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Forgotten Lands - Chapter 17 (Book 2)
🕑 Added 2024-04-10 10:00:05 +0000 UTCZayn breathed heavily. His sight was hazy, and his arms trembled heavily. He felt that several ribs were cracked and that his left hand was broken, but he ignored the pain to twist the Verdant Daggers inside the lion cub to kill the last offspring of the enraged father.
The father of the five lion cubs was fueled with wrath, but it never managed to hit Zayn. It had been injured whenever it tried to change targets to attack Zayn. In its rage, the matured Lion forgot about the Giant Pyrolaxy Lizard. The lizard used the opportunity to strike heavily, seriously injuring the matured Lion.
It tried to reach Zayn and protect its cubs but failed miserably.
5x Aviani Umbra Lion(cubs)-(Superior) have been slain.
+31 Soul Essences, +2 Common Cards, +1 Uncommon Card, +2 Rare Card Shards.
Zayn wouldn’t have attacked the Aviani Umbra Lion cubs if they’d left him alone. However, he wouldn’t say no to more Soul Essences and Cards. The cubs were the perfect targets to procure Cards and Rare Card Shards. They were also the ideal targets to level his Cards as Superior Monsters.
[Proficiency of Florakinesis reached 100%. Level 16 → Level 17]
[Proficiency of Poison Augment reached 100%. Level 12 → Level 13]
[Proficiency of Origin Lifeforce reached 100%. Level 9 → Level 10]
Origin Lifeforce advanced to Level 10. +5 Soul Essences.
Draining Touch helped him regenerate his drained energy and lifeforce. But it was only thanks to Origin Lifeforce that Zayn’s wounds would heal in no time.
It was hard to level up Origin Lifeforce, but that made every level more precious. The difference in Origin Lifeforce’s quality upon advancing to Level 10 was apparent. Zayn’s natural regeneration improved drastically. His burned skin tingled as it recuperated. The burns wouldn’t be visible by the time he reached Spyro.
Unfortunately, there was no time to celebrate. Zayn’s eyes flickered to the enraged adult Aviani Umbra Lion. It was time to escape.
“Bye~”
A quarter of a second later, Zayn ran for his life.
His encounter with the Aviani Umbra Lions and the Giant Pyrolaxy Lizard wasn’t the only one. However, he was fortunate that the monster repellant worked better after his initial encounter with the Giant Pyrolaxy Lizard.
Zayn managed to avoid the strongest monsters with a Foundation of 1500 or above while fighting a few Hellhound packs and other monsters. They were a little bit harder to deal with without his brothers’ aid, but Zayn prepared enough high-ranked poison, grenades, and various items to weaken and kill them.
He collected more than 100 Soul Essences in the following hours, in addition to a bunch of Common and Uncommon Cards. His Rare Card Shard collection expanded as well. It was only a matter of days before he could combine his next Rare Card.
At last, Zayn reached the ‘hidden’ entrance to Spyro. He spent almost twelve hours bypassing dozens of regional bosses and various monster habitats to reach the inactive volcano. Even if Zayn wanted to kill them all for their valuable body parts and the other gains he could make by killing them, he was too weak.
He stood before the towevering volcano, shivers running down his spine.
After millennia have passed since its last eruption, the volcano towered in the middle of the Magma Prairie as a weathered monument to its vast history. The once fiery landscape had undergone a profound transformation, showcasing the relentless force of nature and the omnipotent power of time.
The volcano’s peak, once one of nature’s deadliest weapons, now sits dormant and eroded. The crater, shaped by centuries of wind and rain, has evolved into a vast bowl with gentle slopes. Hardy vegetation clings to the ashy soil like leeches, creating a patchwork of heat-resistant greenery amidst the remnants of volcanic rock.
The rivers of molten lava and ponds of magma surrounding the inactive volcano created a magnificent contrast. It was no wonder that countless Players turned into explorers. They sought magnificent places like Spyro to experience Forgotten Lands’ beauty.
