Chinese professors at the Wizarding Academy

Gu Chen naturally decided to continue forward. According to the apprentice Aiden in front of him, there was a high probability that Joebeck's camp was just ahead.

The resonance of the Soul-Eating Death Qi within the Grip of Life and Death indeed told Gu Chen that the Soul-Eating Death Qi remaining in Joebeck's body was in the same direction as Aiden's indication.

So according to Aiden, and combined with his own intuition, there's a high probability that Joe Baker is indeed there...

"It seems I really have no choice but to go."

Gu Chen thought to himself:

However, to be fair, although the two pieces of information corroborate each other, it is hardly a normal situation for an apprentice who is not even a wizard to suddenly appear in this foggy sea.

Should we believe it?

Believe it, but certainly don't believe it completely.

Gu Chen stood up, took out several small medicine bottles from his robe, all given to him by Ysera, and handed them to Aiden:

"There are three basic healing potions and two antidotes here. You managed to travel this far from the outer area to the depths of the Fog Sea, so you must have some skills."

Gu Chen stretched out his hand and pointed in the direction he had come from.

"If you walk back in this direction, you'll be out in about a kilometer. As for the dangers along the way, I can't help you; you'll have to figure it out yourself."

"Thank you so much, senior!"

Aiden took the leather bag, first instinctively expressing his gratitude, then he froze:

"Aren't you...aren't you coming back with me?"

"That camp looks very dangerous, and you're all alone... No, senior, I don't mean to ask you to protect me, but you saved my life, and I think I should tell you what I know..."

"All my companions have died on the way. The depths of the Fog Sea are truly dangerous...!"

Aiden's face showed anxiety, and it didn't seem fake.

However, Gu Chen had already taken a step into the depths of the foggy sea, stretching out his arm and waving casually as he walked.

"I have a reason to go."

He interrupted Aiden, his tone leaving no room for argument.

"Do as I say, leave as soon as possible, your injury can't be delayed."

"...Don't go to such dangerous places next time, it's no different from courting death."

After saying that, Gu Chen didn't linger and turned to walk in the direction Aiden had indicated.

That is, deep within the Bone-Eating Forest.

Aiden watched Gu Chen's figure disappear into the thick fog, gritted his teeth, struggled to get up, gripped the few small bottles Gu Chen had given him, opened them with trembling hands, and drank them all in one gulp.

He rummaged through his tattered pockets and pulled out a yellowed, worn-out scroll. As the scroll was unrolled, an arrow appeared on it, pointing in the same direction as Gu Chen. After confirming this, Aiden staggered toward the valley entrance.

"Ken, an apprentice from the alchemy workshop will be coming out of the Fog Sea later. His body will be tattered, and he will have the magical energy fluctuations of my blood magic on him. You will definitely recognize him."

"Most importantly, he has a map that can navigate through fog. Have you seen it?"

Gu Chen naturally saw everything Aiden did.

In reality, he didn't leave at all. Instead, he quickly walked away into a thick fog and then secretly began to observe.

"Oh? That's a good thing, Teacher Gu Chen. As far as I know, this is a positioning scroll produced by the Gray Tower Academy's Alchemy Workshop. Although they come in various grades, those that can guide you in the Fog Sea are generally of very high quality."

Upon seeing it, Gu Chen immediately contacted Ken. He was unfamiliar with the device and couldn't recognize it, but the arrow on it pointed in the exact same direction as the one he had just pointed out using the Star Gazing Technique, so it was obviously used for positioning.

So he immediately contacted Ken, who also seemed very interested in the positioning scroll.

"Are you planning to rob him?"

Ken continued, and Gu Chen was a little taken aback.

"No... why did my subconscious thought be that someone stole it from me?"

"Ken, keep a close eye on him and see if he's a spy for Joe Baker or something. I just saved him, but it all seems too coincidental... Keep an eye on him and see if there's anything wrong."

Ken's subconscious thought was that someone else would take it from him, and Gu Chen, after once again experiencing the simple and honest academic atmosphere of Gray Tower, couldn't hold back anymore.

"No problem, I'll keep a close eye on him."

"According to this apprentice Aiden, I should continue through the Bone-Eating Forest and head northeast to reach a camp. From his description, it sounds a lot like the style of Joebeck. I'll go check it out."

