Dick was not surprised that Behemoth could see through his true strength at a glance. After pondering for a moment, Behemoth suddenly put on a slightly stiff smile, put his hand on Dick's shoulder and asked.
"Boy, I see you have great talent, would you like to be my apprentice?"
"..."
Is this such a blatant poaching move?
Honestly, when Behemoth said he wanted to take him in as his apprentice, Dick would be lying if he said he wasn't tempted at all, but as cautious as he was, he wouldn't just agree to it on a whim.
Besides, now is not the time to become a disciple, so Dick changed the subject.
"Uncle Master, why are you here in Laguge?"
"I'm here to investigate something. Tell me the truth, kid. Is there a leaf that looks like a scale in that tent over there?"
Seeing that Behemoth had hit the nail on the head, Dick immediately explained the situation briefly.
Dick tried his best not to hide key issues from his uncle-master, who was a powerful Saint-level magician, and hoped to obtain some valuable information from him.
After listening to Dick's story about his first search, Behemoth nodded.
"You are responding correctly. For the past twelve years, I have come here every winter to check it out, because whenever there is an extremely cold winter, these things will appear."
"Uncle Master, you come here every year? Then you must know what this is!"
"I can't say I know, but I have some understanding. I call those monsters 'God's Skeletons'. Take me to see that leaf first."
"Okay, please come with me."
Seeing the governor's words, the soldiers dared not stop him, and Dick personally brought Behemoth to the central tent to check the scale leaf. When he opened the box, he was shocked to find that the lonely leaf had grown into a small branch, and there were also scale-like patterns on the branch.
"Yesterday it was just a leaf!"
"Don't worry, this thing will only grow in winter when it snows. Before it can grow into a tree, it will disintegrate and melt in the spring. Don't let ordinary people touch it, and it will not pose a threat."
"If ordinary people touch this, they will develop a cold syndrome, right?"
Behemoth nodded, and Dick couldn't help but slap his forehead, because he suddenly realized that his old classmate Hughie's theory that the elemental vortex caused cold syndrome was completely wrong.
Or to put it more precisely, the cold syndrome that occurred in Laguge was not caused by the elemental vortex.
In a trance, Dick seemed to have seen Hughie screaming like a crazy groundhog on the spot because his thesis was invalidated.
It's so miserable!
At this moment, Behemoth did something that surprised Dick.
He picked up the white scaly branch with his bare hands!
"Uncle!"
"It's okay, this thing can't hurt me, as long as my mental strength is strong enough."
Grasping the small branch, Behemoth put it very close to his eyes and looked at it carefully, his eyes narrowed into a slit. Dick judged from this action that the other party must be very nearsighted, or simply had presbyopia due to age.
The other party looked at it for a moment, then suddenly handed the branch to Dick and said.
"Come, feel it too."
"what?"
Out of caution, Dick had not touched the leaves himself since he collected them yesterday. But now Behemoth demonstrated it himself and handed them to him after he was done.
Dick hesitated for a moment, but finally reached out and took it.
As a result, as soon as his fingertips touched the number, his brain felt like it was swept by a strong electric current. Many broken and incoherent images flooded into his mind along with the severe pain.
At this moment, time seemed strangely dislocated in his senses, as if thousands of years had passed in the blink of an eye!
When Dick regained consciousness, he gasped as if he had just drowned. He looked at the branch in his hand, tremblingly put it back into the box, and then closed the lid. These simple actions seemed to have used up all his strength.
At this time, Rita rushed in from outside the tent. Seeing Dick holding the storage box, trembling all over as if he couldn't stand at all, she immediately stepped forward to support her young master with one hand, and summoned a sickle with the other hand, looking at the gray-robed old man who was calm and composed with vigilant eyes.
The young master suddenly became like this after just a short while in the tent. It must be related to him.
Unfortunately, since she was summoned to this world, Rita's strength has been discounted because there is no Honkai energy in this world. Fortunately, her Valkyrie armor can magically use the most common magic in this world, but the combat time will be greatly shortened. Full-power combat can only last for a maximum of three minutes, and the combat power is equivalent to that of a Saint rank. Overclocking can further reduce it to thirty seconds. The strength can exceed that of a Saint rank, but is slightly inferior to that of a Demi-God.
Therefore, in the worst case scenario, she was indeed unsure whether she could protect Dick's safety while fighting against the magician in front of her who might be at the peak of the Saint level.
Fortunately, Dick had recovered a little by then. He reached out to stop Rita and signaled that he was fine.
Then he looked at Behemoth, who looked calm and composed, with a hint of admiration in his eyes, and asked.
"Are you doing this on purpose?"
"You performed well, even beyond my expectations. How about it? Will you become my apprentice?"
"…Thank you very much!"