Zayn walked up to the ashen rocks and pressed his hands flat against them. He closed his eyes and channeled threads of energy into the stone.
Most Players wouldn’t be able to sense anything within the rock. Their understanding of energy, their energy control, and their perception of the particles and waves of energy weren’t significant enough to perceive what unraveled in front of Zayn.
Hundreds of streams of energy, some glowing brightly, some flickering dimly, conjured in front of him. No. The energy stream, the veins of the volcano rock, had always been there. It was just that Zayn hadn’t tried to perceive them before. Now that he had to perceive the energy veins in his surroundings, they manifested before him.
His energy threads entered the volcano rock. They permeated through the rock and passed by some thicker energy veins. Zayn ignored them and focused on the smaller energy veins that passed through the entire volcano.
It took a minute to organize the energy veins, but Zayn found his targets. He channeled tiny traces of energy into them using a specific order until the energy threads were consumed.
The volcano rock in front of Zayn tremored violently, and he stepped back. His head flicked left and right to see if he was still alone. Only after he confirmed that nobody was near him did he retract his hand, completing the final step.
The volcano rock before him crumbled, revealing a large, lit-up entrance to a tunnel.
“I heard about it, but this is even better than the rumors,” Zayn mumbled.
Rumors said that Spyro was hidden from outsiders inside a sentient volcano. The volcano would only accept visitors who knew about the special method required to enter the city within the volcano.
The cavern tunnel moved freely through the volcano, allowing everyone with the correct passcode to enter. However, it was an entrance that couldn’t be accessed without knowing about the pathway and Spyro’s secrets. This was similar to most proper cities located near the Beginner Villages. It was hard to enter them without solving dozens of quests. Some of those quests were easy to solve, but others required weeks of painstaking effort.
Zayn didn’t solve any quests to enter Spyro. He knew about Spyro’s secrets from a friend of the last cycle. Zayn would have never considered establishing Golden Age’s Guildhall in Spyro if not for that friend. After all, it would take weeks before the first Players paved their way to the first proper cities. At least, that’s how it had been in the last cycle. This cycle would be different. Zayn had already changed a lot and would continue to do so.
The intricate runes engraved all over the surface of the secret passage’s vast entrance invited Zayn inside. He knew he didn’t have much time before the entrance disappeared again, so he stepped inside.
A narrow tunnel unfolded in front of him. The walls, reinforced with carefully placed stones and intricate runes, were lit up by the chains of runic letters connected to the torches in the wall scones. The lit-up torches and the glimmering runic letter chains flickered shadows on the rough yet aesthetic-pleasing appearance of the secret passage. The runic letter chains seemed to entwine with each other, forming various images of events and incidents that happened millennia ago. Some attracted Zayn’s interest, but he didn’t waste any time to inspect them further.
He was hurrying to pave his way to Spyro and enter the city.
Now that his energy fluctuations had been forever engraved in the memories of the volcano’s energy veins, Zayn could always leave Spyro and return to the secret passage. However, not everyone would be pleased about the responsibilities they had accepted indirectly by engraving their energy fluctuations upon the volcano’s energy veins. If you committed a crime in Spyro and the guard registered your criminal activities, you could never return to Spyro…or leave.
It was a perfect prison and a near-indestructible fortress at the same time.
Of course, the sentient volcano was not flawless. Nonetheless, Zayn would have loved something like the sentient volcano and Spyro on Earth. It would have saved the lives of millions to have something like Spyro on Earth. Unfortunately, mankind hadn’t been that fortunate.
The domain descent didn’t create many favorable situations for mankind. That was also why it was even more important to use the few opportunities mankind had fully. Forgotten Lands was the greatest.
Zayn’s eyes glimmered. His steps grew more prominent and he accelerated. It was time to make some progress.
After all, the World Announcement and a lovely Demon were waiting for him in Spyro.
