Chapter 943: Act 116 – The Rare Land – The Peak of All Hallows
The morning sun rose through the gaps in the forest canopy, refracting colorful light from the dewdrops on the leaves in the dawn glow. A team was trudging through the wild woods, led by a young man in a black wool coat soaked with overnight dew. The silver clasp at his collar bore the emblem of a fir tree. He held a sharp sword, furrowing his brow as he stared ahead at the densely overgrown valley. This man was Brendel, leading the Erluin people and Crusian through the hilly northern region of Lokosi Heights, currently nearing Ruin Port, only a day’s journey away.
As expected, they had not encountered much trouble along the way, only occasionally coming across scouts from the Jotungrund people. It seemed that the Jotungrund army was truly headed straight north toward Yasar, without focusing too much on this southern port city. However, they were unaware of the situation on the plains and whether the small villages and settlements outside Ruin Port had been attacked by the Jotungrund forces. But there were no black smoke columns common in the Valgris region in the northern sky, indicating that the situation was likely tolerable.
Brendel was waiting for the scouts ahead to return, while his gargoyles circled above the cloud layer. But information from the forest still relied on foot scouts due to the limited capabilities of flying creatures.
However, the White Lion infantry were not professional scouts, and Rogers and his inner knights were also somewhat inexperienced, naturally taking more time. As Brendel waited, he became somewhat anxious, though he dared not show it on his face. He knew that the Crusian people and others in the embassy relied on him now more than ever, so he had to appear more composed. He tapped his fingers rhythmically on the sword hilt—this blade was not the Sword of the Earth; although the Queen of Dragons might not dare to confront him for fear of attracting Erlandta’s attention, he also did not want to expose his position to the Jotungrund. Meanwhile, his thoughts wandered to various unrelated matters.
In fact, he had been considering Margadale’s words from these past days.
“The Temple of Fire will not easily take action against Her Majesty the Queen.”
“I am not entirely sure why, but this was an agreement made during the abdication of the last emperor of the Crusian with the Temple, with the dragon kin’s involvement. Perhaps that lady knows more about it.”
But Brendel understood that Misreale would never tell him. This question seemed to loop back around to a dead end—what had happened when the son of Emperor Grandot designated the Silver Queen as the next Empress of the Empire? The answer undoubtedly related to the last holy war, but the issue was that this was the greatest mystery for him. Brendel keenly sensed that this holy war had begun on the great plains south of the Four Realms, and it seemed that Saint Ausoor and the Crusian deliberately avoided the Altania mountain range and nearby areas, which had been precisely the origin point of the last holy war.
It appeared that this secret was understood only by the few parties involved mentioned by the princess.
Brendel shook his head lightly, casting aside this thought that had become a dead end. Since he could not ascertain the true relationship between the Temple of Fire and Her Majesty the Queen, he had no choice but to stop considering this angle. He let out a slight sigh; the Silver Queen’s actions, which were completely different from history, had thoroughly disrupted his plans. Originally, he had intended to use the lion people as a stepping stone to cloak himself in the aura of a Crusian hero to attract the Queen’s attention, and from there devise a plan to rescue Xi, ideally without severing relations with the enemy. Even if he failed, he could fallback to the Crown Prince’s route.
But now, initially when the Jotungrund intruded, he could simply change his target, letting the troglodytes take the place of the lion people as stepping stones. As long as they held Ruin Port, they could ultimately achieve their goal. Although the offensive from the Jotungrund army was fierce, it was merely a matter of increasing difficulty. What he did not expect was that the Queen of the Crusian had secretly established contact with the Jotungrund, and it was quite possible she was the mastermind behind it all. Brendel could not decipher her true intentions.
Since he could not confirm what Her Majesty the Queen truly wanted, how could he attract her attention?
Currently, it was not merely a question of attracting her attention; if he inadvertently caused a backlash, it would be troublesome.
He turned around and saw QiYala nearby, idly spinning a shiny object in her hand—it was a ring, which appeared to have a typical underground style based on its decorations, and was a trophy she had taken from Sargoss. However, Brendel did not realize this, and he couldn’t help but remind her, “Be careful; the Jotungrund love to play tricks and might have tampered with their gear. Watch out for hidden poison needles in the ring or snakes in the armor.”
The noble young lady of the Siphai family was clearly startled by his words, ceasing her motion and staring at the ring with suspicion in her azure eyes.
“You don’t have to worry about this ring; you’re lucky. This ring happens to be one of the few pieces that hasn’t been tampered with. If it had been, you’d have felt icy cold all over for several hours already.”
