Chapter 2165: Chapter 2166: Scorched Earth Flames

What the heck is this?!

Angel read it and twitched his lips. That opening "Oh dear" is really familiar.

Suppressing the urge to make a snarky remark, Angel extracted the useful information from the sentence. Apart from the Magic Painter Wizard’s usual "mystical" tone, the most important part is definitely the so-called "treasure."

Is the Magic Painter Wizard telling later generations that he left a treasure here? Is he implying that someone should come to find it? What is this treasure, anyway?

While Angel was pondering, he suddenly noticed that the line of words left by the Magic Painter Wizard was gradually blurring like ink smudged by water. When it reached a certain level of blur, the murky water started to condense and blacken slowly, finally forming a new line of words on the paper door.

"I’ve left the treasure there. However, without a key, you can’t unlock it, you know~"

Angel looked at the line and remained silent; he was waiting to see if there would be any new developments.

Sure enough, within less than half a minute, the words vanished and then reappeared.

"Do you want to know where the key is?"

Angel continued to wait, as the Magic Painter Wizard had posed this question, he should soon provide an answer.

However, Angel underestimated the bottom line of the Magic Painter Wizard’s integrity. After a full ten minutes, the line "Do you want to know where the key is?" remained unchanged.

Looking at this line of questioning, Angel felt a black line across his forehead, with an urge to burn the paper door.

There was no doubt that the Magic Painter Wizard had no intention of answering. Deliberately raising a question just to pique curiosity and then not answering it, it was sickening.

This malicious pleasure was already evident in the previous sentence, "Without the key, you can’t unlock it, you know~."

In the universal language of the continent, there is a specific term for "the audience at the circus watching the joker perform with a mocking emotion." This term consists of three structures: subjective intent, content, and emotion. The words purposely extracted the emotional character structure from this specific term and placed it at the tone’s end.

Clearly, the Magic Painter Wizard used this character structure to express his malicious delight: I’m enjoying the show, you know.

The Magic Painter Wizard purposely told later generations that there was treasure he hid here, but that this treasure required a corresponding key to be opened. Yet, he just wouldn’t tell you where the key was.

This was obvious mischief.

Angel clenched his fists and exhaled deeply.

The Magic Painter Wizard was still as annoyingly unpleasant as ever. Even across infinite space and through time, he leaves words of sarcasm to express his malicious pleasure.

"This tone really makes my hands itch." Angel paused and squinted, "However, I do have a key. Just not sure if it’s the key to your treasure."

Angel snorted coldly, unwilling to face this sarcastic question anymore, turned away, and left.

As he walked, Angel left behind special Nightmare Illusion Nodes, not for defense but simply to record the route. To prevent getting lost due to spatial partitions or some kind of spatial displacement... many novice adventurers often get trapped in dark places forever when exploring relics because they neglect these details.

Although this wasn’t a relic, since it bore the mark of the Magic Painter Wizard, who knows if he wouldn’t again have a malicious outburst and leave traps, so even walking had to be done with utmost caution.

Thus, Angel treaded carefully along the narrow paths, which soon became tighter as he went on. Initially, he could get through by bending down, but eventually, even a miniaturized body couldn’t fit.

Angel had no choice but to transform into a fine thread and squeezed through a path as narrow as a needle eye.

The needle-eye path wasn’t long, and within a few breaths, Angel saw light up ahead.

However, the light wasn’t the bright light of day but an orange-red glow, somewhat similar to the light of burning fire.

Quickly, Angel climbed near the entrance of the cave. Near the entrance, Angel again saw the handiwork of the Magic Painter Wizard.

The walls on both sides of the cave were covered with many patterns, still without energy fluctuations but definitely with some special effects.

When the thread touched these patterns, there was a cool touch.

At the entrance, Angel looked out and saw a scene full of orange-red. When he tried to probe with his spiritual power, he found it was confined, unable to extend beyond the opening, likely due to the effects of the patterns on the cave walls.

Angel thought about it; since he couldn’t probe outside with spiritual power, he might as well just go out and see.

After all, he had come this far, so eventually, he had to go out.

Once he was sure, Angel darted through the tiny opening in the form of needle-eye.

The moment the thread left the opening, Angel realized that his spiritual power was usable again, and at the same time, he perceived the surroundings.

He found himself on a vast scorched earth.

And it was the kind of scorched earth with underground flames still erupting and currently burning.

Previously, when Angel saw the orange-red light, he had guessed it might be fire, and it truly was firelight. The place where Angel emerged happened to face a crack spewing flames, so when he looked outwards from the opening, everything was bathed in orange-red.

The temperature of these flames was extremely high, and even with his protective spiritual power, Angel felt intense heat.

Angel hurriedly maneuvered his "thread" body, retreating a few steps, floating back onto a large rock.

Once on the large rock, Angel resumed his true form and donned a heat-resistant Wizard Robe.

As soon as he returned to his normal shape, Angel smelled the thick scent of sulfur in the air. This sulfur smell was not drifting from afar but enveloped the entire surrounding region.

In this pungent air, Angel instinctively raised the Purifying Field.

At the instant the Purifying Field expanded, a mass of flames rose around him.

Angel stared dazedly at the flames burning around him, initially not understanding why, until he sensed the surrounding energy and then realized it.

The air was filled with an extremely dense force of fire elements!

What does extremely dense mean? It means that just opening the Purifying Field caused friction between energies to make the fire elements unstable, instantly bursting out a mass of flames!

Previously, in the mushroom forest of Duling Garden, Angel encountered a Lava Lake, which was the embodiment of Reeves’s full power.

