I saw that Chestter suddenly stumbled and fell off the cliff, and Feida was about to cry in a hurry. Lying on the edge of the cliff, Feida tried to look down, and only the waves could be seen under the cliff with white flowers.

Fortunately, Feida's worry didn't last long, and just when she was gone, she only heard a familiar voice from under the cliff: "Don't worry, Feida, I'm fine, I fell into the sea." However, there was something strange down there, and I found a mysterious cave. ”

Feida on the cliff breathed a sigh of relief, fortunately Kerst was fine. She immediately picked herself up, tried to probe the edge of the cliff, found a rock on which she could stand a little, and slowly climbed down. The cliff on the seaside was washed by the sea breeze all the year round, and it was extremely slippery, so Feida was careful and slowly moved down the cliff little by little. When he was approaching the sea, a whole smooth rock wall was on the cliff face, blocking Feida's way, and there was no place to put his feet, Feida searched around for a long time, and he couldn't make up his mind.

Fortunately, at this time, Caster's voice came again from below, "Feida, you can't climb down below, you jump down directly." ”

Feida trusted Koster very much, listened to his command below, did not hesitate at all, closed his eyes, and jumped to the surface of the sea. Fortunately, at this time, the distance from the sea level was not high, and Feida plunged into the water with a "poof".

Fortunately, Feida's water nature is okay, she followed the sound of Caster's guidance, swam to the shore, Chester stretched out his big hand and grabbed Ferda, and pulled her out of the water, and the two of them fell to the shore from exhaustion.

After resting for a while, both of them recovering slightly, Kerst stood up first and began to look around, and Feida followed suit.

This is the mouth of a cave more than three people high, hidden in the cliff by the coast, and it is dark inside, and gusts of wind blow from the mouth of the cave. The entrance of the cave faces the sea on three sides, and the waves wash into the cave in waves, and if you look closely, along the water's edge, there is a three-foot-wide path that leads to the inside of the cave.

Koster and Feyda glanced at each other, and both saw a look of curiosity in each other's eyes, so Koster took the lead, and Feyda followed, stepping into the cave one after the other. Fortunately, Felda carries a magic flint (Note 1), which is a magical magic tool that Lolita uses for her daily lighting, which is very useful in this dark environment.

The two of them walked towards the cave, but after walking about ten steps, Kerth's eyes suddenly lit up, and he raised the magic flint and shone into the water by the roadside, only to see a small sailboat, which remained there quietly.

"Ah, how can there be a ship here?" asked Feida.

Kester didn't know how to answer, "Go up and take a look, look at this ship, it looks so new, it seems to have stopped here not long ago." ”

The two walked one after the other to the side of the boat. It was a very common small sailing boat, equipped with two rows for use when there was no wind. This kind of ship, which is generally used to transport goods or carry people in inland rivers such as the Morro River, is rarely used for navigation, and its size is too unsafe for the sea breeze.

Kerst scrutinized the sails at the bottom of the ship, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. It was Feida, she wrinkled her nose, and suddenly asked, "Cast, do you smell anything?"

"Smelly?" Kerst sniffed and sniffed around.

Feida also sniffed it carefully again, "There is indeed a sour and rancid smell, very light, submerged in the wet and salty sea flavor." I'm a little smarter than the average person, and when you go to the bow of the boat, it seems to be a little more obvious. ”

Koster walked to the bow of the boat, lay down, sniffed inch by inch, and only looked up for a long time. "Now there are two pieces of news, one good news and one bad news. Which one do you want to hear?"

"Good news. ”

"The good news is that I smell the sour rancid smell you said, it's very faint, and it's really hidden under the wet and salty sea breeze, not so obvious. ”

Feida's eyes lit up, obviously saying that I was not wrong, "What about the bad news?"

Kist said: "This sour rancid smell, I have smelled it before, this is probably a trace of dark magic, a year ago, when I went to the Sunset Mountain Range with Xiao Mu, Green and Mage Setty to investigate the beast tide incident, I saw a similar magic scene, this sour and rancid smell, I was impressed." ”

"Ahh

Kerst explained to Fayda that one of the most obvious ways to confirm dark magic was that for a period of time after casting, a sour rancid smell would linger in the casting place for a long time. If this ship stays in this cave, with the sea breeze and waves, the smell will definitely be wiped out after a long time. Unexpectedly, Kerst fell off a cliff by mistake, and was lucky enough to find the ship and the traces of dark magic.

"You mean, there's a dark mage on this island?" asked Feida in a low voice.

Shhhhhh The two of them lightly touched the boat and continued to walk deeper into the cave. However, about 100 grams or so further into the depths of the cave, you will reach the end.

