Seeing the blonde woman's reaction, Hao Ren was basically certain: this person in front of him should be the otherworld visitor they were looking for.

But with Becky right next to him, Hao Ren couldn't be too explicit. He could only hint vaguely, "We came from the mountain people's village, where we heard about you – we're all experts in spatial magic..."

Hao Ren felt a pang of conscience when he said that last sentence. He couldn't even look at Becky's questioning face: even if the mercenary girl was more clueless than Lily, she wouldn't believe that this group of people were spatial mages. But it was clearly effective for the blonde woman in front of him. She had been taking steps to leave at any moment, but when she heard Hao Ren's words, she stopped in her tracks. "You're from this… here, and you specialize in spatial technology? What level of spatial technology do you have here?"

"Very strong, very strong, it should be able to help you," Hao Ren said with a dry laugh. "In fact, when we passed through the Great Prairie, we heard about your situation from a pack of wolves. We were very interested in it, and then we followed you all the way here."

This otherworld visitor hadn't talked about the other world in the mountain people's village, but she had revealed her origins when she talked to the prairie wolves. Hao Ren mentioned the wolves, and she could of course guess the cause and effect. But even though the blonde woman was anxious, she still looked at Hao Ren suspiciously. "You're willing to help me? What's the reason? What price do you need me to pay?"

Hao Ren was relieved that she had spoken so frankly. This blonde woman hadn't blindly believed the goodwill of strangers. Instead, she immediately questioned this group of strangers who had suddenly appeared and claimed to be spatial technology experts, and she spoke clearly. This made her credibility as someone from another world even higher.

Vivian gave a friendly smile. She was the only one there who was good at dealing with people. "If I said it was out of a researcher's curiosity..."

The blonde woman raised her eyebrows slightly, seemingly touched by Vivian's words. It looked like this approach would work.

"The few of us have been researching parallel world theory," Hao Ren quickly continued, seeing that Vivian's approach was effective. "How should I put it... in this world, it's a relatively marginal theory. Anyway, the research is very difficult, subject to all kinds of exclusion, suppression, and resistance. It takes three years for a paper to be approved, ten years for a project to be approved, and if you finally find two students to give a lecture, they'll accuse you of spreading heresy. Research work is so bitter..."

The more Hao Ren made up, the more outrageous it became, but he was really putting his heart into it. The blonde woman even nodded in understanding, while Becky looked at the "experts and scholars" beside her in surprise. She didn't expect that these guys, who didn't look like academics at all, actually had so many stories. This explained the strange words and deeds of this group of people – if you changed anyone to fight with their colleagues for ten years, they would be like this...

But Vivian thought that if Hao Ren continued to improvise, the other party would become suspicious, so she nudged his arm. "Landlord, you're going a bit too far."

Hao Ren quickly became serious, thinking how close he had come to turning it into a farce with his overacting. "In short, we're researching this kind of thing, and you're a rare example for us – but only if you're not lying. We've been chasing after you all the way from the Great Prairie, at least our sincerity is full."

The blonde woman frowned slightly. Obviously, she couldn't believe a group of strangers just because of a few words, but the current situation forced her to seize even a one-percent possibility: she was alone in a strange world, and she hadn't met anyone who could help her before. This world was completely unfamiliar to her. Even the so-called "Blood Lake leading to another world" was just a very vague hope. That lake probably only had a one in ten thousand chance of getting her home, and the credibility of this group of people might also be one in ten thousand – there was no difference, the situation couldn't get any worse anyway.

The blonde woman accepted any potentially helpful outside help with the mentality of treating a dead horse as if it were still alive. Therefore, after a short period of weighing the pros and cons, she nodded to Hao Ren. "I can swear that everything you heard in the Great Prairie and that small village is true. If you can really help me go home, I'm willing to pay any price – what do you need? Magic to prolong life, some gems that you would never see in this world, precious medicines, and some rare seeds and spices that I brought from my hometown, you can choose whatever you want."

