Sanctuary Paradise

Chapter 764: Enlightenment [7k words]

Southern continent, Ritala city.

"Make way, make way! There are wounded people here! Please make way!"

"Monk! Are there any monks willing to be hired? One Shtral silver coin per day!"

Noisy shouting, urgent calls, and all kinds of noisy sounds echoed from the streets. A faint smell of blood drifted through the air. Looking around, somewhere in the market, one could see a number of refugees with bandages on their foreheads or limbs gathered in one place, looking like they were queuing up and waiting for something.

"Although I want to relax, but if I think about it carefully, there doesn't seem to be much to see in a place like the Southern Continent?"

In front of an inconspicuous stall, Xin Lailai, who was casually selling a tattered magic book, glanced at the scene in the city, shook his head slightly, and sighed in his mind.

At that time, Guang just wanted to go out for a walk and relax, but after landing, he remembered that they were now in the most chaotic Southern Continent. Although they easily passed the city inspection with simple camouflage magic and mental magic, as seen before them, this city located in the war-torn area of ​​the Southern Continent actually had nothing to see.

"Well, let's just take a walk."

Xin Lailai, who casually released a crystal healing spell at the lame stall owner in front of him as a reward, shook his head, picked a direction at random, and in a way that no one noticed, he restrained his breath and blended into the crowd amid the stunned reaction of the stall owner behind him. Then he walked slowly along the brick road in front of him, which was quite dilapidated, towards the city.

"2, 3, 6, 9... There are less than ten apprentice magicians in the entire city?"

Xin Lailai looked around casually, looking at this poor little town in front of him, which might not even be considered a town in the modern world, and the fearful looks of the people around him as they looked at the passing magicians, and he didn't say much.

Although there is a systematic magic inheritance in the world of Fulilian, and there are large forces such as the Continental Magic Association, in fact, magicians are still an extremely rare identity in the entire human community, and magic has not really been integrated into the lives of people in this world.

Especially for humans living in the southern continent, when more people hear the word magician, they often think of war and massacre rather than the convenience it brings.

Even if it is just the weakest apprentice magician, as long as he masters the killing magic... or the use of general attack magic, he can still easily slaughter more than ten well-trained human soldiers. This is the impression of magicians held by those living in war-torn countries in the southern continent:

A useful killing tool.

"One serving of white river fish, and one serving of fried mustard nuts and a glass of rum."

After a quick stroll, Xin Lailai arrived at an extremely simple tavern. After ordering two dishes, he listened to the noisy conversations around him and waited patiently.

"Tsk, I heard that Livia is at war with Osa again?"

"Normal. Those bastards have done this before. I think we won't be able to stay in this damn place for long. Didn't you see that the city lord has already run away three times?"

"What else can we do if we can't stay here? The land and sea routes to the Central Continent are controlled by those damn Erd people. Can we go back to the south?"

Chipped conversations continued to be heard from all around, and steaming dishes were served up at some point. Just as Xin Lailai was about to taste the dishes from another world, a mature voice suddenly rang out:
"Do you mind if I sit here?"

As soon as the words fell, Xin Lailai, who was looking down thinking about his next move, heard the voice and looked up in front of him. He saw a thin, green-haired middle-aged man wearing a coarse robe and covering his ears with a cloak. He sat down opposite him with a plate of food and asked him with a smile.

"random."

Xin Lailai, who recognized the other party's identity, looked at him and nodded gently. He used his magic power to form a soundproof barrier around him that only qualified magicians could detect, and then said:

"But I didn't expect to see an elf warrior in a place like this."

"Me too, I didn't expect to see the legendary figure here. The news I heard on the way said that you had already gone to the northern continent, but I didn't expect that you are still in the southern continent? I guess this is the goddess' blessing to me, right?"

The thin middle-aged man with green hair just smiled gently, looking at Xin Lailai who was using only extremely simple camouflage magic to wrap herself, and spoke, then looked down at the cross pendant on his chest, with a gentle look in his eyes.

