Death Wizard Diary.

Chapter 557 Formic Acid Meat Nest

Thor followed the mountain movers along the main road and into the nearby Ancient Forest of Survivors.

However, the mountain climber took a slightly longer route, avoiding the area where the seven blindfolded ordinary people had appeared.

Thor followed him into the woods and up the hillside.

Then the donkey cart stopped, and the driver went over the mountain. The person standing on the cart frame lifted the black leather and threw the boy on top to the side under the roots of a big tree.

The donkey cart started again, leaving the motionless boy behind, and continued deeper into the ancient forest.

But Thor didn't follow; he stopped beside the boy.

He crouched down and examined the boy's mouth, nose, and eyelids, finally finding a splinter about half a finger's length on the back of the boy's neck.

The splinter pierced the skin shallowly and hung there.

He pulled the splinter off, smelled it, and gave a very faint smile.

"Is this how they fake someone's death?"

"Is this some kind of underground transaction? If it gets discovered, it could easily turn someone into a real death."

Saul looked at the boy's hands and feet again.

Although the other child was only eleven or twelve years old, his hands were covered in calluses, indicating that he worked frequently.

As he watched, Thor exclaimed "Huh?"

He reached out and pinched the boy's skull and spine. "This boy was forced to grow."

Although the boy looks like he's in his teens, he's probably only seven or eight years old.

He was like a wheat seedling in a field, forced to grow too fast!

Despite Thor's efforts, the boy still did not wake up.

If this continues, he will go from feigning death to actually dying.

"It seems that people who do this business don't really care about the survival rate of their goods."

The bearded man, through some unknown means, managed to send the boy out of the settlement by faking his death. The mountain climber and the old man with the flowerpot guarding the gate probably both knew about this.

They turn a blind eye, mostly because they can profit from this.

Judging from their current indifference towards the boy, they have already secured their gains, so they naturally don't need to pay much attention to the entrusted goods.

Life and death are determined by fate.

Or it would be better if he were dead.

It will not leave any hidden dangers.

As the boy's life force gradually faded, Thor suddenly snapped his fingers, casting a healing spell that jolted the boy, who was about to enter the abyss of death, open his eyes.

"Cough cough cough cough... cough cough cough..."

The boy, who had just opened his eyes, began to cough violently. His brush with death had brought him back to safety, and the experience had caused considerable damage to his body.

After the boy finally caught his breath, he saw out of the corner of his eye a person dressed in a wizard's robe squatting beside him.

The boy looked terrified as he faced Thor, who had just saved his life.

He instinctively crawled backward, trying to get away from Saul, but crashed into a large tree behind him with a thud.

Several pieces of withered branches and leaves fell from above.

"Don't be afraid, being afraid won't help. I'll ask, you answer?"

The boy's back was pressed tightly against the big tree behind him. He swallowed hard, but his mouth was dry and burning.

After a moment, he calmed down a bit and nodded.

The way he stared at Saul was like that of a baby rabbit just out of its burrow.

"Is that bearded man your father?"

The boy hesitated.

"I'll kill you if you lie." Thor's voice was completely flat.

Faced with such a death threat, the boy showed none of the fear and panic he had felt when he first discovered Saul standing beside him.

"Yes."

"When I arrived, I saw you running away, but someone behind you pinned you down and nailed two holes in your feet. What's going on?"

"They said I was old enough to be a meat nest. I saw, I saw the boy in front of me had a hole punched in the sole of his foot and two ants put in. He screamed in pain. I was so scared, I ran away."

"What's this splinter?"

Saul held up the splinter he had pulled from the back of the boy's neck in front of him.

The boy stared blankly at the wooden spikes and shook his head.

"Then why were you thrown out again?"

The boy thought for a moment.

"After I was taken back, they put an ant on the sole of my foot, but as soon as the ant crawled into my foot, I was in so much pain that I fainted and don't know what happened."

"Oh, your father had someone secretly send you out, but didn't he tell you how to live after leaving the settlement?"

The boy still looked bewildered, but Thor could clearly hear his heartbeat quickening.

"As expected, in a place like this, all the truly naive and innocent people would have died out long ago," Thor thought to himself, shaking his head.

He didn't dwell on the issue. He had only said that to let the boys know that he had caught them red-handed and that it was time to ask some more in-depth questions.

"What is a meat nest?"

"Are ordinary people not allowed to leave this settlement?"

"Do many wizards leave after they come in?"

The boy answered some of the questions, and for others he simply shook his head to indicate that he didn't know.

Having nearly exhausted the information from the boy's mind, Thor stood up again.

He looked at the boy who was leaning weakly against the big tree, took some food out of the storage device and threw it on him.

The small package that the boy's father handed to the mountain climber was probably food intended for the boy.

However, the mountain climbers had no intention of letting the boy live, so they naturally took the food from the bundle.

"This is your payment for answering my questions. Of course, you'll get more if you tell the truth."

After saying that, Thor turned around and prepared to continue into the mountains.

He planned to go find some arched-backed termites.

If the formic acid from termites can truly be used to create a miraculous drug that has no side effects and can put a wizard into a state of high-speed brain activity, then it will surely become a rare magical material that many wizards will fight over in the future.

He might as well start researching now.

However, since these arched-backed termites are so remarkable, they must be guarded. Thor must be careful not to leave any trace, lest he be spotted by the second-tier wizards in the settlement.

Thor had only taken two steps when he heard the boy behind him call his name.

"My lord wizard, please wait a moment."

Thor stopped and turned back.

"My lord, please, please...?"

"No." Thor knew what the boy wanted to ask, but he refused without hesitation.

When he examined the boy's body, he discovered that the boy, who had been forced to mature prematurely, was already mentally and physically damaged.

Let alone becoming an apprentice, it's difficult to even live healthily to the age of twenty.

Unless he has the same opportunities as the useless protagonist in a novel, encountering some rare treasure, undergoing a marrow cleansing through the I Ching, or rather, reorganizing his spirit and body, awakening his magical talent, and amplifying his elemental perception, he won't even have the slightest chance to learn.

The boy wanted to try again, but when he looked up, he met Thor's gaze, which was as calm as the deep sea. He couldn't bring himself to utter his plea.

"He's quite clever, what a pity." Seeing that the boy had no sense and didn't continue to plead, Saul turned and left.

He walked through the forest and released the little algae.

"Be careful not to disturb the people and creatures here."

The little algae jumped to the ground, burrowed into the soil, and disappeared.

About half an hour later, it suddenly emerged again, its black tentacles encircling Thor's ankles.

Thor followed the force of the algae and walked forward silently.

Before long, he saw several familiar figures in the woods ahead.

Those were several gaunt figures with black blindfolds and shackles on their feet.

The leader also carried a lantern and moved forward silently.

According to the boy, these people were probably meat nests used to collect formic acid.

Thor quickly circled around to the front of the seven people, only to find that these seven people were not the same seven he had seen before.

"It seems that in this small settlement, most ordinary people are just potential candidates for making meat nests."

(End of this chapter)