Chapter 406: Chapter 405 Seven Gods Mountain
“Human sorcerer, I quit fighting, I surrender!”
After a good while, the battle finally ended with Feyn’s surrender. After both sides ceased, the stone armor soldiers quickly retracted into his body, turning into complex patterns that merged into his flesh.
Once the stone armor soldiers dispersed, it revealed the dirt-smudged face of the Stone Tail clan leader.
“You have won, Sorcerer Ivan,” Feyn said without caring for the wounds on his body, shaking his dizzy head before speaking in a muffled tone.
“Aren’t you still standing?” Ivan asked with a tinge of regret.
“A loss is a loss, my Stone Tail tribe has always dared to act and admit defeat.” Feyn wasn’t foolish, he had been on the receiving end of the beating from start to finish; how could he hope to win if it continued?
…
“What about the thing you promised me?” Ivan inquired.
“We will definitely put forth our tribe’s full effort to help you find that mountain,” Feyn declared firmly, and seeing Ivan’s satisfied expression, he took the opportunity to probe, “See, can my tribespeople be released now?”
Ivan gestured to the swamp ant, who immediately understood and the remaining Stone Tail tribe warriors were finally freed.
The strong are respected everywhere, and this principle holds true no matter where you are.
Seeing the overwhelming strength of their opponent, with even the strongest clan leader having no power to retaliate, none of the other Stone Tail warriors dared question anything. They each lowered their heads and stood behind their clan leader, silently waiting for commands.
Ivan, however, didn’t underestimate the Stone people because of this. He knew this was just a small tribe from the Westernmost Land; judging from their village, it likely only had a population in the hundreds.
Such a small village had managed to raise a Level 3 powerhouse like Feyn. By that measure, the strength of the Stone people must be formidable indeed.
And the stone armor soldiers, surely Feyn didn’t have just that up his sleeve.
At this point, Ivan believed it was most prudent not to shed any blood.
“Clan Leader Feyn, Stone Tail warriors, I don’t know if you have ever heard of ‘Pan Ti Mountain’?”
“Pan Ti Mountain? I haven’t heard of it, and you?”
“No, no.”
In the face of Ivan’s questioning, Feyn and the others were at a loss; they clearly had not heard of such a mountain name.
Through further questioning, Ivan found out that originally there were indeed mountains connecting with mountains in the Rock Mining Land, but they had long been excavated by the Stone people, a large part of which was the work of the Stone Tail tribe themselves.
“What about Seven Gods Mountain?”
“Holy Mountain?”
“Golden High Mountain?”
“Mountain of Life?”
Name after name was mentioned, but all they got were shakes of the head from Feyn and the others.
It was only when the topic of the Centaur Race came up that they were able to speak a few sentences of related information, unaware that this place once had something to do with the Centaur Race, let alone that this might be the ancestral land of the Centaur ancestors.
In fact, before the Stone Tail tribe, there were other Stone tribes that occupied Pan Ti Mountain; the Stone Tail was one that relocated here later.
By now, Meg the old treant and Flame Scorpion had returned one after another. Watching the arrival of two beings not weak in aura, Feyn and his party dared not provoke further; many in their hearts hoped that these beings would not vent their anger on their tribe.
“What about you? Have you found anything?”
“We’ve been all around, both above ground and below, and there’s nothing notably unusual.”
Both Meg and Flame Scorpion did not bring any good news, proving this to be an ordinary location, and due to the Stone people’s reckless digging and altering, the environment was even worse than that of an ordinary place.
“Unusual? You are looking for unusual places?” The senior Stone Tail warrior Bar, who had previously questioned Ivan, spoke up.
“Do you have information about this?” Ivan’s heart stirred, and his gaze fixed intently on him.
“No, but we can go back to the tribe and ask.” For a moment, Bar felt immense pressure; he only hoped the other party could see the sincerity of his group, ensuring the best chance to prevent their anger from being directed at them.
As for the Hammer Stone Empire he hailed from, its stone race was beyond counting. If they had been deemed of any significance, they wouldn’t be dwelling in such a remote place.
Once disaster struck, by the time the empire reacted, it would already be too late.
“We are all warriors of the tribe, not often personally collecting rocks, so we don’t spend much time in the Rock Mining Area; if there are any minor anomalies, we wouldn’t notice.”
“You are indeed a thoughtful person.”
Ivan acknowledged his words and agreed to accompany them back to the tribe’s residence.
Soon, Ivan’s party and Feyn’s party arrived at the village of the Stone Tail Clan.
The settlement indeed was small, primarily built of various stones, and even the light sources they used were luminous unusual rocks.
The entire village had a distinct alien realm flair.
At Feyn’s call, all members of the Stone Tail Clan, men and women, young and old, converged on a small plaza, all possessing a formidable physique, aptly described as ‘broad-backed and wide-waisted.’
In the tribe, Feyn and Bar held considerable respect; the plaza was quiet, even with the presence of some foreigners nearby.
Bar sought Clan Leader Feyn’s approval with a glance and, receiving a nod, came forward to explain the purpose of the gathering and to ask if anyone had seen anything unusual in the Rock Mining Area behind them.
No matter how trivial, they were to speak up, with no responsibilities pursued.
After he finished speaking, Feyn hurriedly stood up to make a declaration that bygones would be bygones, and whoever spoke well would receive a valuable reward and personal guidance from himself.
“Clan Leader, I dug up a strange rock more than two months ago; it was red when I saw it, turned black in my hand, and then turned to powder. I didn’t report it.”
“Clan Leader, I discovered an unusual cave in the Rock Mining Area, went deep following its path, and found a beast egg. I was a bit hungry at the time and ate it.”
“——-”
“I, I once took a lazy nap in a secluded spot, not knowing how long I’d slept. When I woke up and opened my eyes, I saw a luminous mountain appear before me, giving me quite the scare, as there clearly had been no mountain there before.”
As the Stone Tail Clan members began to speak all at once, Ivan stood to the side of the plaza, saying nothing the whole time.
About half a quarter of an hour later, he heard a piece of interesting news and couldn’t help but step forward.
“Little Daisy, why haven’t we heard you mention this before?” Bar, catching on, began to ask carefully.
“That mountain was made of colorful light and floated in mid-air; it didn’t seem real and vanished in the blink of an eye. I thought I was seeing things,” the young girl explained, shrinking her neck.
If she had mentioned it before, her slacking off would have been exposed.
Now that the Clan Leader had promised not to pursue the matter and personal teaching was on offer for useful information, she spoke out on impulse. Had she known, she wouldn’t have said anything at all.
“Come to think of it, I seem to have seen it about thirty or so years ago; it was a mountain covered in colorful lights, not very tall, and its presence vanished just as quickly.”
“I remember seeing it too, only a set of brightly colored steps; I walked towards it and it disappeared, at the time I thought it was some kind of projected illusion.”
They wouldn’t have known if Daisy hadn’t brought it up; quite a few people had seen similar phenomena.
All of them were fleeting sightings; some thought it was just their eyes playing tricks on them, others believed it to be a reflection of some light, so none really paid it any mind or mentioned it to others afterward.
Ivan listened to each story.
This could be the Holy Mountain hiding itself, casting a mental influence on those who had seen it, making them involuntarily overlook what they witnessed.
Then, he began to inquire personally, with focused guidance, asking more thoroughly, gathering all intelligence that clearly indicated the ‘Fake Mountain’ in the Stone Tail Clan’s words was indeed the Seven Gods Mountain, the Mountain of Life, the Golden High Mountain that the Centaur Race yearned for.