Richard walked out from Eden, found the butler Jia Lie with a serious expression, and instructed him.
"Jia Lie, I need to go on a long trip now."
"A long trip?" Jia Lie was taken aback.
"Yes, a long trip. Don’t ask where specifically I’m going; just manage the estate well while I’m away.
If someone visits me, like Bobbobovic or Joseph, tell them I’m leaving to search for a rare material due to research reasons, and might not return for some time.
If they’re not in a hurry, they can wait awhile before seeking me out; if they are, they can leave a letter. I’ll contact them promptly after I return and read the letters. Got it?" Richard asked.
After hearing this, Jia Lie nodded vigorously as he looked at Richard: "Got it."
"Good." Richard lightly patted Jia Lie’s shoulder and turned to leave.
After walking a few steps, something came to mind, Richard paused, turned back to look at Jia Lie and instructed again: "Oh right, Jia Lie, while I’m away, keep an eye on the craftsmen, especially those carpenters and blacksmiths, as many as possible. They might come in handy when I return."
"Craftsmen? Carpenters, blacksmiths?" Jia Lie repeated, nodding to indicate he’d remembered, and said, "Master, don’t worry, I’ll get it done."
"That’s good, I believe in you." Richard said, turned and left the Blue Lake Estate, swiftly heading west.
Day quickly passed, night fell.
The night rose from all directions, gradually shrouding the world, then under the rotation of the stars above, accompanied by the cold night breeze, it slowly dispersed again.
In the last moments of night wandering, when dawn was about to arrive but hadn’t yet, Richard appeared in a forest around New Shambala Town.
This was a very inconspicuous forest, densely packed with trees, wild grass everywhere, looking no different from other places.
Richard paused, stood in a small clearing in the forest.
Surrounding the clearing, numerous broken tree branches were visible, and the grass on the ground showed signs of being scorched; taking a deep breath, Richard could vaguely sense the spell energy wafting in the air.
Hot, fierce, cold, sharp...
Clearly, there had been a battle here where the victor cleaned up the battlefield, hiding the losers’ bodies, not wanting too much information to be discovered by newcomers. However, the person cleaning the battlefield wasn’t very professional, or perhaps hadn’t expected someone to find this place so soon. So the cleanup was rather crude, leaving some obvious traces.
Richard, looking at the battle remnants on the clearing, squinted slightly, his mind working, attempting to reconstruct the scenes that once occurred here.
"This should be the core of the battlefield, where the most battle traces are left..."
"There was brief combat here..."
"Someone or some creature fell here..."
Murmuring to himself for a while, Richard stepped towards the edge of the clearing, stopping before a large tree that took a person’s arms to encircle, he surveyed around, nodding: "If I’m not mistaken, the bodies should be buried here."
"Alright then, let me see what kind of Demonized Beasts can spread Erosive Energy and use radiation to pollute the environment." Richard said, "Let me see how they manage to do that."
As he spoke, Richard bent over, pressed one hand onto the ground.
With a thought, Free Energy Elements from the magic origin quickly flowed out, released through his fingers, taking effect, spell forming.
A deep sound echoed in the forest as if a bullhide battle drum had been struck and the ground beneath Richard’s palm suddenly "swished," seemed to be overwhelmed, sunk downward abruptly.
Richard lifted his hand, extraordinary power directed, and the soil within several meters squirmed continuously, shifting towards the sides, moving away as though living from the spot beneath Richard’s palm.
In just a few seconds, the earth was carved over thirty centimeters deep.
A layer of soil slightly darkened now exposed, stained by blood, dark and penetrating, as if the night was hiding within.
Approaching closer, Richard distinctly felt erosive energy constantly emanating from within, its concentration stronger than he had sensed from Joseph before.
Clearly, this was the source of energy contaminating Joseph.
Richard took a deep breath, dropped his arm, a short wand slipped out from his sleeve, "pop" as it was grasped in his hand.
The end of the short wand swiftly cut through the air, a slight whistling sound echoed, another spell fell on the ground around.
"Swish! Swish! Swish!"
Noisy sounds continued as the ground rapidly sank layer by layer, more soil pushed aside by extraordinary power.
Soon, a large pile of Demonized Beast corpses buried a meter beneath the earth was all exposed.
Demonized Wild Boar, Demonized Fox, Demonized Wild Wolf, Demonized Rat...
Richard widened his eyes, identifying one by one.
After identification, Richard took out a pair of white animal skin gloves from the space iron ring, put them on his hands, grasped a Demonized Rat’s body and dragged it to the nearby ground.
Richard’s eyes revealed a blue glow, casting "Eye of Gaze," using vision to thoroughly observe the body’s state, from the head slowly scanning to the tail, pausing slightly in the body’s midsection.
"Seems there’s something." Richard murmured, flipped his hand and took out a single-edged black scalpel from the space iron ring, aiming it at the Demonized Rat’s abdomen, he cut downwards.
"Slash, slash, slash..."
The Demonized Rat’s fur was quite tough, Richard applied considerable force on the black scalpel, yet it wasn’t very smooth.
"The body’s toughness has greatly increased." Richard muttered, hesitating the next moment, put away the knife, waved his hand, and a black wind blade over ten centimeters long appeared at his fingertips.
Maneuvering the wind blade to descend on the Demonized Rat, with a "swish," he easily sliced open the body, exposing the internal structure.
In the stomach, several black stones the size of fingers slowly slid out, "pop" as they fell on the ground.
Richard pinched one black stone between two fingers, immediately sensing a higher concentration of erosive energy or radiation, his eyebrows raised involuntarily.
Seems to be some mineral chewed by the Demonized Rat and unable to digest, thus left in the body.
If it’s indeed stone, then where did it come from?
Indeed, Shambala Town nearby is a gathering place for mining; most probably it came from some mine there.
If that’s the case...
Richard stood up, pondered earnestly for a while, quickly tidied up the surrounding environment, reverting it back to how it was before he arrived, then left the forest and headed towards Shambala Town not far away.