Chapter 775: Life in the Dream Forest, The Eternal Friendship Agreement

Jier gestured with the red-and-green, incredibly lightweight mysterious arrow in his hand; unlike the special arrows of the two hunters he had heard Mao Mao describe and seen with his own eyes, one could not simply tell by looking at this arrow what result would occur if it hit a target.

Along the slender, light plant shaft, there seemed to be tiny, sharp, unidirectional barbs; Jier felt nothing through his thick cowhide gloves, but when he ran his fingers along the shaft from the arrowhead toward the tail, it was very smooth, yet when he stroked from the tail toward the arrowhead, he couldn't push his fingers forward at all.

Those slender, sturdy little barbs completely blocked the movement of his fingers.

Based on this, Jier could guess that the tiny barbs on the shaft were a means to prevent the arrow from being removed after striking a target.

Either one would have to dig out a large chunk of flesh along with the arrow, or let the entire arrow pass completely through the body.

Jier pointed the arrowhead toward himself, his eyes carefully examining the flower bud arrowhead of this arrow.

This was the very thing that had stubbornly bitten into his precious Elven Metal Shield just a moment ago; after prying the two apart, Jier discovered that a thumb-sized dent had appeared on the surface of the Elven Metal Shield, which was very unsightly.

Yet, the arrow's flower bud arrowhead he was examining so closely at this moment had not a single bit of damage, which was very strange.

"Is this thing really that sturdy and hard? It clearly looks like a weapon made from a plant, yet it's actually tougher than Elven Metal?"

He poked the flower bud on the arrowhead with his finger, and suddenly! Just as Jier's finger finished poking and pulled away, the entire bud bloomed, but what it brought Jier was not a beautiful flower, but sheer terror!!

The petals of this flower bud were not only extremely sturdy, but after blooming, the inside of the flower was full of tiny, needle-like sharp teeth, which were currently fiercely opening and closing, trying to bite anything they touched.

Jier nearly threw the thing out of his hand, but in the end, he discovered that the attack range of this bizarre object was pitifully small, only as large as the flower bud of the arrowhead itself.

Although it was 'opening its mouth to bite', it could not move; even though the leaf fletching at the end of the arrow was swaying back and forth, it wasn't being shot from a bow, and it had no ability to move on its own.

So, one could hardly speak of any attack power.

"No, who is such a small, hard mouth supposed to bite? Hmm, maybe because this thing is all colorful, it's poisonous?"

The more Jier looked at it, the more he felt that this arrow relied on the tiny teeth in the arrowhead bud to inject a lethal toxin into the target. Although he saw that the very center of the bud was a tiny hole leading straight to the shaft, rather than a stamen, he didn't think this arrow was truly that strange.

It wasn't until later, when Jier used this thing himself, that he realized just how bloody and cruel this mysterious arrow really was.

After thinking for a moment, Jier picked up two pieces of Elf Silver Plate from the edge of the Yingdi and sat on the slanted, massive Stone Sword, repeatedly hammering these two silver plates with a Small Iron Hammer.

Precious metals are relatively soft and can be processed by physical means without high-temperature heating. In Jier's view, these Elf Silver Plates had nothing special about them, and he could only sigh in his heart at the extravagance and wealth of the ancient elves, bit by bit hammering and elongating the silver plate in front of him, finally making an arrow quiver that lacked any aesthetic appeal or proper dimensions; he had beaten one silver plate into an elongated, concave, lidless box for storing arrows.

And the other silver plate was fashioned into an irregular lid for this box.

The two pieces couldn't even be easily fitted together, but that didn't stump Jier at all!

After placing the mysterious arrow—which had closed back into a flower bud—inside, Jier barely covered it with the silver box, and finally, using his right hand balled into a fist, he exerted force and struck down toward the lid!

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

After several consecutive strikes, this silver lid was firmly embedded into the silver box. Jier then took the Small Iron Hammer and gave the seams a few more taps, safely sealing the thing up.

"Hmph, let's see if you can eat silver now!" Jier looked contemptuously at the sneaky, brightly colored Mushrooms that were exposing half their caps around the Yingdi.

Because the passage of time in the Dream Forest was different from the outside real world, Jier didn't know how long he would have to stay here before the Demon Flame raging outside would extinguish on its own.

He hoped it wouldn't be too long, otherwise he would have no choice but to eat the Glowing Moss on the tree trunks around the Yingdi and these poisonous Mushrooms that were stealing his Wooden Box and food.

