"What on earth is that?" Darent couldn't help himself any longer.
"It's a pool of water."
"what?"
"A pond." Raymond gestured to them, "It's hidden in the woods. The ground around it is covered with tree roots and vines, and all kinds of branches grow all around it. There's a pond hidden in the middle of these things."
"Dead water?" Ethan asked.
“I’m not sure it doesn’t have an undercurrent.”
"Isn't this simple?" Ethan was puzzled.
Find some tea seeds and throw them into the sample to soak and observe its reaction. If the tea liquid tastes bitter, it is dead water, otherwise it is living water - this is common sense in the wild that he knows.
"We tested it, and it should be dead water." Raymond's words seemed inconsistent, but he quickly revealed the answer, "But only during the day! It is dead water only during the day!"
"What do you mean?"
Ethan and Darent didn't understand.
What do you mean the water is dead only during the day? Can it be alive at night?
This is a pool of water, not an animal or any life... He said that even if he saw the skeletons of wild animals running on the ground, they would not be so confused - to be honest, there is a precedent for this kind of situation.
"Me, Ashley, and Ali, the three of us are going to Shuangshen Mountain and passing by that place on the way."
Raymond narrowed his eyes and fell into reminiscence.
"Although it's stagnant water, thirsty animals won't care so much. We planned to stay where we are and hunt those who come to drink water for tomorrow's breakfast... But we waited until late at night and nothing came. Ashley and Ali fell asleep, and I was the only one awake to help them keep watch."
"It should have been in the early morning... Looking at the direction of the moon, it was around 3 ., and I heard a series of small noises... There were many pairs of eyes shining at me in the darkness."
"At first I thought I was seeing a pack of wolves - that wasn't scary enough, but then I realized it was all kinds of animals gathered together!"
"Can you imagine that scene?" He raised his hand and made a stroke.
"All kinds of animals...anything you can imagine, herbivores, carnivores, all gathered together, probably dozens of them, and they slowly approached the edge of the pool. Without any conflict, they all knelt down before this thing."
"..."
"..."
Ethan and Darent felt their scalps tingling after hearing this.
No wonder Raymond ran back. It was really not suitable to move forward.
So weird.
"Is there some mysterious force driving them?" asked Darent.
"I don't know." Raymond shook his head.
"I am only responsible for crushing the goddess' enemies, but this kind of thing... I think you are better at it."
“…Is that all?”
After recording the above, Ethan looked up at him longingly.
"And more." Raymond frowned.
He looked hesitant.
Ethan noticed this keenly.
Are you hesitating whether to say what comes next?
This is a man as strong as an iron tower. What could make him so cautious?
"You better believe what I'm going to say next."
Raymond finally made up his mind.
"Just say it..."
"I saw the spiritual sea!" Raymond said fiercely.
"The reflection of the moon was shattered in the pool... I saw countless animal spirits pouring in from all directions..."
"It disappeared amidst the worship of the living..."
Chapter 52: Dead Flower
After Raymond Portman left, two waiters came over with a food cart and placed three large plates filled with dishes and rice on the table.
They were not curious about why there were only two people here. They just wished them a pleasant meal and pushed the food cart away.
"What's up?" Darent was starving. He had been running around with Ethan all day and had only eaten one meat bun since morning. He immediately picked up the spoon and scooped the food into his mouth. "I paid for it anyway, why don't we share it and not waste it?"
"I thought you were asking me about his story!" Ethan glared at him unhappily, stood up, picked up the ownerless plate, piled a small half of the food on his own plate, and pushed the rest to the wooden man.
"Are you angry?" Darent sneered, "You don't really think that a Flint Knight would ask you to treat him to a meal? What's more, he is an apprentice manager of a parish. People like him are basically ascetics."
"That's not why I'm talking." Although Ethan was also eating, his expression showed that he didn't care about the taste of the food at all. "I just don't understand why what he described is not normal."
"That's what we do, dear."
"It's different." Ethan shook his head. "If he said he saw a monster or something, I wouldn't be so surprised, but the spirit sea... I think he should say 'spiritual tide'."