“Do you know this ring?” QiYala said, not at all feeling that Brendel was merely trying to frighten her. The young girl raised the ring to the sunlight streaming through the branches as she asked him.
“Well, I’d say I’m somewhat familiar with it,” Brendel replied.
“Somewhat familiar?”
“I’m not a professional appraiser or an alchemist; I can only say I’ve seen this ring before.”
“Really? You seem quite modest.”
Brendel raised an eyebrow at her curiosity. “It’s a stone-patterned ring, a symbol of the priesthood from the underworld. Some higher-quality pieces possess magical power and can draw upon the energy of earth elements from the ground to summon small earth elementals.”
“Then what about mine?” QiYala looked up at Brendel with great anticipation.
“It’s a high-quality one.”
“Wow!” QiYala exclaimed in delight. “How do I use it?”
Brendel looked at her in confusion. In the era of “Amber Sword,” when players typically ranged from level thirty to forty, this ring was quite popular because the summoned small earth elementals practically equated to a combat power matching that of a player of the same level. To an ordinary noble, this was akin to having a faithful knight of the Silver Guard at their side for six hours a day. Yet, for someone like QiYala from the noble Siphai family, it seemed excessive to be so excited; if she wanted, such things could be acquired in abundance.
QiYala saw right through his thoughts and snorted lightly. “Hmph, why are you looking at me like that? You don’t understand; this is my trophy. Its significance is completely different from something I could pick up casually.”
She carefully wiped the ring before raising it again and asking Brendel, “Hey, how do I use it?”
“Wear it on your index finger and face it toward the ground while reciting the spell ‘Eaam—’.”
QiYala had learned magic herself and was quite familiar with elemental spells. She murmured it softly and then, having worn the ring, followed his instructions. Indeed, in no time, the ground beneath her feet began to bulge and separate, eventually allowing a muddy creature about the height of an adult to crawl out—a basic form of an earth elemental. It resembled what Brendel remembered precisely. He knew that the higher the level, the closer its form would resemble humanity, and after reaching the elder elemental stage, it would become a true giant.
Seeing her summoned creature emerge from the earth, QiYala looked quite thrilled. She studied it with great interest for a while, then looked up and exclaimed, “I didn’t expect you to know so much! I thought the rumors about you were all self-glorifying! By the way, are you well-acquainted with magical items? You said you’re not an alchemist, but you seem notably familiar with this ring.”
Brendel thought to himself that she wasn’t really giving him a compliment, yet the complimented party didn’t seem happy at all.
He straightened his face and replied honestly, “I’ve said it before—I’ve just seen this ring by chance. I was—”
“Then maybe you’ve also seen other things, right? I’ve got another item here that I’ve never figured out what it’s used for. Why don’t you help me take a look?” QiYala interrupted him casually, as if where he recognized this ring was completely irrelevant to her.
Brendel was somewhat exasperated and was about to explain that he was not a jewelry appraiser, but when he saw the little girl take out the item from her waist pouch, he was stunned.
In QiYala’s hand was a golden card that gleamed under the sunlight. Brendel was certain he was not mistaken—this was a Destiny Card, and a rare golden card at that: the land card “Peak of All Hallows,” horizontal, allowing the player to add any three elements to the elemental pool. Upon seeing this card, Charles nearby couldn’t help but whistle. QiYala suddenly turned her head to look at him, then back at Brendel, “I didn’t expect you all to have seen this thing. Can you tell me what it is?”
This was a land card, and one that was quite rare in terms of providing diverse elements. Planeswalkers could freely construct their decks—every planeswalker would create their own unique creatures, artifacts, and powerful spells, but the source of their power—the land cards—came from countless real worlds. These worlds, except for Vaunte itself, mostly floated as fragmented planes beyond reality, where planeswalkers drew the energies of wind, water, fire, earth, light, dark, and nature to showcase the world they constructed. All elements were the foundation of a planeswalker’s universe.
Consequently, planeswalkers could not create land cards by themselves; only during lengthy travels between worlds could they discover truly unclaimed realms and seal those worlds into their cards, thus becoming one of the many sources of their power. Thus for planeswalkers, aside from their own growth increasing the number of controllable cards and the capacity of Destiny Cards, an important pathway to becoming stronger was to acquire more land cards.
Planeswalkers like the Dark Dragon who directly drew power from others as their source were rather exceptional in the world of planeswalkers.
