Witch, don't be so lazy

The cold wind made An Ke shiver, but she was still extremely excited, her little face flushed red.

After all, this was the first time in her two lives as a human that she felt the real feeling of flying. It was not a bouncing style, nor was it like turning into a snowy owl and flapping its wings in the spiritual world, but it was really flying through the sky in the real world.

Of course, the only regret is that she is riding a construct controlled by someone else and cannot cast magic to fly by herself.

The reason why "Earth Navigation" was not used, according to Momo, was that "the distance was a bit far, and we had to avoid being affected by the earth veins too deeply, otherwise it would be easy to become strange and start doing bad things"... It's hard to describe in words.

The flight was very fast, but it still took nearly an hour to finally arrive at the ruins of Taiqir and see the troll camp ahead.

It was a huge fortress that started from the middle of the mountain and extended to the top of the mountain. The outer walls were all built with solid and sturdy boulders. In addition to stones, the internal facilities also used a large amount of solid cedar wood. The architectural style was full of primitiveness and wildness.

Anko looked into the distance and saw that the monsters were busy reinforcing the fortifications. The one in charge was the troll warlord, who was waving a whip and directing other trolls to cut logs and move boulders.

As for the more delicate work, it is left to the gnolls, lizardmen and goblins. There are many wilderness creatures in the camp, which are the slaves and food of the trolls.

Although trolls have always been regarded as stupid and barbaric by the general public, to be honest, their wisdom and civilization surpass those of most wilderness creatures.

They have their own heritage, know how to capture and tame other creatures as their slaves, know how to forge weapons, make magic items, and even have unique methods of bloodline advancement.

Even in the Southern Monster Alliance of that year, the legendary Cyclops, who served as the leader, could be classified as a troll. After all, they were all descendants of cursed giants.

"See that banner up ahead? It's the one with a fleshy torso tied to a wooden pole and an adventurer's head stuck on top. Creatures of the Northern Wilds love to make props like this. It's a tradition inherited from the witch Baba Yaga's monster army. It's called a Dread Golem."

Teacher Xiao Hui controlled the white giant eagle while presiding over the small class.

"It's more than just a simple deterrent and sign. It's also a unique security structure. It's usually equipped with detection and judgment spells. If the props used are high-quality, such as replacing the head with a processed Medusa head, it can cast a petrification spell equivalent to a high-level spell."

"If you go to the ruins of Everfrost City now, you'll see rows of oval grooves high up in the walls. Those are actually fear puppets created by the White Walkers using a large number of high-level creatures. They're extremely powerful and difficult to penetrate, making it almost impossible to infiltrate. The cost of attacking the city is extremely heavy."

"But this medium-sized troll tribe probably doesn't have much heritage. They actually fixed a low-level fear spell on their battle flag, and it's directly inserted on the edge of the cliff. There are no defensive measures, so it can be completely destroyed by long-range spells."

"Their reconnaissance methods are rather outdated. See those lizardmen standing on the watchtowers, peering around? They rely on their high vantage point and innate insight to keep a close eye on the adventurers below. But that's just the surface... Look, from that small house in the southeast corner of the camp, some birds occasionally fly out, sometimes out, sometimes back, and their movements are roughly the same. That's probably due to a shared vision spell, but they're completely focused on stopping the invading reconnaissance golem and haven't noticed us. It seems my camouflage and concealment spells are more effective than Mr. Smoya's."

There was a burst of applause.

"Oh," he said, "Xiao Hui is so amazing."

Momo also followed with an "Oh" and said, "Xiao Hui is so awesome."

An Ke opened her eyes wide, looked at the scholar next to her, and said tactfully: "Sister Momo doesn't know that Xiao Hui can do alchemy?"

"I know~" Momo tilted her head, "I was praising Xiao Hui for his extensive knowledge~ No wonder he was able to help me finish the final assignment for the Secret History class~"

...That's okay.

Although there were things she wanted to complain about, An Ke held it back and just turned her gaze towards the little gecko.

Her praise just now was quite sincere. After all, she was stunned for a long time when she saw Momo use the high-level spell "Fossils to Mud" to provide raw materials, and then the little gecko cast a spell to quickly assemble a majestic constructed creature.

Anke was even more surprised when he learned that the other party had also obtained the craftsman badge.

Apprentice, craftsman, master, grandmaster, and finally grandmaster, this is the division within the Golden Dawn.

Although the word "craftsman" sounds quite ordinary, in the city of Asda, only Smoya and Kunda have reached this level of alchemy attainments. Xiao Hui, as a spirit of nature, can actually be patient enough to delve into the advanced ways of alchemy. He is simply an outlier among outliers.

