Looking away from the map, Joshua shook his head.
In any case, the current dragon disaster only threatens the Far South for the time being. Although the memories of the past have been brought back to him, the current warrior is a northern lord on the other side of the world. This war has nothing to do with him for the time being. relation.
At present, the most important thing for Joshua is to prepare to participate in the celebration banquet in the Imperial Capital that will start in early April. This is not just a simple banquet. It can be seen from the prosecutor’s overt and covert hints that this time the convened The celebration of all the nobles and powerful men in the empire undoubtedly has a deeper meaning.
But before setting off, he needed to finish all the affairs in the territory.
Looking outside the city from a high place, the black and green plains, the melting ice and snow, and the green grass extend endlessly around. There are figures of farmers cultivating in the fields not far away, and at the end of the field of vision, You can see the hunting group ready to go, riding fast horses on the road, galloping towards the black forest in the distance.
"ready to go."
Standing on the top floor of the Lord's Mansion, Joshua looked into the distance for a while, and then he asked Ying, who was standing aside, to activate the solidified teleportation array. With the rapid fluctuation of magic power, a piece of magic crystal was placed in the energy supply place. It became dim, and the warrior and Ying and Lin standing behind him disappeared together in the blue halo brought by the teleportation array amidst the buzzing sound of magic activation.
The destination of this teleportation is the Black Forest Fortress, and Joshua's purpose is to explore the mysterious area in the Great Ajax Volcano.
No. 3 told him not long ago that the expedition team led by Paladin Loranda discovered a mysterious area deep in the Great Ajax volcano, where the concentration of magic energy was extremely thick and there was severe elemental chaos. Phenomenon, ordinary warriors cannot even penetrate deep, and there are signs of being eroded by elements only on the periphery, causing the muscles to initially melt.
With Rolanda's strength, he can naturally investigate in depth, but his exploration experience is far from mature, and it is not worth entrusting him with such a task. What's more, he can easily get lost and enter the dense lava tunnels inside the volcano. Who knows? Can the guy come out.
In fact, not only No. 3 is very concerned about this, but even Moria and Countess Verdani from afar have specifically come to ask if this news is true. Even the other two lords of the four northern territories, Both the Wilson family and the Tsepes family were extremely concerned.
Because that is the Great Ajax volcano, nature, the source of life for the entire northern land, and also the source of destruction.
The heat brought by the terrestrial lava and the nutrient-rich volcanic ash gave birth to the Black Forest, the largest mountain range in the north. The territory of this forest once covered all human activity areas today, and it has a territory comparable to that of a small country. It is precisely because In this way, part of the Black Forest was cleared, and the Northerners who built their homes on it could also enjoy the benefits brought by this fertile land, and they never really had to worry about food.
But this assumes that the Great Ajax volcano does not erupt.
According to the report of the detection team, the mysterious area contains so much magical energy and its density is so thick that even if it is not enough to detonate the volcano, it can still cause an explosion comparable to that caused by the ancient dragon [Glory Black Dragon Elbatarian] four hundred years ago. huge damage.
"Ah, Lord Lord!"
After the transmission ended, Joshua and others felt a slight dizziness, and then they shook their heads habitually and regained consciousness. When the soldiers guarding the teleportation array realized that the person coming from the teleportation array was actually their lord, they immediately saluted hurriedly.
Zolgen, Kili, and the Feng Fortress garrison trio who arrived after hearing the news of the arrival of Joshua and others quickly arrived at the teleportation array located in the central tower, and were communicating with the three. The soldier was somewhat surprised to find that among the three, Zolgen seemed to have made a certain breakthrough after recovering from his last serious injury. Now there was a hint of advanced gold, while the other two were gradually increasing in strength.
"Not bad, you advanced so quickly." He did not hesitate to praise his subordinates for their progress.
In fact, this is also natural. You must know that since the last black tide, the Black Forest Fortress has been recuperating. Until recently, because Joshua continued to send out new troops to replenish new blood, this was considered complete. has returned to its full strength - but in fact, the strength of the Black Forest Fortress is much stronger than before, especially a large number of soldiers who survived the battlefield between humans and monsters. They are all generally After being promoted once, many of them became the new Silver level.
Not to mention the silver-level knights. If these powerful people survive, the harvest will only be greater.
Accompanied by everyone, Joshua roughly inspected the entire Black Forest Fortress. He inspected the city walls, towers and material warehouses. After making sure that everything was in order, he smiled and encouraged his soldiers. Then he took Ying and Lin away from the Black Forest Fortress and headed directly towards the volcano in the Black Forest.
