Hearing Luvia's joke, Shade also smiled and asked:
"Don't you know best whether I am a man or not? I mean, I have already promised to help her, so I must help her. Besides, it is easier to get information than to turn pumpkins into carriages, mice into horses, and rough clothes into ball gowns and crystal shoes. I only need to walk a few steps."
Then he added:
"I can't even turn little Mia into a horse to ride now, let alone a mouse."
Luvia was amused by him:
"You haven't forgotten the dream of riding a cat to the sun?"
Xia De blinked and said nothing.
Unlike the last time they went to Lake Eldron to face the big event that Stone Oxenfurt had mentioned, this time they knew clearly that matters could only be handled by Shad and the Guardians. Therefore, although Miss Benannis followed them, she made it clear that other people from the Golden Dawn, including Miss Lassus, did not need to accompany them.
As for Shad, all he needed to prepare was a way to restore his spirit. Although his power of the earth had been strengthened many times, and even with the help of the rune stone, it was still far from the strength of the soul guarding the Randall Valley.
The most important and effective way to restore spirits is naturally the pink perfume bottle in Xia De's hand. Interestingly, since the bottle was transferred from Desire to Xia De's hands, it has rarely been dissatisfied.
Even if Shade consumed a lot of it for various reasons, the bottle would always be able to be refilled automatically when Shade was not paying attention. The full perfume bottle would have different recovery effects and sequelae effects depending on the concentration of the "Desire Essential Oil".
The strongest fragrance in the bottle so far was on the night of Ajelina's birthday. Shade had gone to Evernight City during his trip and took a big gulp of perfume after returning. But when he woke up the next day, he found that the perfume bottle on the bedside table was emitting a faint pink light.
This matter was known to Lecia, Dorothy, and Luvia, the latter having heard about it from Shad.
For a ring sorcerer, because the essence of the soul is not just energy, the magic potion that can restore the soul is extremely rare, and there is almost no extraordinary ability to restore the soul like the Silent Moonlight that Shade has transferred to Miss Orlanod. Therefore, Luvia thought that before leaving on Tuesday, she should be prepared to keep the perfume bottle as strong as possible.
"Even if the sequelae are severe, at worst I can help Xia De relieve them after I come back."
Luvia said this bravely in front of Miss Lasser and Miss Benanis. Miss Lasser understood it immediately, while the blonde witch took a while to understand.
"We leave at 3:30 pm, so we still have some time."
Then the purple-eyed girl took Shade's hand and said to the two leaders of the Golden Dawn:
"Is there a room in the opera house that is well soundproofed? Shade and I... will go and prepare it."
Even the witch understood immediately. She blushed and looked at Miss Lathers, who then led Shade and Luvia to the witch's private lounge next door. When she felt tired, Miss Benanis would take a nap next door, where it was very quiet and no one would disturb her.
The blonde witch stood there without following them, but when the footsteps faded away, she suddenly trotted after them. Because the lounge was next door, when she caught up, she saw Miss Lathers standing outside the door, and Luvia was inside the door, pulling the door handle and preparing to close it:
"Wait a moment!"
Miss Benanis said, and Luvia looked at her curiously from the door:
"What's wrong? Oh, don't worry about us missing the departure time. I'll calculate the time."
"No, I mean..."
Her face flushed, but she still said:
"I'll help too. Although I can't be with Shade... but..."
Miss Lathers was so shocked that she couldn't speak. Luvia frowned slightly.
"That won't do. You don't understand anything and will only cause more trouble."
"Wait, is this the point?"
Miss Lathers blurted out the words, and Luvia thought about it and changed her mind:
"But it doesn't matter. It's almost two o'clock now. There's nothing Shade and I can do. If we try something else, I alone won't be of much use. You can come in, but you have to listen to me later."
The witch lowered her head and said "hmm". Seeing that Luvia had made room for the door, she walked in through the half-open door.
The two walked into the room together, and the door was closed. Miss Lathers was left standing alone in the corridor. She opened her mouth and looked at the door handle, and then sighed slightly after a long while.
At half past three, when Miss Lathers appeared in the corridor again and entered the room, the room looked normal. There were three people sitting on the sofa, Shade and Luvia sat opposite each other, and the purple-eyed girl was peeling an orange while looking at the topographic map on the coffee table.
