There's a big problem with dreams in this world.

So she also learned the skill [Charged Flame], which only requires a certain amount of spiritual power to cause a violent spiritual power explosion around her. Because the spiritual power is released from the center of herself, it will not explode on her.

"Buyi~" A strange sound came from her ear. Lu Qing looked in the direction of the sound and found several small animals with light brown fur looking at her curiously.

These little guys were surprisingly unafraid of strangers. Upon seeing Lu Qing, they slowly approached her, showing absolutely no wariness towards strangers.

"Huh?" Ling's surprised voice rang in Lu Qing's ears, "Buyi shouldn't get close to humans so easily. They usually hide behind bushes."

"Is that right?"

Lu Qing bent down and picked up a Bui, gently stroking its furry skin.

[Nature's affinity: When wearing festival attire, all creatures in nature will be friendly towards you.]

The [Natural Affinity] skill effect of the festival attire might be better than she had imagined; the attacks from those mutated monsters had made her subconsciously forget about this skill.

It seems that even natural affinity is useless for creatures that have been corrupted by the void.

"Little Bui, can you tell me where the Spirit Frog Bolton is?" Spirit floated in front of Bui, who was in Lu Qing's arms, and asked softly.

"Bui~" Bui called softly.

"Can you communicate with them?" Lu Qing looked at Ling Dao with some curiosity.

“Elves can do that too. If you transform into your elven form, you can also understand what they are saying,” Ling replied to Lu Qing.

"Buyi~" Buyi in Lu Qing's arms called softly again. Ling looked at Lu Qing after hearing this and said, "It said it can lead the way for us."

"Bui~"

"It also said that Bolton's condition is not very good..." Ling's voice sounded a little worried. "The Booies live by the water all year round and are very familiar with the Spirit Frog Bolton. If they say that Bolton's condition is not good, then it must be true."

"Is it related to those black lakes?" Lu Qing asked, recalling the scene that Wayne had seen in the sky.

"Probably so."

Lu Qing gently placed Bui on the ground and watched it move across the damp surface.

Perhaps out of habit, Bui often takes paths that are not so friendly to humans.

After thinking for a moment, Lu Qing transformed into an elf and followed behind Bui on all fours.

They traversed several secluded forest paths and arrived at the lake. They hopped across the smooth cobblestones and soon reached the point where the lake met another river.

"Booi~" Booi came to the edge of the lake and called softly into the water.

After a while, accompanied by the sound of water being parted, a huge, pale green figure that almost blocked the boundary between the river and the lake emerged from the water.

"Is there something you need, little Bui..." said the frog Bolton, looking somewhat tired. His voice sounded like that of a wise old man asking his junior a question.

"Elves and humans who can become elves... I understand, you can go back now." Bolton spoke with Bui, then looked at Lu Qing and Ling Dao: "Welcome, elves from afar and Your Highness the princess of the kingdom."

"How did you know I was a princess?" Lu Qing asked Bolton with some doubt. She and Bolton should have never met. Could he really deduce her identity just by guessing?

“Fifty years ago, after the sacred tree withered, two girls came to me and told me what you looked like,” Bolton explained.

"Two girls... what do they look like?" After hearing Bolton's words, Lu Qing was stunned for a moment, and then quickly asked.

“One of them has hair color similar to yours, and the other is a little shorter and has blue hair,” Burton said after recalling for a moment.

“It’s Xiaorou and Miaomiao…” Lu Qing opened the dream information in her diary and looked at the information about the two of them.

[In their attempt to save the sacred tree, the two girls were unfortunately frozen deep within the Fanling Lake by raging water elementals.]

"Do you know where Fanling Lake is?" After reading the contents of the diary, Lu Qing asked Bolton.

"?" Bolton paused for a moment, then replied, "This is Fanling Lake."

"Can you tell me everything you know?" Lu Qing asked somewhat urgently.

“Yes.” Bolton recalled for a moment and said, “Actually, I don’t know much. Fifty years ago, two months after the Sacred Tree Festival ended, two young girls found me.”

"They said they came from the elves and wanted my help to enter the depths of Fanling Lake and borrow a portion of the water elemental's power to stop the desertification of the Anaba Forest."

"Because of the letter from the elves, I agreed to grant them the skill of underwater breathing and to control the water flow to clear a path for them."

"After entering the depths of the lake, I was unable to go any further due to my size and the abundance of water elemental power."

"I don't know what happened after that. I only felt a violent fluctuation in the water element. The turbulent currents in the depths of the lake changed even more severely. Even I found it extremely difficult to control them, let alone ask anyone to go down and check the situation."

"........"

After a brief pause, Bolton spoke, "That's all I know. Is there anything else?" Bolton had one eye half-closed and looked somewhat tired.

"You look unwell. Is it because of this black lake water?" Ling seemed to notice something and asked.

“…” After a moment of silence, Bolton said, “As you can see, after the sacred tree withered, the natural cycle has encountered some problems.”

“The water elements deep within Fanling Lake have been polluted by the power of the void, which has subsequently affected the entire lake. To prevent the pollution from spreading further, I have no choice but to block it here and isolate all the void energy.”

"That's why I can't leave here."

------------

Chapter 550

"So your so-called isolation means swallowing all the power of the void?" Ling's voice sounded somewhat angry as she said, "Even if you have the blessing of the Sacred Tree of the [Eater], you can't just act recklessly like this!"

“…” After a moment of silence, Bolton slowly said, “Simply blocking the river is the stupidest thing to do. I have to keep the water flowing, but I can’t let the pollution from the void pass by. So this is the best way.”

After a pause, Bolton looked at Ling with some curiosity and said, "Even among elves, only a small number should know that my Sacred Tree Blessing is for [Eaters]. Did you hear this from some elder?"