There was nothing at the end, and this cave looked like a hidden dock for boats, and the owner of the boat outside should have stopped here and gone to the island.

The two searched back and forth again, but found nothing more.

"Kerth, what about now?" asked Feida worriedly.

"Don't worry, Feda," Kerst reassured, "but it reminds me of the good news." It's that the people here have disappeared, so it can be seen that there must be a road nearby. Let's hurry up and find a way to get there, and then report back to Mage Sytie, maybe it's not too late. ”

Feida nodded, there was no other way now, the top priority was to leave as soon as possible. Indeed, the people on the boat are missing, indicating that there must be a way to leave nearby.

So the two of them walked out of the cave again and looked around the nearby cliffs.

Feda and Caster, searching carefully along the cliff wall, turning over the covering plants on the rock wall, inch by inch. Just when the two of them were about to give up, suddenly Feida excitedly shouted, "Chester, Chester, come and see." ”

Kester hurried over, only to see Feida turn over the plants on the rock wall, and a bowl-shaped mark, which was obviously artificially excavated, appeared clearly on the rock wall. Kest hurriedly lifted the plant above, another bowl-shaped trace. Kerst stood on tiptoe and reached out to lift more of the mulch, and sure enough, a row of bowl-shaped traces, all the way up the rock wall, buried deep beneath the plants.

"You can step on this!" Kerst tried excitedly, and stepped on the bowl-shaped trace, which was just the right size to carry Kerster's weight. Ferdar grabbed Cast, meaning that he would come first, Caster shook his head, and began to climb up first, Ferda followed.

The more they climbed, the more they found that things were not simple. This row of bowl-shaped traces, leading directly to the top of the cliff, is clearly artificially excavated. The two of them couldn't understand why this happened, but they were relieved to be able to escape from the cliff smoothly.

Climbing the cliff, Koster rushed to the magic testing ground with Feyda. After finding Saitie and Lolita, the two recounted their experiences in detail. When Setty heard that there was a trace of a dark mage, she immediately felt that the matter was very important, so she immediately gathered several high-level mages, and everyone hurried to the southern coast under the leadership of Kester and Feida, and found the mysterious cave in Kester's mouth where a ship was hidden.

At this time, the magician's ability was revealed, a high-level mage who was proficient in control magic, went directly to the bottom of the cliff, recited a spell, lifted the boat out of thin air, and with the incantation, he controlled the boat to slowly rise until he returned to the cliff. Leaving the dark cave environment, the group was able to better check the condition of the ship.

The results of the search were completely in line with Kester's conclusion, and even under the spell of a certain mage, the trace of dark magic, the faint smell of sour rancidity, was magnified a hundred times and a thousand times, and a strong smell made several beginner mages retreat.

Unfortunately, the sea breeze near this cliff was too strong, and the high-ranking mage in charge of the investigation did not find the smell of dark magic again. So it's not certain where this mage who can do dark magic has gone.

At this moment, Lolita, who had been carefully looking at the side, suddenly walked to the boat and lifted the sails, "Master Setty, come and see here." ”

Everyone heard Lolita's voice and gathered around. It turned out that Lolita had spread out the tarpaulin sail sail, and everyone realized that everyone had just regarded this sail as an ordinary sail, and on the canvas corner in front of them, a blood-red pentagram symbol was shining in the red sun.

This pentagram is embroidered on a sharp corner of the canvas, and it is impossible to realize it unless you look closely. The high-level mage who had just used the Tracer Magic (Note 2) once again cast a spell on the canvas, and after just a few breaths, a faint line of words "Darkness Rising" appeared above the pentagram.

This line should have been written in ink before, and it has disappeared under the erosion of the sea, but fortunately, there are magicians here the most, and there are methods.

In the evening, all the magicians returned to the magic testing ground, and the search during the day yielded no more results, except that the words Darkness Rising made it difficult to sleep. There was a lively discussion about the origin of the Dark Rising, but there was no final conclusion from the discussion.

Several high-level mages wrote letters to Archmage Merlin overnight, preparing to entrust the royal light boat to send the news early tomorrow morning. The rest of the people are still anxiously waiting for the final decision.

Note 1: Magic flint, one of the research results of the court magicians of San Jose, the effect is equivalent to that of a magic lamp, which also uses the power of magic to stimulate the spar to shine to achieve the effect of illumination. Magic flint, but it is more portable, because of the image of the stone, so it is called magic flint.

Note 2: Manifestation magic. A type of spiritual branch of magic, after the magic is cast, it can strengthen certain subtle traces. After the court magician researched this magic, he was often seconded by the San Jose security team to investigate the case, which was extremely ironic.