Chapter 8: The Rock Fortress (4)
"Dragons, and only in human form!" Ryan was completely confused by Sam's words. This may sound paradoxical at first, but Ryan believes it must be a long, long story.
Sam pointed to his cave and smiled at Ryan, "You just stand and listen, you don't feel tired, but your Majesty the Queen ......"
Ryan laughed, took Freya's hand and followed Sam into his cave. There was a magic core hanging on the wall of the cave that didn't know what a magical beast was, and it actually emitted a soft light, making the entire empty cave brighter. It was originally full of spirits, but just now Ryan and the dwarves outside had already drunk more than a hundred barrels of spirits from Sam's body, almost all of Sam's survival, so when Ryan walked in, there was a faint echo of footsteps.
"That's the spoils of my previous adventures, well, whatever you want, if you don't hate being dirty here. Sam shrugged his shoulders and sat directly on an empty wine barrel, Ryan was now covered with wine syrup and dirt anyway, so he naturally cared, so he sat directly on another wine barrel like Sam, and Freya, who was wearing ordinary adventurer's costume, did not have the reserve of the elf queen at all, and sat beside Ryan with a smile, watching Ryan and Sam talk.
Sam's heart seemed to be very satisfied with Ryan and Freya's performance, after all, not all high-ranking guys will be informal, he cracked his mouth and smiled, and said, "This matter has been talked about for decades. I am a dwarf, and my desire since childhood has been to make the best spirits, and in order to achieve it I have to travel all continents in search of the ingredients for winemaking......"
"Although I am a winemaker, not a warrior, I also have means to protect myself, for example, summoning some fierce beasts to fight for me, and the thieves who usually seek money and kill are naturally not my opponents, and there are some magical beasts that hope to fill my stomach with me, but I use them to fill my stomach. β
"Once, I entered the Canyon of Sorrow, where it is said that there is a flower that makes ordinary people go soft when they smell it, which is quite similar to the feeling of being drunk. However, it was a battlefield more than 200 years ago, where the elite troops of a human nation resisted the undead legions, and then all of them were wiped out. I also guessed that this trip would be dangerous, but I didn't expect to meet a powerful revenant. β
"The three wild boars I summoned were almost killed by the other party in seconds, and the spirit attack of the revenant was so strong that I thought I would be finished, but I was saved by a few human adventurers. Sam shrugged his shoulders and said, "A magician, a priest, and a warrior, this class is complete." The priest finally purified the soul of the dead and invited me to join, it turned out that the priest was going to enter the Canyon of Sorrow to find something, and it just so happened that I was also looking for the rumored flower in it, of course I would not refuse. After spending more than a month in the Valley of Sorrows, we have been facing a large number of undead souls, and the human souls who died at the hands of the undead army can never return to the arms of the underworld, and can only wander around miserably. β
"But after more than a month of purification, the priest realized some kind of powerful power, which seems to be related to his belief in the god of light, so when this adventure was over, the human priest said goodbye to us and left, while I continued to travel the continent with the magician and the warrior. With the protection of the two of them, of course, I don't have to worry about safety anymore, so I can also go to many places that I didn't dare to go to before. β
"After more than a year, we became more familiar with each other, I found a lot of ingredients for brewing, and then with their help, I started to make spirits, and after a period of hard work, I finally succeeded, and this is the thunder wine you drink now. When the first batch of thunder wine was brewed, the three of us naturally sat around and drank a hearty drink, and the warrior was so touched for some reason that he actually drank twenty-eight barrels of thunder wine in one go, while the magician and I only drank a little more than one barrel in total. β
"Maybe it was because he was drunk and unrestrained, and the warrior told a lot of things in fits and starts, and I put all this together with the information I had obtained from our previous adventures, and naturally I learned a lot about his past. It turned out that this human warrior was not really human, but a member of the powerful dragon clan, but unfortunately for some reason he was banished and applied the 'ultimate transfiguration', and could only appear as a human forever. β
"Well, that's how it happened. Sam clapped his hands and said to Ryan, "That's all I know, for when I wake up, the warrior and the magician are gone, and my wish is fulfilled, so I will return to my hometown, where I make this spirit every year and make a living from it." β
"The warrior who has been inflicted the ultimate transfiguration?" Ryan had a vague thought in his heart, he was shocked by his own idea, but when his eyes subconsciously looked at the elven queen Freya, he saw the clarity in the other party's eyes, obviously this beautiful woman who has inherited the memories of the elven queens of the past generations already knew the identity of that person.
