Chapter 210: Warm up before the battle...
The Witcher Trial in various senses is divided into four parts. Everyone present knows this: [Choice] of physical training, [Green Grass Trial] and [Green Grass Trial] of physiological and genetic mutations. Dream Trial], and the final exam-like [Mountain Trial].
The first three trials are similar, except for the final [Mountain Trial], different schools have different methods. Some schools will let the apprentice hunt a small monster such as a water ghost alone as a test for the career of a demon hunter, and some schools will throw the apprentice into a dark monster lair to let him survive the night.
Naturally, Lann has not passed the [Alpine Trial], or Jaylon regards Lann's achievements on the mainland as his [Alpine Trial]. This answer is indeed more dazzling than other demon hunter apprentices. many.
The Wolf Faction's [Mountain Trial] involves passing through the cave where "Old Spearhead" lives, going to the Ring of Elements to absorb the magical energy there to strengthen his seal, and obtain the Wolf Faction's badge. It’s just that the cyclops living in dark caves have extremely sharp senses, so many apprentices who survived the high mortality rate of the witcher mutation ended up dying tragically at the hands of cyclops whose strength they should not face.
This trial is very dangerous, but the Ring of Elements does have its own unique features, making it worth the risk for the apprentices. Although it cannot essentially enhance the power of the Wolf School's seal to obtain a seal ability comparable to that of the Griffin School, it can give the Demon Hunter's seal some other special effects.
Lambert said: "My [Axi Seal] has undergone gratifying changes. When I first debuted, I encountered two robbers. One of them was pointing a crossbow at me, and the other was turning over me. pocket. I used [Yaxsi Sign] to let the guy with the crossbow shoot his companion to death, and then let him hang himself on a tree." This effect is particularly impressive for
Ke, who is from the Griffin School. En couldn't help but take a breath when he heard it. Making the hypnotic effect of [Axxi Sign] strong enough to make the caster commit suicide without defense is something that even Lan can't do now.
For the sake of the Ring of Elements, Old Spearhead has another way to kill himself!
.........
After dinner, the moon rises above the branches.
This time is naturally not the right time to go out hunting for demons. The ecology of Kaer Morhen is excellent. There are not only small monsters such as water ghosts and evil ghosts, but also real monsters with magical abilities such as swamp witches, harpies, and mist monsters, and even fork-tailed dragons. These large monsters also appear frequently.
Most of them are nocturnal animals. Therefore, even if everyone in the Wolf Faction couldn't wait to hunt Old Spearhead, they had to wait until the next day.
In the dead of night, there was a knock on Lan En's door again.
"Dong dong dong——"
The soundproofing of the room was not very good, and Lan had already heard the soft footsteps at the door.
As soon as he opened the door, as he expected, Triss stood in front of him with a smile on his face.
The sorceress' long fiery red hair seemed to be unable to hide its color even in the darkness. It reflected the candlelight in Lann's house and also stirred people's heartstrings.
"I didn't come to see you during the day because I thought that Ciri would miss you very much, and you would need some space to be alone." It was late at night, and Triss spoke softly, as if she was worried about disturbing the people in the castle. other people.
"You don't miss me?"
"Ha, after all, I met you in Novigrad and...we've been together for a while." "
So you don't miss me?"
Triss choked and showed a helpless smile. : "So I 'm here."
After saying this, Triss added: "I also went to see Shiri just now and talked with her..." "
What did you talk about?"
Liz recalled: "A lot. About our past and how we will get along in the future. I have always wanted to treat her as a sister. She is very smart, and some things are unavoidable. We chatted for a long time, and finally she let I came to find you..."
Lann chuckled: "You regard her as a sister? But as far as I know, her relationship with Yennefer is more like a master and apprentice, or even mother and daughter - and you and Yennefer They are best friends again. Is this seniority too confusing?"
Triss stomped on Lan's foot: "If you say so, what does it mean for you and Geralt? You are also a demon hunter, You are an immortal. When you get older you will know that this kind of thing is very common!"
So how old are you? Lann didn't ask this question, fearing that he would really be hit by a fireball.
Enough of the small talk. Triss put her hands on her hips and looked at the dark castle corridor, then looked inside Lann's room: "Aren't you going to invite me in?"
Lann thought for a while and said coyly: "The soundproofing of this room is not very good. Okay, and I have to go out to hunt monsters tomorrow."
"It doesn't matter, I just want to check if you have lost your magic practice. There won't be much movement, and it won't take too much time... Just chat. Let’s talk.”