"Nice to meet you, Your Majesty the Black Sword. I am Kraft, a monk in training."

"Adolf Black Sword, just call me Black Sword."

"At least let me add a respectful title, right? As a follower of the goddess, if I treat the messenger of God so casually, I will have nightmares at night."

"random."

The thin middle-aged man with green hair said jokingly, but Xin Lailai, who had already recognized who the other party was and even knew very well why the other party came to her, just nodded slightly, responded simply and said no more.

Kraft, the elven monk who briefly appeared in Frillian's original novel, met Frillian and her companions in the northern continent in the 28th year of the Xinshi Era in the original novel. According to the timeline they entered, which is the 30th year of the Xinshi Era, it is not surprising that the other party now appears in the southern continent.

In terms of setting, there is not much description about Kraft in the original work. The only clear thing is that he is suspected to be a member of the Brave Group ten thousand years ago, and has participated in a serious battle to save the world. It is even possible that he has seen or even held the Sword of the Brave, which was ridiculed in the original work as the time to prove himself as the real Sword of the Brave.

As for why the other party happened to meet him in such a place, it was certainly not a coincidence. In fact, the reason why Xin Lailai chose this obviously unremarkable small town to wander around was because he noticed Kraft, which was located in the city, when he passed by from high altitude.

Of course, in the eyes of the elven monk himself, this was just a pure coincidence. The other party, a believer of the goddess, happened to be lucky enough to run into him, the mortal messenger of God, who was hiding his identity and using healing skills to help others, and this was exactly what Xin Lailai wanted to see.

As for the purpose of Xinlailai bringing Kraft here? Of course it was not for the hidden branch of the other party.

In fact, the reason why he lured the other party here was simply to find a companion. After all, the environment in the Southern Continent was too chaotic, and it was not very convenient for him to take action here. If he really wanted to wander around, it would obviously be much more convenient to have a strong man like Kraft who had long been forgotten by the world.

Not only that, although it cannot be explained specifically, when he used the Star Luo field to detect Kraft, some intuition that was beyond the scope of reason and logic was suddenly triggered, which was also an important reason why he chose to meet Kraft.

Even though he couldn't be sure, Xin Lailai's intuition told him that if he stayed with the other person, he might get unexpected benefits.

"By the way, I didn't expect that Lord Black Sword would still stay in the Southern Continent? I thought you had already gone to the Central Continent or even the Northern Continent."

Inside the soundproof barrier, Kraft looked at the black-haired young man in front of him and spoke in his mature and magnetic voice.

"It just happened that something happened, so I stayed here for a while longer. But Mr. Kraft, someone as powerful as you actually stayed in a place like this. Are you interested in the war here?"

"Well, it's half and half, right? Although it is indeed related to the war, to be honest, even I don't know why I set foot on this land again after so many years."

Clavette smiled, then glanced at the scene inside the tavern. Looking at the gloomy adventurers and the drunkards who were drowning their sorrows in wine, he lowered his eyes slightly, revealing a look of nostalgia full of vicissitudes, and murmured softly:
"In the end, it turned out like this again?"

Low murmurs filled with complex emotions echoed softly from the soundproof barrier, but Xin Lailai just looked up at Kraft and didn't say much.

The elves in the world of Frillian basically have a lifespan that is unimaginably long, and Celie, a mainland magician who has experienced the mythological era, still looks like a child. From this, we can imagine how long the thin green-haired elf who looks like a middle-aged man in front of us has experienced in the setting.

"Come to think of it, Lord Black Sword seems to have experienced a longer time than me. May I ask what you think of the scene here?"

"As you can see, I am only a human. Although I have received the Goddess's blessing, I have only survived to this day and age simply because I have spent most of my life sealed away. In terms of experience alone, I am no more experienced than you."

"But if we talk about feelings, humans are probably the only creatures that can do this, right?"

