Chapter 1325: Revisit to the Night Temple

"In addition, Lei Qianya also asked me to ask you, are you planning to sign up for the Ring Tobeisk Spring Horse Race?"

Duo Luo Xi asked again, and the news of the spring horse race was something Xia De had heard about at the racecourse outside the city in the autumn of 1853:

"If I have nothing going on then, of course I'll participate. I've practiced horse riding completely this winter. Especially in long-distance horse racing over complex terrain, I have quite a lot of confidence in myself."

"That's good. I'll remind you when there's news. The prizes every year are actually quite good. Of course, what people participating in the race value most is actually the reputation."

Duo Luo Xi's emerald eyes looked at Xia De:

"Knight, if you can win the top three, I can accompany you to play some interesting games then."

Her foot under the table brushed against Xia De, and Xia De blinked:

"Did you also read those illegal publications of A Jie Li Na that Lei Qianya confiscated?"

Duo Luo Xi's smile remained unchanged:

"I won't come tonight. You and your cat can stay at home by yourselves."

"I..."

"I really have something on. Elective course exam."

She kissed Xia De on the side of his face.

Coming from Tobeisk to the Randell Valley, the perceived temperature had dropped by about three degrees.

That cat, which became lazy after eating its fill, was just as Xia De had expected, shrinking into Xia De's arms and refusing to come out. By the time Xia De arrived at the Wang Erde Opera House, he had even considered leaving the cat at the opera house for the girls in the opera troupe to take care of, but it was clear that Little Miya hated being left in a strange place by Xia De even more than going to the suburbs.

There were four people going to the Night Temple this time: Xia De, Luweiya, Miss La Se Si, and Miss Benanisi.

The two leaders of the Golden Dawn had both left the city temporarily, and the witch naturally had to give instructions on how to handle things if something happened. Xia De took this opportunity to ask Miss La Se Si again about the follow-up progress of the "petrification plague" that had appeared one after another since yesterday, but the situation was even worse than Xia De had imagined.

"The number of victims is still increasing, and there is no pattern at all; it appears randomly among people of all age groups. The only thing known so far is that all the victims have lived in the Randell Valley for at least five years."

In other words, if the current situation didn't worsen, at least Xia De and Luweiya were safe.

"Does the Society have any countermeasures?"

Xia De asked worriedly, and Miss La Se Si pursed her lips and shook her head:

"Just like I said yesterday, this is almost a kind of plague, only it's not contagious... Not for the time being."

"I heard from the Society this morning that living in the churches of the Sun and Earth Sects can immunize one against this influence, but the local churches are only so big. Besides that, some divine items of the Sun Sect can suppress the spread of the petrification curse, but now that there are so many victims..."

Luweiya was also in a bad mood:

"The Society held a ritual last night, wanting to find the source of this Mad Earth, but progress hasn't been smooth."

Xia De thought for a moment:

"Is the 【Universal Earth Elixir】 prepared with my Holy Grail effective after dilution?"

"Theoretically, it should be."

Miss Benanisi, who had walked back, said:

"After we return, give me a Holy Grail, and I will try to concoct a panacea. But even if it is effective after dilution, with the petrification curse spreading as it is now, how many people can your Holy Grail actually save?"

The four of them were still riding horses out of the city, but Luweiya had no experience with long-distance horse riding in the wild, so the four of them rode three horses, with Xia De carrying Luweiya. It was clear that the purple-eyed girl was quite happy.

Because they had already been there once, and they had set off earlier today than last Sunday, it was only just twelve o'clock by the time the four of them had penetrated deep into the eastern mountains of the Randell Valley, come ashore from the frozen river, and seen the mountain where the temple was located from afar.

They led the horses ashore, moved forward through the cedar forest, and then tethered the horses to the trees. To prevent them from being eaten by wild animals in the mountains, the witch also cast "Protection from Wild Animals." The carcass of the wild bear that had been killed by Xia De's "Moonlight Wheel" when he came with the witch last time had already disappeared, and there was no telling who had benefited from it.

The four of them found the entrance to the cave from last time together, and then walked up the steep stairs inside the cave. They found the opening inside the cave, entered it, and continued upward, seeing the light ahead before long.

Shielding his face with his hand, Xia De was the first to arrive at the narrow platform on the side wall of the cliff, seeing the remains of the three stone arches.

The traces of the camp he and Miss Benanisi had set up last time were still there, and it was only upon arriving this time that Xia De realized that this place, which was an excellent spot for birds to nest, didn't even have traces of birds stopping by, let alone bird droppings.

"So this is the place. Although it looks very ordinary, my inspiration can perceive very ancient power."

The other three ladies also followed up, and it was Luweiya who spoke.

