<h4>Chapter 7: Chapter 7</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>Nyoi_Bo_Studio <strong>Editor: </strong>Nyoi_Bo_Studio


    Sui Xiong had great patience. Or, more likely, after traveling through space to this strange world, wandering in the vast sea, and absorbing magic in the ice trench, he had perfected the skill of patience.


    So he spent five days next to the weird vacant space, watching. During these five days, he rarely moved and always carefully observed his surroundings. Through observation, he was able to sum up thew of magic in the woods—it was actually quite simple: the magic was weakest at noon and strongest at midnight, and this cycle went on endlessly.


    In addition, he finally understood why there was such verdant nt life in the woods and so few animals and insects. Every night, the thick magical power killed many of the animals and insects, and their carcasses slowly seeped into the earth. Perhaps those ck skulls and skeletons were actually the umted debris.


    The thick magicte at night had no effect on Sui Xiong. His body had long gathered the ice magic with such a staggering concentration that it had reached its limit. It even got to the point that his body continued to lose magic as he produced more every day. Because it could no longer be condensed and stored, it had to be dispersed out of his body.


    Only this concentrated ice magic wasparable to the magic fog in the woods at night, and only the ck fog (which became much thicker above the ck vacant space) would be stronger than the magic dispersed by him.


    He also discovered something: the ck skeletons seemed to be resentful of all creatures except nts. As soon as insects or animals came close to them at night, they would attack wildly, kick, scratch and bite, intending to kill them. But they turned a blind eye to Sui Xiong, who was quite close to them, as if he didn’t exist. Maybe this was because the body that he was in was actually already “dead”.


    After observing for a few days in session, Sui Xiong felt that he had collected enough information and finally chose one day at noon to dig underneath the ck vacant space as the sun shone splendidly. What he saw met his expectations: a bunch of dark ck bones when he only dug a bit at the surface. They weren’tplete skeletons, but a variety of bone fragments.


    “It seems that the skeletons temporarily pile up at night.” Sui Xiong watched the bones as they faded slowly from dark ck to light grey in the sun, and he nodded secretly. He didn’t move the bones, nor did he fill the burrowed hole until the next night.


    As he had guessed, the faded bones didn’t turn into skeletons that night, although the magical powers of the woods still clung to the vacant space. The bones simply rattled all night long.


    The next day was once again sunny. The bones faded even more in the sun, and they shook with an even weaker sound at night. So Sui Xiong almost fully understood now. He no longer observed and left.


    He walked alone in the ck woods, moving by day and resting at night. Along the way he could, from time to time, see those ck vacant spaces that he suspected had skeletons buried beneath them. He also tried attacking the ck skeletons and found that they were very weak. He could destroy them by sweeping them away, without using magic.


    “This is a good thing,” Sui Xiong smiled and said to himself after destroying another group of ck skeletons. “It seems that this world is not very dangerous.” So after walking for another five or six days, he finally saw the long-awaited traces of people.


    It was a small vige built on a vast open space. This space was clearly the result of man-made deforestation, as it was surrounded by many stumps. Many of the traces of deforestation on the stumps were still new, and some vigers were working hard to cut down the ck woods and extend a cleared space for survival.


    This was a small vige, with small cabins forming a circle around a significantly taller stone house that was surrounded by wells. A strange cross-shaped statue was erected on the roof of the stone house, which was formed by a horizontal dagger and a vertical eye. The strange statue made Sui feel somewhat ufortable. It wasn’t a feeling of danger, but pure disgust. It was a feeling simr to Hindus seeing fried steaks, or Muslims seeing rice with pork, or foodies seeing microwave dinners, or animal activist seeing someone eat live shrimp... This statue was really cursed, and he did not like it!


    The vige looked quite normal except for the upsetting statue. The vige was surrounded by wooden fences that wererge and tall like massive walls. The stone house was somewhat crudely built, but it used ample materials so that people knew it was strong when they saw it. Also, the vigers who were walking around wore somewhat shabby clothes. Apparently, they weren’t particrly wealthy.


    The entire vige had only one exit, guarded by a tall and strong bald man. Although the man didn’t wear armor, he carried a big ax that appeared to be heavy. He seemed quite powerful. He vigntly kept watch and never left his post. He seemed to be a very responsible man.


    Pieces of farnd surrounded the vige. The farnd was nted with a kind of vine that Sui Xiong didn’t recognize. The vines had neither flowers nor fruits, only pieces of grey-green leaves.Looking closely, he found that the leaves had vague golden veins, which emitted a slightly golden color when reflecting the sunshine.


    There were also farmers working in the farnd. They were mainly women and children doing strange work: they didn’t plough or fertilize the soil or weed or catch insects, but instead carefully sprinkled a spoonful of water on the leaves of the vines. From time to time, they would scoop out water from the wooden casks,rge or small, that they carried on their back or arm and sprinkle it onto the vines.


    The spoons they used were quite small. Ten or more spoonfuls of water were roughly equal to an ordinary person’s mouthful of water. It was clear that they cherished the water when taking it from the wooden cask, as they often paid careful attention to it for a while before watering the vines. The origin of the water was quite extraordinary, and the water needed to be obtained through special rituals.