The various foods originally stored in the Yingdi had been consumed quite a bit by these Mushrooms, and he had no reserve of the Monster Meat Jerky that Kela the Knight had roasted for him here at the Yingdi.

Sighing, Jier found a random spot in the Yingdi to lie down; he decided to follow his previous experience and stay here for three days, then see if he could safely go out.

Three days later in the Dream Forest, loud metallic clanging sounds of a hammer striking metal continuously rang out from the Yingdi by the Pond, making this dark, gloomy forest, which seemed eternally silent, appear lively and irritable.

The moist Glowing Moss on the trunks of some tall, towering trees that reached out of sight could not bear this noise interference, and one after another, they dimmed the brightness of their fluorescence.

The Mushroom Boy minions of the Spirit could only gather on the other side of the Pond, muttering and huddling together to play, not daring to get too close to that Human.

Jier was currently sitting upright on the cap of a plump, short, big-headed Mushroom, focused on holding a hammer head in one hand, continuously striking the Elf Silver Plate held in his other hand.

He was bored, so he was trying to use the Elf Silver he had moved here earlier to craft a set of Human furniture for use in the Yingdi.

As for a chair, he didn't need one; for the past two days, he had been sitting on the kind of big-headed Mushroom he was currently sitting on, and this thing was quite suitable as a chair. Not only was the height appropriate, but the cap was also slightly elastic when sat upon.

It was just that every time he finished sitting, this little thing would always run away, and the next time he needed something to sit on, he would have to go to the trouble of catching it from the Mushroom Boy minions.

"You say, why is it so troublesome for you to give them hands and feet? They keep running away, and they even hit me back."

Jier spoke to the Spirit sitting on top of his head while he worked.

There were only him and the Spirit as intelligent beings here, so after staying here for a long time, Jier had started playing with the Spirit again.

This little thing loved to sit on top of Jier's head and then express some Spirit commentary that no Human could understand regarding the crooked 'works' Jier crafted.

Its Mushroom subordinates, however, acted as if they could understand; when the Spirit boss gave a critique, they would gather around, shaking their heads and swaying, listening as if intoxicated.

Who knows what these things, which didn't even have brains, were actually listening to?

Bang, bang, bang! Jier continued to hammer; the wooden handle of the small iron hammer in his hand had long since broken on the first day, and for the rest of the time, Jier had been holding the remaining hammer head directly with his hand, using it to strike the silver plate.

The first things he made were some boxes and jars; the ductility of this Elf Silver was excellent, and a single piece of what looked like thin yet heavy Elf Silver Plate could be extended and deformed into large boxes and large jars as if by magic.

The boxes were, of course, containers he used to store food and other items, while the various silver jars could be used by him to hold water or his excrement.

Jier dared not throw the excrement produced while living here directly into the surrounding forest or into the Memory Water of the Pond that could melt everything.

He still remembered that the first time he came here, Lady Apolifina even used the Memory Water in the Pond to wash her hair.

And everything around, according to the Lady, was a dream of hers. Jier dared not defecate or urinate in someone else's dream and make a mess everywhere.

Therefore, the physiological waste from these days was all put into these newly made silver jars, which were then placed far away in a corner of the Yingdi.

Those Mushroom Boy minions were quite fond of his excrement and would always sneak over when Jier was asleep, crawl into the lidless excrement jars, and eat some using their mycelial roots.

Some of the larger Mushroom Boy minions would even bring some of the excrement stuck to their bodies to feed the smaller Mushroom Boy minions who couldn't climb into the jars.

It was eating, right?

Jier secretly pretended to be asleep and discovered this fact the next day.

The Spirit had no opinion on this; it didn't care about these things at all, because Jier had never seen it eat or defecate. This little thing was like an elemental creature with infinite energy, jumping around all day long.

Except for when Jier was asleep and it would also lie down to rest for a while, otherwise Jier would have thought this thing had been this restless for countless years.

One must know that Jier had found it near the Elf Ancient Ruins; that place had a certain connection to the elf research ruins where Lady Apolifina had once worked and lived, and perhaps as early as ten thousand years ago, this Spirit had already been active beside the elves of that time.

Looking at its restless nature, it was clear that the elves were not as boring as described in stories.

After finishing the thing in his hand and putting it down, Jier patted the top of his head and negotiated with the Spirit in a consultative tone: "How about it? Since you can enter and leave here freely, would you like to go out and check the situation outside for me? Be careful?"

