Jeremy rolled his eyes in calculation, then coldly transmitted his voice to ask the phantom for its opinion.
The little demon acted extremely nonchalant: "I have no problem with it."
Seeing it agree readily, Jeremy decisively followed Leon’s suggestion, drawing blood to establish a temporary vision-sharing contract with this entity.
The time was still quite early, currently only around four in the morning.
After discussing and unifying their action plan for tomorrow, the five decided to divide and take turns resting.
During that quiet period, Leon and Phoenix, also stimulated, proactively removed their defenses to let a phantom possess their bodies in order to force their nerves to break through their limits. The condition of these two was no different from Lucius and Evelyn earlier. In the end, both had to use explosive force to crush the phantom in their sea of consciousness, fracturing the illusion and forcibly awakening amidst the backlash of murderous intent.
Jeremy casually stored the bone key and the phantom’s dry skeleton into his storage ring, then shouldered his blade and silently went to sit guard at the cave entrance.
He sat there, waiting for the first light of dawn to tear through the thick night. As the sunlight filtered through the leaves, the lingering gloomy, freezing sensation clinging to the forest also gradually retreated.
"Captain."
From behind his back came Lucius’s characteristic deep, warm voice.
"What is it?" Jeremy tilted his head slightly to look over.
Lucius lazily leaned his back against the cleanest section of the cave entrance’s cliff face. He lightly raised his hand to rub the corner of his eye, his tone carrying extreme lethargy: "Go inside and take a nap, let me take over the guard shift for you."
Perhaps because he had just woken up, a distinct red tint still lingered around the outer corners of his phoenix eyes, causing his voice to also become strangely sleepy and lazy.
Jeremy inadvertently rummaged through the profile data of the members he had skimmed over on the magic ID card screen.
Calculated by age, the four of them had all reached the sixteen-year mark; only Lucius was currently fifteen.
Leon was born in January, Evelyn in February, Phoenix in May. He and the original owner matched, both born in June.
As for Lucius’s birthday, it fell all the way at the end of December. He was still a full half-year away from the sixteen-year mark. If converted to the age on his home blue planet, this brat was just a male student who had just entered high school.
Therefore, it was no wonder why this guy’s personality was so twistedly complex: sometimes cunning, ruthlessly scheming, other times bearing the simple, harmless appearance of a youth who didn’t understand the ways of the world.
Being stared at with Jeremy’s scrutinizing gaze, Lucius slightly lifted his long eyelashes, the corner of his lips curling into a bewitching smile: "What’s wrong? Do I look so handsome that it’s distracting you?"
Jeremy snapped back to reality, shouldering his blade and standing up to stride straight into the cave, not forgetting to drop a cold sentence: "Not handsome."
"Lying makes you a puppy," Lucius muttered, acting dissatisfied.
"Alright, actually you look like a cunning fox." Jeremy replied perfunctorily and couldn’t be bothered to care anymore.
But truthfully, he still had a bit of a question in his mind.
The empire’s legal regulations were incredibly strict: one must be exactly sixteen years old to be allowed to participate in the matrix connection ritual to receive a Covenant.
Lucius had clearly awakened his ability before turning sixteen, yet only received a low-tier Spirit Covenant. Wasn’t this blatant proof that: Not only those bearing a high-tier Holy Covenant had the privilege to awaken early?
Having stayed up all night standing guard, exhaustion had begun knocking on the door. Jeremy cast aside all superfluous trains of thought, found a relatively flat rock slab, and leaned back to take a nap. Never mind the high or low Covenant system; right now, conserving strength was the number one priority.
Very fortunately, throughout that entire day, absolutely no magic beast ambushes occurred in the area around this cave.
The five people rhythmically took turns resting and consolidating their cultivation. It wasn’t until the crack of dawn the next day that they officially packed up their things, following the map system carved on the cliff face to head deep toward the forbidden cliff area.
But having only moved halfway, a tyrannical pressure, so heavy it suffocated human lungs, suddenly erupted from the central area of the forest.
Instantly, countless magic beast packs poured out frantically from deep within the forest like a bursting dam, trampling over each other fleeing toward the outer perimeter.
Sharp claws crushed the layer of decaying leaves; panicked roars echoed, shaking an entire section of the sky.
The clear sky was suddenly obscured by a pitch-black patch. Jeremy hid in the shade, looking up. He witnessed a giant magic dragon, its wings blotting out the entire sky, taking flight, heading straight toward the distant horizon of the island.
It seemed the phantom’s intelligence was accurate without a single millimeter of deviation. This level-nine magic dragon indeed chose today to leave its nest for mating.
The five youths exchanged glances. Waiting until the dragon’s oppressive aura completely dissipated, the group immediately channeled magic power into their legs, accelerating and charging straight toward the cliff.
Ten minutes later.
Standing at the edge of the bottomless abyss, Jeremy opened his barrier to release the phantom, ordering: "Swim down to the bottom of the cliff to scout first. Sweep your radar to see if there are any other high-tier magic beasts lingering around down there to scavenge."
The phantom let out a "tch," its pride wounded: "I dare bet my ghost life to guarantee there absolutely isn’t! This cliff bottom area is the exclusive territory of the magic dragon, no damn beast is tired enough of living to dare wander close."
It grumbled while soaring down beneath the fog of the cliff. It took a full half-hour before Jeremy began to extract and connect to its field of vision through the contract thread.
The actual situation down there perfectly reflected what the demon barked: There was absolutely no presence of any other creature at the bottom of the cliff; the space was eerily silent.
