The magic crystals hadn't been fully placed yet when the shoddy teleportation circle—all show and no substance—was triggered. Mana flowed along the runes, making a sizzling sound like gunpowder burning, but it didn't teleport anything away, only scorching a patch of snowy ground.
Barrett grabbed EeDechi and ran back, returning along their original path to the riverbank. Along the way, he carefully swept away their footprints.
EeDechi asked, "Where do we go next?"
"We..." Barrett pulled out the map. "Swim away!"
He took a thin cotton thread and carefully measured it on the map, lining it up with the river. He pulled the thread straight, measured it with a wooden ruler, and then used the map's scale to figure out the river's approximate length.
The sounds of treants clashing with the Sorcerer Kingdom's army in the forest were right in their ears. Barrett bustled back and forth by the river.
He used his sword to chisel a small hole in the ice, stuck his hand in, and roughly estimated the river's flow speed. That way, he calculated the time it would take for the water to flow from their spot to the river's end—the great waterfall.
The river water was bone-chilling, like a school of piranhas gnawing at his hand. Barrett yanked his hand out of the ice hole and quickly wiped off the droplets.
"About 40 minutes," Barrett muttered to himself. "With an error of plus or minus 20 minutes, so let's call it 60 minutes."
"The other path you mentioned... is diving under the ice and swimming along this river?" EeDechi stared at him, her eyes full of disbelief. "I can dive in an icy river for 60 minutes no problem, but can you?"
Barrett pulled a grayish-white marble from his spatial ring. "This is a potion made from gillyweed. I only have one. Swallow it and you'll temporarily get a fish's abilities, letting you breathe underwater for an hour and a half. I originally planned to use it for exploring underground rivers."
"Are you insane?" EeDechi exclaimed. "It's winter! You'll freeze to death in there, and once the river ices over, the oxygen levels under the surface will drop too!"
"It's rare for you to show concern for someone. But don't worry—the gear I prepped for those underground river trips is still good. I've got red magic crystals for heat, and half a canister of oxygen." Barrett said as he pulled out a few bottles and jars.
"Your spatial ring is a real treasure trove." EeDechi let out a sigh of relief.
"Elite adventurers always have to be prepared for anything. Because you can't predict what'll happen next." Barrett boasted. "Like right now—we were trekking through the forest, and suddenly we're diving into an icy river."
The two adventurers hurried to the frozen river, wiping away a patch of snow on the ice. They'd lost the forest's cover, but luckily the bone dragons and perytons in the sky were all busy slaughtering treants and hadn't spotted them.
Barrett used his sword to chisel a narrow hole in the ice, just big enough for one person to slip through. A few fish leaped out of the water, and Barrett grabbed them one by one, adding them all to his campfire menu.
EeDechi glanced at Barrett, took a deep breath, and slipped into the river through the ice hole, swimming beneath the ice like a sleek black fish.
Barrett swallowed the gillyweed potion, and in an instant, his cheeks split open, sprouting fish gills like some kuo-toa from the sea. He strapped the red magic crystals to his chest, and a warm heat flowed through his limbs and bones. But Barrett knew he was about to dive for an hour in water below freezing.
I hope in 60 minutes, I don't end up a frozen fish stick.
Barrett gritted his teeth, steeled his resolve, and leaped into the river through the ice hole.
Some time later, after a long underwater swim, Barrett broke the surface, gasping for air.
He was in a lake dotted with ice floes, with a massive waterfall four stories high behind him, surging down from above in a mix of spray and icy grit. He'd just plummeted from the waterfall into the lake.
His estimate for the icy river dive was off—he'd been under the ice for nearly an hour and a half. Barrett felt his whole body frozen stiff, his teeth chattering nonstop, his limbs on the verge of going numb.
The red magic crystals' energy had run out long ago, and they'd been knocked off when he crashed into the lake. The fish transformation was fading, his gills sealing shut. A gulp of cold lake water choked its way down his throat, and Barrett's entire being was about to freeze into a solid block of ice.