Xin Lailai glanced at the scene in the tavern, his eyes flickered to the refugees outside the window who were crowding in front of the monks begging for treatment, and drank most of the rum in his hand.

"Haha, what an unexpected comment. I thought the goddess's messenger would be more compassionate or angry about this situation."

"It's just an objective statement. Besides, before I became a messenger of God, I was first a human being."

"Yes, I was negligent. So, what is His Excellency Black Sword going to do next?"

"Walk around and relax. I'm facing some problems that I can't solve for the time being. Someone suggested that going out for a walk is better than thinking about it, so I came to the ground."

"I see. In that case, Lord Black Sword, you shouldn't mind if I accompany you for a while, right?"

"That's fine. I just happen to need someone to lead the way."

Kraft asked with a smile, and Xin Lailai nodded and agreed.

For Kraft, a believer of the goddess, it is normal for him to be interested in the goddess's messenger, especially when the other party has certain doubts about the goddess in his heart, and this is exactly the result he wants to see.

……

So, two days later.

"Huh! As expected, it's more comfortable to stay in the forest."

Zhila~!

The sound of sparks burst out from the makeshift campfire. Under the cover of night, Kraft was seen sitting on the grass covered with a travel rug. After taking a bite of the barbecue in his hand, a look of satisfaction appeared on his face. Xin Lailai, on the other hand, looked up at the completely darkened night sky with some boredom.

After accepting Clavet's invitation, he followed him on a walk for about two days. Although he encountered some bandits and refugees begging for help during the journey, they were basically dealt with by Clavet. The only time he helped was when he helped the other party, who had little money, to pay a few silver coins as a subsidy to a refugee family fleeing to the north.

"Speaking of which, Lord Black Sword, can I ask you a question?"

"Just ask."

"If I remember correctly, you should be a magician of the same era as the goddess, right? I want to ask, the goddess..."

"what--!!!"

By the campfire, after finishing his midnight snack, Kraft looked at Xin Lailai who seemed to be in a daze. After a moment of silence, he spoke. When he was halfway through his words, a shrill scream suddenly came from the depths of the forest, causing his expression to change slightly. "Sir Black Sword, I'm sorry, I may need to..."

"Let's go together. I have nothing to do."

Before Clavet could finish his words, Xin Lailai also stood up and spoke calmly. Upon hearing this, Clavet's eyes moved slightly. He nodded, and without saying anything more, he grabbed the backpack beside him, stepped suddenly towards the depths of the forest, and rushed out of the place with a bang like a cannonball.

Xin Lailai glanced slowly towards the depths of the forest, cast a wind magic on himself to accelerate and fly, and then followed steadily behind Kraft. His overly calm reaction seemed as if he was no longer surprised by this kind of phenomenon.

In other words, after two days of getting along, he was certain that Kraft was just as the information and intelligence he knew said, an elven monk who was easy to get along with but full of subtle contradictions.

As a believer of the goddess, the other party neither believes in the real existence of the goddess, but longs for her real existence. As an immortal who has witnessed all kinds of things in the world, the other party is not interested in becoming a saint who saves the world and relieves disasters, but cannot let go of any tragedy that has happened before his eyes.

Peng——! !

The whistling sound of the wind passed by Xin Lailai's ears, and the surrounding scene flew backwards at their astonishing speed. In just a few seconds, the two of them had crossed a distance of hundreds of meters and arrived at the source of the screams:

It was an overturned carriage. A pungent smell of blood was coming from inside the carriage. A magical beast shaped like a griffin was lying on the carriage with its back to them, as if gnawing on something. Craft, who was using magic to detect, looked at this scene. His face darkened slightly. He took a decisive step, drew the long sword at his waist, and flashed a cold light in the air, instantly splitting the monster in front of him into two.

Plop~!