After explaining the apprentices' situation, Gu Chen told Ken about the camp in detail.

"Understood, be extremely careful."

After receiving Ken's instructions and sharing the information he currently possessed, Gu Chen continued forward and soon arrived at the Bone-Eating Forest.

Using his star-gazing technique, he traversed the Bone-Eating Forest at a rapid pace.

With the intelligence provided by Aiden, his objectives became much clearer.

He certainly didn't completely believe Aiden; in a place like this, anyone could lie or be deceived by illusions. He needed to verify it himself.

"They really know how to pick a campsite... The Bone-Eating Forest is definitely not a good place."

Gu Chen moved quickly through the Bone-Eating Forest, barely daring to breathe. He had considered taking a detour when he first entered, but the problem was that the Bone-Eating Forest was simply too vast... so he had no choice but to try to pass through it directly.

Within the Bone-Eating Forest stand towering white trees, clustered together, intertwined, reaching into the clouds and obscuring the sky.

Furthermore, yellow liquid will continuously drip from its white bark, and when the liquid falls to the ground, it will make a squeaking sound.

"Clearly corrosive..."

Gu Chen cursed under his breath, becoming even more careful about where he landed. He didn't believe his robe and black leather boots could withstand corrosion...

More importantly, Gu Chen knew that the danger of the Bone-Eating Forest lay not only in the strange trees that secreted corrosive liquid, but also in the hallucinogenic spores that permeated the forest.

These spores are colorless and odorless. When inhaled, they gradually affect a person's mind, causing hallucinations and even making them completely lost in the forest, eventually becoming nutrients for the trees.

Gu Chen held his breath and even slowed down his blood flow, causing the inhaled spores to take effect in his body more slowly.

He also concentrated his perception of stargazing to the extreme.

In the star trail network, the constantly flashing starlight representing the surrounding environment marks areas with abnormally high spore concentrations.

Using these two methods, Gu Chen was able to avoid many areas with very high concentrations in advance, and also allowed the spores to take effect in his body more slowly.

Something's not right...

Even so, he still got infected.

As Gu Chen passed through an unusually dense thicket of strange trees, he suddenly felt dizzy...

As the dizziness struck, Gu Chen felt the scene before him begin to distort.

The white tree trunks twisted and turned, as if each one were a person dancing.

The moss on the ground, the acid on the tree trunks... he could no longer see them. Sometimes he seemed to see a large pool of blood, and sometimes he seemed to see a clear spring.

Immediately afterwards, Gu Chen heard a familiar voice calling from afar—

"Teacher Gu Chen... Teacher Gu Chen..."

Is that Jim's voice?

No, Jim is outside the valley entrance; he couldn't be here.

Gu Chen bit his tongue hard, the sharp pain bringing him back to his senses for a moment.

"Damn, I must have gotten infected..."

He couldn't help but curse inwardly, knowing that if he had a choice, he definitely wouldn't have taken this path... but the area occupied by the Bone-Eating Forest was simply too vast.

The pain brought some clarity to his mind, but the call hadn't completely disappeared; it had become even lower and hoarse.

Gu Chen couldn't tell where it came from; it seemed to appear directly in his mind, or perhaps it came from deep underground.

"...Come...come here...everything you want to know is here...Jim's origins...the secrets of the Gray Tower...Antinoya's conspiracy..."

Gu Chen stopped in his tracks.

"No...no, I've been trained in hallucinations and mental manipulation, I shouldn't be reacting like this."

He had seriously practiced with the mind wizard before entering, so his current reaction was clearly very wrong...

This sound... is not just a hallucination.

It rang directly in his mind, without affecting his organs; it was a whisper on a spiritual level.

Moreover, it mentions Jim's background, Antinoya's conspiracy...

"Who?"

Gu Chen asked coldly in his heart.

There was no answer. The voice vanished, as if it had never existed.

But Gu Chen felt a cold wind blow past him, and then goosebumps rose all over his body.

"Something is watching me..."

"Run first, that's the spirit!"

As soon as Gu Chen had this idea, he immediately took off running forward.

Without any hesitation, they sped away from the area.

"What the hell is this...?"

Half an hour later, Gu Chen passed through the Bone-Eating Forest, and the view suddenly opened up before him.

