Chapter 355 130. “To the Moon Princess”
After three days of climbing, Fisher and Valentina drew closer to the location indicated by the ice scroll. It must be said that the place where the Phoenix Race resides is not something an average person can easily climb. This mountain range, which extends thousands of meters deep, even makes Fisher, who is nearly at the eleventh rank, feel somewhat strained.
However, because Scholar Balzak from Shivali had previously planned their route to the mountain peak, the journey has generally been smooth. Along the way, he and Valentina passed through several primitive jungles deep in the snowy mountains, observed several unique magical creatures of Sema Snow Mountain, and discovered many ruins left by the Subhuman Race from before.
After all, the Phoenix Race has existed for several thousand years, and as time has washed over them, these ruins have either been completely covered by snow and wind or have turned into broken walls. The most common type of ruin is a set of upward stairs, scattered into several segments, divided into two types: one consists of giant steps nearly two meters high, while the other is the kind used by ordinary humans.
It isn’t hard to deduce that in the past, during the existence of the Phoenix Race, the Subhuman Race below the snowy mountains once climbed these steps for several days and nights to worship the Phoenix. Unfortunately, these stairs have now been completely abandoned, providing very little help to Fisher and Valentina.
“Fisher haha, look beside us! It’s a cloud; we can touch it with our hands.”
As Fisher and Valentina climbed higher, the air above became thinner, but Fisher felt no discomfort at all. After all, he had experienced being underwater, which was ten times more uncomfortable than this. Valentina, on his back, was gasping for breath, taking time to catch her breath after every word.
She reached out her hand to wave at the nearby clouds, then slowly withdrew her hand. Although she couldn’t grasp the clouds, she was still delighted and hugged Fisher’s neck tightly. Turning her head to look around, enveloped in cloud and fog, she suddenly recalled the general area and said with surprise, “Wait, are we about to reach the location stated in the scroll?”
Fisher nodded, his pace steady, “If Balzak’s planned route is correct, we should soon arrive at the base of the Parasol Tree.”
“So fast! I heard that even well-equipped climbing teams take at least half a month to ascend Sema Snow Mountain. You have no gear and yet you brought me, and we’ve made it in just three days.”
Valentina was slightly amazed as she pinched Fisher’s chest muscles, then blushed and withdrew her small hand. If it weren’t for Fisher’s obvious biological traits and the occasional glances he gave her that seemed to suggest he wanted to eat her, she might actually suspect he was some mechanical disguise.
“That’s right, this damn kid’s rank is already around eleven. He can drag your human-made train with one hand; your little frame probably isn’t even enough to fill the gaps between his teeth.”
“Emhart.”
Valentina blushed and shot a glare at Emhart, who had started making suggestive remarks again. However, Sir Book yawned, clearly uninterested in her. Only when Fisher spoke did the boxy book quiet down. These past few days, Valentina had probably gained a basic understanding of many of the terms they discussed, such as “rank.” She suddenly remembered and asked, “By the way, you’ve been talking about ranks these days. I want to ask, how many ranks do the Phoenixes have?”
Emhart’s body glowed gold momentarily, then he replied to Valentina, “Without counting other abilities, it’s probably in the range of nine to twelve ranks, roughly similar to the whale people in the ocean, slightly higher than the Dragon Race on the Southern Continent. However, the Phoenix King and her three children might be of Mythical Rank; otherwise, I can’t think of how they could defeat the Chaos Race. Was it due to the sacred items given by the Holy Spawn?”
Valentina opened her mouth, realizing that Fisher was already nearly as powerful as the legendary Phoenix. She wondered if, as a Phoenix herself in the future, she too could become stronger.
After all, she didn’t want to be carried by Fisher forever. She wanted to become stronger; at least she didn’t want to be useless as she was now.
However, Emhart seemed to see through Valentina’s thoughts. He smacked his lips and added, “But, you see, ‘rank’ is an artificial measure established by ancient humans to avoid danger, so it’s actually very imprecise. The higher the rank of a species, the less contact they have with humans, making their ratings very vague; they can only be classified into general tiers. Also, I don’t know if a half-blood like you can reach the same rank as a Phoenix. If half-bloods could match the rank of Phoenixes, then logically, the Turan Family shouldn’t be able to capture the offspring of the Moon Princess.”