Shade and Miss Benannis sat on the same side. The beautiful blonde witch leaned her head on Shade's shoulder, her long golden hair covering her face.
In addition, Miss Lathers also noticed that her clothes were no longer the same as before, and she was wearing a black fabric on her legs that she had only seen once before. It was close to her skin, making her legs look very obvious, and even showing some flesh-colored black fabric.
In the southeast corner of the coffee table, a full pink bottle was placed there. The young girl couldn't judge the concentration by the color, but she thought it was very different from an hour ago.
She sniffed subconsciously, but there was no strange smell in the air. If she hadn't seen the intimate posture of the most famous female opera singer in the Old World at this time and Shade, Miss Lathers would have thought that they were just singing and dancing indoors.
"It's time."
The young girl blushed as she reminded him, then she sat down next to Luvia in a somewhat reserved manner. The purple-eyed girl put the orange slices into her mouth, and then she casually placed the remaining half of the orange next to the map.
"We are almost ready. I have to admit that Miss Sylvia's invention is quite interesting... Let's not talk about this anymore. Let's get ready to go. I divined for myself this morning. The action tonight may not go smoothly, but at least we can get the result we want."
Miss Lathers admired her for being able to say something so serious after doing something so unserious.
"Then let's go. Although these may not be enough, it should be enough to hold out until the guardians take action."
Shade also said, putting away the pink perfume bottle. The witch who was leaning on his shoulder combed her long hair, avoiding Miss Lathers's gaze and not meeting her:
"Then let's go. If we arrive early, we can be prepared."
"I hope the church has prepared emergency measures. The protagonist tonight is the guardian, but when the guardian and Shade deal with the crazy land, I think the surroundings will not be peaceful."
Luvia stood up:
“May all be well.”
Because Luvia had problems with her riding skills, the group of three still rode two horses.
The address that the guardian left for Shade was located in the northeast of the city, quite close to the old cemetery of the Granger family. They set out at 3:40, and when they arrived near the target location and saw footprints on the snowy forest floor that had already shown signs of melting, it was already close to 5 p.m.
"It's someone from the church. Look at this. It's clearly the footprints of the church's standard-issue boots."
After the three of them dismounted, Luvia observed the ground and said. The witch floated slightly in the air, observing the surroundings from a higher altitude:
"There were no fireworks or signs of birds being startled nearby. They passed by here at least half an hour ago."
"Faster than we got there."
Luvia said, and asked Shade who had the Earth Rune tied to his wrist:
"Can you sense the Crazy Land now?"
"No. We are still some distance from our destination. Of course, it is possible that nothing has gone wrong yet."
"We can't ride horses in front, let's lead the horses and walk forward."
Miss Benanis suggested.
As we continued walking forward, we saw some strange black gravels on the snow in addition to footprints. Around the black gravels, there were obvious signs of fighting. However, probably because there were many people from the church, the battle did not seem to be fierce and ended quickly.
Shade was very curious about the black gravel, because when he picked up the gravel to examine it, he found that the stones were very similar to the black stones made by his "Golden Stone" Holy Grail.
But the stone here is obviously more solid and has elements attached to it. After being identified by Miss Benanis, it is a special stone called "foundation rock":
"Stones like this can only be found in the Randall River Valley and a few surrounding areas. Researchers generally believe that this is the prototype of all stones and the first stone created by the gods when they created the world in the earliest era. However, this stone is not very useful. Apart from being extremely strong, there are not many noteworthy features. Therefore, although it is rare, it is not taken seriously by people."
"So, the stone that my Holy Grail transformed is a degraded version of 'base rock'?"
Shade asked, then became curious about where these stones came from.
They soon got the answer to this question. After walking less than twenty steps forward, the three of them heard heavy footsteps getting closer and closer from the distance.
Looking ahead at the forest, Mo Hu's figure was swaying towards them. It looked like a human, but it was not a human, but a strange creature covered in black rocks.
Among the cultists who believed in the Stoneheart Demon, there had once been a ring warlock who mastered the "power of the earth" and could transform into a stone man, but he had been killed by the church more than half a month ago. The monster that was walking towards the three people at this moment was definitely not a stone man incarnated by a human, but a naturally generated enemy.