From Witcher to Lord of the Empire.

Chapter 210 Warm up before the big battle... in various senses

The Demon Hunter Trial is divided into four parts, and everyone present knows it well: the [Choice] of physical training, the [Grass Trial] and [Dream Trial] of physiological gene mutations, and the last [Alpine Trial] which is similar to the exam. 】.

The first three trials are similar, only the final [Alpine Trial] has different methods for different schools.Some schools will let the apprentice hunt a small monster like a water ghost alone as a test for the witcher career, and some schools will throw the apprentice into a dark monster lair to let him survive the night.

Naturally, Lann hadn't passed the [Alpine Trial], or Geron took Lan's achievements on the mainland as his [Alpine Trial]. This answer sheet was indeed more dazzling than other apprentices of the witcher many.

The [Alpine Trial] of the Wolf Faction is to go through the cave where the "Old Spearhead" lives, go to the Ring of Elements to absorb the magical energy there to strengthen his seal, and obtain the badge of the Wolf Faction.It's just that the Cyclops living in the dark cave has extremely keen senses, so many apprentices who have survived the high mortality rate of mutant hunters end up tragically dying at the hands of Cyclops, who are not strong enough to face them.

This trial is dangerous, but the ring of elements does have something unique, and it is worth the risk for apprentices.Although it can't essentially strengthen the power of the wolf school's seal to obtain a seal ability comparable to that of the griffin school, it can give the witcher's seal some other special effects.

Lambert said: "My [Axii Sign] has undergone a gratifying change. When I first started out, I encountered two robbers. One of them was pointing at me with a crossbow, and the other was turning me. The pocket. I used the [Axis Seal] to let the guy with the crossbow shoot his companion to death, and then let him hang himself from a tree."

This effect was such that Cohen, who was a Griffin school, couldn't help but gasped when he heard it.Let the hypnotic effect of [Axie Sign] be strong enough to make the caster commit suicide defenselessly, this is something that even Lann can't do now.

For the Ring of Elements, the old Spearhead has another way to die!

…………

After dinner, the moon is on the branches.

Naturally, this time point is not suitable for going out to hunt demons.Kaer Morhen's ecology is excellent, not only small monsters such as water ghosts and evil ghosts, but also real monsters with magical abilities such as swamp witches, harpies, and little mist demons, and even fork-tailed dragons. These big monsters.

Most of them are nocturnal animals.Therefore, even if everyone in the wolf faction couldn't wait to hunt down the old spearhead, they had to wait until the next day.

In the dead of night, Lane's door was knocked again.

"Boom boom boom——"

The soundproofing of the room was not very good, and Lane had heard soft footsteps at the door long ago.

As soon as he opened the door, as he expected, Triss stood in front of him with a big smile.

The sorceress' long fiery red hair seemed unable to be covered in the dark, reflecting the candlelight in Lane's room, it was also touching people's hearts.

"I didn't come to look for you during the day, because I thought that Ciri would miss you very much, and you would need a space to be alone." It was late at night, and Triss spoke in a very soft voice, as if worried that it would disturb the people in the castle. other people.

"You don't miss me?"

"Ha, after all, I met you in Novigrad and... have been with you for a while."

"So you don't miss me?"

Triss choked, showing a helpless smile: "So I'm here."

After saying this, Triss added: "I also went to see Ciri just now and chatted with her..."

"What did you talk about?"

Triss recalled: "A lot. About our past, about our future together. I always wanted to treat her as my sister. She is very smart, and some things are inevitable. We talked for a long time, and finally she Let me come and find you..."

Lan En chuckled: "You think of her as a younger sister? But as far as I know, her relationship with Yennefer is more like a master-student, or even a mother-daughter—and you and Yennefer are best friends. This generation will Won't it be too messy?"

Triss stomped on Lann's feet: "According to what you say, what do you and Geralt count? You are also a witcher and an immortal, and you will know this when you are older." This kind of thing is very common!"

How old are you then?Lan didn't ask this sentence, worried that he would really be hit by a fireball.

Enough pleasantries.With her hands on her hips, Triss looked around the dark corridor of the castle, and then at Lane's room: "Aren't you going to invite me in?"

Lan En thought for a while, then said coyly: "The sound insulation in this room is not very good, and I have to go out to hunt demons tomorrow."