“We’ve arrived.”
Just as Emhart pondered this, Fisher’s steps suddenly halted, causing him to sway and float slightly in mid-air. He shook his head and looked ahead, noticing they had passed through the cloud and fog they had initially traversed to reach the highest point of a mountain. At that peak, the air was filled with gently swaying mist, turning the distant mountains into indistinguishable shadows.
At the highest point of this mountain, several massive rocks appeared as if fallen from the sky, piercing through the peak, interspersed with numerous man-made structures long eroded by time and covered in wind and snow. However, from afar, these ruins looked silent, giving them a mysterious aura, as if no one had reached this place for a very long time.
“Is that the entrance marked by the scroll? It seems there are buildings, but they’ve been destroyed.”
“Let’s go over and have a look.”
Fisher, carrying Valentina, continued towards the front of the mountain peak. The altitude was so high that the wind was so strong Valentina could barely open her eyes; even Emhart, floating nearby, was being blown like a windmill. They had no choice but to cling tightly to Fisher, who was steadfast against the wind, gradually approaching the ruins ahead.
“These buildings are huge; just this broken door is about ten meters tall. But it seems these buildings were not constructed by the Phoenixes; they should be from another race.”
As they got closer, the seemingly normal-sized structures from afar became increasingly massive. Valentina examined the dilapidated stone building in front of her, suddenly speaking up.
Emhart had questions, but Fisher nodded in agreement, “Yes, I’ve seen the Snowflake Castle built by the Moon Princess. Although it feels like the fortress built by the Moon Princess incorporates many construction techniques from other races, its grandeur should be unique to the Phoenix Race. The buildings here are too crude, and the materials are all stone, indicating that the race that built them was limited by the snow mountain terrain; it’s likely built by the Troll Race.”
Emhart looked at Fisher, who was making the deductions, then glanced at Valentina, who was nodding approvingly from his back, before asking, “Wait, Fisher, when did you carry me to the Snowflake Fortress? I’ve been with you all day, how come I didn’t know?”
Fisher was busy examining the architecture and didn’t respond in time. Valentina, who was on his back, gave him a wink and whispered cheekily, “It’s a secret between me and Fisher.”
“Damn.”
Emhart’s face darkened, retreating into Fisher’s arms and deciding to ignore Valentina. His embarrassed demeanor made Valentina unable to help but cover her mouth and laugh, realizing that teasing this little book friend was particularly fun; no wonder Fisher took him along every day.
At that moment, Fisher disregarded their chatter; he frowned as he gazed at the ruins, which had turned into a wreck, as if he caught a whiff of a familiar fragrance.
“Renee.”
“Hah, what Renee?”
Valentina stretched her head suspiciously, unsure if Fisher was mentioning a name or a word, as her Nali wasn’t good enough to distinguish it. But as she looked over Fisher’s shoulder, she only saw a few patches of white snow on the ground, along with many broken rubble and artifacts.
“…Do you smell something?”
“Something fragrant?”
Valentina sniffed carefully, then shook her head, glancing at Fisher with concern. “I don’t smell anything. Do you?”
“…No, perhaps there’s something wrong with my nose.”
Fisher wasn’t sure if it was yet another hallucination due to the Soul Supplement Handbook. Either way, he kept catching the faint reminder of that familiar scent in the thin air, a fragrance he’d only ever sensed on Renee.
He had previously asked her what perfume she used from Cardu, and she shamelessly responded that it was “the body fragrance of a beautiful woman.” While he had been exasperated at the time, that scent had stuck in his mind.
Even though he couldn’t confirm if the smell was an illusion, he found himself uncontrollably moving towards the direction he thought it might be coming from. He walked deeper into the ruins, carrying Valentina, where he occasionally spotted a few long-decomposed skeletons, their bodies still clad in the robes of the Cardu Sorceress Research Society.
This must be the expedition team Carlo spoke of; it was this group that brought back a strand of the Undying Sorceress’s black hair. Coming here, he had caught a hint of Renee’s faint fragrance. Was this merely an illusion born of his mind, or was there something real behind it?
“Fisher, look! Over there, it seems there are stairs. This ruin has an underground layer!”
