Alone and Infinite.

Chapter 524 Moonlight and Thorn Potion

Xiaotian tilted his head, unaware of what the three were thinking.

It only suddenly gained intelligence after merging with the fruit, without any corresponding growth experience. Therefore, although it has wisdom, it has a kind of purity that has not been 'polluted by the mundane world'.

It's basically what people commonly call being a bit slow on the uptake.

It politely wagged its tail at the three of them, then lowered its head and continued to concentrate on dealing with its 'big bone'.

This bone is as hard as rebar; it was specially developed by the staff of the temple for the apostles' canine summoned beasts to grind their teeth.

Therefore, when Xiaotian opened his mouth, his gleaming white teeth crunched and gnawed at the bone, sparks flying as he rubbed and bit.

And when the puppy gets really into chewing, it will make a very threatening 'whimpering' sound from its chest and throat, like the low growl of an engine.

The three heartbroken individuals watched as sparks kept escaping from the puppy's mouth, and the foundation, which looked like it had been compacted by the tail's lashes.

I decided to stay away from that dog, especially since Iris had been 'swallowed' by it. She recalled that dark and hopeless feeling, as if she had been abandoned by the world.

She couldn't help but move to the side.

Li Xia pushed the firewood in his hand into the campfire; it was all taken from the black thorn tree.

Although this dark plant can be burned, it produces a strange smell and a lot of smoke.

It's fine for emergency lighting, but using it for barbecuing is just asking for trouble.

Therefore, the cat uses its favorite and most familiar Monster Hunter portable barbecue grill for grilling.

"Are we still short 30 portions of the raw materials for the Thorn Potion?"

Li Xia's questioning jolted Victor and the others from their longing for clean food and drinking water.

"Yes, we still need thirty more."

Victor placed several small bags on the ground and said seriously:

"We must stock up on the medicines here, and leave some redundancy, in preparation for the journey ahead and for any unforeseen circumstances."

Once you leave this area, it becomes very difficult to obtain high-quality materials like facial growth rings.

While many other potions possess similar effects, the Thorn Potion is the most effective and lasts the longest.

Li Xia nodded, threw the last piece of firewood into the campfire, and stood up.

"Then you guys rest here, I'll go get the rest of the materials."

"But--"

Victor and Iris shook their heads together, trying to dissuade them:

“We have no concerns about your safety, but it’s easy to get lost here, and you should have noticed the sensory distortions in the Misty Forest.”

That's true. The dense forest has a very strong ability to distort and confuse conventional senses. Extraordinary senses can still be used, but only to see where the enemy is, and the range is smaller than usual.

"It's not that complicated. I just noticed that there are quite a few mutated thorn trees around here."

A faint light flashed across his hand, and the Ancient Moon Bow appeared.

Li Xia's fingers rested on the empty bowstring, and as he pulled, they shimmered with a faint glow, as if bowstrings made of strands of light were emerging.

A faint, ethereal image of a bright, clear moon suddenly appeared behind it.

The hazy moonlight shone on the campsite, as if covering the entire campsite with a thin layer of silver gauze.

Even in such a gloomy environment, the illusory image of the bright moon added a touch of dreamlike color to the place.

It seems that as long as the moon is there, the night is no longer scary.

"This is...this is..."

Fafner's hands trembled, and the bright moon was reflected in his gray eyes, as if it had suddenly gained a divine quality.

His lips moved, and he managed to squeeze out a few words from his throat, only to swallow them back down.

I was afraid that if I raised my voice, I would scare the bright moon away.

"This is the moon."

Victor stared blankly at the phantom, for they couldn't remember the last time they had seen the moon since darkness fell.

Thirty years? Forty years? Or fifty years?

Before this, the bright moon had been hanging quietly in the night sky, appearing in countless beautiful poems, stories, plays, and legends.

When the moon is there, people don't think much of it, but when they can no longer see the moon, they miss it terribly.

It even became a symbol, forever engraved in my heart.

"Is this the moon?"

Iris paused, staring intently at the phantom moon behind Li Xia, a child born after the darkness descended.

The moon was just a legendary thing to her.

