# Chapter 14: Let Me See
For the adventurers living in the Northern Lands, their lives had been considerably better than their counterparts elsewhere recently.
It wasn't the environment. The Northern Lands had harsh conditions that were among the most severe on the entire continent—the half-year-long winter, the mountains and dense forests perpetually covered in snow, and the inconspicuous ice sheets on the ground that even magical beasts occasionally slipped on—all of these posed great difficulties for most adventurers' work. But recently, things had been different.
Although the complete development of the Great Aias Mountains in recent years had reduced the number of official exploration missions, the rich species and countless precious resources in the mountains had increased hunting and gathering tasks... But the most important thing was that, for some unknown reason, the lord residing in the Northern Lands had suddenly exerted his strength to move a steep peak that blocked everyone's path into the Great Aias Mountains—this immediately made it much easier for all adventurers who relied on the mountains for their livelihood to enter and exit on a daily basis.
Everyone knew how painful it was to climb mountains in the freezing wilderness. If one could enter the mountains gradually through the gentle ice plains, naturally no one would miss the arduous journey of the past. Moreover, this action had also brought him a rumor of uncertain nature: it was said that when that legendary expert moved the mountain peak, the entire Great Aias Mountains fell silent. Aside from the thunderous sound of earth and rock splitting, there was no other sound in the entire world. Even the birds on the mountains dared not take flight, and the magical beasts dwelling in caves trembled in fear, let alone the stunned adventurers present who nearly fell to the ground—this immediately earned him the title "Mountain-Mover of Silence."
Now, the relocated mountain peak had been placed beside the Frostleaf Forest in the Extreme North Icefield, becoming a famous local tourist attraction. It was rumored that some residual power left there by that lord attracted many of his admirers to go there and engage in ascetic cultivation in that bitterly cold land.
In truth, aside from these major events, there was one more thing that had greatly changed the lives of ordinary adventurers. Perhaps it sounded strange, but many people were indeed fanatical about it, even if it was just a few card tables that had somehow appeared in the taverns of Moldavia's main city.
"Broken Sword Tavern," a long-established tavern run by a half-elf former adventurer, had its doors open on the street between Lord's Avenue and the New Opera House, open to all day and night. It had originally been unremarkable and not particularly upscale, but in recent years, due to the influx of adventurers into the Northern Lands, and because the owner was a former adventurer, it had gradually transformed into a high-end tavern catering specifically to mid-to-high-rank adventurers.
Inside the tavern, the atmosphere was relatively harmonious, at least not filled with the vulgar slang and chaotic atmosphere of drunkards found elsewhere in the Northern Lands. In the main hall and each private booth, one could see many well-equipped adventurers discussing in low voices the gains from their latest adventures or the detailed preparations before their next departure. Occasional clinking of glasses marked the end or beginning of a pleasant collaboration.
But in the corner of the tavern, the atmosphere was completely different.
"Hurry up, play your card!"
"What are you waiting for? Play 'Ghost General Hector,' hit him in the face and finish him off!"
"Shut up, I don't have the mana right now—you idiot, now he knows my cards!"
The lively, noisy, chaotic atmosphere was completely out of place with the rest of the tavern's environment, but all the patrons had grown accustomed to it. A few even finished their drinks, paid their bills, got up, and came to the corner to join in, eagerly watching this new game called "Fae Cards."
Fae Cards—about a month or two ago, no one knew exactly when—had suddenly emerged as a peculiar magical card game. At first, not many people wanted to try this new game, even though the tavern owner swore on his reputation that it was currently in a free trial period. This was because it involved magic. Magic, natural disasters—who knew if there were curses or traps on it? Or perhaps it was a new form of gambling scam, like those enchanted dice in gambling houses? Adventurers were always surprisingly conservative in this regard.
But when a pair of dwarf brothers demonstrated the gameplay in front of everyone, the crowd that spent their days idling in the tavern and lacked entertainment was immediately conquered.
While the transcendent experts of the Mycroft Continent certainly prioritized strength improvement as their primary goal, this didn't mean they didn't need entertainment in their daily lives. The cultural level of this world was only slightly better than the Middle Ages, and everyone lacked means of entertainment.
Even nobles spent their leisure time on nothing more than hunting, opera, squandering wealth in certain red-light districts, and crafts of unknown value. They supported eighty percent of the world's artists, but no one thought about what kind of games would be interesting.
Ultimately, this was a world with magic. The existence of transcendent power greatly compressed ordinary people's free time. Even if they knew they could never become strong, they would still train hard, waiting for the day they might turn their fortunes around. Perhaps only the fairies, who never worried about food and drink and had nearly infinite lifespans, could create a game like Fae Cards out of sheer boredom.
