Chapter 7

Sui Xiong had considerable patience. Or rather, after crossing into this strange world, his wandering across the vast sea and cultivation in the Ice Trench had honed his endurance.

So he stayed beside that strange clearing for five days, observing it for five days.

During those five days, he barely moved, doing nothing but watching carefully.

Through observation, he summarized the pattern of magical fluctuations in this forest—it was actually very simple. They were weakest at noon and strongest at midnight, repeating endlessly.

Beyond that, he finally understood why the forest's plant life was so lush while animals and insects were scarce—every night, the dense magic killed many animals and insects. Their remains slowly seeped into the earth, and perhaps those black skeletons were formed from these remains gathering together.

The dense magic of the deep night had no effect on Sui Xiong. Ice magic within his body had long since condensed to nearly its limit. Its concentration was astonishingly high, to the point that his body continuously leaked magic. This magic was produced by him every day, and because it could no longer be condensed and stored, it had no choice but to disperse outside his body.

Even the concentration of this leaked magic was comparable to the magical mist filling the forest at night. Only the black fog above that dark clearing, which was clearly much denser, surpassed the magic he emitted.

He also discovered something else. Those black skeletons seemed to be filled with hatred for all living things other than plants. Whenever an insect or animal approached at night, they would swarm over it in a frenzy, punching, kicking, clawing, and biting, determined to kill it. Yet they turned a blind eye to Sui Xiong, who stood right beside them, as though he did not exist at all.

Perhaps... that was because the body he used was, in truth, already "dead"...

After observing for several days in a row, Sui Xiong felt that he had gathered enough information. At last, on a bright noon, he dug open that black clearing.

The situation did not exceed his expectations. He had not dug very deep before he found many pitch-black bones.

They were not complete skeletons, but scattered fragments of bone.

"Looks like those skeletons are only put together temporarily at night." Sui Xiong watched the bones gradually fade under the sunlight, shifting from deep black to pale gray, and nodded to himself.

He did not touch the bones, nor did he refill the hole he had dug. He waited until the next deep night.

Just as he had expected, that night, although the forest's magic still gathered in the clearing, the faded bones did not turn into skeletons. They merely trembled with soft rustling sounds, trembling all night long.

The following day was another sunny day. Under the sunlight, the bones faded even further. By nightfall, even their rustling tremors had weakened somewhat.

Sui Xiong understood almost everything then. He stopped observing and left.

He traveled alone through the Black Forest, moving by day and resting by night. Along the way, he frequently encountered black clearings that bred skeletons.

He had also tried attacking those black skeletons. They were very weak. One sweep of his tentacles could wipe out every skeleton in an entire clearing, without even needing magic.

"This is a good thing." After wiping out another group of black skeletons, Sui Xiong smiled and said to himself, "Looks like this world isn't all that dangerous."

After walking for another five or six days, he finally saw human habitation, something he had long awaited.

It was a small village built in a huge clearing.

The clearing had obviously been cut out by human hands. Countless stumps surrounded it. Many bore fresh chopping marks, and some villagers were still hard at work cutting down the Black Forest and expanding their living space.

The village was not large. Small wooden houses formed a circle around a much taller stone building in the center, which was surrounded by a ring of wells. A strange statue stood on the stone building's roof: a horizontal shortsword and a vertical eye formed the shape of a cross.

That strange statue made Sui Xiong vaguely uncomfortable. It was not danger, merely instinctive disgust. Like an Indian seeing a grilled beef steak, a Saudi seeing pork chop rice, a gourmet seeing atrocious cooking, or an animal-rights activist seeing live shrimp eaten raw... Damn it, he really did not like it!

Aside from the statue that disgusted him, the village itself looked quite ordinary. A wooden fence surrounded it, broad and high, practically a wall. The houses were somewhat crude, but built with ample materials, and looked solid at a glance. The villagers passing back and forth wore rather worn clothing, clearly indicating that life was not prosperous.

The entire village had only one entrance, guarded by a tall, sturdy bald man. Though he wore no armor, he carried a heavy-looking battle-axe on his shoulder, and seemed quite capable. He vigilantly scanned the surroundings without taking a single step away from his post. He was clearly a very responsible man.

Fields surrounded the village. They were planted with a kind of vine Sui Xiong did not recognize. The vines bore neither flowers nor fruit, only grayish-green leaves. Looking closely, he could see faint golden veins in the leaves, which glimmered softly in the sunlight.

Farmers also worked in the fields, mostly women and children. Their work was strange. They neither loosened the soil nor fertilized it, neither weeded nor removed insects. Instead, they carried wooden buckets of various sizes on their backs or at their sides, occasionally scooping tiny amounts of water from the buckets with little ladles and carefully sprinkling it over the vines' leaves.

Those ladles were pitifully small. It would probably take ten or so scoops just to give an ordinary person one mouthful of water. Clearly, they treasured the water in their buckets greatly, often observing carefully for a long time before watering the vines.

The origin of this water was rather extraordinary. It had to be obtained through a special ritual.

