Since it was an epic quest, the research could wait.
He could do research whenever he wanted, but most quests had time limits and he might miss them.
Roland packed up for the journey. Because Urganda had no teleportation magic arrays and the Goddess of Magic had only paved them in Fareins and near Hollevin, and Roland didn’t have Urganda’s coordinates, he could only fly there.
Roland could carry a lot of people with Cloud Flight. It wasn’t a problem at all for him to bring four camels and four men.
However, there was still one other problem.
Nia wanted to go with him.
“Mother asked me to come with you.” Nia laid her hands on her hip and said angrily, “If I don’t stay with you, my mother will scold me after I return to paradise.”
“You can’t,” said Andonara creepily. “Even I can’t go with him. How can you?”
“But…” Nia looked at Andonara and somehow felt scared.
She was an angel and much older than Anna, but she didn’t have the courage to confront her.
Roland smiled and said, “The Life Goddess asked you to come here just to show her attitude. You don’t need to take it so seriously. Why don’t you and Anna go shopping in Wetland City?”
“You’re not afraid that the liches will come to you for trouble?” asked Anna.
“They’re in a lot of trouble right now.”
Roland smiled happily.
At this moment, the greatness of money became increasingly clear to him. If it were before, it would’ve been very difficult for him to save Delpon as well as the manor and Magic Tower from the liches.
But the case was different at this moment.
In Hollevin, the Phoenix Guild was searching for the enemies.
In the north, the Frostwolf Clan was crazily clearing the liches’ camps.
With troubles in and out of their territory, if the liches could launch an attack on Delpon, they probably would’ve already taken Hollevin down.
“Then why don’t we take a walk?” Andonara’s eyes glittered.
She hadn’t been to Wetland City a lot, but the prosperity of the city left a deep impression on her.
More importantly, the female players over there had a profound understanding of clothes and makeup.
Even the elves couldn’t compare to them.
Nia, on the other hand, was drooling again. She remembered the delicious food in Wetland City.
“Let’s go together.” Nia struggled to nod.
Her intuition as a gourmet overshadowed her persistence in her responsibilities.
Now that they had a common purpose, Andonara stopped being hostile to Nia. They went inside to change their clothes.
Girls had one set of clothes for daily life, one set for sleeping, and hundreds of sets for going out.
It could take them a long time to dress up and change.
Roland, on the other hand, walked to the manor and said to the Red Desert Dwellers, “I’m going to Urganda with you to check your village. The problem is that I don’t like wasting too much time on the way. So, we’ll fly there.”
The four villagers from the Red Desert looked at each other in disbelief.
“Bring your camels here.”
They didn’t know what was going on, but they followed the instruction.
Then, Roland snapped his fingers, and a large white cloud ten meters long and wide appeared on the ground.
Roland stepped on it first and said, “Come on up with your camels.”
None of the villagers dared to move. They looked at each other, asking one another to go up first.
That was normal.
Mages were always mysteries to ordinary people. They were temperamental and could turn human beings into frogs, apples, or mirrors when they were angry.
That was rather terrifying.
Who knew whether or not the cloud could turn someone into a cactus?
“Please hurry up. My time is precious.” Roland urged them.
When someone was powerful, their words would carry a lot of weight.
Those inferior to them would even imagine things that they didn’t really mean.
Roland wasn’t angry at all, but to the four of them, Roland was about to burst into rage.
It was the calm before a storm… or a sandstorm, for the villagers.
The villagers, trembling in fear, directed the camels onto the cloud.
|
After they stood steadily in the center, Roland snapped his fingers, and the cloud floated toward Urganda.
Thanks to the protection of the barriers, they didn’t feel the intense air currents even though they were in high altitudes.
However, for most creatures that lived on the ground, having their feet off the ground wasn’t the best experience.
The four humans and the four camels all collapsed and dared not move anymore.
However, human beings were intelligent creatures and much better at accepting new things.
About half an hour later, they finally calmed down and dared to appreciate the sceneries far beyond the cloud.
Another half an hour later, they gained the courage to look at the land, rivers, and forests below their feet at the edge of the cloud.
They didn’t know that flying was so comfortable.
They even saw their camp from two days earlier, and the black traces that their bonfire left behind at the turn of the river.
It took them more than two days to travel from here to Delpon, yet it only took this Mage slightly more than an hour.
That was the power of a Mage!
It was mysterious and marvelous. They looked at Roland with awe and admiration.
The cloud continued flying. About three hours later, they arrived at the border of the country. Then, flying across the high mountain, they saw the boundless Red Desert of Urganda.
If they were on the ground, the sand in the desert was yellow. However, there was red dust in the middle of the sand. It wasn’t obvious when mixed in the sand, but it could be picked up easily by the wind and make the sky of the desert red.
Therefore, Urganda was also known as the Red Desert.
The residents of this place were called the Red Desert Dwellers.
Roland stopped the cloud and asked them, “In which direction does your village lie?”
The four villagers all pointed northeast.
Telling the way in the desert was a necessary skill for all the locals here.
They counted on it to survive. It was just like how the fishermen who lived near the sea were better at holding their breath than the inlanders.
About another four hours of flight later, they saw a black spot on the horizon at four in the afternoon, when it was getting dark. The villagers got excited and shouted, “We’re almost there! We’re almost there!”
Roland sped up and soon hovered above the black spot, which turned out to be a fairly large village. It had more than three hundred sand cottages and an oasis nearby.
