Mercenaries and Adventurers

The next day, Zhao Ji set out after eating early in the morning. He felt much better this morning after he applied Jamura's ointment on his buttocks last night. He went out of the village this time to bring his spear, shield, and long sword. As for the food, he made an appointment with the tavern last night for three days of grilled chicken, which were all packed in strong wooden boxes. As for the water Well, Zhao Ji brought three big jugs of beer, which are all made of grain, which not only quenches thirst, but also restores the nutrition the body needs.

At the same time, Zhao Ji also brought a set of slings that he had seized before, but there were no pebbles as ammunition. After all, those pebbles were still too heavy. After he brought food and drinks, the backpack was not light in terms of weight and usable capacity.

This time, Zhao Ji went out from the west gate of Dorallin Village. It was the road that Zhao Ji came to the village. In addition to waiting for the opportunity to destroy the goblins he met, the more important goal that he could not tell others was to find the ancient ruins of the elves.

In the past two nights, although the weather was cold and the bats that came out to look for food could not be encountered, Zhao Ji asked from the drunkards in the tavern that the first place to see bats in the village on weekdays was the southwest direction of the village. Zhao Ji also used an iron coin to ask the same result from the mouth of the little doll in the village.

This time, Zhao Ji set off to search for the ruins. Of course, the external explanation is to find the goblin team and find a way to eliminate it.

When passing by the sentry tower on the westernmost side of the village, a sentinel named Wanshi greeted Zhao Ji, but Zhao Ji couldn't quite hear what he said. Still took off his hat and saluted him.

The sentinels in these villages are not paid for their work, but are drawn spontaneously by lottery in the village. In order to improve their willingness to work, the sentinels can eat two full meals a day for free in the village security station, which is really very real for farmers, especially now when the farming is slack. In order to save an adult's ration, their respective families strongly recommended that they not stay at home, but go out to watch.

After all, farmers who are idle at home are very likely to go to the tavern to drink cheap wine to brag, or go to someone's house to gamble for money. In this case, it is better to let them go to watch.

Once Zhao Ji was out of sight of the sentinel's stubborn stone, he turned directly south instead of cruising around the village. The southwestern part of the village is full of low hills, one after another, and it is easy to lose your way if you are among these hills.

Of course, the east, west, north, and south cannot be disturbed. After all, as long as the weather is good, you can see the sun above your head and the mountains to the south. It's just that it's difficult to judge the sense of distance in these hills, after all, there are exactly the same hills around.

In these rolling hills, there are also many small forests. These trees range from very dense to sparse.

Zhao Ji was a little curious about this.

After he went to the densely growing forests to investigate for himself, he found that there were some natural water sources in these densely growing forests.

Either a spring gushing from the hills, or groundwater flowing from a small piece of rock, and there is even a small pond in the dense forest. However, the water in those ponds was green in color, and the water felt slightly sticky when stirred, probably because the algae grew too lushly.

Zhao Ji didn't dare to drink the water. After all, he was in the wilderness, and he was alone. Sudden illness would be very dangerous.

If he could not drink that water, he would drink less of that wild water.

Of course, if you really want to drink, you can still drink the ground water in springs and rocks. Among the two, spring water is the most preferred drink, while ground water has been filtered by rocks, which has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that as long as the rock wall out of the water is clean, there are no microorganisms in the water. The downside is that if there are poisonous substances in the rock, he can't see it just by looking at the water. Drinking it without knowing it is very bad for the liver and kidneys.

As for the spring water, it is generally the surface soil water under the ground. They are not deep ground water. After being stored, transported and filtered by the soil, there is generally no problem.

Of course, there is one of the easiest ways to tell whether the water source is drinkable. As long as there are traces of animals frequently coming to fetch water, it is generally available for human consumption.

Zhao Ji searched in the general direction of the southwest all the way. He didn't go straight in one direction, but the entire search route was in the shape of an arc.

The lady who provided the clues was only in her teens. Although the family didn't care much about what she usually did, she certainly wouldn't go out and stay outside the village for many days.

So the location of the elf ruins is definitely not far from the village.

