Chapter 61: Negative Energy

Next, Xia Duo cast every spell he deemed usable on living creatures, only then exiting his Spellcasting Focus state, picking up the Skinning Knife he hadn't returned yet, and personally killing the wounded Goblins.

Watching one fragile life after another vanish by his own hand, from the initial extreme discomfort to later becoming accustomed to it, Xia Duo felt quite emotional.

Before transmigrating, he hadn't even killed a chicken, yet now he could kill life after life without a change in expression.

Truly, the environment makes the man!

Since the new recruits were all fighting with Long Spears and were inexperienced in their first real combat, aside from those shot at the very beginning, the majority of these Goblins were actually killed by Xia Duo.

However, having experienced the feeling of driving a Long Spear into an enemy's body, these new recruits could be considered to have gained a decent trial; Xia Duo could feel that they were already beginning to transform from farmers into soldiers.

After the battle, although Xia Duo had only been hacking at the Goblins that had fallen wounded to the ground, he was still exhausted, and the new recruits with their Black Iron Spears must have been even more tired.

The key was the change in mentality, which required a process of adjustment.

"All new recruits, rest in place for a moment! Drink some water! Jiexi, you and one other person stay to keep watch, the rest of you rest for a while too."

After speaking, Xia Duo found a relatively flat spot nearby and sat down, and the others, hearing the order, also began to rest in an orderly fashion.

Some of the new recruits sat directly on the Goblin corpses, while others, finding the smell too foul, found a tree trunk to lean against and sit.

Of the veterans who went out to keep watch, some found dry firewood and leaves, started a fire, and set the wolf meat they had cut earlier to roast over the flames.

Completely disregarding the scattered Goblin corpses all around, it was as if they were about to hold a barbecue party.

Xia Duo pointed at the few people roasting meat and asked Jibu in a low voice, "Captain Jibu, do you usually do this?"

"Usually we carry some dry rations, such as roasted flour, air-dried cured meat, and the like; sometimes we also forage on the spot."

"……"

Xia Duo felt that Jibu had completely failed to answer his question, but it did resolve his doubt; he had originally wanted to ask about discipline, but it seemed the Territory's Army didn't have such detailed discipline.

Soon, in the foul-smelling environment, the scent of roasted meat drifted over; it wasn't very fragrant, but in contrast to the surroundings, it still made Xia Duo swallow his saliva in secret.

Just then, Dien came over to find him; Dien had been well protected by Captain Wuke earlier, only managing to poke a few Goblins when the opportunity arose, and had just been giving Captain Wuke the cold shoulder!

"Xia Duo, I have a discovery, come with me," Dien said mysteriously.

"What discovery?"

"I can't quite say, you'll know when you come!"

Xia Duo had only just sat down, but he stood up again and followed Dien to the place he mentioned—seven or eight Goblin corpses piled together.

These were the ones the veterans had specifically moved aside for the barbecue; Xia Duo looked but didn't find anything strange, and if there were, the veterans should have already discovered it.

"What did you discover?"

Dien didn't say it clearly, but gave a hint, "Enter your Spellcasting Focus state and take a look, look at these corpses!"

Xia Duo followed his instructions; although he had cast Magic during the battle, Xia Duo, having had an experience of over-casting once, had never done so again since, always retaining a certain amount of spellcasting ability.

In the focused state, these corpses still had an intricate connection with the Magic Net, but these connections were somewhat different from when they were alive; it seemed as if a type of energy was being slowly guided out of the Magic Net by these corpses.

Negative Energy!

Xia Duo thought of this term immediately; in the Mage Tower's Magic Net theory class, Xia Duo learned that although the Magic Net covered the entire world, it did not possess energy itself.

Its energy source actually came from the Inner Plane, which is commonly referred to as the Fire, Wind, Earth, and Water Elemental Planes, and the Positive and Negative Energy Planes, as well as the Para-Elemental and Side-Elemental Planes formed by their combinations.

Among them, the Positive Energy Plane is the source of life energy, while correspondingly, the Negative Energy Plane represents the inevitable passing of life.

It is the natural opposite of life!

The energy emitted by these few Goblin corpses before him gave Xia Duo a feeling of life withering; if nothing went wrong, it was undoubtedly Negative Energy.

"Just this? Negative Energy?" Xia Duo said with some dissatisfaction.

Dien should have also taken the Magic Net theory class; he shouldn't be unable to guess that this was a phenomenon of Negative Energy gathering!

"It is just this! I had only seen similar descriptions in books before, but I hadn't seen the actual energy gathering phenomenon yet!"

Upon hearing this, Xia Duo knew that Dien had missed some classes, or simply hadn't chosen them; generally speaking, the phenomena of the four great elements enriching or Positive/Negative Energy gathering were too common.

For instance, water areas attract Water Elements, and conversely, places where Water Elements are enriched will gradually appear with water; other elements are similar. As for Positive and Negative Energy, he had just encountered Negative Energy.

Positive Energy can be encountered every day; light is Positive Energy.

Xia Duo casually released a 【Light】 spell, which dispersed the bit of Negative Energy that had just gathered around the corpses.

In reality, if it weren't for the fact that it was already late autumn and the Positive Energy in the environment had decreased, these few corpses alone would not have been enough for a Negative Energy gathering phenomenon to appear.

"Alright, let's go over; don't you want to taste the flavor of fresh roasted wolf meat?"

"Oh, okay."

Wolf meat still had some appeal to Dien; at this moment, these corpses had been lightly purified by Xia Duo, and with no Negative Energy to study, Dien no longer lingered.

Come to think of it, such stinky Goblins are only best when dead.

……

By the fire, the wolf meat was already roasted; although neither Dien nor Xia Duo had participated in the killing, by virtue of their status as resident Mages, they were still allotted the freshest parts.

However, Xia Duo didn't like this rough flavor; he only tasted a small piece and didn't want any more. Compared to eating wolf meat, he preferred to ask Jibu about wilderness survival skills.

He asked, Jibu answered, and occasionally others would interject; the atmosphere was quite friendly.

"By the way, Captain Jibu, when you used to clear out Goblins in the forest, how did you handle the corpses?"

"Basically, we didn't handle them. There are too many predators in the forest. Take us now for example, as soon as we leave, in a few days these corpses will be found and eaten by wild beasts, or even other Goblins."

Hearing this, Xia Duo couldn't help but feel nauseous; the piece of wolf meat he had just eaten might have been from a wolf that had eaten Goblins, and Dien directly threw away the wolf meat in his hand.

As for the veterans and the former Adventurers, they were still eating with great relish.

"Then Captain Jibu, have you ever seen Undead?" Xia Duo asked again.

Theoretically, in places in the forest where sunlight didn't reach, if a few corpses appeared and were not handled in time, it was very likely that Undead would be born.