Chapter 1 Evening Greetings

After saying goodnight, the magician waved her wand, her body floating towards the outer wall of the tower, walking along the wall as if on flat ground towards her laboratory-cum-bedroom at the top of the tower.

After she left, Nangong Sanba sighed, "Ah, I didn't expect Miss Leah to be an atheist."

"Strictly speaking, she's an irreligious person, or a disbeliever," Vivian corrected seriously. "Atheism is not believing in the existence of God at all, while Leah doesn't have much respect for God whether he exists or not—which is actually very normal. Magicians are born to be a group prone to weak faith, after all, they themselves study the laws of nature and the truth of the universe, and naturally they are unwilling to set up a god to explain everything. This does not conform to the thinking mode of researchers."

"It's really dramatic," Hao Ren looked up at the sky, that broken kingdom of heaven had already left the highest point of the night sky and was slowly sliding towards the other side of the sky along an east-to-west trajectory, gradually disappearing into the sea of stars. "The land where the kingdom of God fell, the place where the Creator Goddess has the strongest influence, now nurtures scholars like Leah. No wonder Du Ya 12345 once sighed that the gods are just property managers. If the water pipes don't leak for two consecutive months, the residents will forget that their community has a property management company..."

Nangong Wuyue curled her lips, not commenting on the goddess's distinctive metaphor. She and Hao Ren looked up at the fragmented celestial debris, her tone uncertain: "Landlord, do you think those are really the remnants of the Star of Creation?"

"I'm just guessing," Hao Ren said. "After all, we don't know how many celestial bodies were dragged into the dark realm when the Star of Creation exploded back then, and we don't know if those celestial bodies that were dragged in together were as fragmented as the Star of Creation, so those floating in the sky may be the Star of Creation, or they may be something else. The biggest problem now is that Nolan can't leave the atmosphere, and can't even launch a probe. Optical observation can see too little."

Nolan had been silent since just now, and only now reconnected: "Boss, I just used an optical detector to observe those celestial fragments, and I did find remnants of man-made objects on the parts facing Lahe’rien—they seem to be some kind of base, which has been severely damaged. Also, small pieces of building fragments were observed in the space between those fragments, which may be the temple of the Creator Goddess."

Hao Ren pondered for a moment: "Well... that does increase some credibility. We can first assume that the 'Broken Heaven' floating over Lahe’rien is the remnant of the Star of Creation."

Nangong Wuyue shook her tail tip: "Isn't the surface of the Star of Creation covered with a layer of red seawater? Has it all evaporated?"

Izhaks nodded: "It's hard to say. With such a large-scale energy burst, even the entire planet was torn apart. The probability of the liquid Sea of Origin being completely evaporated is quite high, but the Sea of Origin is not real seawater, nor is it standard source blood. Who knows what its physical properties are like?"

Hao Ren thought for a while and began to assign tasks: "Nolan, you continue to try to launch probes into space, and at the same time collect various physical parameters of this 'Lahe’rien' continent, try to find out the reason why it cannot escape the atmosphere, and don't stop tracking the Broken Heaven. Try to draw its relative trajectory with the Lahe’rien continent, so even if we are trapped in the atmosphere, we can at least come up with a rough celestial model. Everyone else, continue to act according to the original plan. Follow Leah to the Great Tunnel and see if we can find the historical reasons for this world's evolution into its current state."

The next night passed peacefully.

By the time they set off the next day, it was already noon.

The group enjoyed a not-so-rich but decent lunch in Leah's magic tower, and then followed the magician to the open space in front of the tower. Leah took out a delicate brass carriage model from the pocket of her faded old robe, and threw the model on the ground while chanting a spell. With a series of creaking noises, the brass model, only the size of a palm, turned into a complete carriage in front of everyone.

There was even a copper horse in front of the carriage, assembled with gears, springs, and levers.

"Awesome, right?" Seeing the surprised expressions on Hao Ren and the others' faces, Leah looked very proud. "I made this myself—based on something restored from ancient documents found in a ruin. Tsk, those idiots always laugh at my research, they don't know how much valuable knowledge is waiting to be unearthed in those ancient relics."

No, no, Miss Magician, what those people are laughing at is only the risk of your every action and the price you charge for it...

Hao Ren resisted the urge to complain in his heart, and watched Leah skillfully check the gears and springs of the alchemy copper horse, and embedded new mana crystals in the back of the copper horse. After a few minutes of tinkering, the copper horse let out a harsh neigh, and the connecting rods and bearings in its belly ran happily.

"Let's go~" Leah jumped into the carriage, and at the same time extended an invitation to Elizabeth, who was standing next to Izhaks, "There's room for one more person on this, little kid, come with me~~"

Elizabeth was furious: "You're the little kid! You'll be a little kid forever!"