On the first day, because Zhao Ji searched a large area, he failed to find the target. But he found water sources in many woods, and found some remains of animals hunted and eaten by goblins not far from the water sources. These water sources are haunted by goblins. It seems that goblins not only use the drinkable water sources as water sources, but also hunting grounds for them to hunt animals.

Zhao Ji felt that if he usually cruised around in those places, he would probably run into goblin raiders going out.

At night, in order to avoid the attacks of wild animals and goblins, Zhao Ji specially placed his resting place in a pile of stones on the top of a hill. The stone wall sheltered them, and some dry fallen twigs were collected, and a small campfire was lit among the stones.

He tidied up a small place in the center of the pile of stones, and used the stones he could move to seal up all the air leaks around it.

At night, Zhao Ji became extremely careful, always paying attention to the sounds of animals around him. After confirming that no animals noticed this place, Zhao Ji took a hasty nap for a while.

Zhao Ji didn't get up until it was bright the next day. He was still worried about being attacked last night, so he didn't sleep well. Many times I woke up when I thought the whining sound of the wind blowing over the stone was the heavy breathing of an animal.

After getting up, Zhao Ji extinguished the embers of the campfire with a piss, and after moving around for a while, he marked the camp on the approximate location on his map with the rising sun. Although there are piles of stones all around here, it is the only one on top of a hill.

This simple camp, Zhao Ji named it Stone Top Camp. Using the pointed end of a charcoal pen to write the name of the camp on the map, Zhao Ji began the search for the ruins the next day.

Zhao Ji searched roughly according to the route, while thinking about the situation that he failed to find the ruins. Logically speaking, he should be able to find the wreckage of a large tree stump hidden between two hills soon. But yesterday he searched all day and couldn't find it. It should be that he made some obvious mistakes.

It shouldn't be so difficult to find a wild ruin that can be found by a little girl by mistake. It's a pity that Zhao Ji couldn't directly inquire in the village where there is a large old tree stump the width of a house. If he asked, he would give away.

After thinking for a while, Zhao Ji felt that the location of the ruins might not be so difficult to find. Its direction might not be very deep into the wilderness, but it should be closer to Doral Forest Village. After all, the lady who first discovered it couldn't have traveled faster than Zhao Ji. Starting from the village and heading southwest, the location of the ruins may not be far away.

Thinking of this, Zhao Ji headed northeast. At noon, he finally found a very suspicious place.

That place is in the middle of the two hills, and there are different places leading to the intersection of the two hills. There are very dense forests on one end, and hills that are very close together on the other end. It is not easy to get to the place between the hills.

Zhao Ji didn't think about squeezing the dense forest, nor did he try to see if he could be slimmer than a girl. He climbed directly to the top of the hill from the periphery, and then slid down the hill with small steps.

As soon as Zhao Ji went down, he saw several huge tree stumps that looked like platforms. It takes at least ten to twenty people to surround the four stumps. I don't know how tall those trees should be when they are still alive.

Zhao Ji approached these tree stumps slowly, and then carefully touched the outer skin of these tree stumps with his hands. Feeling like stones, Zhao Ji knew that of course they could not be fossils. After all, the legendary elves were not as old as millions of years. No matter what happens, fossils will take a million years to form.

Zhao Ji estimates that the stony outer skin of these tree stumps is probably one of the reasons why they can grow so tall. After thousands of years and tens of thousands of years, the once wooden parts have decayed and disappeared, and only the outer layer of stone remains in the world.

Zhao Ji heaved a sigh of relief. Now that he had discovered the entrance to the elf ruins, he could relax a little.

He decided that it would be better to pack up an advance camp first, this is his successful experience.

These huge stone stumps have many roots leaking out, and these tree roots, like the tree stumps, are all stone. Zhao Ji found a thick tree root that was slightly off the ground and stretched in the air as a camp.

He used a shovel to dig out and expand the space under the tree root until he could comfortably walk in it alone. He didn't waste the soil he dug up, and piled it all up on the side of the tree roots.

