Pillar of Yita

He stretched out his hand, the rain had almost stopped, and turning his head he saw a tall trainee boy draped in an oilcloth cloak, nailing nails on the roof.

Luo Yu saw the group and took the long metal nail from his mouth, greeted them somewhat silently, ”Good morning, Mr. Reed, Ade.”

”And what about me?” the Papalarian asked, jumping up and down with his hand raised.

”You too, Parker.”

”Haha,” the little fellow was extremely pleased.

”You need to make it sturdier this time,” Tianlan looked up and couldn’t help but give some earnest advice, ”It can’t leak again, you know, the rain almost reached my bed yesterday, I was about to go crazy.”

Luo Yu didn’t argue, just nodded his head.

Fang Hong thought more deeply and asked, ”Was the damage severe?”

Luo Yu shook his head, grabbed a handful of bone arrows, and threw them out from the platform. ”It’s alright, just hit by a few arrows, just need to patch up the gaps. The key issue is still the combat from two days ago, I’ll think of a way to repair the drawbridge when it clears up. Also, last night Mr. Greyrock made too many high-speed turns, I’m not yet sure if it affected the support structure and the load-bearing of the Guy Crystal, I still need to check that.”

”If there’s a problem with the support frame or the load-bearing system, do we have to stop?” Fang Hong asked worriedly frowning, ”How long would repairs take?”

”It won’t be fixed in a week or two,” Luo Yu shook his head, ”Such work is best done with a dedicated workshop and a crane to lift the platform, especially if there’s a fracture in the support, so regular checks are even more important.”

Fang Hong nodded at his words. He walked up to the Fore Saddle Bridge, inspecting a mechanical Xiangzi there, which was the core of the platform, with pipes underneath it connecting the buoyancy devices of the front and rear Guy Crystals along the back of the Beast of Burden; inside the box, the Main Crystal was loaded, and the dashboard on top displayed the condition of the entire system.

Inspecting this device used to be one of Luo Yu’s regular duties, but since he came, it naturally fell to him as an alchemist. Fang Hong looked at the data on the instruments, most of which were normal, only the Magic Meter was a bit problematic, so he released a Clockwork Fairy to inspect the Magic Storage Crystal under the platform, and found it to be fine.

It seemed to be an issue with the dashboard itself.

The combat from the previous night evidently had some impact on the platform.

The platform’s own weight was too great, and the wooden structure not sturdy, if not for the Guy Crystal device acting as a buffer, the mere jolting from Mr. Greyrock’s daily walking could have dismantled it. Even so, the high-load motion still had a significant impact on the precise instruments above.

If they had the technology from the Tasya people, it would have been better.

With this thought lingering vaguely in his mind, Fang Hong couldn’t prioritize it on his schedule yet. Thinking this, he scratched his head, feeling like since this Adventure Group was established, there had been an endless list of tasks to handle.

After about a few minutes, the eastern sky finally began to lighten faintly, and the first ray of Morning Light penetrated the Forest. At this moment, Chris, up in the watchtower, saw the lumberyard workers who had escaped earlier. They seemed to have gathered other refugees and when they met up with Fang Hong and the others again, their numbers had grown substantially.

When these people glimpsed the large silhouette of the Grey Ridge Burden Beast, they instinctively stopped in their tracks and saluted in its direction. The workers certainly remembered last night’s event, knowing it was these people who saved them.

Seeing this, Fang Hong also promptly let Atira stop the Beast of Burden earlier, and the crowd gathered around. Chris was the first to jump down, and when the workers saw him, they burst into exclamations.

When they heard that the Chief Protector was unharmed, their exclamations turned into cheers, and as Fang Hong descended, he received a treatment like that of a hero. A girl from someone’s family ran up and kissed him secretly, causing his face to turn red for a long while, and eliciting a burst of laughter.

He turned back just in time to see Hilveld smiling slightly at him from the platform—

With this little episode, some of the uneasy atmosphere among the crowd also dissipated quite a bit. In fact, due to most people retaining their Starlight, the attack last night actually didn’t result in much loss, just left many complaining about the stubbornness of that lumberyard owner. Of course, that was Chris’s father, who didn’t mind—he just seemed tired after a night’s labor, sitting among the crowd somewhat exhausted.

After checking around, Fang Hong turned back and found him, still somewhat puzzled about last night’s events, so he privately inquired with Chris about what exactly had happened.

Naturally, he wasn’t Tianlan, not prone to believe Reed’s exaggerated accounts. The scholars of Eteliria had long since proven that undead are not, as people once believed, moving skeletons and corpses, or souls.

Undead are merely a combination of negative emotions and Dark Ether—negative energy. Bones, decay, and withering are just manifestations of death itself, they are not the other side of human death and hold no memories from life. Undead don’t even possess a true physical existence; when the negative energy dissipates, they naturally return to the dust.

Yet, the amount of negative energy accumulated in this forest was beyond Fang Hong’s imagination, judging from the situation he observed last night. Except for the high-ranking undead being few, the rest were almost enough to be considered a disaster.

Where did all these resentful spirits of the deceased come from? As Atira said, there were no ancient battlefields nearby.

Upon hearing Fang Hong’s question, Chris rubbed his eyes, somewhat perplexed and asked, ”My lord, did you not know? These undead should all be coming from the abandoned town.”

”Abandoned town?” Fang Hong was taken aback, ”Dolifen?”

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