Freya already knew what Ryan was thinking from Ryan's expression, she hesitated slightly, and finally spoke: "I'm sorry, Ryan, this matter is not something I deliberately concealed from you, the warrior Sam is talking about is your martial arts teacher Galib, he was expelled from the dragon community when he was just an adult, and was punished to use only human form for the rest of his life, and can never become the original body of the red dragon." I know this because many years ago, he had fallen in love with an elven queen, but it ended tragically. As for the magician Sam was talking about, it was probably the deceased Master Dranay, and the priest ......"
"Archbishop Ibel!" Ryan said the name that he had not seen for a long time, his heart suddenly became very confused, he suddenly felt a blank, and the scene of seeing Galib for the first time when he was a child suddenly appeared in front of his eyes, following Draena to learn magic, and meeting Master Eber in the imperial capital...... No wonder what they said at the time was vague, it turned out that these guys had known each other for a long time, maybe their magic teacher Draene encouraged him to go out of his hometown to participate in the competitive competition, it was because of the master of the "God's Prophecy" Master Iber, but they didn't realize that an inconspicuous magic apprentice at the beginning had grown into a legendary mage at the fastest speed.
"Alas, I didn't expect you to be my teacher's adventure companion, please forgive me for my previous offense!" Ryan stood up, saluted Sam, and said in a very respectful tone: "The warrior you are talking about should be my enlightenment teacher Galib, it turns out that he is actually a Red Dragon Sword Saint! I also know for the first time today, not to mention that they have mentioned your name in front of me, which is embarrassing for you." β
"You're welcome, you've always been nice to me anyway, and you haven't offended me. Sam didn't think of himself as Ryan's elder, in fact he was a dispensable character in the ranks of Galib when he ventured out, basically the same as the bard next to a hero: faithful to record what the eye saw, what the ear heard, but not the mouth, except that Sam could not write a so-called heroic epic, he commanded the winemaking.
"I didn't expect you to be a student of the old man, are they all okay now? I haven't seen them in decades, and I miss the days of adventures with them. Sam's eyes were full of longing: "Actually, in retrospect, I was so focused on brewing at that time that I didn't pay attention to some of their hints, otherwise maybe I could have been one of their students, haha." β
"That's exactly what happened. Ryan nodded again, he had completely guessed from Sam's words the reason why Galib and the others were adventuring everywhere in the first place, Teacher Delaney must be looking for a successor for the "Guardian of the Earth", and Teacher Galib is at ease with what happens, but when he meets the right person, he will also stay to teach the other party a little martial arts. Maybe Iber, who was just an ordinary priest at the beginning, was chosen by Dranagh and Galib to help him improve his strength as soon as possible, and eventually became one of them.
Ryan and Sam grew closer to each other because of their relationship with Galib and Dranay, and they talked to each other about their experiences with Galib, sharing happy memories of each other, and before they knew it, they talked for an entire night.
By the next day, when Lombard, the head of the Rock Fortress, woke up from his drunkenness, he had become a good friend of Ryan completely, and under his orders, the gates of the Rock Fortress, which had not been opened by the dwarves for nearly two hundred years, were finally pushed open, and Cassano's three elite troops slowly entered the legendary underground city under the command of Adela and others.
Although the space of the Rock Fortress is large, it is still quite crowded to cram 15,000 people at a time, and these warriors are here to fight, if they stay in this dark environment for a long time, their morale and combat effectiveness will definitely be greatly reduced, so at the urging of Lane, Lombard took Ryan and Freya and others into the tunnel to Black Rock City, they will arrive at the dwarven capital in a few days, and ask the dwarven king to borrow the way, if everything goes well, about ten days later, Cassano's three elite troops will appear in the south of Mochizuki Cityγ