Not far away to the left of the oasis, there were a bunch of colorful flashes that looked like the rays reflected by countless pieces of glass.
The area was fairly large, at least larger than the village.
Roland spurred the cloud to land outside of the village.
In fact, the villagers had already noticed the gigantic cloud. It even caused minor panic.
However, after the cloud descended, they found their fellows on it and were reassured. They all ran out of the village.
Roland dismissed the cloud and set foot on the land with the rest of them.
The four Red Desert Dwellers were quite happy. They wanted to direct the camels back to their village, but the camels were too scared after hours of flying to get back on their feet.
They pulled the camels and failed to move them, so they gave up.
After the villagers ran out, they surrounded Roland in silence.
They dared not utter a word.
The glowing magic stripes on Roland’s robe was the best proof of his identity.
Nobody wanted to piss off the Mages. Ordinary people, in particular, almost dared not speak to the Mages.
Eventually, an old man squeezed through the crowd, walked to Roland, humbly bowed, and asked slowly, “Mr. Mage, may I know if you’re here to help us?”
“Yes, are you the leader of this village?”
“Yes. Esteemed Mage, what would you like us to pay?”
“What can you offer?”.
Roland didn’t think that he should help them for free. He didn’t care how much they would pay, but they should at least pay something.
Giving help selflessly wasn’t the best choice. The villagers would be prompted to ask for other people’s help for free when they were in trouble again.
It was just like giving money to the poor couldn’t free them from poverty. Instead, they would only be accustomed to living a poor life.
When the same trouble happened again, the villagers would likely ask for help again without paying anything.
If the person they asked was nice, he might curse them and go away.
If the person was bad-tempered, he might kill his potential employers on the spot.
“We don’t have much money. The only valuable things we have are the young girls in the village. If you like them, you can take a couple of them away with you.”
In Urganda, women were possessions, and beautiful women were important and valuable possessions.
In countries such as Hollevin and Fareins, the bias that women were possessions was more or less covered up, but it was blatantly propagated in Urganda.
Roland waved his hand. “I have a lot of women in my house. Maybe something else.”
“But…” The village leader hesitated. “We really can’t offer you anything else.”
“Then give me your specialties,” said Roland with a smile. “The more, the better.” The village leader thought for a moment and bowed. “As you wish.” “Now, can you tell me what the glittering glass ocean behind the village is about?”
At the mention of the glass ocean, every villager revealed an awful expression.
The village leader heaved a sign and told the story.
Supposedly, they had been living a prosperous and peaceful life with the small oasis next to the village.
They had been living here for about three hundred years.
However, an accident happened two months earlier.
A woman who went out to “pick worm food” discovered the accident.
The so-called “picking worm food” meant capturing small creatures such as scorpions, centipedes, and beetles for their protein.
The woman discovered a lot of beautiful and colorful gems in the sand behind the village. They were large and numerous.
Although all women liked glittering things, she was a Red Desert Dweller, so she observed the tradition of not touching anything weird in the desert that nobody had ever seen, as nobody knew whether or not it was a trap of the devil’s.
The woman came back and informed the other villagers of the matter. They all went to check it out.
It was indeed a land of gems, with a coverage of about a hundred square meters at that time.
Someone intended to pick the gems, but the village leader stopped them. To test if the gems were dangerous, they threw some small animals at them.
As it turned out, the animals were crystallized into glass-like items the moment they reached the area.
At this moment, even the dumbest person knew that something was wrong with the gems.
Ever since, the gems had been spreading. Their scale had increased by hundreds of times in two months, and they were approaching the village.
If the villagers were in another country, they would’ve already fled.
But in Urganda, the villagers knew that in order to survive in the harsh desert, a steady source of water was required.
Without the oasis and the not-so-large lake near the village, they would die of thirst in the desert within three days.
They wanted to run, but where could they run to?
The other oases wouldn’t accept outsiders easily, and nor would the big cities.
It was because every water source and oasis had a limited capacity.
It only provided enough water for a limited number of people.
If they moved in, they would occupy the locals’ living space. Most locals wouldn’t be happy about that.
So, the villagers could only wish that the sea of gems wouldn’t expand so fast.
If the lake on the oasis was invaded by the sea of gems, the village would be doomed.
Roland nodded to show that he got it. “You can start preparing local specialties. I’ll go there and take a look.”
After saying that, he summoned a tiny cloud that carried him to the back of the village.
In front of his eyes was a dazzling mine of gems… Under the sunlight, countless colorful spots of light were glittering. They looked like flowing water in the twisted air.
Roland opened the system vision and looked at the pillar-like gems.
Item: Magic Power Crystal
Effect: It’s the amalgamation of magic power under the influence of natural-law-level magic power. It can be used for magic experiments, but it’s highly unstable and won’t be effective.
Roland had read descriptions of such magic power crystals in books.
They all said that the crystals had special energy, but because they contained assorted elemental powers, no Mages were ever willing to purify them.
It was not worth their time and magic power.
Roland stood at the edge of the sea of gems and sensed the chaotic magic, frowning.
It was hard for him to control this magic power even with his special talent.
Also, the gems were still spreading, which meant that they must be powered by something.
Roland tossed three magic spiders down.
Because the magic spiders were created by magic power just as the sea of gems was, they weren’t affected at all. If anything, they were even faster than normal.
The spiders performed a blanket search and found a dark cave at the center of the sea of gems.
The cave looked very, very deep. “Why do you all like digging?”
Roland remarked.
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