Regardless, Fae Cards filled the void in the lives of Northern adventurers. This direct competitive game indeed suited the straightforward temperaments of these adventurers. Now, in Moldavia's main city, the few taverns with Fae Cards tables had become the most popular establishments. Most of these taverns had dwarf backgrounds or connections to the Lord's Manor—through some mysterious "uncle" sources, some people had learned that these tables came from the Northern Dwarves' Mana Factory, and they were commissioned by the Imperial Royal Family and the Moldavia Lord's Manor jointly.
This impressively solid background immediately dispelled any insignificant ill intentions from most troublemakers, while the remaining few decided that they must, by any means, get involved with this card game that was sure to become popular in the future—to this end, they spared no expense in obtaining a few precious trial slots in the Imperial Capital and southern fortresses.
Now, Fae Cards was spreading throughout the Northern Empire and expanding toward other human settlements. It was rumored that His Majesty the Emperor in Morlai Palace had also tried playing the game at his children's invitation and gave a straightforward evaluation: "Not bad." This further accelerated the spread of Fae Cards.
Unnoticed, spring had arrived. After a rare period of rest, Joshua began preparing to search for information about that unknown ancient dragon for Baniel and William.
The delay had nothing to do with the warrior; the main reason lay with the two legendary mages. First was the purification of the ancient dragon bloodline. After their previous attempt to probe the ancient dragon's power had resulted in all experimental results being destroyed from afar, the two had to start over, extracting and cultivating activated ancient dragon blood from the living tissue of the Writhing Forest, which required a great deal of time. In addition, they had called over Hill and Fina and conducted a series of tests and bloodline experiments on the Sea Dragon lady. With two matters proceeding simultaneously, progress naturally slowed.
Joshua didn't mind. Since the two principals weren't in a hurry, why should he be? The warrior had indeed been quite restrained during these months of enjoying daily life. Aside from moving a mountain that blocked his view of the Great Aias Mountains during his morning run, Joshua hadn't done anything major. As for his usual routine, he still occasionally went to check on the surroundings of the Seventh Abyss and remotely sensed the movements of the various Demon Lords and Demon King Goliath in the Sixth Abyss—this had become part of Joshua's daily life.
As for cultists and Five-Colored Dragons, they had completely disappeared from the Northern Lands, with absolutely no trace of news. It seemed that even if truly maddened cultists wanted to die, they wouldn't travel thousands of miles to the Northern Lands, and the same went for dragons.
During these two months, the major powers' exploration of the Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground had temporarily concluded. They had surveyed all areas of the sacrificial ground and reached the central core region, where they saw hundreds of giant divine soldiers silently staring at them.
After discovering that these giant divine soldiers would no longer attack them, this group, trembling under the continuous surveillance of the giant soldiers, arrived at the center of the entire demiplane—beneath a huge metal obelisk. They carefully cleaned and excavated the area and found numerous ancient inscriptions. Through intense translation and interpretation, they were shocked to discover that these inscriptions recorded many ancient myths and histories concerning the creation of the First Flame, as well as some major events from the previous era, called the Era of Radiance.
This was a major breakthrough for research into the origins of various races and the history of the Mycroft World. These ancient yet still clear steel inscriptions recorded the context of Mycroft World civilization.
—In the beginning, the world had seven continents.
Humans were born and lived on the southeastern plains of the central continent. They lived in family and tribal units, using fire and stone-bone tools to pioneer and build houses. After a snow disaster during a long winter, some humans, wearing primitive fur clothing, migrated further south. They sailed small boats to another continent and found a towering giant tree there. They lived symbiotically with the giant tree—these were the prototypes of the most ancient elf clan.
Climate changes on the continent, shifts in ocean currents and crustal movements caused the entire world's environment to warm. Amid continuous volcanic eruptions, humans discovered various metals and learned how to use flames to forge tools. Some exceptionally talented individuals even sensed the context of magic from natural phenomena.
It was at this time that some craftsmen, seeking better metals and ores, ventured deep into caves but were trapped underground by an earthquake caused by a volcanic eruption. Although these people were thus isolated from the world, they found fortune in misfortune, discovering a huge mysterious gem. This gem, which seemed to have condensed in the depths of the earth since the world's beginning, possessed peculiar magic that allowed the craftsmen to rapidly adapt to the underground living environment—they were the ancestors of the dwarf clan.
There were many other intelligent races on the continent, multiplying on other continents. Humans, dwarves, and elves occupied only two continents. In the later inscriptions, one could see the three races exploring and conquering other parts of the world for expansion. Bloody wars lasted for thousands of years or even longer. Countless lives were lost, and the bones of countless races piled up like mountains on the plains. During this period, magic, battle qi, and all the transcendent systems later generations could think of developed rapidly due to the extremely brutal racial wars. Conversely, there were over a decade of continuous negative population growth.