For Brendel, land cards, especially multicolor land cards, were precisely what he needed right now. As he got closer to the elemental domain, the capacity of his deck had further increased. Now he could figure out a way to manifest Andrigraphis or Medephis into true planeswalker cards, but due to a lack of magical sources, he was unable to maintain so many cards; sustaining Medisa’s White City Vanguard was already quite difficult for him, and assuming he manifested new planeswalker cards, that meant the new planeswalker would inevitably have to control more cards, which would be a considerable burden for him.
But having this multicolor land card would make it much easier.
Brendel couldn’t help but take a breath. “How did you get this?”
“From someone else,” QiYala replied matter-of-factly.
Brendel mistakenly thought it was a gift given to the Siphai royal princess, and he gently nodded. “Miss QiYala, if I tell you its origins and that this card is very important to me, can you give it to me?”
“Of course not,” QiYala shook her head, “I don’t have the habit of giving things away for free.” She waved the card in the sunlight and then tilted her head to ask, “Is it really that important to you?”
“Extremely important,” Brendel replied. “To be frank, acquiring this card might not guarantee success for the upcoming journey to Ruin, but it can reduce some of the dangers.”
“It seems this thing is really important to you,” QiYala said, surprised. “What exactly is it? It’s such a powerful item, yet I’ve never heard of it.”
Brendel pretended to think for a moment, but internally he was exchanging opinions with Charles—both he and Charles had heard of this card and even discussed it, as it was once part of Tumen’s deck. Tumen’s all-element deck was a typical multicolor deck, and this land card was one of its core cards. Most of Tumen’s cards had been lost in Erluin, and it seemed this card was just one of them, but he didn’t expect it would land in QiYala’s hands. Amidst their surprise, the young wizard reminded him to find a way to obtain this card.
The “Peak of All Hallows” was also one of the renowned rare land cards in the history of planeswalkers, reputedly capable of providing planeswalkers with ten points of any element per day when fully mature.
Charles’s answer served as a reminder. After pondering for a moment, he said to QiYala, “This is a Destiny Card. Few people know about its origins, but certain practitioners of special faction spells can exhibit the power depicted on the card.”
This young princess of the Siphai family was quite clever. Since Brendel desperately wanted to obtain this card, he didn’t dare to lie easily in front of her and could only answer half-truthfully.
“So, you are one of those who practice special faction spells?” QiYala asked curiously.
Brendel nodded.
“Then what about me? Can I demonstrate the power on it?” she asked again.
“Well, I’m afraid not,” Brendel replied. “Destiny Cards are very special magical items; for those who cannot use it, other than being more resilient, it’s no different from a piece of paper.”
“Ugh, that’s so boring,” QiYala replied, slightly disappointed. “Then you can keep it.”
Brendel was taken aback, not expecting matters to be that simple, nor did he foresee that this quirky little girl would be so agreeable. Unable to help himself, he asked, “You’re just giving it to me like that? Aren’t you afraid I’ll deceive you?”
“Two points,” QiYala extended a finger toward Brendel and, though she spoke seriously, her voice remained childlike. “First, you seem a bit despicable, but you don’t seem like the kind of person to lie easily. If you would lie to me about this thing, it means it must be extremely important to you. Since that’s the case, you would never tell me the truth; and in all these days, I haven’t found a second person who knows anything about this item, which indicates it is indeed very rare. If I generously hand it over to you, someone like you would certainly feel indebted to me. The more generous I appear now, the more you will feel grateful and repay me in the future—so remember, you owe a favor to Miss QiYala, and it will be repaid in the future.”
Brendel couldn’t help but chuckle at her peculiar logic.
She continued, “Second, you just gave me a ring that I really liked, and I’m quite happy. So this card counts as a reward for you. Just remember, when Miss QiYala is happy, you will benefit.”
Brendel thought to himself, “Are you training a puppy?” But considering the card, he decided not to argue with a child.
After QiYala handed over the card to Brendel, she asked, “Can you teach me that spell?”
Brendel paused for a moment. He had anticipated this question, but in his original expectation, QiYala would use this card to blackmail him and not now. If it were the former scenario, he would have had his responses prepared, but now he thought about the answer to the question and decided to respond truthfully. He gently shook his head, “You may indeed become one of us, but I can’t do that. However, finding this card means that the Destiny Card has some sort of connection to you.”
“Is that so?” QiYala sighed slightly like a child. “I’ve handed over the card to you, so there’s no need for you to deceive me. It seems I really can’t use this card—what a pity—”
Brendel watched the little girl as she sighed, revealing her pearly white teeth, and felt a wave of amusement wash over him—so this is what you were aiming for!
