In Jeremy’s line of sight, the tall figure of Lucius suddenly appeared. He was casually reaching out, intending to touch a vibrant cluster of Frostmoon flowers.
Jeremy took a long stride forward, grabbing the other’s wrist tight as lightning, his tone sharp: "The sap is highly toxic, stop getting itchy hands and touching things randomly."
"Alright~" Lucius curled his lips into a smile, a fathomless glint darting through his eyes. He casually switched to his left hand, picking up an object hidden by the dense leaves, and waved it in front of Jeremy: "Captain, look at this. It looks like a bone key. Could it be a key to open some secret treasure vault?"
Jeremy released his hand, lowering his eyes to take a look.
It was indeed a piece of bone that had been carved into the shape of a key, its surface densely engraved with bizarre matrix patterns. Perhaps because it had been buried in this corner for too long, the strange fragrance emanating from it was even stronger than the Frostmoon flower cluster itself.
Unlike the fatal sap, the fragrance emanating from the Frostmoon vines and flowers was completely non-toxic; on the contrary, it possessed properties that calmed the nerves and settled the soul.
But the focal point catching Jeremy’s attention was not the scent, but the fact that on this bone key... there were still traces of dark blood that had long since dried and hardened.
Jeremy lowered the magical flame in his hand to illuminate the surrounding area. The next second, a human skeleton hidden amidst the pile of grayish decaying leaves caught his eye.
The skeleton had been gnawed away by time; not a shred of rotting flesh remained. Judging from the structure and length of the bone frame, this person was at most sixteen or seventeen years old when they died, but the time of death must have clearly been up to hundreds of years ago. Nine times out of ten, they died a tragic death due to accidentally or foolishly touching the Frostmoon sap.
Since being tossed onto this deserted island, along the escape route, the number of scattered human bones they encountered was too many to count. Was this place truly the academy’s training secret realm? Or was it that from the moment they stepped into the forest, that jellyfish-head Griffin had secretly teleported them to some death trap...
Jeremy quietly took a half-step back to avoid stepping on the skeleton, replying blandly: "Compared to your delusion about some treasure vault key, I think it looks more like a relic of this dried corpse."
Lucius let out a soft "tch," the look of interest on his face vanishing completely. He carelessly tossed the bone key back onto the pile of decaying leaves like throwing a rock by the roadside.
"You guys come over here and look, there are carved words on the wall over here." Leon’s cold tone rang out from deep within the cave.
Jeremy turned and strode toward him, Lucius casually following behind with both hands tucked into his trouser pockets.
Six minutes later.
Jeremy’s sharp gaze swept over the jagged, overlapping pattern lines on the cliff face.
The central area where the matrix currents converged revealed a fractured section. Most of the magic power transmission lines could not connect completely with one another; clearly, this was a spatial array that was abandoned halfway through carving.
Leon reached out to point toward the corner of the wall over there, analyzing: "Don’t you all think the topographical structure depicted in this area... matches perfectly with the place we just set foot on?"
"Is that so?" Jeremy took a few steps back to get a comprehensive view, his golden-amber pupils taking in the entire mural on the wall.
The rolling sea, the gently sloping beach, right up to the towering cliff hidden within the primeval forest, were all depicted in extreme detail, the proportions astonishingly accurate.
Wait a minute...
The drawing on this wall, why did it look exactly like the map the phantom had just projected in his sea of consciousness earlier?
Thinking about how that garbage demon had probably been lingering on this deserted island for more than just a hundred years, Jeremy secretly transmitted a questioning thought to it.
"What do you mean looks like?" The phantom, upon hearing it, immediately transmitted an irritable rebuttal: "That drawing was carved single-handedly by me! Authentic goods naturally have to look exactly the same, what a redundant question!"
It carved it?
Jeremy was slightly stunned. The corner of his sharp eyes glanced toward the dark pile of decaying leaves in the corner of the cave, continuing to transmit: "Could it be that the dried skeleton out there..."
Before he could finish his sentence, the phantom hurriedly interrupted with an incredibly proud tone: "That’s right! That is exactly my little life!"
Jeremy: "..."
It was truly a blind cat finding a dead mouse, a coincidence to the point of being ridiculous.
Recalling its tragic fate from years ago, the phantom let out a long sigh, reeking of narcissism:
"Looking back at the glorious times of the past, I was also once a heaven-defying prodigy, my reputation echoing throughout the world. Unfortunately, youth was impulsive and arrogant, daring to venture onto this deserted island to explore all alone.
Who would have expected to stumble into the forbidden cliff area, accidentally waking up the slumbering level-nine magic beast and being chased by it. A narrow escape from death, I barely dragged my battered body to hide in this cave. Originally, I planned to exert all my strength to finish carving the spatial array to escape, but I was interrupted because my spiritual power ran dry..."
Jeremy’s logical circuit clicked incredibly fast, immediately continuing the tragic story: "So that’s why you foolishly mistook the Frostmoon vine deep in the cave for the Moonflower Vine Leaf, intending to pick it to recover your spiritual power, and ended up dying a tragic death from the poison, right?"
The phantom fell dead silent for five seconds: "How... how did you know, Big Boss?"
The corner of Jeremy’s lips twitched slightly: "... I analyzed it that clearly, if I couldn’t guess your idiotic ending, my head would be filled with tofu dregs."