As the three of them gazed intently at the moon, the phantom behind Li Xia suddenly lit up, and an invisible ripple spread out from beneath his feet, as his Observation Haki was suddenly unleashed.

The bowstring twanged, and an exceptionally brilliant arrow of light shot out. It had only traveled a few meters when it exploded like fireworks, scattering into dozens of smaller but still dazzling arrows that flew into the dense forest.

"Boom boom boom boom boom!"

A series of rapid explosions, accompanied by strange roars and billowing smoke, sent the sound into the sky.

Li Xia lowered the bow, circled his index finger in mid-air, and suddenly the black charcoal body split into several pieces, rushing into the dense forest.

Before long, these shadow clones each carried a human face and tree bark back to the camp.

What ability is this?
The three of them, feeling a burning pain, looked at the kitten and then at Li Xia, and were even starting to feel numb.

Victor, on the other hand, fell into deep reflection. They were all lost souls, so why did they feel such a big difference?
Or is it that after going through the fire-linking ceremony, he forgot not only his memories, but also many skills?
Hmm. Very likely.
He comforted himself and got the face rings from the kitten. Iris had no idea what Victor was thinking.

The pot specifically for brewing magic potions has been set up, and the initial preparation has begun.

Li Xia is very interested in the unique system of this world. He himself is also skilled in the art of harmonization, and his mastery of it is quite high.

Unfortunately, the upper limit of the Harmony spell is limited. Being able to use it up to the third level is already quite good, and it has basically reached its peak.

If you want to move up, you have to find a higher-level system.

However, Li Xia did not intend to spend his energy on this, because he heard from Ao Wu that Transcendence seemed to have a special system.

When Li Xia heard about it, she didn't find it surprising at all; on the contrary, she took it for granted.

That system is called alchemy.

Well, with the Eight or Nine Arcane Arts, it's normal for him to have alchemy skills. Otherwise, it wouldn't be because Aowu confidently claimed that transcendence is at the highest level, not some immortal realm.

Li Xia almost wondered if Transcendence might have another name, such as Heavenly Court or Primordial World.

Meanwhile, Iris and Victor were still busy at work. The pot of medicine in the pot had turned into a pool of purple, unidentified liquid. The two picked up the tree bark with a silver knife and cut along the grain. The dark red sap dripped from the dropper into the crystal glass, as crimson as blood.

By the time the pile of bark was cut, a large jar of liquid had been stored.

The liquid was added to the crucible, and a large cloud of light gray smoke rose up, turning into a huge smoke ring that slowly spread outwards.

The liquid in the pot began to boil violently, the purple color quickly faded, and finally the whole pot of liquid turned a dazzling silvery-white, somewhat like mercury.

Victor leaned in and smelled it, a look of delight appearing on his face. He nodded to Iris.

She stepped forward, took out rows of crystal tubes resembling test tubes from her backpack, and carefully poured liquid into them with a small spoon.

Finally, the medicine was sealed and distributed to Fafner and Victor, while he kept one bottle for himself, shaking it and muttering:

"If possible, I really don't want to drink it."

Iris took a deep breath, tilted her head back, and drank the potion. The moment it entered her mouth, her face turned deathly pale, and she let out a few painful groans.

His skin turned bright red as if on fire, large drops of sweat slid down his cheeks, and wisps of steam rose from his body.

There were even traces of bright red blood seeping from her mouth and nose. After a long while, she smiled at everyone, looking as if she were dehydrated and pale.

"The moment the thorn potion is ingested, countless tiny thorns will form, tearing through the user's throat and stomach. After mixing with the blood, these thorns will begin to absorb the decay within the body."

Once fully absorbed, it will soften and dissolve in the stomach, at which point it will need to be consumed again.

Even Li Xia, who was relatively resilient, couldn't help but look at the girl who was clenching her fists tightly and whose body was still trembling slightly.

The pain is definitely more than what is shown; just think about it, it's no different from swallowing a whole thorn!
I'm afraid Iris can't even speak anymore.

Sure enough, Iris became unusually quiet for the rest of the time, completely unlike her usual lively self.