"Tch, if you don't want to sit, then don't. But you don't have to worry about walking all the way to your destination with me. Let's go to the livery stable in the west first and rent a horse for each of you. The place we're going to is not close."

The magician was obviously in a great mood, as if deliberately showing off that she had gathered a group of people, she even drove the highly conspicuous brass carriage around the entrance of the Mercenary Guild, and pulled the car's whistle loudly—Hao Ren quite suspected that if this guy was driving on Earth, she would become a high-beam dog and a horn dog, the kind who would be beaten to death within ten meters of going on the road.

After showing off, Leah started to do serious things. She helped Hao Ren and his party prepare the horses and luggage, and went to the store to replenish some commonly used casting materials and dry food needed for travel. Finally, she left the place almost under the farewell of the mercenaries in the city.

The expressions on the faces of those mercenaries who came to see them off upon hearing the news, "It's best to die outside and not come back," were not even concealed.

It's really not easy for a person to be as hated as Leah.

The towering city walls of White Maple Leaf City gradually moved away in the field of vision. Not long after leaving the city, the group left the main road and began to embark on the small paths and even animal trails rarely traveled by travelers, following Leah's guidance. Looking at the direction of progress, this route seemed to be parallel to the mountain range of Changfeng Ridge.

Leah's wonderful alchemy carriage once again showed an incredible side: it looked bulky, but it could drive exceptionally smoothly on the rugged paths. The copper horse, driven by gears and springs, walked on the barren paths as if walking on flat ground, even better than a real horse.

"This is an indispensable thing for me when I travel north and south," Leah pulled down the foldable roof of the carriage, which allowed her to chat more easily with Hao Ren and his party who were riding horses beside her. The magician patted the baffle of the carriage proudly, "I have ridden it to the deep mountains of Changfeng Ridge, to the hinterland of the Great Plains, and even through the Changfeng Ridge Great Tunnel, to the Hekluwei tribe kingdom on the opposite side of the mountains. Ah, only when you go out will you realize how big this world is. The things you can see in books are just a drop in the endless sea compared to the real world. Those stubborn people who shut themselves in magic towers all day will never understand."

Speaking of this, she smiled and glanced at Hao Ren: "Of course, you adventurers who run around all day definitely have more say in this regard than I do."

Looking at the magician's simple and cheerful smile, Hao Ren couldn't help but think of her heroic appearance when she was cursing at a group of people in front of the Mercenary Guild before.

It was like two different people.

It seems that except when she encounters something that really annoys her, this magician is still very approachable when facing friends or fields she is interested in.

The relic that Leah was looking for was of course impossible to be in a place where people come and go. In fact, its real distance from White Maple Leaf City was even farther than Leah had described at the beginning.

The group trekked in the wilderness for a full two days.

At noon on the third day, they finally arrived at the entrance of a forest.

This is a dense jungle adjacent to the Changfeng Ridge mountains. The mountains here take a turn, forming a recessed bow-shaped "shelter", and the towering ancient trees in this shelter are lush and vibrant. Countless ancient trees that are hundreds of years old or even longer stand here. The dense canopy blocks the sunlight, making the entire forest always as dim as dusk. Even though it was noon at this moment, Hao Ren and his party felt as if it was approaching evening not long after entering the forest.

Soon, they reached an area where ordinary horses could no longer go deeper: the ubiquitous vines and decaying leaves made riding more and more difficult. Rather than riding on a precarious horseback, it was better to trust your own legs.

After all, those standing here were not ordinary people.

Nangong Sanba engraved prohibitions on the surrounding tree trunks with Laita runes to prevent the horses from running around or wild animals from coming in and hurting everyone's mounts, while Leah turned the brass carriage back to the size of a palm and carefully put it back into her pocket. Before leading everyone to continue forward into the dense forest, she specifically mentioned: "It will be a bit dangerous further ahead. According to the records, that relic is not completely underground. Part of it is exposed, which may cause magical energy to leak out, and the creatures in the forest will become aggressive as a result."

Lily grumbled: "...It's really a cliché setting."

Leah didn't hear clearly for a moment: "Huh?"

Lily quickly rounded off her words: "Oh, I mean we are experienced!"

Hao Ren did not participate in the topic. He just concentrated his mind and carefully sensed any movement in the forest.

Because whether it was an illusion or not, from the moment he entered this place, he had always felt a sense of disharmony lingering in his heart. This feeling was difficult to describe. If he had to say it...

It was like suddenly falling into a slight trance, not understanding why he was standing in this place, and feeling inexplicable about the things happening around him, as if some kind of force was shielding his thinking and making his spirit sluggish.

This made him greatly increase his vigilance.