"A silver treasure chest? It's the same reward tier as when I subdued the 'Golden Bees' before!"
"However, this battle was much harder, so the contents of the treasure chest will likely be even richer!"
Xia Tian didn't rush to open the chest for the first time.
Only because this battle today was too exhausting, both physically and mentally.
You see, in this battle, he killed three Imps with his divine arm crossbow, and then personally slew two more in close combat!
Plus, he still had to deal with a bunch of children who, after being rescued, were crying loudly and licking the golden honey that was treating their wounds with their tongues. He wasn't in the mood to upgrade or open chests.
"My lord, I found this on the Imp leader!"
Wu Song walked over, holding the stone pendant necklace that had been hanging around the Imp leader's neck.
"It truly is a wondrous item!"
Xia Tian took it, finding that the necklace seemed to be woven from the fur of fierce beasts like tigers and bears, while the yellow stone serving as the pendant possessed the properties of a wondrous item.
【Guardian Spirit Stone (White)】
【Type】Wondrous Item
【Attribute】Power of Guardianship (Can withstand a certain degree of attack; if the attack exceeds the range, it can only withstand a portion of the attack)
【Description】The currently accumulated "Power of Guardianship" has been depleted and requires some time to accumulate.
It was not only a wondrous item, but also an extremely comprehensive defensive wondrous item.
Judging from Wu Song's previous battle with the Imp leader, it could completely block attacks of the Mortal tier, and even withstand a large portion of Wu Song's attacks after he was "drunk." In the end, it was only because the "yellow light" was depleted that Wu Song was able to punch it to death.
"With this wondrous item for protection, I can probably come and go freely in this jungle."
Xia Tian put it away with satisfaction, placing it into his Lord's Space.
He didn't plan to wear this necklace. After he returned, he would remove the "Guardian Spirit Stone" from it and embed something of his own.
"Hmm, these houses... let's dismantle them for materials."
Afterward, Xia Tian's gaze turned to the Imp-built houses in the clearing. He had originally intended to burn down these half-finished houses built by the Imps, but then he thought it was unnecessary to waste them.
After all, these stones and wood themselves weren't guilty, and could even become materials for building his own territory, serving a purpose.
Considering the convenience during construction, he even specifically used his "Gathering Hand" to cut some larger stones before putting them into his Lord's Space.
【You used 'Gathering Hand' on 'Brass Ore', obtaining 1 unit of stone and 1 unit of metal.】
Suddenly, a notification appeared in his mind.
"Hmm? A large portion of these stones don't seem to be ordinary stone, but rather ore containing 'metal' substances?"
It seems the source of metal materials has finally been found... As Xia Tian and his group cleaned up the battlefield, several miles away in the jungle.
A group of about forty people, armed with weapons and dressed as ancient soldiers, were searching for something in the jungle!
"Ah!"
Suddenly, a soldier cried out.
"Damn it, Yang Er, why are you screaming? You scared me!"
"Nothing, just ran into a long worm."
"Why are you afraid of a long worm? It's not a ghost!"
The people around him were startled and complained one after another.
"You guys, do you think it really was a 'ghost' that broke into the village and stole the children?"
"What's a ghost like? With Magistrate Hua here, even if it's a ghost, he can still kill it!"
"That's right, those half-human, half-horse monsters we encountered before, they wanted to attack us and shot an arrow. But Magistrate Hua caught the arrow with one hand and shot it back, directly killing the leading monster. That scared off the whole group of half-human, half-horse monsters, and they fled incredibly fast!"
The person referred to as "Magistrate Hua" was a tall, slender young man, clad in silver armor and helmet, holding a silver spear. He carried an iron-reinforced composite bow on his back and a quiver of feathered arrows at his waist. His face was fair-skinned with red lips, and his eyebrows extended to his temples. His handsome eyes would make many modern, open-minded women exclaim that their hearts couldn't take it!
