Chapter 108: Faint Light of Purified Water, Goblin Rhapsody

The cold, prying sensation clung to Copperbeard's mind like a bone-leech, snuffing out the faint spark of exhilaration he had just felt from successfully activating the purification cycle. The Doctor's gaze, like an invisible shadow, hung over this last sanctuary. They had not truly escaped.

"Damn it…" Copperbeard cursed under his breath, his single eye warily scanning every corner of the stone chamber, especially those glowing crystals and the runes flowing across the walls. Elven creations were wondrous indeed, but the Doctor's technology was clearly far stranger and more unfathomable. He had to master more of the Sanctuary's power as soon as possible—at the very least, gain some means of defense.

He forced himself to calm down and once again sank his consciousness into the torrent of elven intent pouring from the severed-arm connection. This time, he no longer passively received, but actively searched, his target clear—【Defense】, 【Early Warning】, 【Energy Shielding】.

Countless cold shards of information swept past, most still obscure and far beyond a dwarf's understanding of energy. But he caught scattered fragments describing the Sanctuary's outer guardian rune arrays, and how to use the Life Altar's energy to activate a weak protective field called 【Wall of Thorns】. Though its strength was far from enough to withstand a powerful foe, it could block low-level energy detection and psychic probing.

"Wall of Thorns…" Copperbeard murmured the name, feeling the energy circuit described in the intent. The circuit's core seemed to lie beneath the base of the Life Altar, connected to the entire Sanctuary's ley-line foundation. Activating it required stable energy output and precise guidance of the runes.

He tried, carefully channeling the energy transmitted from the Root Furnace—no longer using it solely to sustain the altar and purification cycle, but diverting a thin stream along the path in the intent, injecting it into the dormant Wall of Thorns core deep within the altar's base.

Hmmm…

The cyan-gold runes on the altar's base quickened their flow by a fraction. A layer of extremely thin, nearly invisible pale-green halo etched with thorn patterns spread out from the altar's base like ripples, swiftly covering the entire stone chamber's walls and ceiling, then quietly vanished.

The instant the halo faded, that cold, snake-like prying sensation abruptly vanished!

It works! A weight lifted from Copperbeard's heart. At least the Doctor's remote probing was temporarily blocked. That bought him precious time to breathe and grow stronger.

"Boss! Water! Lots of clean water!" Wrench's delighted voice came from a corner, breaking the stone chamber's Heavy and Solemn air. At some point he had already crawled to the shallow groove seeping clear water, scooping up a handful of crystal-clear liquid with his still-working right hand and drinking greedily. "Sweet! Tastes better than the Old World's filtered water! Oh, my Wrench God!"

Copperbeard looked at the groove. Sure enough, the water flow was much stronger than before; a thin layer of clear water had already pooled at the bottom of the groove, emitting a pure, faint glow. This was the Source of Life.

After drinking his fill, Wrench seemed much more spirited. His bean-sized eyes gleaming, he stared at that pool of clear water, then at his still-twisted, agonizingly painful left arm, then at the scattered metal parts on the ground. A bold (or rather, mad) plan rapidly took shape in that goblin brain of his.

"Boss! I got an idea!" Wrench shouted excitedly, dragging his severed arm over to Copperbeard, pointing at the pool of clear water and the scattered parts. "Water! Energy! Parts! I can temporarily turn this busted hand of mine into a… uh… multi-function water-collecting arm? Or… a portable water purifier? And it can double as a hammer!"

Copperbeard looked at Wrench's soot-black face, a mix of agony and wild excitement, and his mouth twitched. Goblin thinking really was wildly unconstrained. But… there didn't seem to be a better way right now. Wrench's severed arm needed to be dealt with, and they did need a stable tool for drawing and storing water.

"Just… don't blow yourself up…" Copperbeard squeezed a few words through gritted teeth—tacit approval.