Watching Luweiya and Miss La Se Si standing side by side looking around, Xia De suddenly felt a strange sensation. Nearly two thousand years ago, they had also come here together on a very nice winter night, and then one of them, under the starry sky, had said they wanted to kill the other.

And this kind of thing had happened more than once. It was just that this time, when the two came here together again, what happened was already different.

Thinking of this, that feeling of almost touching fate appeared again. A smile appeared on the corner of Xia De's mouth; his arrival was indeed still somewhat meaningful.

"Your eyes look strange."

The witch patted Xia De on the shoulder:

"Hurry up and set up camp. If we don't eat soon, the cat on your chest will probably crawl out and scratch your face."

This cat's temper wasn't just because it hadn't eaten on time, but also because it had been jolted all the way while sitting on the horse.

Xia De had already used up the "Fiona's Housekeeping Servant" opportunity he had exchanged for that ruby. He had thought the four of them would just heat up some food here, but he didn't expect that when the campfire was lit, the witch would take out another ruby and hand it to him:

"Although I'm not as rich as Jia Lin Na, I can still be considered rich."

Luweiya smiled and pushed Xia De, who was hesitating, so Xia De used this ruby to cast the spell. After the sumptuous lunch appeared, the white note that came with the lunch explained that this ruby could be exchanged for two more kitchen service opportunities.

And at the end of this time, there wasn't a stick-figure smiley face, but a stick-figure dragon maid, with that tail drawn quite exaggeratedly large.

Coming to the Night Temple this time, Xia De's primary goal was to extract that time key, and his secondary goal was to find the statue of the "Space Ancient God" that the long-haired Luweiya had mentioned. As for other secrets, including the gold mine, they were secondary.

Of course, Xia De also suspected that the "door" corresponding to the key he had gotten from Count Ge Lan Jie was also here, but he didn't hold much hope of being able to find it.

【Honestly, I've been using the wild fruit reading app to catch up on books recently. The source switching is good, and there are many reading voices. Both Android and Apple are fine.】

After lunch, Miss Benanisi and Miss La Se Si went to find a suitable location, letting Miss La Se Si use the Sect's divine arts to perceive the memories of the earth to determine if extraction was possible. Xia De and Luweiya returned to the cave to look for hidden walls.

"According to my experience, the entrances to these kinds of spaces are all below the horizon."

Xia De said while illuminating the area in front of him with his finger, observing the cave with Luweiya:

"For example, the basement of my house, the underground wine cellar of the White River Valley vineyard, etc. So, if nothing goes wrong, we should start looking from underground this time too."

"The ground of this cave is slightly higher than the outside."

Luweiya said, taking out the obsidian pendulum she had obtained during the Elderon Lake incident. After shaking it gently a few times, she said to Xia De:

"Although I can't divine the space left behind by the Ancient God, I can at least divine whether there is a downward passage here. It should be in the southeast corner. Let's walk inside."

Because Xia De had purified the land half a week ago, the carcasses of those deformed animals were still lying inside the cave. Although the weather was cold and the rate of decay wasn't fast, maggots could already be seen.

Considering that he definitely wouldn't be coming here for the last time, Xia De took the time to clean up the inside of the cave first. He had the gentlemanly grace not to let Luweiya do the work. After cleaning up, he and Luweiya continued to walk deeper into the cave, rather than toward the top of the cave.

The area of this mountain cavity was very large, almost one-third of the bottom of the entire mountain. Xia De should have been able to directly perceive the power of the Space Ancient God at close range, just as he had discovered the space beneath the lighthouse on the island in the center of the Pantanal Lake. But he didn't know if it was the influence of the earth's power, or the residual power of the Night Temple on the mountain, but Xia De didn't directly perceive his target this time.

He and Luweiya spent nearly two hours in the afternoon letting Xia De's 【Space-Time】 spirit rune shine on every inch of the ground and walls, and even used the "Fossil to Mud" spell to melt some suspicious large rocks, but they just couldn't find any trace of a hidden space.

Luweiya even suspected that Xia De had looked in the wrong place, but Xia De couldn't say where he had gotten the information from.

Instead, the progress on Miss Benanisi and Miss La Se Si's side was faster. At 2:30, the two ladies found Xia De and Luweiya, who were still in the cave, and climbed back up to the Night Temple on the high cliff with them.

The group of four passed through the three ancient stone arches and arrived at the open space at the end of the arches.

Originally, there was nothing on the ground here, but after Xia De threw the Vientiane Wuchang card here last time and "illegally" traveled through time, the ritual array of the sun, moon, and stars that appeared had been branded onto the ground. Pushing aside the snow, one could see those traces as if they had existed for a thousand years; they didn't look like they had appeared just last week at all. ===== CHAPTER 1326 =====