Why are all your skill bars full of weird moves?

Gauss maintained his bow-drawing posture in preparation for a sudden attack.

Guided by the ball of light ahead, he deliberately moved quietly toward the direction where he had just shot the mutated goblin.

Looking up, I saw the goblin's corpse nailed to the tree, green blood flowing down the bark and pooling into a small puddle of viscous liquid at the base.

It needs to be dealt with quickly, otherwise the foul-smelling blood will attract nearby monsters.

After a series of operations

"Thump."

The goblin's corpse crashed to the ground, shaking up a few withered leaves.

Gauss wiped the blood off the arrow on the weeds, put it back in the quiver, and then activated the Eye of Fate.

[Goblin (Dead)]

When the target dies, no information is displayed.

Just as Gauss was slightly disappointed, a message popped up at the location of the goblin's big toe.

【Nightmare's Ring (Purple/Epic)】

【Durability: 64/120】

[Special Feature: Heat Source Detection. Function: Captures the heat emitted by any object in any environment.]

The goblin's fingers were too short to fit into a ring of that size.

In addition, this creature doesn't like to wear shoes, so the ring is now covered with a thick layer of mud, making it impossible to see the original material.

It's disgusting, but it's a magical artifact that makes up for the shortcomings of the Ranger!

Gauss drew a small knife from his waist, squatted down, cut off his toe, and flicked the ring off his finger a few times. Then, he used the tip of the knife to pick up the ring, turned, and walked towards the Rocky Creek.

He put the ring in water and washed it repeatedly more than a dozen times until no dirt could be seen on the surface before putting it on his right index finger.

The cool touch adhered to the skin, driven by Gauss's intention.

It was still dark in sight, but when I turned my head, I could see the heat source of a long snake wriggling in the dense grass.

Looking up, I saw several red dots the size of eggs perched among the tree canopies.

Looking towards the three people on the opposite bank, the outline of the heat source was making various movements.

I never imagined that a thermal imaging camera would appear in a fantasy world in this way.

Gauss interrupted the magic supply, and his vision returned to normal.

Across the river, Ula raised her staff, and magic condensed into a translucent giant hand in the air, crossing the roaring stream and coming to a steady stop in front of Gauss.

Gauss didn't think too much about it, stepped onto the giant hand, and let it carry him to the other side.

After landing, Balk was the first to come up and pat Gauss on the shoulder.

"Brother, those two moves you made just now were just like a seasoned archer."

Mia then took out two pieces of black bread from her backpack and handed them to Gauss.

"Eat something to replenish your energy."

Faced with this bland and tasteless food, Gauss was quite resistant to it, especially without the addition of mushroom cream soup.

"No need, I'm not very hungry yet."

Ula stood to the side, her facial muscles slightly tense. Her expression was no longer arrogant as before. Instead, she looked Gauss up and down, her lips moving several times before she finally decided to speak.

"Gauss," Ura said curtly, her voice tinged with the awkwardness of someone unaccustomed to bowing, "please don't take my rude words in town to heart."

"I'm...sorry."

Gauss did not become ruthless despite his advantage; he simply replied, "It's nothing."

Ula raised her head and moved closer.

"I've never seen that arrow that emitted such a bright light in any magical text. How did you do it?"

Ula's tone grew softer and more sincere.

"Could you...can you tell me how to use it?"

Gauss did not answer.

New magic is more tempting to mages than any treasure. If they can perfect and record a new magic in the annals, the achievement will be no less than winning a Nobel Prize.

But Gauss was not prepared to reveal this secret, especially to those who were not yet familiar with him.

"Those are wilderness survival skills that my mentor taught me."

"The arrowheads are coated with a specific ratio of luminescent moss and phosphorus powder, and the bowstring is controlled by muscles to produce vibrations at a specific frequency. During flight, the arrow generates heat through friction with the air, and then bursts into flames and glows."

Of course, this was just Gauss using his knowledge of physics from his previous life to embellish and fabricate a story.

But to a mage like Ula, who was well-versed in theory, these words contained a great deal of information.

She had studied "The Principles of Third Age Spells" and "Alchemy Transformation".

These two completely different disciplines were able to be perfectly combined in the ordinary feathered arrow.