"Master is leaving too fast..."
Following Joshua, Ying, who was almost running in small steps, glanced sideways at her brother, as if she could communicate with her eyes alone: "I didn't even eat, so I just left."
"There is nothing else, do you want the master to inspect everything? There is not so much time, the master's purpose is not here at all."
Rin shrugged and narrowed his eyes slightly. He understood Joshua's thoughts: "The things along the way will be dealt with as soon as possible, and the master will go to do business earlier."
In fact, the distance from the Black Forest Fortress to the Great Ajax Volcano was not that far. Before evening, while Joshua's weapons were chatting quietly behind him, they arrived at their destination.
An active volcano located in the core of the mountain range, the Great Ajax volcano is very spectacular and beautiful. The majestic and powerful mountain towers above the world like a giant, with thick smoke pouring out and flowing into the sky. In the endless clouds, a red halo visible to the naked eye flickers on the top of the mountain.
On the hills surrounding the volcano, there is a simple camp surrounded by wooden walls, and this is where Loranda's exploration team is stationed.
Of course, Joshua did not hesitate. He simply walked into the camp and met the Paladin and other members of the exploration team who were about to set off for investigation at the gate of the exploration team camp.
Everyone was stunned when they saw Joshua again. They seemed to have never expected that Joshua would come, and Loranda was no exception. He heard footsteps coming from outside before and thought he was coming. Other exploration teams also came here. When other exploration team members saluted their lord, he happily said hello: "Long time no see, my friend."
"Long time no see. How do you feel being in the exploration team?"
The soldier said hello in the same way. Joshua could see that after these few months of hard work at the bottom level, Loranda's temperament had improved to a higher level, and it seemed that he had also initially explored his own personal fighting skills - but today This was not a place for discussion. After the pleasantries, Joshua began to ask about the specifics of the mysterious area in the volcano.
"The situation is like this..."
Loranda told everything she knew, and she directly told everything she saw and heard.
It turned out that they discovered that mysterious area by accident.
At that time, Loranda's exploration team was looking for open-pit mineral veins around the volcano. This kind of mineral vein is extremely difficult to mine. Even if it only produces iron, it is considered a profitable business, not to mention that most of them contain precious materials, such as Talk about mithril, flaming crystal iron, etc.
Just as a few people were walking through the jungle and passing a hill, a sharp-eyed archer noticed that there was a layer of dark red rocks on the ground at the foot of the volcano in the distance. It was scattered and scattered, but it had an inexplicable effect. A sense of coercion.
The whole team, including Loranda, felt that this thing was extraordinary. You know, it was definitely not a simple thing that could make a group of experienced warriors feel coercive, so they planned to take some samples and take a look at this red color. The size of the rock reserves.
But when they arrived at the foot of the mountain and followed the traces of the red rock on the surface, they quickly discovered a huge tunnel leading to the depths of the volcano.
No one can resist this kind of curiosity. After letting Loranda release the light, the exploration team sent half of the team all the way down the tunnel. The tunnel was extremely dry and filled with the smell of sulfur, but Surprisingly, there was no poisonous gas, and the surrounding rock walls were very smooth. An experienced old explorer believed that this was not a naturally formed cave. Everyone agreed with this conjecture.
After walking for who knows how long, the exploration team came to a huge cave inside a volcano, which was full of lava, extremely rich in elements, but extremely chaotic.
Joshua already knew most of what happened next. Due to the excessive concentration of elements, ordinary people could easily be burned or even killed by energy radiation, so the exploration team hurriedly withdrew and reported the matter to the main city. .
"Red, rocky substance?"
Muttering to himself, Joshua's mind was not on that strange and mysterious area. Instead, he thought of the red blood rocks at the bottom of the Nissie Snow Mountain Lake. He nodded and said, "Show me those sample."
After the archer standing aside heard these words, he immediately presented the sample hanging on his waist.
"This smell... is very familiar! Sure enough, this red rock... "
Joshua opened this common specimen bag and saw the red rock inside. He rubbed a little powder with his fingers and licked it. After closing his eyes and thinking for a while, he determined that it was the blood of an ancient dragon. smell.
Thinking of this, he couldn't help but reveal an excited smile: "That red trace is probably the trace of blood left by an injured ancient dragon! And that strange smooth cave is the passage it walks through!"
(End of chapter)