Having gotten permission, Wrench was like a shot in the arm and immediately pounced on the parts pile. He grabbed those few special alloy plates with natural energy-conducting patterns, and using his still-intact right hand along with his teeth and knees, began brutally bending and hammering them. He pried off a few redundant thorn-steel conduits from the micro energy-conversion core, and tore strips from his tattered clothes for insulation and fastening.

"Nerve bundle… hook this up… energy conduit as blood vessel… alloy plate as exoskeleton and… water reservoir? What for the filter layer… glow moss! Right! Glow moss has purifying effect!" Wrench muttered nervously while stuffing torn glow-moss leaves into the folded cylindrical alloy-plate sandwich, then inserting a thorn-steel conduit into it.

The whole process was brutal, bloody, and full of goblin-style madness. Wrench was in so much pain his teeth were bared, cold sweat streaming down, but the fanaticism in his eyes only grew stronger.

Copperbeard paid him no more attention; his attention was drawn to Xiang Lingna.

Xiang Lingna's long lashes fluttered a few times, and she slowly opened her eyes. Those clear, big eyes were first filled with confusion, then recognized the stone chamber's soft glow and the altar's outline, and finally focused on Copperbeard.

"Copper… beard… uncle?" Her voice was as thin as a mosquito's hum, carrying the weakness of one just recovered from grave illness, but no longer the gossamer thread of one on death's door.

"Little girl… good that you're awake…" A boulder dropped from Copperbeard's heart, and a rare gentleness showed in his single eye.

Xiang Lingna struggled to sit up, but had no strength. Her gaze fell on the tender branch she had once gripped tightly—now thoroughly withered and lifeless—and a flicker of sorrow crossed her little face, but was immediately drawn away by the vigorous life aura in the stone chamber. Her small hand unconsciously stroked the moss beneath her, which emitted a warm fluorescent glow.

"Glow moss… they're singing…" Xiang Lingna murmured, a pure smile appearing on her pale little face. As her fingers stroked it, that patch of glow moss visibly grew greener and lusher, its glow becoming brighter and softer.

She tried, softly humming a tuneless little song full of natural rhythm. Though the singing was faint, it seemed to carry a strange magic. Within the range covered by her song, the glow moss's growth speed clearly accelerated; new sprouts kept emerging, rapidly spreading out, like green ripples spreading across the ground!

Copperbeard watched the scene in shock. Xiang Lingna's natural affinity, nourished by the Life Altar, seemed to have been greatly activated! This glow moss could not only serve as food, but the faint light it emitted was an important light source—and now it could also accelerate growth!

The food crisis seemed to see the dawn of a solution!

Xiang Lingna hummed her song, intently guiding the glow moss's growth, her little face slightly flushed from concentration, full of vitality. She seemed completely immersed in her communion with the plants.

Copperbeard looked at Xiang Lingna, then at Wrench in the corner sawing and welding his own arm while muttering to himself, then at Lin Mo beside the altar, still asleep but with steady breathing, and finally felt the energy pulse from his severed arm sustaining the entire Sanctuary's operation.

Hope, like the glow moss spreading beneath Xiang Lingna's hands, grew tenaciously in this underground Sanctuary.

Yet Copperbeard's gaze swept over the thorn runes hidden on the stone chamber's walls. Though the Doctor's probing had been temporarily blocked, he would not let it go at that. And the Corrupted Claw Mark on Lin Mo's right arm was like a ticking time bomb. They had to recover their strength faster, learn about this Sanctuary, and find a way out of the underground, back to the forest.

He closed his single eye again, sinking his consciousness into the torrent of elven runes. This time, his target was even clearer—【Sanctuary Structure】, 【Exit】, 【Energy Core】.

Cold shards of information surged in once more. Among them, a blurry structural map of passages, tangled like tree roots, gradually clarified in his consciousness. One main root-vein seemed to lead toward… a deeper geothermal source? Another, thinner root, snaked upward, pointing toward… the direction of the Withered Forest?!

An exit!