There was a dull sound of a heavy object falling to the ground, and the headless monster fell heavily on the carriage. The body began to slowly disintegrate from the wound. Kraft walked forward, looked down at the horrible scene in the carriage, and after a moment of silence, he said to Xin Lailai beside him:
"I'm sorry, Lord Black Sword, it may take me a while."

"It doesn't matter."

Xin Lailai nodded slightly, indicating that the other party didn't need to worry about her. Seeing this, Kraft didn't say much, nodded, walked forward, and carried out all the bloody and dead bodies in the carriage. He then skillfully recited a series of magical prayers from the goddess, controlling the ground in front of him to collapse into a pit, and placed all the bodies in it.

Finally, he was seen standing in front of the large pit used to bury the bodies. He ignored the pungent smell of blood, closed his eyes, held the cross pendant on his chest, and prayed in a mature and magnetic voice.

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting for so long, Lord Black Sword... Although I don't seem to have the right to say this, is that right?"

"Ah."

Ten minutes later, after finishing his prayer, Kraft said to Sinlailai in a self-deprecating tone. Sinlailai simply responded and continued to look at the night sky in deep thought. Kraft looked at this scene and smiled helplessly:

"I wonder if it's lucky or unlucky to have a traveling companion like you?"

In fact, during the two days of getting along with Xin Lailai, the middle-aged green-haired elf has more or less discovered that the human messenger beside him is really like a "god". Although he is a human being, he is not interested in what happens on the ground. As long as you don't take the initiative to chat with him, he will always look like he is thinking about something.

"Speaking of which, Lord Black Sword, you must feel very conflicted about my actions, right?"

Facing Sinlailai's almost indifferent reaction, Kraft looked at the dirt pit in front of him, smiled self-deprecatingly, and looked up at the starry sky above his head. He didn't care whether Sinlailai paid attention to him or not, and just muttered to himself:

"In fact, I was once the king of a human country."

"Haha, it sounds incredible, right? But it's the truth."

"You may not believe it, but at that time, I was influenced by a certain idiot and firmly believed that as long as I guided people properly, I could create a world where everyone could live happily even without the help of the power of the goddess that no one had ever seen."

"Very naive, isn't it? Now that I think about it, it is indeed so. In the end, the only thing I understood from that experience is that if a person without talent is allowed to become king out of passion, the consequences may be more tragic than war."

"To be honest, that experience dealt me ​​a heavy blow, but I was a person who refused to admit defeat, so I tried various methods afterwards, but all of them failed without exception."

“Even if you have accomplished great things and averted disasters, it does not mean that you have the ability to make the world a better place.”

"At the time, I was in despair because of this discovery. I even began to blame it all on humans themselves. I thought they were too unreasonable. It only took less than a hundred years for them to completely forget the oaths they made with such confidence. They only needed a little bit of profit to do all kinds of evil deeds that went beyond the bottom line."

"Ugly, superficial, and hopeless, this was my view of humans during that time. This view even made me gradually forget the agreement I had made with a certain idiot. I began to hate the human race and started to become the same guy as them in my eyes."

In the forest, the middle-aged green-haired elf looked at the night sky, a trace of reminiscence reflected in his amber pupils, and he murmured in a self-deprecating tone:

"Thinking about it carefully, that period was really dangerous. Fortunately, someone stopped my foolish behavior in time."

"Mr. Black Sword, do you know who stopped me at that time?"

"He was an ordinary monk, a young and energetic monk. At that time, I wanted to start practicing my foolish idea from his village, but when he saw me, he rushed up to me, shook my hand excitedly, and asked me if I was the brave man in the statue?"

"I still remember the complicated feelings I had at that moment. He didn't know why I came to the village, nor did he know my name. But just because of the story his grandfather told him, he showed such a good impression of me, a guy he had never met before."

"That night, I talked to him a lot. I asked him if he wasn't worried that I was a bad person. But he just told me that how could an elf carrying the goddess' cross be a bad person? But in fact, it was just a gift given to me by some idiot before he died."

