Chapter 98: A Strange Lake, Strange Fishes, and a Strange Person.

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Sophia was stunned. When she met Gabriella yesterday, she was wearing a big mage hat that covered her face. She hadn’t see Gabriella’s face at all until now. She thought that Gabriella covered her face because she was ugly.

However, even the reflection of sunlight off the crystal white snow wasn’t as pretty as Gabriella.

Her fine facial features were so beautiful that they looked like they were carved out by the best artist in history. With a hint of timidity etched deep in her personality, an unprecedented firmness appeared in her beautiful eyes. Even the stars in the night sky couldn’t be compared with them.

Beauty! Sophia was always very confident in her looks, but she was shocked the moment she saw Gabriella’s face, as if she was struck by lightning. She had never seen someone that beautiful before! The big mage hat wasn’t there for hiding away her ugliness; it was there for hiding away this peerless beauty!

“I believe him! He won’t do that!” Gabriella bent her back and knees to pick up the mage hat and quickly put it back on her head. The hat once again blocked the beautiful face that could cause a war between powerful men.

The little forest wasn’t closely connected to the stone forest. There were plains located between the two, about a kilometer in length. Qian Jin carefully looked up at the vultures that were flying in circles above him. These could only be considered vicious animals and not demon beasts. However, they could still lift a newborn horse with their claws and wings, and their sharp claws could tear an ordinary person’s head off his or her body easily.

The vultures circled in the sky as they watched Qian Jin get very close to the stone forest. Their animal instincts told them that if this prey entered the stone forest, it would be hard for them to dive down and strike it.

Suddenly, a vulture shook its wings and dove down at Qian Jin from the sky. It flew at such a high speed that it looked like an arrow. Its sharp claws that reflected the chilling light targeted Qian Jin’s shoulders.

Qian Jin was walking towards the stone forest with his eyes focusing at the front. After he felt a vulture diving down at him from the sky, he suddenly pulled his legs apart. Both of his hands grabbed onto the Zhanmadao tightly, and he struck the blade upwards. The Level 10 Warrior Energy instantly filled the body of the Zhanmadao like a fast river, and Qian Jin felt like he was connected with the Zhanmadao by blood for the first time. The vulture was split into two pieces after the blade flashed through it, and the two parts twitched in the snow a little before stopping.

Qian Jin looked at the vulture on the ground, and then at the quiet little forest in the distance away as he said to himself with a smile on his face, “This animal can probably last us a few meals. It’s winter anyways, and it’s covered in snow and ice. Since the meat won’t rot anytime soon, I will bring it back to the cave when I come back.”

Qian Jin conducted his Level 10 Warrior Energy into Zhanmadao again, he experienced what a Warrior Weapon really was for the first time. The feeling he got from filling the Warrior Weapon with his Level 10 Warrior Energy was complete different from when he only had Level 9 Warrior Energy.

When he was a Level 9 Warrior, he felt like he was injecting his warrior energy into an open container. Now, he felt like the Zhanmadao was connected with him by blood. If he was facing those three Level 9 Warriors again, Qian Jin was confident that it wouldn’t be much of a problem anymore. His connected energy reservoirs were on another level compared to each energy reservoir operating in isolation.

This was the feeling of a Level 10 Warrior who had just advanced. As time pa.s.sed by, Qian Jin knew that the small branches that connected the ten energy reservoirs were going to become thicker. By that time, the amount of warrior energy he could use at once would be much greater. On top of that, he was also practicing and increasing his physical strength in the Endless World. Even if Lucas hired a veteran Level 10 Warrior as his personal bodyguard, Qian Jin was sure that he could eliminate this bad tumor that was threatening his life.

The stone forest was just as quiet as the little forest. When Qian Jin stepped on the thick acc.u.mulated snow, it made squeaky noises. That was the only sound that Qian Jin could hear.

“The snow over there seems to be thinner.” Qian Jin observed the snow on the ground in the stone forest, and he quickly made this finding. There was an area on the ground where the snow looked thinner. With a more detailed observation, he could find traces of something burying and hiding underneath.

“Compared to the wolf packs and killers in the Endless World, this method of burying and hiding seems very rough.” Qian Jin followed the traces and walked forward. He sighed in his mind. “The line-up of this adventurer team isn’t great. They should have at least one member who’s great at burying, hiding, and creating fake terrains. They were probably too poor. Anyone who is interested in adventuring and has a specialty asks for high prices. These people are always recruited by big adventurer teams, and even mercenary teams.

All the traces of hiding led to a huge rock, where it suddenly disappeared. Qian Jin raised his head and looked up at this huge rock that had a height of about two to three men and had a radius of two meters. After some careful calculations, he knew that this rock weighed at least a thousand and five hundred pounds.

The weight, along with the fact that it was frozen from the ice and snow around it was a big issue. This was especially the case since someone had poured cold water around it and made the connection between it and the ice and snow even firmer. Even if Qian Jin could lift up a thousand and five hundred pounds of weight, he didn’t think he could move this rock.

Qian Jin put his Zhanmadao aside and drew up on all of his available warrior energy. He placed his palms on the rock, stomped and pushed his feet against the ground with all of his might, but the rock didn’t budge at all.

“This rock… is a bit too heavy, isn’t it?”