The sprite was not stupid either; it flew over to sit on its Snail Shell, then flew before Jier, striking a pose with expressions and gestures learned from Human Merchants that said, "What kind of benefits can you give me?" while giggling cheekily.

Jier waved a large hand and said, "You state the conditions first, and we'll see what I can agree to. Don't be shy, you can put the conditions forward first; if we aren't satisfied, we can discuss it further. Anyway, as I see it, time here is the one thing we have the most of. And you, my friend, the passage of time seems to have nothing to do with you."

Jier estimated that he had been here for over three days, while only a few minutes had passed in the outside world.

Previously, when he entered here during a battle, he would eat, take a nap, and refresh his spirit, yet only one or two breaths would have passed outside. Based on the likely time outside now, the so-called Demon Flame, without enough souls to provide fuel, probably, should, perhaps, have already extinguished, right?

The sprite heard Jier's words and immediately began pacing back and forth on its Snail Shell in excitement. It was extremely excited, brainstorming bad ideas in its head while dancing and gesturing wildly.

Jier felt the dance moves looked familiar as he watched them; weren't those the dances he saw ordinary people performing during the Harvest Festival in Kendall County?

It seemed this little thing had secretly learned these free and unrestrained folk dances from the people back then.

It swung its arms, then kicked its legs out to the sides in time with the rhythm of its arm movements, kicking left, stomping right, the movements casual, with plenty of improvised, self-created content mixed in.

Watching their leader dance, a group of Mushroom Boys gathered around Jier at some point. These various poisonous mushrooms with arms and legs had simple and kind minds; their mycelium-formed arms linked together, swinging back and forth, and they joined in the dance as well.

Since there was plenty of time anyway, Jier sat on the cap of the unlucky fat-headed mushroom and patiently waited for these fellows to finish the entire dance.

Seeming to have thought of a good condition while dancing, the sprite stopped its dance and slid into its Snail Shell with a *whoosh*.

Before long, it tinkered around in its nest for a while and flew back out.

The tiny sprite held a more miniature glowing piece of paper in its hands and flew right up to Jier's nose, triumphantly presenting the mini paper, which was covered in even tinier writing, before Jier's eyes.

Jier tilted his head back, then tried to see clearly what was written on this glowing paper.

But the text was truly too small, and the paper was also too small; Jier simply had no way to deal with these characters that were smaller than an ant's legs.

"I can't see it clearly! I can't see it clearly, so I can't just agree to anything."

Jier shook his head with a smile.

The sprite immediately tapped the mini paper in its hand, and this glowing paper instantly grew larger.

In the end, it actually became half a meter in size, and Jier had to spread this enlarged paper over the caps of the Mushroom Boys nearby to make it easier to read.

Read, my foot!

He did not recognize the characters on it.

Even though there wasn't much text, and it strangely interspersed simple drawings as supplementary content, Jier still couldn't understand this thing.

Regarding this, Jier could only spread his hands and reveal an ignorant, awkward smile.

The sprite stomped its feet in anger; it really had no way to deal with Jier. It rummaged through the pockets of its clothes, found something, and then threw what looked like nothing in its hand onto the ground to the side.

Jier watched it tinker there in silence, and after waiting for a while, a brown mushroom the size of Jier's fist magically grew out of the silver floor that had looked like nothing.

This thing looked ordinary, having the appearance of an edible mushroom, and it magically emitted an alluring mushroom aroma. Jier sniffed his nose and subconsciously reached out to pick it up from the ground.

This mushroom was clearly catalyzed and transformed by the sprite's magical Magic Power, so the base of the mushroom stalk had no connection to the silver floor at all.

"This thing... is for me to eat?"

The sprite nodded and chattered something, but Jier could not understand its Sprite Language.

Out of trust for this little fellow, Jier tentatively opened his mouth and took a small bite of the delicious mushroom in his hand.

"You can do something useful after all," Jier muttered while eating.

But soon, he felt something was wrong; the mushroom in his hand became more delicious and juicy the more he ate, but some surging knowledge inexplicably appeared in his mind.

"Uh, woo, strange, hmm, hey! What? A bit weird, oh, so that's how it is, ba, pa, guji, mushroom, mushroom, mushroom?"

Jier's mouth and tongue were completely beyond his control, emitting a series of strange sounds, but when he lowered his head again, he could magically understand and see clearly the content on the half-meter-large paper before him.