The arrowheads are coated with extremely unstable alchemical materials, and then subjected to extreme control of physical vibrations. The slightest deviation could sever the caster's arm.

By relying on extreme control over the physical body to replace complex spell incantations, she completely shattered the magical understanding system she had built up over more than a decade.

Ula looked at Gauss. This man was poorly equipped, yet he could easily perform this lost secret technique.

In that instant, Gauss's image in Ura's mind was elevated from a burdensome ranger to a mysterious wandering inheritor.

"I will keep this technique a secret."

Ula lowered her head slightly, resting her staff against her side. Gauss was a little confused; how had his ramblings become a technique?

But now is not the time to dwell on that.

"Let's go, let's get out of this forest first."

The procession walked for about half an hour, and the surrounding fir trees gradually became sparser.

The vegetation changed from tall trees to low shrubs and large areas of black ferns.

Mist seeped from the ground, clinging to everyone's ankles, and the air was filled with the stench of rust and decaying earth.

Pushing aside the waist-high weeds, Gauss's view suddenly opened up.

At the foot of the mountain, Niujiao Town is built against the mountain, backed by continuous green mountains, and surrounded by stone walls.

The houses in the town are arranged in layers along the mountainside, eventually converging at a circular square. When viewed from above, the whole town looks like a sun emblem cut in half.

"That area is near a branch of the Howling Mountains, and the underground is full of obsidian ore of extremely high purity," Ula pointed to the mountains southwest of Bullhorn Town.

"The town used to make a lot of money by mining its veins."

Ula wiped the mud off his robe.

"But for some reason, after the new mayor took over, no one went to work at the mine anymore, and they even stopped allowing merchants to come in and buy ore."

Mia then interjected, expressing her own thoughts.

"I'm wondering if this is related to those missing children?"

"The people in the town are forcibly taking children to work as child laborers. They are afraid of being found out, so they refuse to let merchants in or out."

"Even adult miners struggle to mine obsidian, let alone children," Gauss said calmly. "Plus, if merchants don't come, who will buy the ore? It doesn't make sense."

"Unless, those children serve another purpose."

After listening to Gauss's analysis, the team fell into a brief silence.

Gauss also noticed the anxious and distressed expression on Mia's face beside him.

Perhaps he was thinking about the safety of those children.

"Let's go, let's get to town before dark."

……

It took the group about 15 minutes to descend the mountain. When they arrived near the town of Ox Horn, Gauss noticed that the outer walls were almost entirely covered with dark green vines.

These plants have large leaves with barbs along the edges, and their roots are firmly embedded in the cracks of the rocks.

The tower, which should have been guarded and patrolled, was now empty, and the wooden walkway was rotten and broken.

Gauss raised his hand, signaling the column to halt. There was no smell of cooking smoke, no stench of mule and horse manure, and even the most basic barking of dogs and chirping of insects had completely disappeared.

It's too quiet.

"Be careful." Gauss drew his arrow and nocked it. "Something's not right here."

Gauss activated his heat source perception, but there was no heat source feedback from any living organism in his field of vision.

"Ox Horn Town used to be a city that never sleeps; even in the dead of night, the firelight of smelting furnaces could be seen." Ula looked at the huge, open city gate, its hinges covered in reddish-brown rust. "Now the gate is wide open, but you can't see anyone going in or out at all."

Balk stopped grinning and drew his longsword from his waist with a clang, then held the wooden shield in front of his chest.

The kobold lowered its center of gravity, letting out a wary growl from its throat, its tail taut.

Mia closed her eyes, her lips moved rapidly, and silvery-white light overflowed from the holy emblem, transforming into four soft bands of light that entered the bodies of everyone present.

[Divine Guidance Technique: Increases physical resistance and slightly enhances mental resistance, lasting for ten minutes.]

Feeling the warmth flowing through his body, Gauss nodded to Mia and then took the first step.

The doors of the houses on both sides of the street were tightly closed, and some windows were smashed from the inside out, revealing dark interiors.

The destruction looked as if the people inside the house had been forcibly dragged out of the window.

Just as the procession was about to pass a dried-up fountain in the town center.

"Welcome, outsiders, to Niujiao Town."

An aged, hoarse voice, thick with a sense of drafts, drifted out from the right without warning.

Gauss quickly drew his bow and turned to look at the source of the sound.