"You mean... it's similar to the Spirit Sea, but on a much smaller scale, and it doesn't necessarily have to be related to a 'water source', but it also has the strange appearance of animals or people made up of bright blue spots - the 'Spirit Tide'?"
"It seems that living longer really has advantages." Ethan used a spoon to cut a sausage into two halves, and put one halves into his mouth to chew. "I bet Instructor Portman doesn't know about this, but it is true that this is different from the spiritual tide."
"The scale of the spiritual tide is even smaller." Darent recited the information as if he was memorizing a book. "Sometimes there will be only a few 'flying spirits', or even only one most of the time. They believe that this phenomenon is caused by the magnetic field interfering with the remaining spirits of life, causing those things that were originally dead to be resurrected in another form and fly to the sky to find their main soul."
"Do you believe this?" Ethan asked him.
"There is no such thing as a main soul~" Darent grinned, his face full of disgust, "When people die, they turn into mud, just like wood, and the soul comes and goes, it's nonsense."
"But residual spirits do exist." Ethan smiled. "Residual spirits are not souls, but the consciousness of the deceased before his death. If it is too strong, it will have a chance to leave some traces, and then be manifested when the eternal night comes, which is the 'flying spirit'."
"There is another way to become a 'flying spirit'." He lowered his voice, "It is indeed affected by the terrain environment, causing those residual spirits that were originally not qualified to stay to be retained by the environment."
"The process of the flying spirits that transformed in this way, and their manifestation, has always been called the spirit tide."
"The situation described by the big guy is very similar to the spirit tide, but I have never heard of any flying spirits flying into the pool." Darent shook his head again, then glared: "Is this thing harmless?"
In his impression, the harm caused by spiritual tides was extremely limited. Apart from causing great shock to ordinary citizens or farmers, it was hard to say that spiritual tides could really interfere with reality and harm people.
This is just a phenomenon.
It’s like they all say that the spiritual sea is also a phenomenon. Since there needs to be a phenomenon like the spiritual sea on the ocean, and there is no ocean on land, does that mean similar phenomena are not allowed to exist?
That's not the case... Because there are a lot of lives on land~ If there is no spiritual sea, then there will be spiritual tides.
They are relatively harmless, and not many people have studied them for a long time.
"If there are only those flying spirits, then it should be harmless." Ethan also shook his head, "But he also said that living animals will come to the pool to worship there, and the water in the pool is obviously dead water during the day, but it will become living water at night..."
At this point, he recalled Raymond's reserved expression when he described the situation.
"We drove away or even killed some of the animals that surrounded us, forcing them to flee." The big guy gestured to him and said, "After that, I studied the pond. I used tea seeds to soak it again, and found that the water quality was much better this time!"
"This is incredible, gentlemen. It seems that those things knew that the water pool would change at that time. Everything that happened at that time gave me the feeling that some human villages were holding a ceremony to worship their ancestors. The water pool happened to open a passage at that time, and the remaining spirits of those animals left through this passage... That's what I think."
Then Raymond confessed that the reason he disbanded the team was because he was afraid that something bad would come out of this opened channel.
Caution is very important for survival in the wild, especially in such an era. He does not think that staying to explore is a manifestation of courage.
So he immediately brought people back, and when the two people came to him, he readily accepted the invitation, with the aim of letting the most professional people solve the problem.
"If everyone were like Mr. Portman, there would be fewer tragedies in the world..."
Darent had finished his meal and was leisurely drinking the free hot tea while looking at the young woman passing by the window.
"He's very good at causing trouble." Ethan said with some dissatisfaction, "Whether it's the Spirit Tide or the Spirit Sea, the threat is very low. He pushed the job to us just because of a guess. It's not a good time to report it at this time."
He and Darent stayed in Blackwood City and wandered around, but their purpose was not to clean up the mess of the Knight System.
Damn it, do those reckless men have any brains now?
"If you're worried about Miss Detective, you can put it aside for now." Darent said, "It's more important to find out the source of the supplies and who contacted her."