"It's okay, I just want to check whether you have fallen into the practice of magic. There won't be much movement, and it won't take too much time... just simply, chat."

Lan En sighed a long time: "That's not sure."

In the corridor of the castle, the only long red hair that could light up the darkness disappeared with a "shoot", followed by the sound of the door being slightly knocked.

After that, a violent and orderly wave of magic spread out from the room, and all the sounds disappeared immediately.

It seems that learning magic is still necessary.

The clouds in the sky are driven by the moonlight, the moon seems to be extraordinarily excited tonight, and the light it casts is also extraordinarily dazzling.There is an evening wind licking the trees in the mountains, and even in winter, there is a movement of early spring here.

With a "tick", water drops fell from the branches into the stream.The snow in the mountains seemed to have begun to melt, and the ice block that blocked the water source began to disintegrate, making the water turbulent, surging, and gushing out again.

…………

The next day, early in the morning.

Lan raised his head and drank a bottle of [Tawny Owl], which is an alchemy potion used to restore magic power and vitality in battle.Blue veins appeared faintly around his eye sockets, making his face paler.

Seeing Lan's behavior, Colgrim wondered, "Isn't it too early to drink the potion now?"

Lan En's alchemy skill [Patience Improvement] has reached the full level, and the toxicity of this level has long been ignored by him.But he naturally couldn't explain it to the Snake faction partners in this way.

After thinking for a while, he said, "You know, I rarely drink potions in battle. But this evasion is inevitable, so I want to get used to it in advance to avoid mistakes."

After saying this, Lann ignored Colgrim's reaction, pulled down the hood of the great griffin's cloak, and rode to the front of the team.

Kaer Morhen wasn't fully mobilized: Ciri remained in the castle, it was too early for a witch hunt of this magnitude.Yennefer stayed behind to continue Ciri's magic lessons, unwilling to miss the child's homework for a day.

Triss also took the initiative to ask Ying to stay and watch the house, but no one said anything.

Even if there are two female sorceresses who can be used as combat power, this team is not insignificant - two griffins, four wolves, four snakes, plus the druid Mossak, for such a team Given enough time, they can even take down a small or medium-sized country without injury.

Such a team is running up along the mountain road of Kaer Morhen at this moment.

Over a small hillside on the edge of a cliff.From under the rotting wooden fence at the edge, you can see green fields covered with light snow, swaying pine forests, and misty hillsides in the distance.

The clear spring in the mountains had already begun to thaw, and the sound of gurgling water could be heard from everyone's position.This clear spring passes through the canyon and flows into a wider river.

"Today's journey was unexpectedly smooth." Vesemir walked at the front of the line. "Since a few days ago... about a month ago, the monsters in this forest have become particularly energetic. Many of them have the habit of hibernating." All the hybrid beasts came out to run wild, and we could hear them roaring with hunger or screaming in pain from time to time at night, disturbing our sane dreams."

Hearing the old witcher's emotion, Lan couldn't help but agree.The subject had been brought up many times, but this time it caught Lane's attention.

If this is the case only in the local area of ​​Redania or Pontal, that's not a big deal.But if this was the case even on the border of Kaedwen, and the time of the monster commotion happened to be a month ago, Lan couldn't help but not pay attention.

Because this shows that this kind of "monster riot" may not be a regional event, but a global event, and perhaps Sintra also needs to pay more attention.

…………

A few black spots like crows in the sky hovered above the heads of Lan En and his party, squawking and screaming.But if you look closer, you can find that these winged guys have human shapes.

Harpy, a type of [hybrid beast].Compared with the griffin, which is also a [hybrid beast], this monster is obviously much smaller in size, and its hand-to-hand combat ability is also worse.But they have a peculiar magical ability, which can steal the dreams of creatures and turn them into crystals. Adventurers are keen to find the Harpy's lair, steal these crystals and sell them.

——Although they don't know how to read the dreams inside these crystals, they know that the quality of these crystals is the best.

Lambert was annoyed by the noise from these harpies, so he took out his crossbow and wanted to aim at the sky, but these harpies seemed to know that such a large group of demon hunters were not easy to mess with, and hovered precisely within the range of the crossbow Outside, Lambert is not allowed to take advantage of it.

Lann chuckled lightly, flipped his left hand and took out a longbow that was as tall as a person, pulled the rattling bowstring with a tooth-sickening sound, aimed for a moment, and then——

"Whoosh."