"The radar is clear, let’s jump," Jeremy said curtly, then took the lead to leap straight down into the dark abyss.
Leon, standing right behind, did not hesitate for half a second, bending his knees to dive after the captain’s trail of light. The other three also followed suit one after another.
The depth of this cliff far exceeded their imagination. Even with freefall speed combined with magic power to brake their momentum, it took nearly a grueling ten minutes before the heels of their shoes touched the surface of the abyss floor.
Covering the abyss floor was a massive, still lake. Lying close to the lake shore, a deep cavernous entrance opened pitch-black. Without a doubt, that was the lair of the magic dragon.
Leon cast a glancing sweep around, softly analyzing: "The water vein in this lake conceals an extremely high concentration of spiritual energy. Perhaps beneath it is an underground spiritual vein. No wonder the magic dragon chose this place to establish its territory."
Perhaps it was also thanks to the nourishment of this spiritual vein that the ecosystem at the bottom of the abyss developed to the point where the phrase "fairyland" could be used to describe it. Countless rare and exotic flowers and high-tier spiritual plants bloomed brilliantly everywhere. Even in hidden corners, magic power condensed into clusters of sparkling crystal ore deposits; just a passing glance was enough to make human greed boil.
The core habit of the dragon species was a mania for hoarding and hiding treasures in their lairs. After setting up a radar to confirm the surrounding area was absolutely safe, Jeremy hoisted his blade and strode straight toward the giant cave mouth.
But just as he got close, he froze. The cave entrance was sealed by a thick, blood-red magic mist screen, radiating a bone-piercing freezing aura.
Jeremy wasn’t foolish enough to charge forward and act as a meat shield. He bent down to pick up a fist-sized rock, using force to throw it hard at the barrier. The exact moment the rock touched the red mist, it was immediately crushed to dust by an invisible force, falling in pieces to the ground.
Jeremy’s eyes darkened. He took a few steps straight back, condensed a magic fireball with an extremely high level of compression, and launched it straight ahead. The moment it collided with the barrier’s surface, the fireball was immediately rebounded with double the speed and destructive power.
He smirked coldly. Truly worthy of the intellect of a level-nine magic beast. Dragging its body out of its home to call for a mate, yet still not forgetting to set up a reactive sealing barrier at the cave entrance this sturdy.
Jeremy completely understood: with the measly Novice realm of this formation combined, even if they beat themselves bloody, they couldn’t hope to scratch half a millimeter of the barrier.
He turned to look at his four teammates, issuing an order:
"The lair has been locked dead by that dragon’s level-nine seal. Our current level has no chance of breaking it. Clear the battlefield. Scavenge all the spiritual plants and crystal ores out here cleanly, then withdraw somewhere else to explore."
The four of them had witnessed the failed test just now with their own eyes, naturally understanding this was the most pragmatic and optimal decision. Lucius and Leon casually gave a "yeah" in agreement, while Phoenix and Evelyn nodded sullenly.
An hour later.
Under a storm-like sweep and the assistance of magic power, the entire quantity of high-tier spiritual plants and crystal ore deposits around the lake—even those crystals hidden deep at the bottom of the lake—were scavenged completely clean into storage bags by the five "bandits." The only thing they absolutely did not touch was the core spiritual vein hidden beneath the lake bottom, because that was the source of life maintaining the ecosystem of this entire island. Depleting it would be strangling their own path of survival.
Having finished dealing with the lake area, Jeremy hoisted his blade, preparing to signal them to enter the small adjacent forest to continue searching. But right at that moment, Lucius casually strode over and blocked his path.
He lifted both arms, holding out a large pile consisting of clinking dozens of spatial rings and tattered storage bags: "Hey Captain, here is a tribute offered to you."
Jeremy’s gaze swept over the pile of items. Among them, there were a few pieces of aristocratic-style magic jewelry still stained with dark, dried blood. He immediately turned his head to sweep a glance around the small forest.
Sure enough, all the jewelry, storage rings, and magical artifacts that once clung to the dozens of dry skeletons scattered around here had completely evaporated.
Lucius blinked his phoenix eyes, putting on an innocent expression so punchable it was asking for a beating: "What’s wrong? Is the Captain rejecting it? This pile of rags contains an entire mountain of gold coins and premium crystal ores. If you find it dirty, then never mind, I’ll toss it to save the trouble."
Seeing that this brat genuinely intended to throw this massive fortune away, Jeremy didn’t have the free time to bicker, reaching out to grab it immediately: "Hand it over. When did I say I rejected it."
According to magic law, spatial jewelry of all types automatically dispelled their soul-binding barriers after their owner had been dead for over twenty years. Lucius naturally grasped this clause clearly. The items he dug out were all goods whose protective lock layers had been disabled.
Carefully weighing all potential risks, Jeremy squatted down, carefully placing each item onto the grass, and only then used magic power to unseal them, forcibly dumping all the items inside out.
Piles of dazzling gold coins and magic crystal ores of every shape and color cascaded down like a waterfall. Mixed within were countless combat artifacts and rare magic items.
Jeremy narrowed his eyes to assess for a while, then issued his judgment: "This fortune goes into the public fund, considered as the general operating budget for this team in the future. But remember carefully: absolutely do not pick up any item bearing a family crest or engraved with their identity cipher. Hauling those things out will only invite fatal disaster upon yourselves."
Lucius smiled with crinkled eyes, replying in satisfaction: "The Captain is wise, whatever you decide goes."