As the blonde woman spoke, she touched her waist. She must have fallen into this world in a hurry, so she didn't have any large luggage with her, but the small things she mentioned were indeed enough to be called wealth.

But Hao Ren wasn't interested in these things. "That's not what I want..."

The blonde woman looked at Hao Ren in surprise, and then noticed the composition of this group of people, and immediately took a half-step back warily. "You have many women around you, but this one is out of the question, I'm already married..."

Hao Ren was immediately defeated by the other party's miraculous ability to associate things. "Who's talking about that! Can you not have such a rich imagination, lady?"

Izhaks chuckled and patted Hao Ren's shoulder hard. "I seem to have been ignored."

The blonde woman looked at Hao Ren and Izhaks with even more surprise, biting her lower lip. "That's even more difficult, if your interest is..."

"Lady, if you keep imagining things like this, we really can't cooperate," Hao Ren's face was almost green. He never expected that this beautiful lady, who looked dignified and beautiful, would be so open-minded in her thinking. How could anyone say such things the first time they met? Even if a normal person had such associations, they should keep them to themselves. "The matter of remuneration can be discussed later, anyway, it definitely won't embarrass you. We're here to cooperate with you for a very pure... academic purpose."

Seeing that Hao Ren's face was unhappy, the blonde woman seemed to realize belatedly that she had said a lot of things that were too straightforward. "I'm sorry, it's just our clan's speaking habits are like this. I've indeed found that your ways of doing things are different from ours these days."

Hao Ren saw that the other party looked serious, as if this was really the straightforward habit of some otherworld race, so he didn't care too much. He stretched out his hand to the blonde woman. "Then let's introduce ourselves first, my name is Hao Ren."

The blonde woman looked hesitantly at Hao Ren's outstretched hand, and then grabbed the latter's wrist with both hands and shook it up and down. "Hilda, my name is Hilda Vita."

Everyone introduced themselves, including Becky, who was a little dizzy, and got to know each other. The blonde woman, who called herself Hilda, only mentioned her name, but didn't say anything else about her identity. Obviously, she was still reserved about this group of strangers, but Hao Ren was sure that she would cooperate with him soon: as long as he found a gap when Becky wasn't around, he could reveal his identity to Hilda.

"So... what are you going to do next?" Becky looked at Hao Ren and the others with a confused expression. Everyone had a happy and relaxed expression on their faces, as if the ultimate purpose of their trip had been achieved, and all that was left was the return trip. "Aren't we here to find the Orb?"

"By the way, by the way," Hao Ren waved his hand with a comfortable feeling. "You have to know, I'm a scholar..."

Vivian and Nangong Wuyue coughed hard next to him.

Hilda didn't seem to care about anything now. She only cared about when she could go home, so she seized the opportunity and hurriedly asked Hao Ren, "When do we start? How do you plan to send me back? You're just researching parallel space theory, but it doesn't seem like you've succeeded before, right? Then we should start with some experiments first, I have some experience in this area..."

"Take it easy, take it easy," Hao Ren's head was pounding from the other party's barrage of words, and he quickly waved his hand to calm Hilda down. "We also have a lot of things we want to know about you, but this place is obviously not suitable for chatting. We're going to the Beinz Blood Lake next. There's a Knights Order's station by the lake where we can rest. Let's settle down there and then talk in detail – even opening a teleportation gate requires a venue, right?"

"That Blood Lake? I'm going there too," Hilda nodded when she heard the words Beinz Blood Lake. Only then did she calm down a little. "That's right, we have to exchange information first. I'm not sure if you can really help me... Then please wait a moment, I need to deal with my treant guardian first."

As Hilda spoke, she ran to the treant guardian, which had been burned to charcoal all over the ground, seemingly preparing some kind of magic ritual. Hao Ren took this opportunity to connect to his data terminal in his mind. "By the way, can we transport people from the Dream Plane to the outside?"