Lann sighed longly: “That’s impossible to say.”
In the corridor of the castle, the only long red hair that could illuminate the darkness a little bit disappeared with a whoosh, and then there was a sound from the room. There was a slight knock on the door.
Then, a violent and orderly wave of magic spread out from the room, and all sounds suddenly disappeared.
It seems that learning magic is still necessary.
The clouds in the sky are driven away by the moonlight. The moon seems to be particularly excited tonight, and the light it sheds is also particularly dazzling. There is an evening breeze licking the trees in the mountains, and even in winter there are signs of early spring here.
With a "tick" sound, water droplets fell from the branches into the stream. The snow in the mountains seems to have begun to melt, and the ice blocking the water source has begun to disintegrate, allowing the water to become turbulent, surging, and gushing out again.
…………
The next day, early morning.
Lan raised his head and drank a bottle of [Tawny Owl], which is an alchemical potion used to restore magic power and vitality in battle. Blue veins appeared faintly around his eyes, making his face look even paler.
Seeing Lan's behavior, Kolgrim wondered: "Is it too early to drink the potion now?"
Lan's alchemy skill [Patience Improvement] has been maxed out, and this level of toxicity has long been gone. Not taken seriously by him. But of course he couldn't explain it to his Snake sect partners like this.
After thinking about it, he said: "You know, I rarely drink magic potions in battle. But this is unavoidable, so I want to adapt in advance to avoid making mistakes." After saying this,
Lan Regardless of Kolgrim's reaction, he pulled down the hood of the great griffin's cloak and rode to the front of the group.
Kaer Morhen was not fully mobilized: Ciri remained in the castle, and it was too early for her to embark on this level of demon hunting. Yennefer stayed to continue Ciri's magic lessons, unwilling to miss the child's homework for a day.
Triss also volunteered to stay and look after the house, but no one said anything.
Even without two sorceresses who can be used as combatants, this team is still huge - two griffons, four wolves, four snakes, plus Mossak, the druid, give such a team Given enough time, they could even defeat a small or medium-sized country without any damage.
Such a team is currently running up the mountain road of Kaer Morhen.
Across a small cliff-side hillside. Looking from under the rotten wooden fence at the edge, one can see the green space covered with light snow, the swaying pine forest, and the mist-shrouded hillside in the distance.
The clear springs in the mountains have begun to thaw, and the sound of gurgling water can be heard from where everyone is. This clear spring passes through the canyon and merges into a wider river.
"Today's journey was surprisingly smooth." Vesemir walked at the front of the team. "Since a few days ago... about a month ago, the monsters in this forest have become particularly energetic. Many of them have the habit of hibernating. All the hybrid beasts have come out to run wild, and from time to time at night we can hear their roars of hunger or screams of pain, disturbing our dreams."
Hearing the old demon hunter's sentiments, Lan couldn't help but agree. . This topic has been brought up many times, but this time it attracted Lann's attention.
If this is the case only in the local areas of Redania or Pontar, that's nothing. But if this was the case even on the Kaedwen border, and the time of the monster commotion was coincidentally a month ago, then Lan couldn't help but not pay attention.
Because this shows that this "monster riot" situation may not be a regional event, but a worldwide event. Maybe Sintra needs to pay more attention to it.
.........
A few black dots in the sky that looked like crows hovered above the heads of Lan En and his group, squeaking and chirping. But if you look closer, you can see that these winged guys still have human shapes.
Harpy, a type of [Hybrid Beast]. Compared with the gryphon, which is also a [hybrid beast], this monster is obviously much smaller in size and has worse melee combat capabilities. But they have a strange magical ability that can steal the dreams of creatures and turn them into crystals. Adventurers are keen to find the harpies' lairs and steal these crystals to sell.
——Although they don't know how to read the dreams in these crystals, they know that the quality of these crystals is the best.
Lambert was annoyed by the noise from these harpies. He took out his crossbow and wanted to aim at the sky. However, these harpies seemed to know that such a large group of demon hunters was not easy to mess with, and they hovered accurately within the range of the crossbow. Outside, Lambert was not allowed to take advantage of him.
Lann chuckled lightly, took out a longbow as tall as a man with his left hand, pulled out the rattling bow string in a burst of tooth-aching sound, aimed for a moment, and then - "Whoosh." The arrow was difficult to see with the naked
eye
. The speed he saw turned into a falling meteor and shot straight into the sky. With a shrill scream, a harpy fell down with flying feathers.