Then Zhao Ji drew out his long sword and went to the side of the hills and valleys where there was a forest and felled many trees that were as thick as bowls. After seeing these densely packed trees up close, Zhao Ji confirmed that these were indeed the relics of elves. These ordinary trees, like other places, grow very densely in this place, and the denseness can be said to be weird. Logically speaking, each of these ordinary deciduous trees should have a wide enough distance. And here, it is obvious that they are next to each other, just to prevent animals from entering here.

It was strange that these trees were so densely arranged, but it happened to be convenient for Zhao Ji to cut them down. He chopped down trees with the upper part of the long sword, and with the hunting sharpness of the long sword, Zhao Ji fell down a dozen tree trunks in no time.

Cutting down trees with a sword felt a little sorry for his own sword, so Zhao Ji had no choice but to assure it that he would definitely let it fight and drink blood in the near future.

Carrying the trunks one by one back to the root of the tree, Zhao Ji split the trunks into two-meter lengths with a long sword, and then inserted these two-meter-long trunks vertically at one end of the thick tree roots. Local Zhao Ji has already left a deep groove enough for them to fix.

The trunks were arranged densely one by one, and the gaps in the middle were filled with branches and leaves. Finally, Zhao Ji piled up the excavated soil on the side where the trunks stood and compacted it with his feet. With this, the wall on one side of his camp is complete.

On the other side of the wall, Zhao Ji put the remaining tree trunks on the roots at an angle, and then used soil to fix the roots of the trunks. Only a one-meter-wide hole was left in the direction of Zhao Ji's feet.

Going to the hills to pick up some large stones, Zhao Ji made a campfire at the gate of the camp. This campfire just prevents wild animals from entering the camp. After all, animals are afraid of flames.

After the camp was set up, Zhao Ji looked at the sky. It was already halfway through the afternoon, and it took him three hours to set up the camp. The main reason is that it takes too much time to dig the soil under the tree roots.

After all the preparations for exploring the ruins were in place, it was time for Zhao Ji to get down to business.

The outer layer of these stumps on the stone surface is actually very easy to climb. After all, their surfaces are all dug, and there are many places for hands and feet that can be stepped on and grabbed. Rock climbing is better than that.

Zhao Ji first climbed the huge tree stump where his camp was located. The tree stump protruded from the ground only ten meters high. Zhao Ji did not carry a backpack, shield, spear, etc., but only a long sword and dagger, and climbed to the top of the tree stump two or three times.

On the top of the stump there is a stone layer half a meter wide, inside which is the hollow core of the trunk. A long time ago, maybe they all slowly became solid tree cores, but after so many years, they have been weathered and left only deep hollows.

Zhao Ji carefully sat on the skin of the half-meter-wide stone stump, and looked under the hollow heart of the tree. It was so dark inside that he could not see the bottom. Zhao Ji was not worried. He heard from the lady who told him about the ruins that the inside of the tree stump looked very deep, but it was actually not very deep, at least to the extent that the rope could touch the ground. And when she accidentally fell down for the first time, the lady was not injured. Although there is bat feces in it, it can be seen that it is really not deep here.

Zhao Ji looked at the other three huge tree stumps, and all three of them looked empty. Zhao Ji scratched his head, it seemed that he had to explore one by one. However, there is a problem.

He didn't bring enough rope this time. In order to fit it into the backpack, he only brought a bundle of hemp rope less than twenty meters long. The depth inside must be more than twenty meters.

And just a simple rope is not convenient to explore. After all, it's just a rope, so it's easy to climb up, but it's hard to hold onto the rope and go down.

Zhao Ji folded his arms in distress. He felt that his previous preparations were still insufficient. He lacked a small hatchet for chopping trees and enough rope. In the end, he found that he didn't have enough lighting, and he didn't have the means of detection to avoid the poisonous gas produced by bat droppings.

Zhao Ji took out a charcoal pencil and a map from the inner pocket of his chest, and listed all the things he needed on the back of the map. Watching the added things gradually occupy a part of the map, Zhao Ji put them away, and decided that the preparations for this expedition to the ruins were not enough, and he returned to the village to prepare first, and then proceeded to explore properly next time.