Just as Fisher neared the edge of a cliff, Valentina, who had been looking around on his back, suddenly spotted a staircase leading down beside a stone pillar that pierced through the mountain. Upon hearing this, Fisher approached and saw a long staircase that led into darkness. A gust of cold wind blew up from below, against which the familiar fragrance that had lingered in his nostrils became stronger.
“Fisher, are we going down?”
“Mhm. There’s nothing up here. If there’s a path to the Troll Race’s dwelling, it has to be here. I can see the way in the dark, so it’s fine.”
Valentina obediently nodded, clutching Fisher tightly as if she were afraid to face the impending darkness. Emhart, feeling somewhat anxious, shrank his head back; he wasn’t scared of the darkness; otherwise, he wouldn’t have dared to run to the Demon Abyss alone earlier. He was just worried that a Baemon might suddenly pop out from below.
Both the book and the person felt the rising tension. Fisher’s heartbeat quickened slightly, not from fear but because of that fragrance. He began to believe that what he was sensing was not an illusion but rather a clue about the missing Renee lying below.
Emboldened by curiosity, he stepped down, entering the long-unvisited darkness.
*Step! Step! Step!*
The staircase was quite long, with every step producing echoes as Fisher’s shoes struck the stone bricks beneath. Valentina saw nothing in the darkness; it was Fisher who clearly observed the structure beneath the staircase.
Below was a very spacious chamber, though it was quite empty, with a platform raised in the center. On the ground beneath that platform lay many bones, some intact and others broken, and from various races.
The ones with clear wing structures were evidently from the Cangniao Tribe, the snow fox race had fox-like heads, and among the others were even a few humans, sheepkin, and several other races Fisher couldn’t identify.
“Fisher, why did you stop? Did you see something?”
“Mhm, I see many skeletons lying on the ground. They were likely from the five races attempting to reach the Parasol Tree, other than the Troll Race, but they couldn’t get in and died here. The Trolls refuse entry to anyone, including the six races; they wouldn’t hesitate to kill those who dare trespass.”
“The Trolls must have their reasons for doing so; perhaps it’s an order from the Phoenix?”
Valentina speculated, and Fisher nodded in agreement, continuing to walk past the bones. The faint fragrance around his nose became increasingly distinct. As he stepped over the raised platform smeared with dry blood, he suddenly discovered a lengthy passage at the back of the room. But just earlier, it had been sheer cliffs above—why was there a pathway underground?
Fisher moved forward a few steps, noticing numerous murals adorning the sides of the passage, depicting an ancient myth.
It told the story of long ago, in a land north of the world, where an immensely gigantic tree stood. This tree was far larger than the world itself; the constraints of space were meaningless before it. If one stood on that tree, a single step could take them from the northernmost part of the world to the southernmost.
That tree had stood since the birth of the world, in a time of complete silence, as if the only thing in existence was the tree. Then one day, as the sun set, from the far southern lands came a remarkably strong dragon. Although this dragon was powerful, it was but a fraction of the size of the giant tree. The tree looked down at the tiny dragon and mockingly said,
“I am greater than the earth; I am more exalted than the sky. Though you possess great power, you cannot shake me at all. Return to your place and avoid comparison with me.”
This provoked the dragon’s fury; it angrily used all its strength to charge the giant tree, burning its trunk with scorching flames, but to no avail. Its monumental power was ineffective against a tree that was even greater than the world—rather comical. Thus, the dragon shamefully fled from the tree’s mocking laughter. However, the retreating dragon did not give up; it devised a brilliant plan to take revenge on the arrogant giant tree.
It dug a deep, deep hole, deeper than the world itself, where the roots of the giant tree Buried.
“I cannot shake your trunk, but your most essential roots are fragile. I will bite and take your roots away, hide them in a place even you will not discover, so you will suffer the torment of losing something vital.”
So it viciously bit the roots of the giant tree, then flew above the world, throwing them with all its might to a place even it didn’t know, laughing as it flew away, leaving the anxious giant tree to search for its roots throughout the world.
The myth abruptly ended, as the final mural did not continue the tale of the giant tree and the dragon but depicted a group of avian creatures with enormous wings landing on a peculiar mountain range. Under that mountain range was a pattern identical to that of the tree’s roots, and the mountains growing from that root appeared extremely strange—merging, jumping, breaking apart, and rejoining, as if space had been split, making it difficult to determine specific meanings.