The arrow turned into a trailing meteor at a speed invisible to the naked eye and shot straight into the sky. With a scream, a harpy fell headlong with flying feathers.

The disturbing voices in the sky disappeared in an instant, and the sky suddenly became clean.Lan En looked at the Harpy that was shot down immediately, and it still had the strength to hop.

This is an extremely ferocious monster.When the harpy was in the sky, she could faintly see the curves of a young girl's body, but when she looked closely, she was so disgusted that she retched.It still had a sharp beak on its face, and a bald forehead; its wings were indeed beautiful, but its limbs and torso were wrinkled like old bark, and scattered with sparse feathers.

Seeing the arrows of the harpies passing through the throat, Lambert couldn't help whistling: "Good bow, good arrow skills!"

Sensing that Lambert seemed interested in his mahogany bow, Lan shrugged and handed it over.Seeing that the wolf sent the demon hunter to use all his strength to open the bowstring tremblingly, but there was still a gap of three or four minutes from the full bowstring, Lan could not help joking:

"If you let go of this bow, pay me for a new one."

Empty release refers to letting go of the bowstring without an arrow after the bow has been drawn.This will cause all the force originally used to support the arrow to fly out to pour on the bow, causing damage and greatly shortening the service life of the bow; Lignocellulosic splinters shot towards the archer's face, threatening his life.

Lambert blushed because of the force, and finally had to carefully slow down the bowstring to restore it to its original shape, and praised again: "Good bow. You also have good strength. I heard that the Griffin School should specialize in magic seals. I didn't expect There will be such a good shot."

"I'm a knight. Is it normal for a knight to be good at shooting?" Lane shrugged.

This sentence drew a burst of echo from Cohen, apparently this fellow Griffon School had also studied this skill under the guidance of Kelda.

"Then, knight, I would like to ask what should we do with the body of this harpy? We don't want to waste time dissecting this body here."

"It's very simple, let's go back and talk about it."

Lann reached out and held down the Harpy's body, and with a flash of light, he put the other party into the 【Inventory】.

This action caused everyone from the Wolf faction to marvel in low voices when they saw it for the first time, while the people from the Snake faction who were used to it did not know why they had a sense of superiority.

Lambert turned his gaze to Cohen: "Will you?"

Cohen's own eyes at the moment are inconceivable: "This is not the method of the Griffin School... it should be the source of magic? Or the blood of the ancients?"

Lambert was deep in thought: "Does that mean Ciri will learn it in the future? It's really convenient to know this skill when going out."

Lan En laughed mischievously: "Maybe, you can look forward to it."

Mossack and Vesemir exchanged glances, and shook their heads helplessly at the entertainment of the "young people" in front of them.

"Okay, okay, boys, stop messing around. It's rare that there are so many of us today, so these monsters dare not approach." Vesemir said seriously, "A while ago we didn't even dare to let Ciri alone People run in the forest, but whenever they go out, they must follow Geralt and one other boy."

"It's lucky that there are no monsters coming out to attack now, we just seize the time and hurry up."

Indeed, having lived near Kaer Morhen for so long, no matter how low-intelligence a monster has a basic instinct of seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages.If the wolves who usually act alone send lone wolves, then there may really be monsters with no eyes coming out to attack.But this mighty group of people is really too deterrent, and the number alone is more than some small groups of beasts.

We must know that wolves and water ghosts also come in small groups, and a normal demon hunter can pick out such a small group alone, let alone so many demon hunters gathered together.

So it's no wonder that today's road is so calm.

But everyone in the wolf faction knows that when the older generation lectures, there will always be young people who don't have good eyesight to come out to refute.

And this time it was not a young man who refuted Vesemir, but a slightly distorted voice——

"Ah!! Help, help!!"

This immediately aroused everyone's vigilance.

The voice sounded like a little boy, and the cry for help was so miserable that no one with good intentions would be indifferent to hearing it.But the sound was strangely filled with a sense of distortion.

In the words of Mossack: "It seems to be the sound produced by the projection produced by the magic communication device, or to put it more directly-this is the sound simulated by magic."

Which of the present is not an experienced hunter, "wilderness", "little boy", "magic simulation" and "help", once these elements are connected, who doesn't know what happened?
"Little Mist Demon." The experienced Vesemir said decisively.