As a fire-element prodigy Wizard, Reeves’s Lava Lake had enough fire energy to birth many elemental creatures. Yet, even so, when Angel compared that Lava Lake with the current environment, it still came up slightly short.

The fire elemental power contained in the air here is much higher than the magma lake Reeves had transformed into!

"Is this the Tidal World?" Angel looked around, muttering to himself.

Feeling the terrifying fire element in the air, Angel seemed to understand why the Old Earth Continent lacked elemental power... Perhaps all the elemental power had flooded into this world.

Although only fire elemental power could be seen here, Angel clearly remembered that the Tide World Map depicted numerous elemental creatures. Just from the patterns, it’s hard to identify the specific type of element, but it’s certainly not limited to fire elements.

There must be other places in the Tidal World that have other elemental powers like here.

The mystery of disappearing elements on the Old Earth Continent, a lingering task in various Witcher Organizations, might finally have an answer.

The existence of the Tidal World is the answer.

...

Angel let out a long sigh, moving his gaze from the vast earth flames to the large stone beneath him.

This massive stone is like a small mountain valley.

On this stone, there’s an obviously painted diagram with colorful paint - a monkey covered in black flames, hunching its body, with black gemstones hanging from its ear lobes.

Angel had two reasons for focusing on the image of the black fire monkey.

Firstly, Angel emerged from the hole located at the monkey’s ear lobe. The hole is so tiny that it’s easy to overlook. Angel managed to find it at once because he left a Nightmare Illusion Node within.

Secondly, this black fire monkey’s pattern also appeared on the Tide World Map.

Angel walked to the vicinity of the black fire monkey’s ear lobe, squatted down, and gently touched the hole, clearly sensing an unusual aura from the hole’s entrance.

Recalling the coolness of the cave wall and comparing it to the external fiery heat, Angel roughly knew the function of the patterns on the cave wall: maintaining constant temperature and concealing unusual auras.

With this hole’s position in mind, Angel stood up and began observing the black fire monkey pattern, evidently the handiwork of a Magic Painter Wizard.

He remembered on the Tide World Map’s upper-right side, there’s an area outlined with dashed lines, and the representative elemental creature inside is this black fire monkey.

So, his current location is on the map’s upper-right side?

Angel wasn’t sure if his assumption was correct, but for now, that’s how he had to think.

Even if he determined his location on the map, where should he go next?

Should he search for the treasure Feng left behind? However, Feng’s Tide World Map only outlined regions with dashed lines, indicating representative elemental creatures, without marking where the treasure was!

Angel thought about it; since he had already identified the hole’s position, he decided to first explore the surrounding area.

Angel didn’t take out the ostentatious gondola, opting instead to tap his foot, utilizing the power of dark night crossing, to hover mid-air.

Angel initially planned to overlook the surroundings from above, but upon ascending, he realized below was filled with rolling gray and black smoke, like clouds falling from the sky, rendering visibility impossible.

Angel helplessly glanced around, failing to find useful information, but noticed a group of flame sparrows flying in circles above a distant area.

Flame Sparrows... Although Angel only saw them from afar, he could basically confirm the identity of these sparrows.

They must be elemental creatures.

The magma lake formed by Reeves could birth numerous elemental creatures, and with fire elements here even denser than the magma lake, it’s undoubtedly the birthplace of many elemental creatures.

Aside from exploring the legacy of Magic Painter Wizards, Angel chose to come to the Tidal World for another reason: the potential of finding a suitable elemental partner among the vast elemental creatures.

"Is something over there?" Angel wondered why the flame sparrows were circling there; could there be something below?

Since he was uncertain about his next step, he figured heading there wouldn’t hurt, perhaps he might discover some clues.

Being in a new world, Angel couldn’t guarantee absolute safety here. To be cautious, he didn’t fly directly, choosing instead to land and conceal his aura while approaching from the ground.

After confirming the direction, Angel stepped over the scorched earth flames, moving towards the distant area.

The scorched earth stretched vast, with fissures everywhere, and thick steam from the heat distorted the air.

Angel walked for quite a while without seeing an end. On his way, he encountered several lava-filled lakes and some oddly-shaped fire elemental creatures.

Those fire elemental creatures weren’t newly born; they seemed rather intimidating.

For instance, on Angel’s left front, there was a Six-Tailed Fox made of purple flames. It curled in a narrow fissure, leisurely enjoying the assault of earth flame as if taking a bath.

The Six-Tailed Fox appeared so relaxed yet exuded a terrifying flame power.

From a pure flame level perspective, the purple flames on this Six-Tailed Fox were about the same as the highest alchemy fire technique Angel had mastered.

It’s definitely a half-step wizard level elemental creature.

Although it seemed only half-step wizard level, elemental creatures differ from Wizard Apprentices, largely immune to material realm attacks and resistant to most energies, making it easy for them to defeat even ten peak apprentices.

Its strength is certainly formidable.

Hidden in the shadows, Earl Mi was already raring to move, showing how impressive the fox was.

Angel signaled Earl Mi to hold still; though he planned to capture elemental creatures, he wasn’t going to act hastily. The Six-Tailed Fox was remarkable, but there could be even better ones.

Moreover, acquiring information took precedence over capturing creatures.

Thinking of this, Angel kept his aura hidden, bypassing the Six-Tailed Fox, continuing toward the distance.

Angel didn’t notice when he left; the Six-Tailed Fox lifted its head from its curled position, watching Angel’s departing figure, a thoughtful look in its purple flame-filled eyes.

Subsequently, tiny sparks rose from the Six-Tailed Fox, carried by the dense smoke to the faraway.

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