Almost as soon as the village chief finished the last word, a system prompt sounded in the players' ears.

Prompts that the current mission objective has been updated, from [Find a way to enter the Holy Mountain] to [Kill the Monster, complete the Guardian Clan's village chief's commission, and get the key to the Holy Mountain],

The mission time limit has also been changed to 18 hours.

That is to say, the village chief in front of him is indeed the key NPC of the script mission.

The players looked at each other, and Hohenheim coughed lightly, looked at the village chief and asked, "We just wanted to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain, and we didn't expect this to happen again."

Not... Your Excellency the Village Chief, what kind of demonic beast is there? How did you destroy the gate of the Holy Mountain? ”

"What's this..."

The village chief hesitated for a moment, and said slowly: "Actually, I don't know very well, there is no relevant record in the village.

The villagers of my grandfather's generation were very secretive about that incident, and never told the future generations..."

"Wait,"

David couldn't help but interject, "You just said that the Holy Mountain Gate was destroyed by a strange demonic beast fifty years ago, right?"

Were you not there at the time? ”

The village chief said, "Of course, I wasn't even born at the time. ”

？？？

The players looked at the village chief, who was full of white hair and wrinkled skin, and looked to be at least seventy years old, and they fell silent for a while.

David opened his mouth and hesitated, "I don't know if you, the village chief... Gui Geng this year? ”

"I'd be twenty-four years old."

The village chief sighed, touched the white beard on his chin, and said leisurely: "Thanks to my usual focus on health preservation, going to bed early and getting up late, eating small and frequent meals, eating a balanced diet, and insisting on exercising every day, I can maintain it so well." ”

Pay attention to health and grow this look... Are you the legendary god-level programmer?

As if noticing the expressions on the faces of the other players, the village chief sighed, "The other peers in our village are basically almost dead, and I am the longest-lived group in this age.

It's not a good thing to celebrate, though..."

David hesitated, "What the hell is going on..."

The village chief sighed again, beckoned, and asked the servant to fill the tea and explain slowly.

Their guardian family has been guarding the Holy Mountain for countless years, and according to the incomplete genealogy, it has a history of at least a thousand years.

Their mission is to guard the Holy Mountain, receive brave people from all over the world, and issue primary trials to screen out some pilgrims who are not strong or have a bad heart.

This is to prevent too weak brave people from entering the Holy Mountain to challenge, resulting in deaths and casting an ominous shadow on the Holy Mountain.

It is also to prevent people with despicable hearts from blending into the ranks of pilgrims and abusing the wishes and blessings of the holy mountain to cause harm to the outside world.

None of the villagers will step outside the confines of the Holy Mountain, and the trials they propose will usually take place at the foot of the Holy Mountain, in several dungeons that can move freely.

Those dungeons reset every twenty-four hours, and they were filled with a thousand strange monsters, deadly or non-lethal traps, and the brave outsiders stepped into them, or completed the trial to get out,

Either die in it, swallowed up by the dungeon reset effect, and the villagers of the Guardian Village will never interfere.

For a long time, there has been an endless stream of pilgrims from the outside world, travelers from other worlds who want to return home, and brave people who want to fulfill their wishes, and they have embarked on pilgrimages one after another.

Their arrival will inject new vitality into the Guardian Village, bring outside materials, improve the lives of the villagers, and also bring information about the outside world, so that the isolated village can know what is happening in the outside world.

But about a hundred years ago, the number of otherworldly travelers dropped from the outside world gradually decreased, according to the few words left behind by the pilgrim procession,

It seems that several powerful principalities in the outside world, for some reason of faith, have broken out into wars that span a long period of time, and the scale of the wars is getting bigger and bigger, involving the rest of the countries that tried to stay out of it at first.

Due to the very different tech trees of the island kingdoms in the world of the script, the form of warfare becomes extremely complex. Assassination infiltration, sabotage behind enemy lines, large-scale bombing by airships, spreading poison gas in the atmosphere to create toxic acid rain...

The long war destroyed the original social order, and the number of powerful pilgrims became smaller and smaller.