The civilization on the Mycroft Continent seemed destined to self-destruct due to racial wars, until that day at the end of the inscriptions, when a person called the "Sage" appeared in this world like the sun, ending all madness.
All the remaining inscriptions praised the greatness of the Sage and the gods. He created Holy Light, unified the magic system, clarified the context of battle qi cultivation, and stabilized the continuation of sorcerer bloodlines. He made the elves no longer scattered and unified the dwarves into a single kingdom. He joined forces with the gods to end the war and unified the entire Mycroft civilization, radiating new vitality.
The inscriptions ended there. The exploration team did not find the cause of the previous era's end. This was an unknown trouble troubling all intelligent life on the Mycroft Continent. Except for some legendary experts, no one knew the truth of the era's transition.
Those who knew the truth were now conducting an important experiment.
In the Northern Lands of Moldavia, above the Great Aias Mountains, within the thick cloud layers, a spindle-shaped floating airship hovered silently above the Writhing Forest. Gray-white clouds were stirred by the rippling magical power ripples occasionally emitted from the airship, forming a huge cloud vortex in the sky above the entire mountain range. Lightning could be seen shuttling through the vortex, releasing powerful magic.
"In this place, even if an accident occurs, it won't harm others on the ground."
Inside the central isolation zone of the Sky-Piercing White Tower's experimental airship, the legendary bard William smiled and said to Joshua before him: "And not everything ancient is powerful. The accumulation of wisdom can fill the innate gap between species—that's the meaning of civilization and inheritance. No matter how strong that ancient dragon is, it can't defeat three legendary experts working together, let alone cause any danger."
"If necessary, we can also call your Emperor and Nostradamus, making five legends." William added another sentence.
As if accustomed to playing off his friend, Baniel, who was operating instruments nearby for the final purification of the ancient dragon blood, also turned around and added seriously: "I can also call Barbarossa. Although he always has a sour face, he'll come for mine and William's sake—that makes six legends, capable of fighting even against gods."
"I can call Lamotte—the current Holy Sword Bearer!"
"You're insisting on comparing connections, aren't you? Can't I pull Faina over? We're old friends who explored the Black Forest ruins together..."
Faced with the two legendary mages' daily bickering and inexplicable rivalry, Joshua, who had been left aside, couldn't help but sigh and roll his eyes: "Alright, stop arguing. I can also call the Pope and Lord Nature Mentor, making ten legendary experts. We'd be just one dwarf divine smith short of gathering all the legendary experts of the humanoid races—we're not starting a world war. Is the experiment starting or not?"
"We can start now."
With intense magical vibration, Baniel finished the final step of blood purification. He reached empty-handed toward the complex instruments before him and clenched his fist. Instantly, the mist-like cloud mass within the container, which flickered with violent lightning and released astonishing life energy, compressed into a single drop of blood like a gem. The legendary mage placed it in a test tube inscribed with thirteen layers of runic inscriptions and handed it to Joshua: "The procedure shouldn't be complicated—through the method we told you, you should easily use life energy resonance to perceive the world information where the ancient dragon resides. At that time, don't confront it directly; just actively destroy this bloodline yourself."
The precious ancient dragon blood was dismissed by Baniel with a casual "just destroy it," and Joshua took it without hesitation, accepting the task.
In the center of the experimental airship's isolation laboratory, the three legendary experts all gazed at this bloodline. The warrior held it in his hand, and from his palm emanated a silver, hazy radiance. A rich, overwhelming life force that completely surpassed the ancient dragon's blood was released, spreading to the entire sky outside, dispersing the clouds for thousands of meters.
In that instant, Joshua used the simplest, most direct, and most dangerous method—directly connecting his Steel Force with the ancient dragon's bloodline. Through information resonance, he felt his consciousness rapidly sink into darkness, traveling through the dark and mysterious spiritual world. He felt his spirit pass through the void and several planes, arriving at a world that was unfamiliar yet had a trace of familiar aura.
—What exactly made me feel familiar?
At this moment, Joshua had no time to think about these extraneous things, because he sensed that he had found his target—a vast existence sleeping deep in the desert. It wasn't completely dormant, just resting within an ice layer. But its rest, for mortal beings, was several life cycles of reincarnation. The raging wind and sand had buried its body, forming a huge gravel mountain range. Now it had detected someone peeping at its power, so it raised its head and opened its eyes, looking with emotionless, cold eyes toward the direction where Joshua's will was projected.
"Hello, ancient dragon."
Facing the ancient dragon's gaze, Joshua showed no panic. He felt an indescribable excitement boiling within him, causing him to involuntarily raise the corners of his mouth, revealing a smile.
"Let me see your face."