"I mean, now that you two have brought us here, you don't have to be involved in the rest of the journey."

The breeze in the early morning breeze blew through the quiet lake, and Duran couldn't imagine that there could be such a clean and beautiful land in such a strange and gloomy mushroom forest - the giant mushrooms seemed to be isolated by a magical magic, and some gray stones fell scattered around the lake called [Sora], and the surface of the stones was dull, Duran noticed that the surface of these stones was very smooth, but if you lifted them to the sun, a faint texture would appear under the surface of the stones.

"It's a rune." Duran made a mental identification. He didn't know this kind of rune, and it should belong to several quite advanced runes in ancient magic. The appearance of a rune means that it is not far from the Tower of Shadows of Rune Master Ravenjin.

At this time, Sola Lake was quiet and tranquil, and Duran and his party stood by the lake, looking at the dark shadow in the middle of the lake. There, a small island is suspended in the middle of the lake, and a large tree grows on the island.

"No, we used to want to go to the island, but we were stopped many times by that bad guy at Stukka. Another time he almost ate us both, and since you want to deal with him, of course we'll have to take a good look at how this scoundrel has been taught a lesson by you! Leprechaun Lulu said cross-legged.

"Oh? You just believe we can defeat the Dryad? Duran asked a little strangely.

Nana, the other ice elf, interjected, "Stuka didn't catch us, but you did." So you're the big bad guy who's worse than him, and the big bad guy is certainly better than the bad guy. ”

Duran smiled bitterly, the goblins' thoughts were really weird.

At this moment, except for the two ice goblins flying up and down, Iron Fur was still standing behind Duran with a big belly and cowering. He looked much better now than he did last night, but his lower abdomen was still swollen, and it was great news that he could barely move - and at the same time, Duran secretly wondered that the ogre's digestive ability was so extraordinary that he could even digest stones!

Tin Fur was not proud of this, and after he was teased by the two little goblins, the courage he had just mustered disappeared without a trace, and he trembled at the sight of Lulu and Nana, and was terrified. Kate looked at him pitiful and comforted him a few words, but in exchange for a grateful glance from Ironskin, it did nothing.

"This guy is." The silver-haired warlock appraised.

Duran shrugged noncommittally, "Not necessarily—I mean, from the beginning, he did. I haven't seen the day when he doesn't die. ”

Listening to the conversation between Duran and Kate, Ironskin's face was full of shame, and the words he had sworn to himself before were still in his ears, but his body and spirit seemed to be involuntarily afraid, and he instinctively felt scared - Duran knew that this was the sequelae of hallucinations, because he did not come out of the void alone, so his will and spirit would be weakened for a certain period of time. That's why, in many remote rural legends, people who have been captured and played with by goblins are most likely to fall seriously ill after being released.

The ogre's physique is far stronger than that of ordinary humans, so it is certainly not possible to get sick, but it is inevitable that the will be depressed for a while.

……

According to the two elves, Stuka the Dryad occupies the island in the middle of the lake and considers the entire lake to be his own territory. Any creature that dares to break into the island in the middle of the lake will be ruthlessly devoured by the dryad. Due to the distance between the two sides, Duran's visual skills could not be used, and he could only know the approximate strength of the dryad from Lulu and Nana.

"At least it's a gold-rank monster, it's a bit tricky!" Duran squinted at the quiet tree on the island, if it weren't for the reminder of the two little goblins, I'm afraid no one would know that such a quiet tree of heaven was actually a monster that eats people without blinking.

Although the plant monster always has one kind of flaw or another compared to the animal monster, since this Paradise Tree Dryad has been able to dominate Lake Sola for so long, then he must have very strong skills. As a last resort, Duran didn't want to clash with this behemoth.

He had come to find the entrance to the Valley of Shadows, and the proverbs on the parchment scroll didn't say that the entrance to the Valley of Shadows was on the island in the middle of the lake, and in Duran's vague memory, there didn't seem to be any monsters like the Dryad guarding the entrance to the Valley of Shadows - it would be best if it was only near Lake Sola and didn't have to clash with the Dryad.

Duran took out the parchment roll and looked at it again in the daylight, his gaze swept to the vicinity of Lake Sora. As if to confirm the proverb of the parchment scroll, Lake Sola is surrounded by clean gravel, and stones with special runes are dotted between the gravel, like the most beautiful sandy beach, except for the fine stones.

[The shadow of the holly tree lingers around the lake without stones]

Duran whispered the magical proverb, and the rest of the group fell silent for a moment, his gaze looking to his right, where a few inconspicuous holly trees stood on the edge of the lake less than twenty feet from Lake Sora. Not far away, in the crevices of the rune stones, a few bright flowers quietly grew - white roses on the left, lily of the valley flowers on the right. The power of the runes came faintly from the stone pile, and there must have been some unknown power in it that gave birth to these two very different flowers.