    The rituals went like this: every ten days or so, a few young girls wearing ck robes gathered in front of the main entrance of the stone house in the evening and chanted incantations while circling a huge pot. A live chick hung from a wooden shelf above the pot, and they chanted incantations until the moon rose. Then they cut the neck of the unlucky chick and let the blood flow into the pot, mixing with a pot of water. Then they continued their incantations. Not until midnight did they carry the pot into the stone house.


    More than once, Sui Xiong tried to see what they were going to do with the pot once it was inside. But something in his soul prevented him from entering the stone house, as if a tough beast hide was stopping him.


    He only knew that the next day, the vigers got a bucket of well water when the moon was rising and ced it in the moonlight for a night before delivering it to the stone house before sunrise. Some unknown process would ur, and on the third day, the water used for the vines was avable in the stone house.


    Sui Xiong spected that there must be some type of pharmacists or magicians living inside the stone house who instructed the little girls to cast magic on the well water so that it had special powers to promote the growth of the vines. Of course, maybe the man who never left the stone house was actually a secluded chef who had mastered the essence of a thousand-year-old cooking technique. Perhaps he could create fantastic vors when stewing a pot of chicken blood, and even the vines could sense this and grow.


    Sui Xiong felt that in this magical world, anything was possible. Well, by any rate, he must taste this chicken blood soup!


    In addition to the special water used for the vines, vigers of course also drew water from the well for daily use. Sui Xiong noticed that although there was a small river not far from the vige, no one went to the river to use its water. All people drank, cooked, and used well water.


    Perhaps this was rted to the ubiquitous chaotic and turbid magic in the woods. ording to his observations, the closer a ce was to the vige, the weaker the turbulent magic in the woods would be. But a somewhat ufortable atmosphere would linger over the vige. Perhaps it was this atmosphere that annoyed him which allowed the vigers to resist the all-epassing chaos of the magic in the ck woods and avoid being harmed.


    But this defensive effect was apparently limited. Everyte afternoon, both the lumberjacks and the farmers hurried back to the vige and locked the door, and a group of young men with hammers or axes came to the cabins on the two sides of the main gate and took turns to keep watch.


    During this time, the uncanny atmosphere at the center of the vige would be much stronger, shrouding the entire vige. The vines in the fields would also emit a slight golden light. It was quite different from the atmosphere, rejecting the chaotic magic inherent in the ck woods. The twoplemented each other, guarding this little vige.


    Sui Xiong, hiding in the depths of the woods dozens of miles away, sensed from afar the vige’s predicament weighing on his soul. He found that the main work of the vigers, besides logging and farming, was raising chickens . However, they never ate the chickens. The chickens were purely a sacrifice. He also studied the vines, and strangely, the vines echoed the ufortable atmosphere. But when he touched the vines with his soul, he didn’t feel any repulsive force. They just seemed to be ordinary vines.


    Obviously, there was something mysterious going on. Unfortunately, he was unable tomunicate with the vigers because of thenguage barrier. He had to hide his doubts in his mind and intended to ask for details only after they had established a friendship.


    Sui Xiong was in no hurry toe into contact with the vigers and instead had opted to observe their lives from afar. He’d been observing for a long time and finally confirmed that the vigers’ lives were rather tedious. Rarely had he seen anything in the way of entertainment or recreation. Every day that they weren’t logging, they were farming, living a life devoid of fun.


    The strange people in this world seemed to lead a hard life! Day after day, they repeated simpleborious tasks and never rested. Like a group of industrious ants, they tried to run their own little territory withoutziness or rxation. Sui Xiong silently watched them, waiting for the right opportunity to approach them.


    He didn’t want to rush into contact with these people. For one thing, he didn’t know thenguage of these people, so they simply could notmunicate; for another thing, his appearance was monstrous, and he was afraid that when he appeared he would scare these people to death. Maybe they would surround him andunch a desperate fight.


    He knew nothing about the customs and practices of this world. However, by putting himself in their shoes, he knew that a normal person, when faced with a big monster speaking a differentnguage, would try to either escape or fight. If anyone were rash enough to be friendly to the monster, that person would either be a protagonist full of love and courage like in fairy tales, or a deity from a cartoon. Either way, none of the people in this vige seemed like the type.


    After a while, the vines in the fields grew thicker and the golden veins on the leaves became more apparent. When the vigers saw them, their faces often shed a smile, presumably with hopeful joy for a plentiful harvest. But it was strange that they often showed fear and unease too, which Sui Xiong found quite surprising.


    After a period of time, they stopped logging. Guided by the bald janitor, all young adults, men, and women startedbat training, improving their skills with an ax and hammer. Many others were busy making shields with wood as if they were preparing for a fight. Sui Xiong curiously observed them and couldn’t understand what was causing their concern or whom they were trying to go to war with.


    But he was a little happy—judging by the vigers’ preparations, it was foreseeable that the uing battle would be very dangerous. As long as he appeared as a friendly party, he wouldn’t be treated as an unwee enemy.


    This was exactly the chance he had been waiting for!