However, he didn't speak like the others, but instead silently searched for something in the jungle with his eyes.
"Magistrate Hua, I say we should just go back..."
"That's right, Magistrate Hua, some people clearly saw those children being forcibly taken from the village by several 'ghosts.' But Magistrate Liu insists it's because of your lax patrol, which allowed the 'ghosts' to sneak into the village and steal the children. So he stirred up the parents of the missing children, inciting them to make us go find the lost children!"
"Not to mention that children who fall into the hands of ghosts are already as good as dead! Just this vast, boundless jungle, where do we even begin to search!"
After walking for a while, the soldiers seemed to have had enough and spoke up one after another.
"I say, Magistrate Liu is doing this on purpose, wanting us to scout out the surrounding area for him."
"I don't think Magistrate Liu alone could come up with such a disgusting trick. The one who gave him the idea was probably that foreign scholar!"
"That's right, that 'Scholar Lu' looks refined, but I always feel he's not a good person. He even asked me about 'Minister Dong'? How would I know any Minister Dong? I only know a Miss Dong at the House of Joy, and her musical skills are quite good. Unfortunately, I probably won't have the chance to visit her again..."
Several other soldiers chimed in, their words full of resentment.
Then, as someone brought up a lewd topic, it immediately led to a deep discussion among a group of people.
"You few, stop chattering and hurry up and search carefully! If we don't find them before dark, we'll camp here tonight and continue tomorrow!"
Magistrate Hua frowned, speaking with a somewhat stern tone.
"Ah, camping outside?"
"No, no. Everyone, search quickly, search quickly!"
Upon hearing this, the soldiers around him couldn't help but change their expressions, showing fear on their faces, as if they had imagined some terrifying scene.
Immediately, they finally began to search diligently. Some rummaged through bushes, while others shouted out children's names like "Er Gou, Ma Zi, Huan Lang, Man'er."
"To think that I, Hua Rong, who has diligently practiced since childhood, can ride a fierce horse from the Western Regions, is skilled in spear techniques, can draw a hard bow of several stones, possesses the ability of 'shooting an arrow through a willow leaf at a hundred paces,' and is known as 'Little Li Guang,' yet I must be governed by a scholar with no power to truss a chicken. This court's emphasis on civil officials over military ones is truly infuriating!"
However, "Magistrate Hua" instead stopped in place, his expression somewhat indignant.
"But, if the voice in my mind is real, the court may no longer be able to control us now. I could very well choose to leave Qingfeng Village."
"But after leaving the village, where can I go in this strange world?"
Hua Rong felt a sense of bewilderment in his heart.
"Don't slack off, keep searching!"
When he came back to his senses, seeing that his subordinates had started to slack off again after searching for a while, Hua Rong rebuked them and then continued to lead the team through the jungle.
Meanwhile, about ten miles away from them, Xia Tian and his group had already returned to their territory with the rescued children.
Finally, this transitional plot has been written.
Although before writing it, I had a premonition that a large amount of detailed combat descriptions would lead to a drop in readership.
But I really didn't expect it to fall so sharply, from 13th on the new book list to 20th.
To be honest, these detailed chapters are not easy to write, and it's completely thankless work.
I could indeed just write a brief overview, like some other lord-type books, saying that Wu Song defeated the Black and White Jiaozhi in two or three moves, then obtained a pet egg, which was very important to the territory.
Then the children were stolen again, and everyone rushed over, and after a battle of overwhelming force with weapons, they obtained another wondrous item.
But items obtained through this kind of perfunctory narrative will not be "valued" by everyone.
So, even knowing it's thankless, I still gritted my teeth and wrote it, all for the sake of trying my best to enrich the details of the book.
Hmm, I'll ask for monthly votes, and also for tomorrow's follow-up subscriptions.
I hope everyone can turn to the last page of the new chapter tomorrow.
After all, tomorrow will decide next week's recommendation!
Perhaps I won't be writing such long battle scenes next.