"[Lily of the valley and white roses are connected side by side], which is an amazing creation." Kate also saw two kinds of flowers growing in the rune stone pile, and she walked over and lowered her head to remove the gap in the stone pile, and the two flowers were tightly connected at the roots, deep into the thick sand. There is no doubt that it is these peculiar runes that bring the lily of the valley and the white rose together. What Kate praised was the masterpiece of the ancient rune mage.

【The Upanishads Gate always welcomes the true wise】

【Mystic Finger Leads to Final Entrance】

In Duran's view, the third sentence is useless, and the real key lies in the "mysterious hand" mentioned in the last sentence. The group looked around the quiet shores of Lake Sola for more than ten minutes, but they didn't find anything related to the mysterious hand.

"Hell, what this parchment says can't be a trick, right?" Lulu pointed to the shadow paper in Duran's hand, crossed her waist and glared, and said, "Nana and I often hang around by Lake Sora, and we haven't seen any mysterious hands at all!" ”

The other ice elf nodded vigorously in agreement, and she waved her fist: "Instead of looking for some mysterious hand here, let's rush to the island together and defeat that nasty Stuka!" ”

Duran smiled slightly: "You two go by yourself." ”

The two little ones wilted suddenly. They have lived in the mushroom forest for a long time, and if they could defeat the dryad, I am afraid that they would have driven him out of the island in the middle of the lake long ago, where can they wait for today? Goblins are indeed masters of playing with people's hearts, that's true, but whether the dryad has a heart or not is still a matter of two things, not to mention that Stuka has a power comparable to gold, and a little illusion is not worth mentioning at all.

"Duran, it's definitely not the way to find it. Maybe it's another puzzle? Maybe we're missing something. Kate reminded.

Duran nodded, muttering for a moment.

"Let's sort things out first, guys, what do you know about the Mystic Hand?" Duran is ready to brainstorm.

"Abu Abu!" The Fireseater's opinion was the first to be ignored, and as the only member of the group who could not speak a lingua franca, it was clear that his opinion would only be ignored in such a small meeting.

Tin Skinn laughed twice: "In our ogre customs, the term mystic hand only appears in the knowledge related to ancestor worship. It seems that an ogre who has been hand-picked by a mysterious hand will possess some extraordinary powers. ”

Hearing this, Duran's heart moved: "How do you know this?" ”

Iron Skin said with a blank face: "I don't know either, there are some knowledge, it seems to be stored directly in the depths of my soul. Normally, it may not be needed, and it will not appear, but once I encounter a relevant situation, this knowledge will come out on its own, as if I have understood it for a long time. But most of the knowledge I gained was about the main points of ancestor worship. ”

Duran touched his chin, and it was a good sign that Ironhide was able to automatically inherit knowledge from his bloodline. Anyone who can pass on knowledge through bloodline is an extremely powerful race in the multiverse - the most intuitive example is the dragons. Although the ogre race is relatively discriminated against, it does have a certain probability of bloodline inheritance.

"Could it be that this guy's elite template is actually a rare ogre ancestor priest?" Ogres are the same race as the barbarians, and in Duran's impression, several ogre ancestor priests in the history of the Fernanda Continent are all very powerful heroes. Most of them have unique titles - such as Michelle, Priest of Roaring War, or Hollande, the Beast of Thunder, who led the Grayplains tribe to repel the invasion of the Plaguelands.

These are all famous heroes who have crossed civilizations and races in history, enough to make future generations awe when they read their names, but as long as Duran thinks about it, if this guy becomes an ancestral priest, will he be [witty and cowardly priest Saunders. He couldn't help but laugh out loud.

……

Jumping directly over the two noisy leprechauns, Duran fixed his eyes on Kate. The Demon Warlock spread his hands: "My bloodline has only passed on to me all kinds of talents and spells, and in terms of knowledge, I am only an ordinary level among the black-clothed people. I'm sorry, but I don't know anything about the mysterious hand. But I'm curious, Duran, what do you know? ”

Duran sighed and said, "Well, it looks like I'm going to have to talk to myself." ”

"First of all, ladies and gentlemen, let me first popularize the allusion to the four words of the mysterious hand."

"In history, the earliest record of the [Mystic Hand] is generally believed to be the chapter of the seventh book of the Pearl Tower of Ten Thousand Years about the ancient sage king Arbuckles obtaining the sword of the Flame Apostle-'...... At that time, the Holy King fell into the abyss of darkness, without top or bottom, left and right. Two paths were divided in the flames, and the Holy King was guided by a mysterious hand......'"

"Legend has it that before he obtained the Sword of the Flame Apostle, Arbuckle was very devastated. Once, he was hunted down by demons and hid in the endless abyss, and he couldn't stop in fear. It was at this time that he was guided by the Mystic Hand and was granted immortality in the midst of the flames. ”

Later, the mystical hand evolved into a symbol. Scholars believe that this is an invitation, and the ancient wise men believed that some secrets had to be hidden in the safest place and not made public. And the guardians of these secrets must be wise and virtuous among human beings. Wherever a mysterious hand appears, the owner of ancient wisdom invites future generations to share this treasure. As long as you can find the mysterious hand, you can find the entrance to the treasure. ”

;