Because of the blessing, Fafnir has extremely high resistance to abnormalities, so he does not need to drink the potion for the time being.

Victor, being a Bewildered One, possesses both strength and resilience, and therefore does not require any potions.

They didn't even ask Li Xia, tacitly assuming that this level of pollution wouldn't affect him.

This saved Li Xia the effort of explaining.

Without delay, the group completed the preparation of the Thorn Potion and immediately set off again.

Everyone was quite capable, and after traveling at full speed, they traversed the dense forest, which was dozens of kilometers wide, in just half a day.

If it were a plain, these tens of kilometers wouldn't even take an hour.

Looking at the increasingly sparse and shorter thorn trees in front of them, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Traveling through the same environment for so long had even given them a sense of disorientation.

It seems like we've been stuck in the same place, unless the guiding orb is steadfastly moving in one direction.

This dense forest alone is an extremely troublesome natural maze.

"We now have two options."

We found a sheltered cave, where a campfire provided warm light, bathing the entire cave in an orange glow.

Victor unfolded the old map again, sliding his index finger across it:

"The fastest route is along the original Kingdom Avenue, which leads directly to the Royal City."

The other route involves traversing through desolate wilderness and taking circuitous paths, with a high probability of encountering various monsters.

Li Xia stared at the two routes, quietly waiting for Victor to explain the advantages and disadvantages of each.

"Although the Kingdom Road is close and relatively easy to travel, there are many towns along the way."

The henchmen of the Church of the Night are among them, and the residents have also been corrupted. If we go this way, we might alert them.

As for taking the same route again, as I mentioned before, it's a third longer and you might encounter monsters.

Black Star is not deserted; on the contrary, about 60% to 70% of the world's population still survives, but they are completely ruled by the Church of the Night and its affiliated entities.

They were also brainwashed into believing that darkness and corruption could elevate their lives, and that after death they could go to the divine realm to enjoy an immortal paradise.

If you go back the way you came, you'll be facing monsters. The wasteland is a paradise for monsters. The once powerful monsters have gained power that surpasses that of humans after being corrupted by darkness.

Some monsters are already comparable to 'lower-level gods' in terms of strength, and after being corrupted, they can even rival 'side gods'.

Even the Church of the Night didn't want to provoke those monsters; the two sides maintained a high degree of tacit understanding, with one side controlling the city and the other controlling the wilderness.

In other words, the entire world has completely transformed into the kind of open-world adventure game that Li Xia used to play, where everything encountered in the wild is a monster!

"I have a suggestion—"

Fafner, who rarely spoke, suddenly said in a low voice.

Victor immediately put down what he was doing and focused on him. Although Fafner was not very strong, his brain was the database of the entire Burning Heart Church.

The small cave fell silent for a moment.

"In my memory, even in the contaminated areas, not everyone succumbed to the darkness; some still harbored rebellious intentions."

Fafner's grey eyes were filled with memories as he retrieved the file he needed from the vast amount of data.

"And we haven't been to the contaminated area for a while now, so have there been any new changes in the town?"

Has the Church of the Night come up with something new again?
I think it's necessary for us to head to the nearest town to investigate first. If we can get help from the rebels, it will surely be helpful for our future journey.

Even if there isn't any, it's always good to know more about the contaminated areas.

Li Xia's understanding of this world is still limited, even barren, and even with Iris's explanations, it is still one-sided.

This is also why the temple encourages the apostles to interact more with the natives of the original world; with the help of the natives, the results will be much more efficient.

Therefore, he did not offer his own opinion casually, but instead chose to listen to the opinions of the Zhuo Xin trio.

My role is to provide a safety net with force; I only need to handle unexpected situations. I shouldn't offer opinions on things I don't understand.

Victor pondered for a moment, then slowly nodded.

"If that's the case..."

His index finger slid across the map, finally stopping at a spot where he tapped it forcefully.

"Our next destination: Gray Fog Town!"

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1. Monthly pass 2. Recommendation vote

I'm so sorry, I've been at the hospital for the past few days. My dad's surgery just finished today, so the story has been a bit delayed. I just really don't have the energy.

Now we'll start accelerating.

(End of this chapter)