"but……"

Kraft spoke to himself, looking down at the winged cross pendant on his chest, with an extremely complicated look in his eyes. He held the cross pendant and raised it above his head. He looked up at the pair of wings carved from metal reflecting the dim luster in the moonlight, and murmured:
"That was the moment I found true redemption, realizing that what I had always wanted to achieve had actually been done by someone else."

“So, I became His believer.”

"Although I never believed in His existence before, at that moment, I sincerely thanked Him, thinking that it was great to have the Goddess in this world."

"After that, I gave up my identity as a warrior and became a monk. To be honest, it was not an easy thing to do, but fortunately the elves' lifespan gave me enough time."

"Although by the time I finished learning the magic of the goddesses that had been deciphered, a long time had passed in this world, and even the traces of my existence had been forgotten by people."

“But I didn’t get discouraged at that time.”

"It's just been forgotten. At worst, I can just start from the beginning again."

Under the night sky, Kraft was seen staring at the double-winged cross ornament bathed in moonlight in front of him and said with a smile, while Xin Lailai on the side suddenly raised his head and looked at Kraft as if he had heard some key information.

"From the northern continent to the southern continent, just like before, when you meet people in need, help them, when you meet people asking for help, rescue them. Without interfering with the choices made by humans themselves, just do your best to carry out your own intentions."

"In this way, I believe that when I die, my soul will be able to enter heaven, and I will hear the goddess gently caressing my head and praising me, saying, 'Cravot, you have worked very hard. Your life is really wonderful. . . . '"

"Excuse me, Mr. Craft, could you please repeat what you just said?"

"Uh… huh?"

In the forest, when Kraft was completely immersed in his memories and narration, a calm but dignified questioning voice suddenly sounded, which made him startled. He looked at Xin Lailai in surprise, but still nodded and said:

"Um... let me think, I want to hear the goddess..."

"Not this sentence, go further forward."

"If you see someone asking for help, just help them and don't interfere..."

"Not this sentence either. Can you go a little further?"

Go further?
Hearing Xin Lailai's answer, Klavot couldn't help but show a look of confusion in his eyes. It was not because of anything else, but because he had just spoken the conversation completely according to his feeling. Now he was suddenly asked to think back a few hundred words. Even for him, he had to think carefully for a while to figure out what he had just said.

"Let me think about it. If I go back further, it seems like I'm starting from the beginning... Uh, no, it seems like I was abandoned..."

Then, Kraft tried to recall, muttering uncertainly, and before he could finish, Xin Lailai slammed his palm and shouted excitedly:

"Yes, that's right! That's it!!!"

"Haha, start from the beginning, that's right! That's it, no... I should say that I have always overlooked such a simple thing!"

That’s right, that’s right!
The answer had actually been right under his nose all along. He had even narrowly missed the answer several times, but he had not discovered it because of the constraints of his own way of thinking.

It is not about starting from the result, or trying to forcibly integrate spells with different principles together, but about finding their common points and their common starting point.

No, simply describing it as the starting point is not enough. After all, their spell systems all come from Crystal Element Technique from the very beginning, and he had long since confirmed that the Crystal Element Technique route would not succeed.

The real answer should actually be somewhere deeper than the 'starting point' of Crystal Element Technique.

Yes, deeper.

The domain created with Crystal Technique as the core technique allows them to manipulate the magic power within the domain at will, and to use various techniques related to the Crystal Technique system more freely. This is a result they already knew.

So...what if you want to go a step further?

What if you want to find an answer that is closer to the essence of their magical system and the spells they master than the nature of manipulating magic power?
That’s right, it was something that could better explain their magic system than Crystal Element Magic. It was something that could still be the foundation of their magic system even if it was a basic magic like Crystal Element Magic. It was something that had always existed in their field of vision, but was subconsciously ignored by them.

"Mana"

……

(End of this chapter)