"I'm only good at assisting with construction. When it comes to building war golems, I know very little."

Xiao Hui was modest for a moment. It focused on auxiliary skills, not because it couldn't learn other skills, but because there was no need to.

Momo is enough for the battle, and it also has a certain combat capability. Learning alchemy is just to deal with some situations that Momo is not very good at dealing with, and to save some face for Lord Kumo.

Although Momo is better than her master in earth magic, her talent in alchemy is very poor. She cannot even get an apprentice badge and can only be considered an amateur. On the contrary, she has a unique talent in potions, which makes Kumo, the grandmaster of alchemy, very distressed.

Fortunately, the natural spirit in the disciple's contract knows alchemy, so Momo knows it as well. At least she won't be confused when attending the Queyu Workshop. With Xiao Hui to help explain, she won't be too worried about being deceived when she goes out in the future.

"Those golems are of decent quality, but unfortunately they are limited in number. They can be easily replaced. Look at the cages in the camp."

Following Xiao Hui's guidance, Anke and Momo looked over there together.

The cages contained large wild animals, such as the Dragon-toothed White-maned Wild Boar, a kind of terrifying beast found in the wilderness. When they sense danger, they will immediately go berserk and run amok like a car out of control, making them very difficult to tame.

There are also five huge snow mammoths. If the white-maned boars are cars, then the mammoths are heavy trucks. They can knock down several stone golems with their strength alone. Combined with their innate strong tusks, if they were not gentle in nature, they would be terrible war machines.

Of course, the trolls know how to maximize the combat effectiveness of wilderness creatures, but it's a bit bloody.

Beside the beast cage, Neng Ling+-Meng Shou*fa saw a pool of dark blood. In the center of the pool stood a bound snow mammoth, with iron thorns with strange patterns piercing its limbs. More than a dozen trembling goblins approached with long-handled stone spears, and then they were directly encountered by the whistling trunks and tusks, and were torn to pieces in an instant.

The troll leader next to him looked on coldly and swung the steel whip in his hand. The goblins around him threw the scattered corpses back into the pool, then picked up their weapons tremblingly and continued to move forward.

This cycle repeated itself until the snow mammoth grew weak and the water level in the pool rose. The goblins were finally able to make shallow cuts on one of the mammoth's legs. These wounds, one after another, slowly formed into a strange tattoo. It was hard to tell whether they were the result of twisted vines or the marks left by lightning strikes.

As the troll leader chanted softly, the blood in the pool seemed to come alive instantly, attaching to the tattoo wound, like pouring dark molten iron into the groove, consolidating, corroding, and strengthening it.

With a low howl, the mad mammoth once again killed a group of goblins, causing the water level that had suddenly sunk to rise a little.

This is just one leg, there are three more, and the torso.

It was an extremely complicated project that required huge sacrifices. When one batch of goblins was used up, they would be replaced by another batch, or else they would use ogres, gnolls and lizardmen to take their place.

When the snow mammoth's body is covered with strange patterns, its eyes are red, and white steam is constantly coming out of its mouth and nostrils, take advantage of its weakness and throw it into the animal cage.

"Seal of Morro: Boiling Blood, a battle pattern magic spell, enhances defense and strength, granting immunity to certain mental spells, but at the cost of a frenzied bloodlust... Normally, this spell provides a permanent boost, but whether due to a flaw in the inheritance or a deliberate tweak for simplicity, the trolls of the Bonebreaker Tribe have turned it into a one-time amplification. The life energy of those wild animals is already boiling, like a barrel bomb with a lit fuse, destined to burn out sooner or later."

Xiao Hui observed and explained, "When the battle begins, the trolls only need to release a few of them to destroy the golems in one fell swoop. Combined with traps, slaves, and fortifications, they can also cause heavy casualties to the guards and adventurers who attempt to storm."

"If those three second-level mages don't take action, it will probably be difficult to defeat them. But if they do, they will probably consume a lot of magic power. Then, our chances of winning against the troll leader and the vampire will be greatly reduced."

How to allocate limited magic power in battle is a compulsory course for most low-level mages.

Because his rank and affinity with the elements are too low, he is unable to mobilize free energy on a large scale and has to rely entirely on his own magic power to cast spells. However, his blue bar is not very long, and he often runs out of magic power before casting many spells.

But it is different for those extraordinary creatures, such as the White Walker royal family. Even if their bloodline is very thin, they still have a strong affinity for frost and more innate magic power. If it weren't for the Earth Dragon Jade that had been nurtured for hundreds of years, Yom would most likely have died.