"This matter involves Ashley. If it involves Ashley, it involves him. How can I let it go?" Ethan raised his eyebrows and grabbed the tea and drank it in one gulp.
"Let's go." He stood up and left. "The spy said she went to the city this morning. We still have a lot of work to do."
"You care so much about her—"
Darent quickly took out his wallet and left a few bills on the table, then stood up and shouted, "Have you ever considered touching her so much that she would recognize you as her godfather? How would you handle your relationship with that person then?"
Ethan stumbled and turned back quickly:
"Maps! Darent—!"
"…Sounds a lot like a spiritual tide."
On the other side, Hitzfeld also listened to Ashley's story and stood there in deep thought.
"But according to some information I've read, the flying spirits produced by the spiritual tide are called flying spirits because they will eventually fly into the sky."
"Heaven?" Ashley stared, "Is it the dream world?"
"Probably." Hitzfeld nodded slowly, "The dream world is more suitable for them to survive..."
"I mean, if they can still be called living things..."
To be honest, she had no hope. Most of the blue light spirits produced by the spiritual tide and the spiritual sea would eventually perish. They were no longer living things, and their existence itself was a taboo.
"If it should normally fly up to the sky, then why did the flying spirit we saw go into the pool of water?"
Ashley was still holding on to that question, puzzled: "Is that pond special?"
"It's possible." Hitzfeld said softly, "The formation of spirits is sometimes indeed related to magnetic fields. Maybe the magnetic field or other factors in that place are special."
"Then Uncle Raymond judged that it was alive too!"
"It is not impossible to turn stagnant water into running water," Hitzfeld said. "For example, changes in temperature and other factors may cause changes in pressure above and below the ground, or some water outlets that are blocked by air during the day may be opened at night. This may cause this situation."
"By the way." She pretended to ask casually, "You just said that you killed some worship animals... Did you use that dagger?"
"Yes." Ashley nodded vigorously.
"That sword Hiss is poisoned, right? It's very useful. A small wound can paralyze a wild boar!"
"I've been studying it for a long time... Can I ask what was added to it?"
The girl couldn't help but express her curiosity.
"Nectar from the blue flower." Hitzfeld didn't intend to hide it.
This is not some secret topic worth hiding.
"Blue flower?"
"The blue flower blooms only for one night in its lifetime, and then dies, leaving behind seeds that continue to grow."
Hitzfeld's voice seemed to become increasingly softer, as if he were whispering, and one could not help but be drawn into his voice.
"Its fragrance can attract residual spirits, and its nectar can cause an extremely strong paralyzing effect on the mind of any creature, but it is not fatal."
"Some scholars believe that this is because they need to produce a batch of nutrients to feed the flower seeds before they die, while others believe that they are simply created for the dead."
"Undead...?"
"So they have another nickname, the Flower of the Dead."
Chapter 53: The Strange Sea Reappears
Late at night, after finishing his last talk with the strong girl who was in a state of nervous excitement and watching her fall asleep, Hitzfeld came out of the room with a lantern in his hand.
After taking a shower and returning to the bedroom, she suddenly found herself with nothing to do.
The letter was just sent out these two days, and there will be no response within a day or two. Because she was worried that the research on the mysterious main boiling blood potion and the new system had all been suspended, she really didn't have many ways to kill time.
Having seen the sun, it is more difficult to go back to the darkness. In the past, her way of relieving boredom was to read books and draw, but now that she has tasted the excitement of scientific research, she doesn't think she can stick to it.
"Most of the books and notes left by the lady have been read, except for some that are too thick and dry to read."
Hitzfeld searched the bookshelf for the list he wanted one by one and waited for a long time before pulling out a copy of "Travels in the South China Sea".
"Especially for books like this, one less book is needed every time I read it..."
Reading is fun, and reading miscellaneous books is even more fun. Of course, her aesthetic taste has not degenerated to the level of reading third- and fourth-rate novels like Xia Yibing, but this kind of books describing historical and geographical experiences have always been her favorite.