It seems that under the influence of this, those dungeons at the foot of the holy mountain have gradually been abandoned.

Since then, something has become wrong in the village, and many villagers have suffered from premature aging, premature aging, and before the age of forty, they will become old, like eighty years old.

In the generation of the village chief's grandfather, it was difficult for even the longest-lived person in the village to live past the age of thirty.

"Throughout the ages, we have also wanted to figure out the causes of this aging condition and address it once and for all,"

The village chief sighed, "But as the guardians of the holy mountain, we are not allowed to step out of the scope of the holy mountain, nor can we enter the holy mountain as pilgrims, accept trials, and make wishes...

Ahem, then again, fifty years ago, not long after my father was born, he also heard my grandfather mention that a powerful strange beast took advantage of the night to destroy the gate of our top-secret holy mountain.

You should have just seen the optical stealth equipment placed in our village, right? ”

The players nodded, and on their way to the village chief's house, they saw a large, boxy, refrigerator-like optical camouflage device in a square, refrigerator-like display, with a level of technology that contrasted with the surrounding medieval villages.

"Including that optical stealth device, our village has preserved quite a few equipment props that have been given or abandoned by generations of braves, although most of them are now abandoned, but fifty years ago, there were still many that could be used."

The village chief said, "Fifty years ago, our village was slightly less senile than it is now, and the guards guarding the gate of the holy mountain were also average in strength of some brave people. ”

David and Hohenheim exchanged glances, the guardian clan responsible for guarding the Holy Mountain naturally couldn't even have the ability to defend themselves.

Although they are extremely weak now, they have to be vigilant with their pitchfork swords when they encounter outsiders,

But in their blood, there is still a trace of meager extraordinary power.

"However, that demonic beast easily broke through our defenses at the gate of the Holy Mountain, brutally killed the guards, violently destroyed and stole a rock from the gate of the Holy Mountain,"

The village chief said slowly, "After the rock was stolen, the gate of the holy mountain no longer reacted to the key.

Several dungeons affected by the Holy Mountain have also been deactivated, and there is no longer a reset effect.

We also don't know if the aging effects in our village have anything to do with the rock.

Of course, it would be great if the brave could retrieve the rocks. ”

The players glanced at each other, and the mission goal had already been written to kill the monster and complete the commission, so it was naturally impossible not to complete it.

Hohenheim nodded and asked, "So where is that monster now?" ”

"To the northwest, in an underground cavern five kilometers away."

The village chief added, "It should be there. ”

Hohenheim frowned slightly, "Should?" ”

"I don't know the specifics,"

The village chief smiled bitterly: "In the past, our village could also organize patrols to inspect and patrol various dungeons.

But now... As you can see, it's really powerless.

The reset effect of those dungeons has long since disappeared, and they have become a nest of monsters, too dangerous for us.

The only thing I knew was the words my grandfather had left behind - the 'huge beast covered in shadows' had stolen the rocks and fled to the underground cavern to the northwest. ”

Leon squinted his eyes and lightly tapped his palm fingers on the wooden teacup containing the warm tea.

Several players seemed to be silent and silently thinking, but in fact, they had already discussed it in the spiritual link of the [Group Connection].

Hohenheim: [My polygraph shows that he didn't lie]

David: [But there must be something to hide. For example, when it came down to the cause of aging, his eyes flickered a little. 】

Leon: [This should be normal.] After all, judging from the monitoring of the breath, this guardian race is some kind of dark race, whether it is long or short, it involves the core secrets of their race, of course, it is impossible to follow an outsider to tell it. But this script world is really malicious, and it actually let a dark race be the guardian of the holy mountain...]