As for the mage's mana recovery methods, the most common ones at this stage are only spiritual talents and drugs/props.

I won't talk about the former, as getting the talent to restore mana is considered a jackpot; the latter is more common, but unfortunately there are many restrictions on potions and props. On the one hand, they are expensive, and on the other hand, the amount of recovery is small and there are certain side effects. Excessive use may lead to magic disorder and pollution.

An Ke had rarely encountered the problem of insufficient mana before, because her telekinesis magic consumed less mana. After all, mental power also counted as part of the mana bar, and her mental power was relatively strong. The rest of her magic mostly had protection and blessings. In battle, she mainly relied on a single move to defeat the enemy, and she had rarely fought a protracted battle.

Except for the last night in Red Rock Town, a large number of monsters were cleared one after another, but at that time, Celine Weier could use rituals to restore mana, so she didn't have any worries in this regard.

However, this is indeed a problem that needs to be optimized. Although the [Snow Oath] that Gaga shared with her can speed up the recovery of magic and mental strength in cold environments, it is limited by the environment, and the bonus... cannot be said to be low. In the winter in the northern border, it can reach about 160% of the level without talent. Combined with the meditation method she has been running slowly in the background, it is much more powerful than a normal human mage.

However, compared with the powerful supernatural creatures, it seems not good enough, and it is still a long way from her dream of realizing the spell machine gun.

Ugh.

An Ke sighed silently, but was only sad for a moment.

After all, she now has several protections and blessings, and she is no worse than extraordinary creatures in using spells from the corresponding school. It would be impolite to be so pretentious. Moreover, she believes that there must be ways to increase the mana bar and restore mana when she arrives at the Tower Academy.

Now, her attention was focused on something that Xiao Hui mentioned.

"Seal of Moro? War Mark Magic?"

An Ke asked curiously, "That sounds amazing. Do the Bone Splitting Tribe also have this thing?"

Battle pattern magic has always been in Miss Anke's plan. She hopes that this thing can solve her melee combat problems, so as to save her from spending a long time honing her body and practicing breathing techniques.

"Yes, of course. Hundreds of years ago, one of the Cyclops's most skilled spells was the Seal of Moloch. The trolls under his command also mastered some of it, and it was passed down like this. Without some skill, how could they possibly occupy a piece of territory in the wilderness?"

Momo leaned in front of Anko and said, "The so-called Moro is a transliteration of the Giant language. If it is changed to the common language, it would be Kronos, the famous King of the Titans. He is nominally the second generation of Giant King, but in fact he is the true founder of the Giant Kingdom."

After all, it was a legendary monster that Amo had fought against before, so she knew about it in detail.

"Although research has shown that the Seal of Moloch wasn't created by the Titan King himself, but rather by his descendants using his name, this doesn't diminish its importance in war pattern magic. All totem magic of the Abyss is based on it. Morax, the legendary demon and fallen Titan under Solomon, was famous for this magic. It's said that this was also the reason he died at the hands of Evening Star Evanga."

After Momo finished speaking, she opened her big amber eyes and stared at Anke. After hearing "Sister Momo is so awesome", she finally nodded with satisfaction.

"Miss Anke, are you interested in the Seal of Moro?"

Xiao Hui seemed to see through An Ke's thoughts immediately and flicked his tail.

"Battle pattern magic is a complex spell, and it's very difficult to practice. It requires both sufficient attainments in the School of Nature and proficiency in spell patterns. Well, the Seal of Moro still uses the Abyss Magic Pattern, which is quite different from the ancient spell patterns that Miss Anke knows."

It controlled the giant eagle to dive down and land directly in the surrounding mountains and forests.

"If Miss Anke is truly interested, you can first try practicing the trick of Flesh and Blood Strengthening, and then progress towards the refined direction to the low-level spell Life Rhythm. It is a prerequisite for drawing a battle pattern. No matter which battle pattern you choose, you will eventually need these spells."

"If you find something related to the Seal of Morro later, Miss Anke can keep a copy. It doesn't matter if you don't use it. After all, it's a modified spell. Submitting it to the academy should earn you a few credits. While it may not be much for us, it's still very valuable to the freshmen...Hold on tight, we're about to land!"

As the snowflakes rose, the structure collapsed into a pile of mud.

An Ke landed steadily... in Momo's hands. She symbolically kicked her legs twice, then gave up resistance and just asked in a low voice,

"...So what should we do next? Go to the adventurer's base?"

"Of course, we're going to go find the vampire from the Disaster Cult. Momo has already locked onto her location. If we can get some information out of her, we can blow the troll camp to pieces."