Perhaps because Lann was young, and I heard that he did not receive a complete education in the witcher system, Vesemir played his role as a mentor:

"Little mist demons are a type of corpse-eating creatures that often appear in swamps, mountain passes, or coasts. They are monsters that can create clouds and mist, and can blur anytime and anywhere in the mist, and then launch sneak attacks that cannot be prevented. Use [Alder Sign] can damage them more effectively."

Lan En has actually read the illustrated book of monsters carefully, but he is still willing to cooperate with the elders' teachings, nodding cheerfully as if learning.

At this time, everyone had arrived at the lake in the middle of the canyon, and there happened to be a small swamp, and they needed a small boat to get to the cave where the old spearhead was.

There is mist steaming by the lake, which is a very normal scene on the lake with thick humidity, but combined with the cries for help from not far away and Vesemir's popular science, all of this has a little bit of horror and suspense. smell.

But this time, perhaps the witchers are the "horrors."

"Ah! Help!!"

The cries for help continued.

Lambert took a long breath, he was extremely excited today: "Just as a warm-up exercise before dealing with the old spearhead, the number of little mist demons in the same area will not exceed three, who of you is interested in coming together?"

Lan En thought for a while, then raised his hand: "I just don't have [Little Mist Demon Decoction] yet, this time I will make up for it."

The others showed no further interest in this, but they expressed their willingness to sweep the formation for the two of them, so as not to be attacked by surprise.

The crowd followed the sound of calling for help in a mighty search, and soon a little boy appeared in front of them.

"Ah!! Help!!!"

This is a little boy about ten years old, no taller than Lann's waist, naked from the upper body, without shoes, like a child of some Orion family who strayed into the forest.

The badge of the witcher on his chest vibrated slightly.

Before Lann could react, Lambert strode forward and shouted in an emotional voice, "Oh, boy, what's the matter with you? Are you all right?"

Not far away, Geralt and Escal looked at each other and shook their heads helplessly.

The surrounding fog was getting thicker, and the little boy's cry for help was getting louder.

As Lambert approached, he suddenly saw the little boy's face clearly, his eyes trembling.

His expression suddenly became sad and gentle, but his wrist became more powerful.He pulled out the long sword behind his back and murmured, "It's all right, you're safe."

"Ah! No, no, help!!"

The little boy's body trembled distortedly, like a phantom, it turned gray and slowly dissipated.

Immediately afterwards, a ferocious monster taller than Lambert suddenly jumped out of the mist.

Although the little mist demon has the word "small" in its scientific name, its body is not slender.Even with a hunched body, the height is about two meters. The head accounts for almost a quarter of the body, but the limbs are too slender.It has bat-like pointed ears, and it seems that a layer of skin has been torn off its face, leaving its eyeballs, nostrils, and gums exposed.

What is more intimidating than its ugly appearance is its claws. Lambert knows that they are sharp claws that can face the sharp sword in his hand.

Without hesitation, he added a [Quen Seal] to himself, and Lambert swung his sword and slashed. The tip of the sword pierced the air and made a piercing scream, but only shattered a phantom.

The hunchbacked figure was short and blended into the mist that surrounded him everywhere.

"Hey! Lane, does the Griffin School have any solutions to deal with this kind of scene?"

Lan unhurriedly raised his left hand and made a special gesture: "Vesemir seems to have said that this monster is afraid of [Alder's Sign]? This happens to be what I'm good at."

【Alder Sweep·Magic Burst】!
It was as if a high-yield alchemical bomb had been dropped on the shore, and the huge impact expanded around Lann as the center.The soil and turf were violently lifted up and thrown away, and even a not very strong pine tree was uprooted; the lake water more than ten steps away seemed to be hit by the air with a heavy hammer and suddenly sank. A small waterfall was set off and a few wild fish were startled.

As it should be, the fog around the lake was cleared away, and the sight suddenly became clear.

The three solitary little mist demons bent their bodies, exposed in front of everyone like little girls without clothes.

Vesemir calmed the frightened horse, looked at Lann's sunken body without a single layer of turf, and twitched the corners of his mouth slightly: "The [Alder Seal] I'm talking about is not this kind...forget it , there is no difference in effect anyway.”

Geralt and Escal looked towards Cohen.

The demon hunter of the Griffin school who had been far away from the Kael siren for a long time said hesitantly: "Master Kelda should be able to do this level..."

(End of this chapter)