Suddenly, a pair of strong hands grabbed him, then Barrett was hurled out of the water by those hands, like a rigid flying fish, landing in the snow on the shore.
Barrett looked up and saw EeDechi, who had tossed him out of the lake. She was running across the ice floes on the lake's surface, as if walking on water, and with a few leaps, she jumped onto the shore.
EeDechi snapped off a few pine branches with her hands in the woods by the lake and lit a roaring bonfire. Barrett huddled by the fire, his body shivering as he soaked up the heat.
Luckily, the spatial ring wasn't lost. He pulled out a few sets of dry clothes and, without any shyness, changed into them right in front of EeDechi, then hung his wet clothes and pants over the fire to dry.
EeDechi's black outfit was soaked through, ice water dripping drop by drop from the hems, but she looked relaxed, clearly not bothered at all. It seemed diving in icy water for an hour and a half and then tumbling from the waterfall was as everyday as a casual walk.
But EeDechi noticed that Barrett occasionally cast his gaze her way, and only then did she realize that her own wet black clothes were clinging to her skin, fully revealing her curvaceous and shapely figure.
With a grim face, EeDechi pulled out a white bedsheet and wrapped it around her body. Her voice was colder than ice, "What are you looking at?!"
"Nothing, your muscles are firm." Barrett shifted his eyes back to the bonfire. He took out a map and changed the subject:
"If we're heading to the Eight Greed Kings desert, I suggest going through the Slane Theocracy, because the desert borders the Slane Theocracy and the Elf Country. The Elf Country doesn't take kindly to humans, so most human adventurers going to the Eight Greed Kings desert choose to route through the Slane Theocracy."
EeDechi asked, "How much do you know about the Slane Theocracy? Is it a nation ruled by religion?" She'd always hated religions, especially cults.
Barrett pondered for a moment and replied, "Rather than calling it religion supreme, it's more like humans supreme. The Slane Theocracy pushes for wiping out other races in the name of the gods. Inside the theocracy's borders, every other intelligent race has been driven out clean, and even magical beasts that band into tribes are a rare sight. In the Slane Theocracy, adventurers could go broke, because the theocracy's army and officials have already taken over the adventurers' gigs."
"That's a pretty intriguing nation." EeDechi eyed the fancy lettering on the map. "Does the Slane Theocracy have any ultimate powerhouses?"
"What the Slane Theocracy is famous for worldwide is its Six Scriptures special units, including the Black Scripture, Sunlight Scripture, Clearwater Scripture, Holocaust Scripture, Windflower Scripture, and Ashendust Scripture."
Barrett shared his insights in detail. "The Black Scripture is the strongest among them, claiming to be humanity's guardians, with every member a powerhouse who's hit the 'hero' level."
He looked up and spotted black smoke rising from the distant hills, then shifted gears, "We should focus on the road under our feet first—how to get out of Re-Estize."
The Sorcerer Kingdom's grip on Re-Estize was just like pulling the strings on a marionette. By now, Re-Estize's soldiers were probably scouring the whole country for them on the Sorcerer Kingdom's orders. If they got spotted, it'd spark another cataclysmic showdown, dragging in who knows how many innocent folks.
After talking it over, the two decided to pose as winter huntsmen. So-called winter huntsmen were bold warriors who specialized in slaying monsters during the winter months.
Sure, winter snow blankets everything, but the freezing forests aren't exactly serene. Tons of dangerous magical beasts like winter wolves, ice ravens, and frost spiders ramp up their activity, and even frost giants might trigger avalanches on purpose to raid human settlements.
These creatures use their magic-storing organs to blast out frost and snow, chasing down prey. But those same organs fetch sky-high prices, so they're hunted by winter huntsmen—or turn the tables and hunt the huntsmen. Who's the predator and who's the prey? That only gets sorted when one side bites the dust.