The phantom let out a hard snort in defense: "It was because at that time I was heavily injured by that magic beast’s claws and on the verge of death, coupled with exhausting my brain carving the magic matrix, which is why my spiritual power ran dry. Otherwise, if I were in my peak condition, a few measly Frostmoon flowers wouldn’t have been old enough to take my life!"
It quickly changed the subject, its tone suddenly turning serious: "Hey, human youth. I have a deal. You do me a small favor, and in exchange, I will offer you another earth-shattering secret, what do you think?"
Another secret. This piece of trash hid an unusually large number of trump cards. Jeremy wasn’t foolish enough to nod in agreement right away: "Bark out what the condition is, so I can consider if your life is worth it."
"Just a trivial matter." The phantom’s tone carried an unprecedented depression and seriousness.
It added sulkily:
"Before I died, a treacherous soul-binding seal adhered to my skeleton, resulting in my soul being permanently imprisoned here, unable to pass on and unable to leave, only able to wander and linger within the confines of the island.
After a full one hundred and sixteen years and six months of being a wandering ghost, I truly have endured enough of this damn boredom. My final dying wish is... you use fire magic to incinerate that dry skeleton, gather the ashes into a jar, and throw it into the damn sea to be done with it. That’s it."
"..."
The request was truly incredibly simple. Jeremy frowned in incomprehension: "Wandering here for over a hundred years, haven’t you ever thought of possessing someone else’s body to escape?"
As long as possession was successful and it seized a physical body, couldn’t it go wherever it wanted and do whatever it wanted?
"The people who step onto this damn island can be counted on one hand. On top of that, I couldn’t even damn well beat them, so how would I dare to try." The phantom whimpered and confessed the truth: "To tell the truth, if you hadn’t lowered yourself to proactively invite me in today, Big Boss, I bet even if I dragged on for another ten years, I still wouldn’t damn well know how to crawl into a living physical body."
Jeremy fell into absolute silence.
Although he knew low-tier phantoms often lacked physical lethal power, this demon... had truly let itself go to the point of being a piece of trash.
Seeing him not react, the phantom hurriedly pleaded: "Aiya, I’m speaking from the bottom of my heart! Big Boss, take pity on me and help me out this one last time! Please! This is truly the final wish of a pitiful ghost~"
Afraid that Jeremy would decisively refuse, it threw in another benefit bomb: "The secret I plan to trade is guaranteed to be worth its weight in gold~ I’m not lying to you!"
"Alright, alright, alright, I agree." Jeremy let out a helpless sigh, too lazy to drag things out any longer with this stubborn ghost: "Now bark, what exactly is your secret worth its weight in gold?"
The phantom was smug: "Hehe. Actually, that bone key that the silver-haired brat just threw away, is precisely the key to open my family’s forbidden gate. Legend has it that inside, a mysterious inheritance opportunity of peerless power is hidden.
Not only that, but I also deposited a massive fortune with no heir at the central bank of the empire. As long as you help me pass on, I will show you how to drop blood to claim ownership of the key, and give you all the assets I’ve accumulated for free. Exceedingly righteous, right?"
A transaction exchanging a small effort for a massive profit, Jeremy was a pragmatic person, naturally having no reason to refuse: "Deal. I will help you deal with that pile of dry bones."
The phantom cheered in the sea of consciousness: "Absolutely wonderful!"
After finalizing the deal, Jeremy decisively cut off the transmission channel.
During the time he was busy "negotiating," his four teammates had also gathered together and finished analyzing the mural. The intellect of those born into great families was truly no joke; the conclusion they drew was already grazing eight or nine parts of the truth.
Jeremy blandly recounted a summary of the dialogue between himself and the phantom. Naturally, regarding the part about trading the key and the massive fortune, he absolutely kept it hidden, not leaking half a word.
Human nature always placed personal benefit first. They were just strangers coming together by chance for less than two days; facing a windfall dropping from the sky, he naturally had to favor his own wallet first.
After summarizing the origin of the mural and the skeleton left by the phantom, Jeremy directly steered the conversation toward the cliff:
"Based on the phantom’s intelligence, at the bottom of that cliff, there is a level-nine mutated magic beast standing guard, and tomorrow it will leave its lair. We will stay put to observe the situation, wait for it to truly leave, and then head down to the bottom of the cliff to scout out exactly what that treasure the ghost mentioned is."
Hearing his proposal, Leon rested his chin in thought for a few seconds, his sharp eyes flashing:
"If that phantom knows the terrain like the back of its hand, and can establish a consciousness connection with you, why don’t you two establish a temporary contract. When the time comes, you just order it to dive down to the bottom of the cliff to act as a scout first, and then through the contract extract the visual feed, verifying if the situation down there is exactly as it barked."
Between a spiritual entity and a human, it was completely possible to establish a contractual binding barrier, similar to a magic pet contract between a spirit beast and a mage.
A life-and-death contract was an absolute binding for eternity, living and dying together.
A master-servant contract was a ruthless domination, one party forever bowing at the other’s feet.
And a temporary contract was the most free and equal form of transaction.
During the effective period of a temporary contract, the two parties could not only share their field of vision and sense the other’s surrounding environment, but with permission, could also connect and share a portion of surface memories.
Most importantly, this type of contract could be unilaterally canceled at any time without causing backlash damage to the soul.