy puppet to move forward as fast as he could.
A few seconds later, the Wood Spirit wrote on Angor's palm: "Overtaken."
Angor waited for a few more seconds to make sure the Wood Spirit didn't intend to change the boundary. Then he asked Speed Spirit to set up the boundary on the other side.
Very soon, a hunting corridor about two hundred meters long was separated by them.
Angor checked with the Wood Spirit again to see if the creature was still in the hunting range.
The answer he finally got was, "Yes."
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