The ritual went like this: roughly every ten days, one evening, several young girls in black robes would gather before the stone building's main entrance and chant around a huge pot. A wooden frame stood over the pot, with a live chicken hanging upside down from it. They chanted until the moon rose, then cut the unlucky chicken's throat, allowing its blood to flow into the pot and mix with the water already inside. They continued chanting until the moon reached its zenith, then carried the pot into the stone building.

Sui Xiong had tried more than once to see what they did afterward, but his Soul Sense could not penetrate the stone building. It was as if it had been blocked by tough animal hide, so he had no choice but to give up.

All he knew was that on the next day, when the moon rose, the villagers would draw a bucket of well water and leave it under the moonlight all night, then deliver it into the stone building before sunrise. After some unknown processing, they could collect the water used to irrigate the vines from the stone building on the third day.

Sui Xiong guessed that someone like an apothecary or mage must live in the stone building. That person directed the little girls to cast spells on the well water, giving it special power to promote the vines' growth.

Of course, perhaps the reclusive master living in the stone building was actually a great chef in hiding. Perhaps he had inherited culinary secrets passed down for thousands of years and could stew a pot of chicken blood soup into something unimaginably delicious, so delicious that even the vines were moved to grow with renewed vigor.

Sui Xiong felt that in this world with magic, anything was possible.

Hmm, if he got the chance, he definitely had to find out what that chicken blood soup tasted like!

Besides the special water used to irrigate the vines, the villagers naturally drew water from the wells for daily use. Sui Xiong noticed that although a small river lay not far from the village, no one ever drew water from it. Everyone drank and used only well water.

Perhaps this had something to do with the chaotic, murky magic everywhere in the forest. According to his observations, the closer one got to the village, the weaker that chaotic and murky magic became. Yet the unpleasant aura grew stronger. Perhaps it was precisely this aura he disliked that allowed the villagers to resist the constant erosion of the Black Forest's chaotic magic and avoid harm.

But this resistance clearly had its limits. Every evening, both lumberjacks and farmers hurried back into the village and locked the gates. A group of young people carrying hammers or axes would enter the small wooden houses on either side of the gate and take turns keeping watch through the night.

At such times, the aura Sui Xiong disliked from the stone building at the center of the village would grow greatly stronger, enveloping the entire village. The vines in the fields would also emit a faint golden glow. Though it was entirely different from that aura, it likewise repelled the chaotic magic inherent to the Black Forest. The two complemented each other, protecting this little village.

Sui Xiong hid deep in the forest more than ten li away, using Soul Sense to watch the village from afar. He discovered that besides logging and farming, the villagers' main work was raising chickens. Yet they did not eat the chickens; they were purely Sacrificial Offerings.

He had also studied those vines. Strangely, although they could resonate with the aura he disliked, when he touched them with Soul Sense, he felt no repulsive force at all. They seemed to be nothing more than ordinary vines.

There was clearly some mystery to this. Unfortunately, they did not share a language and could not communicate, so he could only bury his doubts and plan to ask about them after they had become acquainted.

Sui Xiong did not rush to contact the villagers. He continued observing from afar. After watching for a long time, he determined that the villagers' lives were exceedingly dull, with almost no entertainment or recreation to be seen. Every day, they either logged or farmed, living without any joy at all.

The people of this other world seemed to live quite harshly!

Day after day, they repeated their simple labor without ever resting. Like a colony of diligent ants, they worked tirelessly to manage their tiny territory, never showing the slightest slackness.

Sui Xiong silently watched them, waiting for a suitable opportunity to make contact.

He did not want to approach them rashly. First, he did not know their language and could not communicate at all. Second, his appearance was far too terrifying. He feared that simply showing himself would scare them half to death. They might even swarm him and fight him to the death.

He knew almost nothing about the customs and culture of this world, but putting himself in their shoes, any normal person confronted with a giant monster that could not speak their language would first consider fleeing or fighting. Someone thick-skinned enough to try friendly communication with a giant monster was either a protagonist filled with love and Courage in a fairy tale, or one of those "unkillable" characters from a comedy cartoon.

At any rate, the people in this village did not look like either.

After some more time passed, the vines in the fields grew thicker and thicker, and the golden veins on their leaves became increasingly distinct. The villagers often smiled when they looked at them, perhaps already anticipating the joy of a bountiful harvest.

Yet strangely, they also often showed worry and unease, which puzzled Sui Xiong greatly.

After some more time passed, they even stopped logging. Led by the bald gatekeeper, all the able-bodied adults, men and women alike, began combat training, practicing the use of axes and hammers. Many others busied themselves making wooden shields, as if preparing for war.

Sui Xiong watched them curiously. He did not understand where their worries came from, nor did he understand whom they were preparing to fight.

Yet he was secretly a little happy—judging by the villagers' behavior, the coming battle would surely be dangerous. When the time came, he only needed to appear as an ally. Even if he was not welcomed, at least he would not be treated as an enemy.

This was precisely the opportunity he had been waiting for!