The annoying sounds in the sky suddenly disappeared, and the sky suddenly became clean. Lan immediately checked the shot down harpy. It was still flapping with energy.
This is an extremely ferocious monster. When the harpy was in the sky, you could still vaguely see the body curves of a girl, but when you look up close, it makes you sick to the point of retching. It also has a sharp beak on its face and a bare forehead; its wings are indeed beautiful, but its limbs and trunk are as wrinkled as old tree bark, with sparse feathers scattered around.
Seeing the arrow piercing the harpy's throat, Lambert couldn't help but whistle: "Good bow, good arrow skills!"
Sensing that Lambert seemed to be interested in his mahogany bow, Lan shrugged He handed it over with a shrug. Seeing the wolf sect demon hunter using all his strength to unstretch the bow string, but there was still a gap of three or four points from the full string, Lan couldn't help but joked: "If you let this
bow go empty, then Just give me a new one."
Drawing the bow loosely refers to loosening the string without an arrow after drawing the bow. This will cause all the force originally used to support the arrow to fly out, causing damage to the bow and greatly shortening the service life of the bow. For some bows that are at the critical point of being scrapped, there may even be a situation where the bow explodes, causing a large number of bows to explode. Fragments of wood fiber shot towards the archer's face, causing life-threatening consequences.
Lambert's face turned red due to the exertion. In the end, he had no choice but to carefully slowly lower the bowstring back to its original position and praised again: "Good bow. You also have good strength. I heard that the Griffin School should specialize in seals. I didn't expect it." There will be such good shooting skills."
"I am a knight. Is it normal for a knight to be good at shooting?" Lann shrugged.
This sentence elicited a response from Cohen. Apparently, this fellow of the Griffin School had also studied this skill under Kelda's teachings.
"Then knight, I would like to ask what should we do with the body of this harpy? We don't want to waste time dissecting this body here." "It's very simple. Let's talk about it when we go back." Lann stretched out his hand to hold down the
eagle
. The corpse of a banshee was put into the [Inventory] in a flash of light.
This move caused everyone from the Wolf Sect who saw it for the first time to whisper in awe, while everyone from the Snake Sect who had long been accustomed to it had a sense of superiority for some reason.
Lambert turned his attention to Cohen: "Can you?"
Cohen's own eyes at this moment were incredulous: "This is not the method of the Griffin School... It should be the source of magic? Or the blood of the ancients?"
Lambert fell into deep thought: "Does this mean that Ciri will also learn it in the future? It is really convenient to learn this skill when going out."
Lann laughed mischievously: "Maybe, you can look forward to it. Mossack
and Vesemir looked at each other and shook their heads helplessly at the entertainment activities of the "young people" in front of them.
"Okay, okay, boys, stop fooling around. It's rare that we have so many people today, so these monsters don't dare to approach." Vesemir said matter-of-factly, "Some time ago, we didn't even dare to let Ciri... People running in the forest must follow Geralt and one other young man whenever they go out." "It's
lucky that no monsters come out to attack now. We just seize the time and hurry up."
Indeed, living near Kaer Morhen After such a long time, no matter how low-intelligence the monster is, it still has a basic instinct of seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages. If it were a lone wolf from the Wolf Faction who usually acted alone, there might really be monsters without eyes coming out to attack. But this mighty group of people is really intimidating, and their number alone is greater than that of some small beast groups.
You must know that wolves and water ghosts also come in groups of three to five, and a normal demon hunter can pick off such a small group by himself, let alone so many demon hunters gathered together.
So it's no wonder that the road today was so calm.
But everyone in the Wolf Faction knows that when the older generation lectures, young people who are short-sighted will always come out to refute.
But this time it was not a young man who retorted to Vesemir, but a slightly distorted voice -
"Ah!! Help, help!!"
This immediately aroused everyone's vigilance.
The voice sounded like that of a little boy, and the cry for help was so pitiful that no one with good intentions would remain indifferent. But the sound was strangely filled with a sense of distortion.
In Mossak's words: "It seems to be a sound produced by a projection produced by a magic communication device, or to be more direct - it is a sound simulated by magic." Who is not an experienced person present
? Hunter, "wilderness", "little boy", "magic simulation" and "help", when these elements are connected, who doesn't know what's going on?
"Little mist demon." The experienced Vesemir said firmly.