"Oh, this..." Ling seemed a little flustered and swayed in the air, saying, "I, I am an elven healer. There are many things I need to know. These are all things my teacher told me."

"That's about..." Bolton seemed to remember something halfway through his sentence, so he shook his head and said, "No, it's nothing."

[Bolton actually wanted to ask Ling about Fang Qingrou and Muir. Since the elves sent them over, why did Ling seem to have no recollection of it when he mentioned it earlier?]

But as he was about to speak, Burton sensed something was amiss and stopped.

[Ling probably meant no harm; perhaps she was unaware or pretending not to know for some reason. Regardless of her motive, if he were to reveal what he just said, it would likely affect Lu Qing's trust in Ling to some extent. Thinking of this, Bolton chose to remain silent.]

The diary suddenly trembled. Lu Qing looked at the words at the top of the diary, then at Ling, but said nothing.

"Ahem, that's about all for our chat. Now, tell me, what brings you here to see me?" Bolton coughed lightly twice and asked Lu Qing and Ling.

"Oh dear, I almost forgot about the important matter." Reminded by Bolton, Ling finally remembered the purpose of her and Lu Qing's visit and said:

"We need to go to Maeveline's lair to check the condition of the Sacred Tree's core and see if we can heal it, but since we don't know where Maeveline is, we've come to ask you."

“Maeveline…” A complex expression appeared on Bolton’s green face as he said, “I do know where Maeveline is living now, but if you want her to take you to the top of the Sacred Tree, you’re in for a disappointment.”

"What happened to Maevelyn?" Ling asked, somewhat puzzled.

“She…can no longer fly,” Bolton said after a moment of silence.

"Huh!? Why?" Ling asked, looking quite surprised.

“I don’t know the specifics either.” Bolton looked at the very surprised Ling and said, “I only know that Maeveline’s wings are injured and she can’t fly anymore.”

"You can go and ask her for details; maybe she can cure it."

“But here…” Ling looked at Bolton hesitantly and said, “I have a way to remove the pollution from the water element, as long as I can get close to the water element.”

“The pollution from the water element isn’t so easy to remove, you…” Bolton looked at Ling in surprise, then suddenly smiled and said, “Don’t worry about me, you guys go to Maeveline first.”

"If the sacred tree can be healed, the water element here will not be a problem."

As Bolton spoke, without giving Lu Qing and Ling a chance to reply, his body slowly sank into the water. Shortly after Bolton sank to the bottom, a giant turtle that was almost five meters long crawled out of the water.

"Your Highness, human princess, and this elf named Ling, hello. My name is Wu Tian," Wu Tian said as she approached Lu Qing and Ling.

"Um, hello." Lu Qing greeted the turtle named Wu Tian.

After a moment of silence, Wu Tian stared at Lu Qing and suddenly said, "Your Highness, may I have a look at your underwear?"

Lu Qing: "???"

spirit:"???"

"No." Coming to her senses, Lu Qing refused without hesitation.

"Oh." Wu Tian's expression remained unchanged. After a while, she suddenly spoke up: "Sorry, please don't mind my crazy talk sometimes."

"I've recently been learning human divination techniques, and I've found that using a tortoise shell as a divination platform works very well. As a result, I accidentally summoned the soul of a human."

"This guy sometimes gives me strange ideas, but it should be fine after a while," Wu Tian explained to Lu Qing.

"When you say 'recently' and 'after a while,' how long do you mean?" Ling asked, as if she had just thought of something.

"The next five hundred years is probably the timeframe. 'After a while' refers to the time until the soul attached to me dissipates, which may take one or two months," Wu Tian replied upon hearing Ling's words.

“Ling’er knew it!” Ling said in a tone of certainty, “You turtles have such a poor sense of time. Even elves live a long life and don’t always get the time wrong.”

"My sense of time has been pretty good lately. I go to sleep every night and get up the next day..." Wu Tian retorted softly.

"This is a habit of the human soul inside you, not yours," Ling said, floating beside Lu Qing and flashing.

"Whatever." Wu Tian suddenly became lazy and said, "Let's go, Bolton asked me to take you to Maeveline."

"You can sit on my back later. It will only take an hour to get to Maeveline by water."

"Hey~ You weren't secretly looking up at my underwear, were you?" Ling said with a look of disgust.

"I already said that's not my idea, and how could I possibly see that kind of thing while Your Highness is sitting on my back? Most importantly, I'm a female turtle, and I'm not interested in the underwear of other females!" Wu Tian said, his face full of black lines after hearing Ling's words.

"Hmm... Ling doesn't care about any of that. You might get really excited if a pretty girl sat on your back, you... you pervert, you big hentai!"

"..." Wu Tian was truly numb. If you were to ask her how she felt at this moment, it would definitely be regret, deep regret. If she hadn't gone through that divination, she wouldn't have been possessed by a human soul, and if she hadn't been possessed, she wouldn't have...

"Hmph, I'm so angry! Do it or don't, it's up to you." Wu Tian said reluctantly, lying in the river.

"Okay, don't be angry, I'll sit down." Lu Qing covered her mouth and chuckled softly, then sat on Wu Tian's tortoise shell in a duck-like position.

"Ling, stop laughing to yourself and come over here quickly," Lu Qing beckoned to Ling.

"Coming, coming," Ling said as she approached Lu Qing.

"Strange, why does this elf feel so familiar?" Wu Tian thought, somewhat puzzled, as he listened to the spirit's voice.

Just as she was thinking this, a strange feeling rose in her heart.

"Hehehe, such a beautiful girl is riding on me..."

"Damn it, that's enough!"