Chương 29: Night, Beautiful Girl, Drained

After seeing off the hot-tempered young master, Xia En returned to the temple entrance and retrieved his large stack of broken copper and scrap iron.

Just as he was about to turn and leave, he suddenly noticed that the passageways leading to the left and right sides seemed to have changed.

"I remember the right entrance to the tomb was slightly collapsed by the tremors, while the left dead-end entrance was intact. How come it's reversed now?"

Did the two roads grow legs and switch places on their own?

Shaun muttered something in confusion, but didn't take it to heart; perhaps he had misremembered. Anyway, Frilian had already changed the directions for the left and right passages, so there shouldn't be any problems.

After leaving the temple, the two continued patrolling the remaining outer areas.

We corrected the map as we walked.

Shane found a kind of shy grass by the roadside; its leaves would immediately close up if touched lightly.

Frillie was very interested and made a special mark on the map.

Shane disagreed, arguing that maps for adventurers should only mark important information such as resource points and danger warnings.

Frillie suggested that adding some interesting information might make the trip less boring.

The two people each held their own opinions.

Ultimately, the person in charge of drawing the map had the final say.

"Wait, is that a monster?!"

Xia En, who was clearing the way ahead, suddenly stopped.

In the bushes not far away, several bird-like animals, as big as cows, were leisurely strolling.

They have large, plump bodies covered in yellow and black feathers, and look very much like ostriches. But strangely, they have no wings, and their two claws are much larger and stronger, making them look very disproportionate.

"It should be a moa."

Frillie added some more markings to the map and explained to Shane, "This is a large bird that is quite common in the southern forests. It runs very fast, but its call is particularly terrifying, so it is called the terror bird."

"Don't worry, they are very docile and never attack humans unprovoked."

Xia En breathed a sigh of relief; at least it wasn't a monster.

He glanced up at the setting sun, estimated the time, and suggested, "It's getting dark. There's a water source nearby. Let's camp out for the night by the woods and head back tomorrow."

The two chose a spot to set up camp.

Frilian was in charge of cleaning the camp and gathering firewood to start a fire, while Shane was in charge of catching fish in the river to cook dinner.

River fish are at their fattest in spring, their bellies brimming with roe.

Xia En walked along the riverbank, observing the fish as he went. After walking quite a distance, he finally found the two largest ones.

He drew his longsword and chuckled.

The word "electric shock" is practically a magic weapon for fishing.

Crackling sound.

sizzle.

The two fish in the river instantly flipped belly up and floated straight to the surface.

Xia En scooped the fish up, scaled and gutted it on the spot, cleaned it thoroughly, then picked a blade of grass from the roadside, threaded it through the fish's gills, held it in his hand, humming a little tune, and returned to the camp.

Relax and easy.

When Frilian saw that he had caught two fish so quickly, and they were quite large, she immediately showed an expression of appreciation.

Following the example shown in movies and TV dramas, Xia En skewered the fish on the top of a wooden stick and stuck it next to the fire.

Night fell.

The aroma of grilled fish slowly wafted out, accompanied by the crackling sound of the flames.

With great gentlemanly manners, Shane chose the golden-yellow one that looked the best cooked and handed it to Frillie.

Frillie took it, sniffed the aroma, and took a big bite. Immediately afterward, her face froze, and she spat it out.

Xia En frowned.

"Even if it's not to your liking, don't waste it."

As he spoke, he picked up his own and took a bite. Then, his face instantly became somewhat distorted.

"Ugh—what kind of fish is this?"

Frillie calmly began to eat her bread.

"I don't think it's the problem."

Xia En was puzzled.

That shouldn't be the case; isn't that how it's always written in novels?

The aroma of grilled fish captivated the taste buds of the beautiful young woman, and the handsome adventurer thus enjoyed many wonderful nights.

Where is the problem?

……

For safety at night, Shane cast the [Goddess's Barrier] to protect the entire camp.

By this time, Frilian was already asleep on the blanket beside the fire.

Shane sat down on the other side of the fire, took out a small bag of beans from his pocket, opened the bag, counted out 20 beans, and placed them in front of him one by one.

This is his preparatory work before merging the entries.

Because the extracted entries cannot remain in a free state for a long time, he uses beans as a temporary storage medium.

Then, he sorted the pile of scrap metal one by one, putting those with [gray attributes] into one group, those with [white attributes] into another group, and the others with higher levels into yet another group.

After preparing everything, he began to create the entries.

First, extract a bunch of useless "gray entries," a total of 12, and merge them directly.

Not bad, all were successful, and I got 4 white ones.

I glanced at them and realized they were all useless. I stored one on the beans as a backup, and continued to fuse the other three.

It's such a pity that the fusion failed and everything shattered.

Next, we'll peel away that pile of [white entries]...

This process is repeated.

Different colored dots of light kept flashing in front of him, and he would pick up a bean every now and then to store it temporarily.

Based on previous experience, it is best to temporarily store only one entry per bean. This makes it easier to select the best and reorganize, saving the effort of repeated stripping.

Time passed by, second by second.

Xia En's mental energy was constantly being depleted.

In the end, after using up most of the 20 beans, he finally obtained two decent blue entries before completely draining his mental energy.

[Brain Lockdown (Blue Excellent)]: Locks off one's thoughts to prevent others from spying on or influencing them, greatly increasing resistance to mental magic.

【Space Expansion (Blue Excellent)】: Expands the internal volume of an object and reduces the weight of the loaded items without changing its appearance. The maximum space expansion is 50 times (must be a closed container).

Without much hesitation, Xia En enchanted himself with the first affix.

Then he took out his backpack and tossed the second entry onto it.

In an instant, a streak of light flashed across the ordinary leather backpack. Xia En reached inside, but wow, he couldn't touch the bottom at all.

He tentatively poked his head inside.

By the light of the campfire, it was clear that the space inside had expanded considerably; it would probably be no problem to fit a horse-drawn carriage inside.

"It will be much more convenient to bring luggage when I go out now."

In addition to the newly merged advanced terms, Shane also left behind a grayed-out term. This term is extremely rare and may prove very useful in the future.

He rubbed a bean between his fingertips.

Faint gray text appeared above— 【Osteoporosis (gray entry)】: Bone strength is greatly reduced, brittleness is increased, and fractures are very likely to occur.