Perhaps because Lann was young, and I heard that he had not received a complete education in the witcher system, Vesemir played his role as a mentor: "The little mist demon is a
kind of corpse-eating creature that often appears in Swamps, mountain passes, or coasts. They are monsters that can create clouds and mist, and can disappear in the mist anytime and anywhere, and then launch sneak attacks without warning. Use [Alder's Seal] to damage them more effectively."
Lan En had actually read the monster illustrations carefully, but he was still willing to cooperate with the elders' teachings, nodding cheerfully as if he was learning.
At this time, everyone had arrived at the lake in the middle of the canyon. There happened to be a medium-sized swamp. To get to the cave where the old spearhead was located, they still needed to be transported by a small boat.
There was mist steaming by the lake. This was a normal sight at the lake with heavy humidity, but combined with the cry for help coming from not far away and Vesemir's popular science, it all seemed a little bit like a horror and suspense movie. smell.
But this time, maybe the demon hunters are the "terrible."
"Ah! Help!!"
The cry for help continued.
Lambert took a long breath. He was particularly excited today: "This is just a warm-up exercise before dealing with Old Spearhead. There will not be more than three little fog monsters in the same area. Which of you is interested in coming together?" Lann thought for a while
. , raised his hand: "I just don't have [Little Mist Demon Decoction] yet, I'll make up for it this time."
Others showed no interest in this, but they expressed their willingness to rob the formation for the two of them to avoid being attacked by surprise.
Everyone searched vigorously following the cry for help, and soon a little boy appeared in front of them.
"Ah!! Help!!!"
This was a little boy about ten years old, no taller than Lan's waist, naked to the waist and without shoes, like a child from an Orion family who strayed into the forest.
The witcher's badge on his chest vibrated slightly.
Before Lann could react, Lambert strode forward and shouted in an emotional voice: "Oh! Boy, what's wrong with you? Are you okay?" Not far away, Geralt and
Ai Skar looked at each other and shook his head helplessly.
The surrounding fog became thicker and thicker, and the little boy's cry for help became louder and louder.
Lambert came closer and suddenly saw the little boy's face clearly, and his eyes trembled.
His expression suddenly became sad and gentle, but his wrist became stronger. He pulled out the long sword from behind and murmured: "It's okay, you're safe." "
Ah! No, no, help!!"
The little boy's body suddenly trembled with distortion, and he turned into a phantom like a phantom. The gray slowly fades away.
Immediately afterwards, a ferocious monster that was taller than Lambert suddenly jumped out from the mist.
Although the little mist demon has the word "small" in its scientific name, its body shape is not slender. Even with a stooped body, he is still about two meters tall. His head accounts for almost a quarter of his body, but his limbs are extremely slender. It has pointed ears like a bat, and a layer of skin seems to have been torn off its face, leaving its eyeballs, nostrils, and gums nakedly exposed.
What was more shocking than its ugly appearance were its claws. Lambert knew that those claws could compete head-on with the sharp sword in his hand.
Without hesitation, Lambert added a [Quen's Seal] to himself. He swung his sword and slashed. The tip of the sword cut through the air with a harsh roar, but only chopped one phantom into pieces.
The rickety figure dwarfed and blended into the mist that was everywhere around him.
"Hey! Lann, does the Griffin School have any way to deal with this kind of scenario?"
Lann raised his left hand slowly and made a special gesture: "Vesemir seems to have said that this monster is afraid of [Ald Seal]? This happens to be what I'm good at."
[Alder Sweep·Magic Burst]!
A large alchemical bomb seemed to have been dropped on the shore, and the huge impact expanded in all directions with Lann as the center. The soil and turf were roughly lifted up and thrown away, and even a not-so-thick pine tree was uprooted; the lake water more than ten steps away seemed to have been hit by a heavy hammer from the air and suddenly dented, with a "crashing" sound. A small waterfall was set off and a few wild fish were startled.
Of course, the fog around the lake was cleared away, and the sight suddenly became clear.
Three lonely little mist demons were hunched over, exposed in front of everyone like little girls without clothes.
Vesemir calmed the frightened horse, looked at the sunken soil around Lann's body, and twitched the corner of his mouth slightly: "The [Alder Seal] I'm talking about is not this kind...forget it. , anyway, the effect is no different."
Geralt and Eskar looked towards Cohen.
The demon hunter of the Griffin School, who had been away from Kael Siren for a long time, said hesitantly: "Master Kelda should also be able to do this..."
(End of this chapter)