【Friendly Friendship Treaty between Human Zhao Ji and Sprite ￥%￥#￥ (Unable to decipher)】

【Human Zhao Ji shall, after each meeting with Sprite ￥#￥%￥ (Unable to decipher, and the name is different again), fully accept one prank played on him by Sprite ##￥#@ (It's different again) and offer friendly praise.】

【Afterward, during this meeting, Sprite *%￥￥%￥ (Always different) will agree to one tiny, tiny reasonable or unreasonable request proposed by Human Zhao Ji.】

【This request cannot be too harsh, and cannot be impossible to complete for a long time, otherwise Sprite ###### (Different again) has the right to run away and inflict a small Curse punishment upon Human Zhao Ji.】

【If the above content is agreed to, Human Zhao Ji shall officially become the first friendly friend of Sprite %￥%%% (Why is it different every time?).】

【Once this agreement treaty is confirmed and signed, it shall be implemented forever until officially revoked; time cannot influence it either.】

【The agreement treaty is witnessed by Apolifina-Nightflower-Dreamdrinker.】

【May the sprite be friendly with all living Spirits, and may the joy of playfulness and pranks last forever.】

Jier was stunned. He glanced at the sprite, which had started dancing again, and wanted to say something, but every time he opened his mouth, it was the strange sound of: "Mushroom, mushroom, mushroom."

The Mushroom Boys gathered around Jier, affectionately patting Jier's body with their little mycelium hands.

It was as if Jier were also a tall, sturdy mushroom.

Exhaling, Jier finally gathered his Life Energy onto his palm and left a clear palm-print mark of Life Energy at the bottom of the huge paper.

The next moment, the entire agreement went *bang* and turned into seven-colored light, plunging into Jier's eyes and the sprite's eyes.

It disappeared after a moment.

Jier did not know that if he looked in a mirror at this moment, he would be able to see a phantom paper agreement floating deep inside his pupils, within his eyeballs.

Of course, this was just a false reflection; the real agreement had merged into his Spirit.

As for whether the sprite had a Spirit, Jier did not know.

"Mushroom, mushroom, no, not that, hmm, *cough cough*, can I speak now?"

The effect of the delicious mushroom came quickly and went just as quickly; Jier was soon able to speak normally. He did not know if the mushroom's effect was always this fast and short, or if it had finished its mission and was no longer effective?

Clearing his throat twice, Jier said to the sprite: "So, this is it?"

The sprite finished its dance, collapsed onto its Snail Shell, and nodded lazily at Jier.

Jier's eyes rolled: "Then, shouldn't we discuss the problem of how I can leave here safely?"

But the sprite stood up with a mischievous grin, hands on its hips, striking a pose as if laughing out loud, then shook its head and pointed to the place where the agreement had been placed earlier.

The meaning was self-evident: 'If you want me to help you, just honestly let me play pranks!'

Jier pursed his lips, took a deep breath, and sat on the spot, resigned to his fate: "Come on! Use whatever tricks you have!"

Seeing Jier being so cooperative, the sprite was taken aback, but then excitedly burrowed back into its Snail Shell. After tinkering for a while, it took out a mushroom cap hat that was even bigger than itself, dragged this mushroom cap hat, which was about the size of Jier's head, flew to the top of Jier's head, and heavily covered Jier's head with this hat.

Afterward, it sat on top of Jier's head, who was wearing a mushroom cap hat, and conjured a mushroom hat for itself to wear as well.

At this moment, Jier was sitting on the cap of a fat-headed mushroom, wearing a mushroom cap hat himself, with a little sprite sitting on the mushroom cap hat on his head, and the little sprite was also wearing a mushroom cap hat.

The mushroom cap being sat upon, the mushroom cap being worn, and the tiny mushroom cap—all at once, the three unified their different appearances, all becoming mushroom-like.

The Mushroom Boys beside Jier were also swaying their respective mushroom caps and dancing again.

Opening his eyes, Jier touched the top of his head wearing the hat; he suddenly felt that mushrooms were actually not bad.

Strange "mushroom mushroom" words came out of his mouth.

It wasn't until a good while later that Jier realized what he had done and said in this strange state. But he still had to follow what was said in the agreement, so he gave a thumbs up and praised the little sprite wearing the mushroom cap, "This mushroom cap hat of yours is truly fantastic!"

As for the little sprite, its nose was pointed up to the sky, and it was extremely proud; this was the first time in its incomparably long sprite journey that it had received such direct praise from someone else—how wonderful!