Ambery: [Uh... So what are we going to do now? The garrison of this village is quite empty, although there are three guards squatting outside the door who think they are very hidden, but we can easily sweep this guard force. Why don't you use a truth teller or a psychic interference-type spell to force the village chief to say something extra? 】

Hohenheim: [I'm personally conservative. These people are the guardians of the Holy Mountain, and if they attack them, they may trigger some mechanism, such as directly triggering thunder and lightning in the sky. And based on the experience of previous strategies, it is unlikely that we will use the method of "deception and concealment" to get by. 】

Ding Shinji: [Fooled by? 】

Hohenheim: [It is to deliberately avoid the strategy route designed by the system, and complete the objective at least according to the text description of the mission.] For example, our current task is to "kill the monster, complete the commission of the village chief of the guardian clan, and get the key to the holy mountain", we can go to the dungeon to kill a low-strength monster at will, and coax or violently threaten the village chief to complete the commission and get the key. At the literal level, we've done what we've done, but at the practical level... Some sneaky tricks may actually make the task more difficult. 】

Word games are an important part of the killing game, so don't play if you're not happy.

Not only can the system set up word games to harm players, but players can also steal chickens and play slippery through text level loopholes (sometimes stealing chickens and playing slippery is also part of the strategy link).

But now that everyone is working on a difficult scripted mission for first-tier players, there's no reason to take the risk and go far.

The players quickly made a decision in the spirit link, and Hohenheim stood up first and said to the village chief, "Yes.

As pilgrims, we have no reason to refuse trials.

But before we do that, we want to know the shape of the rock of the gate of the Holy Mountain. ”

The village chief was stunned, "Huh? ”

"What we're going to do is retrieve the rock that repaired the gate, right?"

Hohenheim said calmly, "What if we finally find the 'huge beast covered in shadows' and successfully kill it, but it lives in a rubble full of rubble?"

If we knew the specific features of that sacred mountain rock that could be recognized, things would be much easier. ”

"Oh, yes."

The village chief stood up and walked into the next room, where a moment later he brought an old tawny scroll at least a few decades old with a rock drawn on it.

The rock was long and pure white, with a complex pattern resembling a cloud in the middle.

The village chief explained: "The rocks of the gate of the sacred mountain are indestructible and emit a faint glow in the darkness and darkness. If you haven't been abandoned somewhere, you'll be able to find it. ”

Hohenheim took the scroll from the village chief's hand after a careful observation, "Without further ado, we'll set off now." ”

The village chief rubbed his palms back and forth for a moment, "So fast?" ”

"The sooner we finish the trial, the sooner we can go on the pilgrimage."

Hohenheim laughed and did not explain that the mission time limit for this stage is 18 hours,

It is very likely that the area of that dungeon will be very wide, or that monster is not in the northwest dungeon, but in other areas,

Players will need to travel a longer distance to track down to their location.

"Oh, uh, then I wish you all the brave a smooth journey."

There were many pauses in the village chief's words, his eyes flickering, and he stopped talking.

"What's wrong?"

Leon asked, "If there is anything you want to help, you can just say that we are very helpful." ”

"No, nothing."

The village chief finally swallowed his words, didn't say anything, and stood in the doorway and watched the player walk in the direction of the village.

Once the player walks out of the village, the entire village is once again covered in optical camouflage, assimilated into the usual rocky scene at the foot of the mountain.

"Let's go. The system gave a time limit of eighteen hours this time, and if the monster could not be found in the dungeon to the northwest, and there were no rocks, we would have to search again on a large scale. ”

Hohenheim withdrew his gaze from the village and said lightly.

This time, with a clear direction and goal, the speed of everyone's march suddenly accelerated.

Ding Shinji drove the Kui Niu mecha, activated the pulley mode, and dragged the people sitting on the sleigh cart to drive at the front.

The wind howled along the way, and the others continued to discuss the topic just now in the spirit link, and in addition to the group heart connection technique, Li Ang released another spirit link, connecting to Liu Wuxian.

Leon: [It's me.] I started a private channel and no one else could hear the two of us talking. Just now I noticed that after the village chief took out the picture of the rock of the gate of the holy mountain, your spiritual connection fluctuated...]

Liu Wuxian interrupted: [I have seen the cloud-like pattern in the middle of that rock. 】

Leon: [Have you seen it?] Where is it? 】

Liu Wuxi: [Special Affairs Bureau, Different Society, Database. 】