Qian Jin walked around this huge rock as he observed it. He had to admit that although his strength had increased drastically since he started working as a blacksmith, the combined strength of three veteran adventurers was probably greater than his. Even if that was the case, the huge rock should’ve still moved a little.

Before he started training in the Endless World, he could still slowly drag a thousand-pound hammer across the floor at Blake’s Blacksmith Shop, so why couldn’t he move this rock even a little bit?

One of the most important skills Qian Jin had learned from the Endless World was observing things with great detail. After he walked around this huge rock many times, he found light traces of ropes that were used to lift this rock.

Qian Jin quickly looked around and tried to find more traces on the rocks around him. He found out why a few mature adventurers could move this rock. They had obviously used the rocks around here and created a pulley system using the ropes. “But did they leave the ropes and pulley behind? If they did, where?” he thought.

After Qian Jin looked around once more, he gave up on trying to find more traces. He also thought about slowly chopping this rock into pieces with the Zhanmadao, but he rejected this intriguing idea as well. Once he opened the entrance, it would be hard to close it again. There were a lot of demon beasts who liked eating energy stones to improve their power. If he opened the entrance now, it might lead to more unnecessary problems.

“Whatever! Since I already know the location, I will have many opportunities to mine it! I should go and find the Wind and Cloud Power Training Scroll!” Qian Jin bit his teeth as he stomped on the ground. He grabbed the Zhanmadao and quickly travelled through the stone forest carefully. He wasn’t worried that his footsteps might be discovered by other people.

After experiencing two avalanches in one day and the three Snow Tigers who guarded the snow peak that blocked off the entrance, it would be impossible for other people to enter Four Season Valley. If anyone wanted to come in, they would have to speak to the Snow Tigers who heavily protected their territories.

The stone forest was much larger than what Qian Jin had expected. After he traveled about the same distance as the entrance pa.s.sage to Four Season Valley, he finally walked out of the enormous stone forest.

The lake was only about twenty meters away from the stone forest. As soon as Qian Jin walked out of the stone forest, he felt waves of heat splas.h.i.+ng onto his face. It was like he was in a hot steam room and not in Four Season Valley that was going through winter.

Qian Jin wasn’t even patient enough to find the source of the heat. He took out the map from his pocket and looked at it carefully. Then, he quickly walked towards the edge of the lake on his right.

Hot! Qian Jin walked along the bank of the lake and felt like it was a hot summer day. He didn’t believe that it was winter in Four Season Valley. The high heat was coming off of the lake, but the lake water wasn’t boiling at all. Also, a few golden colored fish jumped out of the water every now and then.

“What kind of fish are these? Why haven’t they been cooked by the hot water?” Qian Jin was gradually getting less surprised by all the strange events at Four Season Valley. He was only staring at the quiet surface of the look with his guard up. Qian Jin wasn’t sure if a huge demon fish would jump out of the lake and eat him alive. If he died in a fish’s mouth, that would be too shameful.

This lake filled with hot water was really big. After Qian Jin walked along the bank for about an hour, a bright smile appeared on his face as he finally saw a huge rock that was about twenty meters tall and ten meters in diameter.

This terrain was identical to the symbol on the map. No one would enter Four Season Valley on a normal day, so the Wind and Cloud Power Training Scroll should be hidden on the other side of the huge rock according to the map.

Qian Jin paced himself and quickly walked around the huge rock. However, he didn’t find any trace of engravings or cracks on the rock.

“Could it be buried under the ground?” Qian Jin had read a lot of stories written by traveling poets, but there was one that was on Qian Jin’s mind at this moment. This was someone who found the corpse of a great warrior. He tried to bury the corpse out of goodwill, but he ended up finding the source that made him extremely strong underground when he tried to dig up a tomb for the great warrior.

Since he was already here, Qian Jin wasn’t going to back off easily. Because he didn’t wake up the Elf King bloodline, his path to becoming a great warrior was now filled with thorns. The Qian Family wasn’t going to spend any resources and energy on someone who failed to awaken the bloodline. He was on his own!

The precious Warrior Weapon Zhanmadao was now being used as a shovel up a big pile of soil. If the mayor of Oakland saw this scene, he would shout at Qian Jin for being too wasteful and curse him for using a Warrior Weapon as a dirty shovel.

Qian Jin was a Level 10 Warrior and had a huge amount of physical strength. After a while, Qian Jin dug out a deep hole into the ground that could bury him twice.

“Could it be that this isn’t the right location?”

Qian Jin climbed out of the hole with the Zhanmadao. Although his face was dirty, he chose another location and started to dig again…

One hole… two holes… three holes… five holes…

It was noon by the time Qian Jin had dug up more than ten holes. His body was sweating like crazy as he worked beside the hot lake that caused the air around it to moisten. His arms felt fatigue, which he hadn’t felt for a while.

“Hey, what are you trying to dig up?”

“Some remains…” Qian Jin answered casually, but his voice suddenly paused. His body shook as a chilling sensation went down his spine and he held onto the Zhanmadao tightly. He then raised his head and looked up at the source of the deep male voice that just spoke in a joking tone.

The sunlight s.h.i.+ned down onto the ground, and Qian Jin could only see a tall and tough black figure since he was looking up from a deep hole. From Qian Jin’s perspective, this black figure gave him a powerful presence. It seemed like this man could break the skies and shake the earth.