After taking a deep breath, Dick suddenly understood why he often heard the teacher mention his senior brother Behemoth, but never mentioned whether the other party had any students.
It turns out that this boss doesn't know how to teach his apprentices at all.
Did he just deliberately give the branch to me so that I could use it as a testing crystal to see what the limit of his qualifications is?
This behavior on Earth is like a martial arts master accepting a disciple. In order to test the disciple's physical fitness, he lets the disciple touch a high-voltage switch. If the disciple is not electrocuted, he will be accepted as his disciple.
The behavior itself is very abstract, but what stands out is how outrageous it is!
The key point is that this is just an entry test. Who knows what kind of weird training methods this old man with abnormal brain circuits will be waiting for me if I really take him as my master.
Comparing the two, Grandol is simply a great sage and saint!
However, being tricked by this old man did allow Dick to make some unexpected discoveries. Although his head was still buzzing, the images that suddenly flooded into his brain gave Dick a lot of useful clues.
Dick sat down to relax after drinking some hot cocoa that Rita put in a thermos cup. Behemoth sat opposite him and talked about his relationship with the land of Laguge.
It turns out that Behemoth was also from Lagug, and he changed his name after leaving Lagug. The person who named him was an Earthling.
Fifty years ago, Behemoth was promoted from a high-level magician to a saint-level magician, but he did not want his strength to stop there, so he left the National Magic Academy and traveled around the world.
Twelve years ago, he returned to his hometown Laguge after a long absence. It happened to be another extremely cold winter that year. In order to understand the true meaning of power from extreme weather, he went into the mountains in a blizzard and met the monster he called "God's Skeleton" for the first time.
The combat power of this individual monster was not strong enough for him, a great wizard at the peak of the Saint level, but when he was studying the monster's corpse, he discovered the "scale leaves" and felt an extremely weak yet very confusing...divinity from them!
025. Walking with God
In this world, gods are real and exist.
Or to be more precise, there is a group of high-dimensional beings who are considered to be "gods".
Some people believed in these beings and, through their piety, obtained power as a gift from them. This formed a religion, and those who received the gifts from the gods became priests.
But the gods of this world are said to live in the divine realm above the mortal world. Because they are so powerful, if they come to the mortal world, it will cause chaos in the laws of the world. Therefore, they do not interfere with the mortal world and do not disturb mortals.
To use a metaphor that is easier for earthlings to understand, the secular world is like a server, and the gods are responsible for maintaining the operation of this server. As long as the server is still operating normally, try not to touch it!
So when Behemoth discovered that some twisted monsters actually had divinity in their bodies, he was very surprised, and by touching those scales, he actually gained many ancient memories. These memories were fragmented and incomplete, and also carried strong emotional fluctuations. If absorbed by an ordinary person, it would almost drive the other person completely crazy in an instant.
But a magician's mental strength is naturally different from that of ordinary people, so Behemoth can hold on and use this dangerous method to conduct investigations.
Because Behemoth's wish has always been to become stronger, and breaking through the holy rank to become a demigod is not his ultimate goal. He also wants to become the first person through the ages, the first mortal to become a god!
However, in the super cold winter twelve years ago, although Behemoth encountered the divine skeleton, the winter of that year was still not cold enough. After reading various historical materials, he found that the super cold winter occurred on average every ten to twelve years, but the super cold winter was not the extreme of cold in Lagug, because every hundred years or so, there would be a more severe "Doomsday Winter".
If nothing unexpected happens, this year will be it!
When talking about the end of winter, Behemoth's face was full of excitement, but it was difficult for Dick to be happy.
Is it possible to live like this?
"Uncle Master, do you... have any way to prevent this doomsday winter from happening?"
"What nonsense are you talking about? I'm not a god! But..."
"Can you please stop panting when you talk? I have tens of thousands of people waiting to be rescued! If it's really like what you just said, this bullshit doomsday winter, with temperatures reaching more than 100 degrees below zero, then I have to hurry up and organize the people to evacuate to Shannan!"
Dick was really a little anxious at this moment. The temperature was more than one hundred degrees below zero. This was not a disaster that ordinary people could avoid by hiding at home by the fire and covering themselves with quilts. If it really came to that, almost all living things on this earth would die!
However, Behemoth told Dick not to worry so much for the time being, because the arrival of the doomsday winter usually occurs in areas further north of Lagug, while human activities are mainly concentrated in the southern part of Lagug near the central mountains. Therefore, the occurrence of the doomsday winter will have an impact on human settlements, but it will not be as serious as a total annihilation.
Otherwise, the empire ruled Lagug for two hundred years, and two doomsday winters had occurred before, but many people still survived. The situation was far from being that serious.
"According to the information I found, there will be signs in advance in areas where the Doomsday Winter is launched. One is the appearance of the Dead Trees, and the other is the appearance of a large number of God's Remains. The locals call these monsters mountain monsters."