Below, in the ancient Northern Region Language, the conclusion of the myth was written:
“The root that was smashed into the ground by the dragon splashed forth towering mountains. It pierced through oceans and land, nurturing holy minerals, forging an unbearable harshness for creatures; until long ages later, another noble master flew in from afar, unfurling wings, settling here to recreate their own legend.”
Fisher frowned at the mural before him, suddenly feeling as if he understood something. He walked step by step towards what should have been a cliff, and the deeper he went into the passage, the fewer traces of bones he found. After quite a while, he eventually stumbled upon a hall identical to the one he had entered, where, in the center, there was another staircase leading upward.
However, unlike before, someone had etched a line of badly written ancient Northern Region characters on the floor with some large sharp object:
“Non-Phoenixes who enter the base of the Parasol Tree shall die.”
Fisher squinted at the inscription on the ground, then lifted his gaze towards the long staircase leading upward, where sunlight streamed through the swirling snow, illuminating the path forward.
On either side of that staircase lay many more remains. However, unlike the bones in the previous hall, here, the bones were in terrible condition—some were pierced through by some large entity, while others had been completely severed in half. And on that staircase, there lay a human skeleton pinned through by a giant spear.
The skeleton wore a full set of Cardu’s mountaineering robes, its mouth agape, as if it had experienced extreme pain before dying. Fisher surmised that this person might be the former president of the Sorceress Research Society, who had gone missing. The fact that the society had not passed through the corridor behind them to find him after all this time only indicated that the corridor leading here wasn’t visible to just anyone.
“Fisher, that skeleton seems to be holding something.”
As the sunlight gradually brightened from outside, Valentina also noticed the situation around them. She glanced at the skeleton impaled by the spear and suddenly observed delicately that there seemed to be something beneath it.
Fisher frowned as he approached, flipping the skeleton over, revealing what it had originally concealed beneath its body. To his surprise, the former president of the Sorceress Research Society was clutching a medium-sized picture frame tightly. He picked it up, only to find a strange oil painting on it.
The content of the oil painting was simple—it depicted the back of a black-haired woman with an indistinct face against a white background. The woman’s posture was dignified, resembling a human entirely, yet at first glance, one felt that the subject of the painting was not human. Perhaps it was an illusion, but as he held the painting, the familiar fragrance grew even stronger at the tip of Fisher’s nose. However, when he tried to seek it again, he couldn’t catch that familiar scent anymore.
This oil painting appeared to use some extraordinary pigments, rendering the colors strikingly vivid. Yet, the overall painting style was distorted and chaotic; amidst the seemingly erratic strokes, a beautiful image was cleverly constructed, making Valentina exclaim in wonder. Meanwhile, Emhart in Fisher’s arms suddenly screamed and quickly jumped from Fisher’s embrace to huddle in the corner of the hall.
“Ah! Quickly! Put that thing down! Ugh~”
“What’s wrong, Sir Book? Did you see something?”
Valentina stared blankly at the suddenly terrified Emhart crouching in the far corner, uncertain what shocking thing he had seen in this painting. Fisher turned to look as well and saw Emhart’s boxy body trembling in the corner, gasping for breath for a long while before finally uttering fragments of speech.
“Bai Bai.”
“Bai what?”
“Baemon! I know his taste and brushwork even if I turn to ash. This painting was done by that guy!”
“Hah?”
Valentina didn’t know who could cause Emhart such fear, her gaze instead shifting to Fisher, who raised an eyebrow upon hearing Emhart’s words. He picked up the oil painting once more and inspected it carefully. From top to bottom, it had no particular peculiarities and the content was baffling.
But when Fisher turned the frame over, he suddenly saw three lines of ancient Northern Region characters written on the back, sequentially inscribing the title of the painting, its meaning, and the name of the person who gifted it:
“‘To the Moon Princess’”
“As compensation for unceremoniously participating in a celebration feast and losing decorum, it is presented to the Phoenix Race, hoping to gain the forgiveness of the departing Moon Princess. Please convey for me to the Phoenix King: I have returned the ten humans that served as the wager for a frivolous joke and express my apologies to the Moon Princess for my untimely jest.”
“Demon Baemon~”
Please vote and support; it means a lot to me!
Thank you very much for your support!
(End of Chapter)