He finally stopped and leaned against a rock wall, the shadow falling on him.

Gu Chen leaned against the rock to rest, while carefully observing the surroundings ahead.

A wide riverbed stretched out in front of them, but it was completely dry.

The riverbed is filled with pebbles of all sizes, and the sides are steep rock walls.

"Northeast, that's right."

Gu Chen looked closely and saw that the riverbed was heading northeast, proving that he had not gone the wrong way.

However, he did not immediately step onto the riverbed, but continued to hide in the shadow of the rock wall, carefully observing what lay ahead.

The mental probe spread out, scanning the riverbed one by one. It did not find any obvious magical traps or warning barriers, but there was an unusual residual magic in the air.

Although faint, it was very pure, like the aura emanating from some high-quality magical material.

"The scent of Star Tear Grass..."

Gu Chen's heart stirred as he recalled Aiden, the apprentice he had just met. Aiden had mentioned that they had come here in search of Star Tear Grass, and this riverbed area could indeed potentially harbor such a magical plant.

Star Tears Grass prefers moist conditions and dislikes light.

But Aiden's team encountered a horde of Mist Serpents here and was wiped out.

Gu Chen's gaze fell upstream on the riverbed.

"That should be the location he was referring to."

According to Aiden's description, following the riverbed upstream would lead to the black stone forest and what appeared to be Chobeck's camp.

So he began to carefully move upstream along the shadow of the rock face.

The pebbles in the riverbed are slippery, as are the surrounding rock walls. Nature has shown its power here, smoothing the stones wherever the river has washed them, no matter how hard they were before.

Therefore, Gu Chen was very cautious with every step he took. He walked slowly in the shaded areas, avoiding exposure to the relatively open middle of the riverbed.

It's not fast, but it's stealthy enough.

After walking about 300 meters, Gu Chen stopped again.

"It looks like this is the place Aiden was talking about."

A bend appeared in the riverbed ahead, and the bend was in the middle of the riverbed.

Several bodies were lying there.

Gu Chen held his breath and observed carefully.

"One, two, three... It matches."

There were three human corpses, their faces unrecognizable, dressed as apprentices of the Gray Tower Academy. Their bodies bore obvious signs of biting and corrosion, and broken luggage and weapons were scattered around them.

"There are alchemy workshop medals; these look like Aiden's companions."

Upon seeing the corpses, Gu Chen immediately became alert, but what alerted him was not the corpses themselves, but the environment around them.

Centered on the corpse, an area within a 20-meter radius was covered with a thin layer of translucent mucus.

The slime reflected slightly in the dim light and emitted a sweet, fishy smell. At the edge of the slime area, some fine white threads could be vaguely seen.

"The secretions of the Mist-Eating Python... and spider webs?"

Gu Chen narrowed his eyes.

He observed for a moment, then picked up a fist-sized pebble from the ground and tentatively threw it at the slimy area.

"Smack."

The pebble landed on the ground, splashing up a few drops of sticky liquid.

Nothing happened.

Gu Chen picked up another pebble and threw it near a white silk thread.

"Smack."

The pebble landed on the ground.

Nothing happened.

"Could it just be residue?" Gu Chen wondered. But he didn't rush forward; instead, he continued to observe.

Five seconds.

ten seconds.

Twenty seconds.

Just when Gu Chen thought there was really no danger and was preparing to bypass the area—

"Shhh..."

Suddenly, a dense crawling sound came from the shadows of the rock walls on both sides of the riverbed!

Dozens of fist-sized spiders suddenly emerged from the crevice in the rock! They were entirely black, with eerie white stripes on their backs!

They moved incredibly fast, their eight legs pounding the pebbles with a sickening clatter, as they pounced straight at the corpse in the center of the slimy area!

Even more bizarrely, these spiders didn't eat the corpse; instead, they circled around it.

Immediately afterwards, they began to expel more white threads from their abdomens, and the intertwined threads quickly wrapped the three corpses into three white cocoons.

The spider swarm, having accomplished all this, did not disperse. Instead, they suddenly turned in an instant towards the direction where Gu Chen was hiding!

Dozens of compound eyes gleamed with an eerie green light in the dim light...

"Depend on……"

It seems they had already spotted him, and were simply waiting for him to fall into their trap...