"Wait a minute, isn't that the Dead Tree a pure white tree, with branches and leaves very similar to this small branch with scaly patterns?"
"Yes! How did you know?"
"Finished calf..."
According to Behemoth, in the past, when the doomsday winter occurred, it did not cause serious casualties because the core area was far away from human settlements. But this time, the "white tree" appeared very close to human settlements, almost in the core area.
As long as the impact range of Doomsday Winter can reach a radius of more than 150 kilometers, it can destroy all the villages in Lagug, including his castles and towns.
So Dick is very panicked now!
This is the first winter in my term as governor and this is what happened. Who can I turn to for justice?
Dick shouted to the still excited Behemoth, asking him not to be so happy. He told him directly that the dead tree he had just mentioned did not appear in the deep mountains and forests this time, but appeared very close to the human village, only a dozen miles away from here by mountain road.
If Behemoth has a way to destroy or seal the white tree and prevent the end of winter from coming, then they should act now.
If there was no other way, he would have to order an evacuation now.
It is almost an impossible task to relocate hundreds of scattered villages and tens of thousands of residents in a short period of time, not to mention that some villages are "bandit villages" that refuse to obey management.
Dick was not so saintly that he was prepared to save even these "real troublemakers". He was mainly afraid that they would jump out and cause trouble for him when he was moving to other villages.
Behemoth hesitated for a moment and did not give Dick an accurate answer, because he was not sure whether he could do it now, and he needed to see the tree first to confirm it.
"So what are you waiting for? Let's go now!"
Dick made a prompt decision and started a second search operation.
The first operation failed mainly due to insufficient intelligence. Because the forest was large, the organization had to use a dragnet to search, but they didn't know they would encounter monsters like the mountain troll. The ordinary soldiers traveling with them found it difficult to deal with it, and it resulted in considerable casualties.
Therefore, for the second operation, Dick planned to concentrate only the elite forces. With Behemoth, a great magician at the peak of the holy rank, they could easily defeat the enemy with one force and charge in directly.
At the same time, he made preparations for both situations. His elite team advanced, and the surrounding villages began to organize people to evacuate in an orderly manner.
He had already thought of a reason, saying that there were dangerous monsters living together in groups in the forest, and asked the private army to escort the villagers from several villages around the pine forest to the castle.
Although this reason is not the truth, it is more easily accepted by the villagers than the end of winter.
Sure enough! Dick called the head of Kevin Village and briefly explained the situation, and the other party immediately agreed.
There is no one living in a small village in a remote area who is not afraid of monsters. Sometimes the number of goblins is so overwhelming that it may cause a village massacre, not to mention the "mountain monsters" that even mid-level magicians cannot deal with alone, as the governor said.
And the Governor was willing to let them take refuge in the castle, which was unthinkable.
In the past, the masters would never care about the lives of the common people under their control! ?
Leaving the transfer mission to Knight John, Dick led the elite team toward the pine forest again.
Behemoth, who was traveling with him, looked at the group of beautiful girls with outstanding strength around Dick and said something meaningful.
"You kid... are not simple!"
Arriving at the pine forest again, Dick could clearly feel that the atmosphere here was different from yesterday. The biting cold was even worse, and the activity of the ice element had almost reached a level that was visible to ordinary people with the naked eye.
At this time, Xia and Ayane jumped down from the tree. Both of them were wearing fire element amulets, but their complexion was still not very good. It can be seen that their physical fitness was equivalent to that of high-level warriors, and their resistance to elements was not as good as that of professional magicians.
Dick patted them on the shoulders and praised them for doing a good job in staying at their posts, but the situation here was no longer something they could handle, so they had to return to Kevin Village immediately and evacuate with the team.
"My Lord, what about you?"
"try again."
Without saying anything more, Dick, Behemoth, Black and White Gunda and Rita, a group of five, quickly headed deep into the woods.
Xia and Ayane looked at each other and wanted to chase after him, but they felt their bodies becoming increasingly stiff. They knew that if they chased after him now, they would only become a burden to their master, so they had no choice but to grit their teeth and retreat.
After the five people entered the woods, they soon encountered mountain monsters again, and there were three of them at once.
This time, Behemoth moved first without waiting for Dick to make a move.
The magician at the peak of the Saint rank waved his hand lightly, and several magic bullets of different colors formed around his body. They circled around him twice, and the flying speed increased by dozens of times visibly with the naked eye. Then they flew out like bullets, accurately hitting the chest of the mountain monsters, and went straight through their bodies, running around in their bodies causing damage, and finally exploded one after another.
It can be seen that Behemoth does have rich combat experience and is familiar with the weaknesses of these monsters.
"They are elemental constructs condensed from a single element. You only need to inject other types of elements into their bodies to cause elemental disorder. They are actually very easy to deal with."