Momo shook her head, "Then little Anke will be able to see the power of the combined spells of the Sun School and the Earth School. Let's go~"

Before Anke could react, the "Earth Route" was activated.

……

at the same time.

As the mammoth wailed in the pool of blood completed the ritual, several trolls worked together to lock it in a cage.

The troll leader finally stopped chanting Seven Two (Three) Zero Four Nine Mountains.

Obviously, the temporary transformation was more successful than expected. Only five of the twenty-six large beasts failed, but it couldn't be happy at all. There was only a trace of sadness in its eyes.

It has put everything the tribe has at stake just for a chance of a comeback.

There is no future in the area around Asda City, and even staying in the North is visibly bleak, especially when you are helpless.

Even if you can dominate an area in the wilderness, sooner or later you will be attacked by humans.

But it is impossible to ask the trolls of the Bone-Splitting Tribe to surrender to humans.

According to the ballads passed down orally, the giants were once the overlords of the world. If it weren't for those hateful dragons fighting against them, the elves would not have been able to establish the Laurel Dynasty.

Even if you think the glory of the Giant Kingdom is too far away and meaningless to talk about, hundreds of years ago when the One-Eye Lord was still active, they were the domineering existence in the north and the south. In their eyes, those ant-like skinny monkeys were just taller goblins that they could abuse at will. Now asking them to submit to the humble skinny monkeys, huh, dream on.

"Assemble! Warriors of the Bone-Splitting Tribe!"

The troll leader roared, and the trolls gathered under his roar. "Take up your weapons and fight for the tribe! Tear apart those reckless provocateurs! We will win!"

"Must win!"

“waaaa!!!”

With chaotic and strange cries, the trolls put on their equipment in an orderly manner. Their forging skills were not very good, and all the items were very rough. The characteristics were that they were heavy and thick, and they exchanged weight for combat effectiveness.

The enslaved wilderness creatures also had simple equipment, mainly gnolls and lizardmen. They knew that they were about to become cannon fodder. Some were trembling with fear, while others were numb and dull, but no one dared to resist.

As for those weak goblins and ogres, they were not even qualified to be cannon fodder. Most of them had just become materials for the "Seal of Moro".

Even if they are still alive now, they will become filler for the blood feast later...

In fact, even if the trolls could repel the invading humans, the final outcome would be death.

This is an inescapable sacrifice, a token of allegiance, and a blood tax that the tribe must pay in the future.

Only himself, Dorke Bonebreaker, and a few of his trusted subordinates could survive.

The troll leader watched everything in the camp indifferently. They would carry the will of the dead, follow Ms. Rose, join the Lightless Society, and start a new life.

When I become strong in the future, I will return to Asda City and revive the Bone-Breaking Tribe!

Turn around and walk towards the central tent.

The moment the curtain was opened, the whole person became humble and submissive.

Don't be fooled by Ms. Rose's thin and small appearance. When she gets angry, she is several levels more terrifying than a female troll. And since she received the news in the morning, she has become obviously very irritable.

"Damn Silver Fang! I knew he had bad intentions. He actually betrayed the Disaster Cult and colluded with Asda City. How could I possibly complete that rubbish plan with a jerk like that?"

"Damn that withering, urging me to hold a blood feast right from the start. He's using me as a shield to draw attention to himself, yet he's unwilling to give me even a single benefit. All he does all day is yell about serving Lord Dachis. Bullshit!"

"That Dazis isn't a good guy either. He's a fickle person. He took the spiritual world coordinates and kicked me aside. He didn't even keep his promise. I went through so much trouble to escape the Principality of Kaskia, and I don't want to die in the interior of the Northern Territory, but he still doesn't agree. Damn it!"

The beautiful vampire kept cursing, stepping on a few shriveled corpses. As soon as the troll leader entered the room, she immediately glanced at him with a cold gaze.

"How are you preparing?"

"Everything is settled."

The troll leader replied in a low voice.

"Alright, we'll first wear down the adventurers, then hold the blood feast. If they interfere, the ritual will most likely fail, but as long as we can attract their attention and force them to attack, we can leave immediately."

Madam Rose whispered, "Run directly towards Red Needle Town, towards Shell City. I don't believe that the guide from the No Light Society won't appear."

"We have to contact them. The plan needs to be changed. If we want to capture the Wailing Angel, in addition to dealing with the Blight, we also need to find a way to deal with the Necromancer sent by the Well of Silence. I don't know if he is a second-level or third-level one. A third-level one would be a bit more troublesome."

"What about the Dark Society? Where are they?"