At dusk, the sun — half-swallowed by the sea — painted Turtle Island in shades of gold and crimson.
"Your Terrain Awareness… leveled up?"
Beatrice stared at Li Fei with an expression of profound complexity, her voice carrying a distinctly hollow note.
"Mm-hmm. Practice makes perfect, after all."
Li Fei gave a breezy wave of her hand.
Thanks to the expedition's generous policy of reimbursing mana potions as a business expense, Li Fei had singlehandedly shouldered all Terrain Awareness duties for the thirteen-person team. From dawn to dusk, she had cast the spell in seven full rotations — including the burst of twenty-odd buffs she had applied the moment they arrived on Turtle Island. In the span of a single day, the spell's proficiency bar had been ground to completion, and it had risen to Lv2.
Terrain Awareness (Lv2)
Spell Effect: Reduces movement penalties caused by adverse terrain such as marshes, deserts, and snowfields.
Duration: 65 minutes
Cooldown: None
Mana Cost: 9
EXP to Next Level: 3/120
Beyond the extended duration, the buff's potency had also improved somewhat. And once the bonus from her Meditation — which raised all elemental spell levels by +1 — was factored in, Li Fei effectively possessed a Lv3 Terrain Awareness.
Of course, she hadn't let the Sensitivity Aura sit idle for a single moment either. If she pushed a little harder tonight, that one would level up too.
The moment the words left her mouth, Beatrice's cheek gave an involuntary twitch. The other Transcendents nearby exchanged sideways glances.
Was this even a human thing to say?
Advancing a spell's level through practice was only the most rudimentary of requirements. On top of repeated casting, one had to continuously analyze the spell model, study the underlying principles, and accumulate arcane insight — to say nothing of what came after. Under normal circumstances, even a relatively simple first-tier spell would take at least ten to fifteen days of grinding dedication before showing any meaningful progress. And Terrain Awareness, among first-tier spells, was one of the most complex of the lot.
"If everyone would lend a hand — we need to drive those ogres away over there."
Old Jiang spoke up suddenly, drawing everyone's attention.
Li Fei followed his gaze and spotted a dry, stunted little tree with two brown fruits dangling from its branches.
Beneath the tree, several lean, hunched green-skinned creatures with jagged tusks stood clutching stone axes, their cold, hollow eyes fixed on Li Fei's group.
"Nightshade Fruits — as they ripen, they absorb every last drop of nutrients from the tree itself, eventually producing one to three fruit per plant. They can serve as an ingredient for Crescent Moon-grade potions."
Qin Zhihua spoke at the right moment, her voice measured and calm. "Unfortunately, those inferior-class ogre warriors have already claimed the spot."
With Qin Zhihua's effortless grace and strength, dispatching a handful of ogres would have cost her nothing — but she was the team leader, and harvesting medicinal herbs required specialized tools and precise technique that only she could apply. Getting personally involved in a scuffle with low-grade enemies would simply be beneath her dignity.
"Leave it to me."
Beatrice shook her wrist, setting the silver bells there chiming. In nearly the same instant, she summoned several Sequence 7 Elven Archers into existence. They were tall and slender, their eyes void of expression — in perfect unison, they drew arrows from their quivers, nocked them, and raised their bows. Their pale hands were still as stone. A single command was all it would take to fell those paltry Sequence 8 ogres where they stood.
Li Fei identified the spell immediately: Summon Elven Archers, a third-tier ability.
That single spell alone laid bare just how vast the gap between a Knowledge-Sequence mage and a Bloodline-Sequence one could be. Even at the same Sequence 7 rank, an Elven Archer had only one life — but a mage who had mastered Intermediate Natural Magic could summon an entire swarm of them to overwhelm any enemy.
Of course, the more noble and powerful the bloodline, the narrower that gap became. The Black Dragon clan, for instance, was born immune to the vast majority of spells at the eighth tier and below, and could chase a same-rank mage down the street without breaking a sweat.
Li Fei — who had to spend coin on a scroll just to summon a single Forest Child — recited "what goes around comes around" under her breath with a twinge of sour envy, then pulled out her crossbow and attempted to steal a kill.
Thwip. Thwip. Thwip.
Beatrice flicked her hand. Arrows flew in a burst, striking the monsters squarely through the heart with unerring precision. The natives, reluctant to yield their prize, collapsed where they stood, spitting green blood.
One arrow, naturally, vanished into the shrubbery nearby.
It was rather like an opening ceremony for a three-point shooting contest — several stars shooting in succession, the sound going swish, swish, swish, swish — and then clang. Whoever missed, whoever cringed.
Li Fei's face went red. She quietly put the crossbow away, drew Dark Night, and moved to finish off the stragglers.
She'd barely taken two steps before an arm caught her. Beatrice pulled her back and fixed her with the grave, earnest look of a senior lecturing a junior: "It's best not to approach recklessly before the enemy is confirmed dead. Clearing the battlefield — that's what summons are for."
Before she had even finished speaking, the Elven Archers were already jogging forward, dispatching the last of the tree-monsters with clinical efficiency and dragging away the bodies without so much as a change in expression.
My dear, trying to steal kills from a carry who's been snowballing for the past hour is not the way to find yourself a girlfriend…
Privately lamenting her lot, Li Fei turned to Beatrice with a brilliant smile:
"You're absolutely right."
Madam Zhihua — who had been a half-step too slow in moving to caution Li Fei — felt an inexplicable loosening in her chest. It was as though some calamity ordained by fate had quietly veered away from her at the last moment and landed squarely on someone else's head.
...
At the southern tip of Turtle Island, a stretch of sea strait lay in absolute darkness. Hidden currents churned beneath the surface, and waves smashed against the stone walls with a deafening, bone-shaking roar — spending themselves utterly in the process.
At the center of the strait yawned a vast, deep whirlpool. It churned without end, filling the air with a low, grinding rumble like the growl of a starving leviathan eager to devour everything in reach. Atop a crest of crashing waves beside it stood a Siren — beautiful in the way a blade is beautiful, a pearl crown upon her head and a face that bordered on obscene in its allure. Her tail was long and perfectly proportioned, its dense scales gleaming with a brilliance that put diamonds to shame; her silver-blue hair seemed almost alive, coiling and dancing on its own in the air around her.
The Queen of the Siren clan gazed into the whirlpool. The terrifying tearing force of the water surging around her was nothing to her. The pupils of her eyes — cold as shards of ice — held nothing but frost.
"O great Sovereign of the Sea — accept my offering. Hear my desire."
She raised the trident in her hand, and in a voice smooth and low with feminine allure, she began her prayer. Nine Sirens of breathtaking beauty and grace surfaced from the water, pressed their lips to her tail in reverence — then flung themselves, without hesitation, into the whirlpool.
A flash of something crimson seemed to flicker within the black churning depths. Then the sea surface began to tremble. Concentric rings of water spread outward in expanding rings, accompanied by great surges of bubbles, as though the ocean itself had been set to boil.
A presence — immense and terrible — began to rise from the depths of the vortex. It was as though some ancient, slumbering beast was awakening: the pressure it exuded was bloodthirsty, savage, and absolute.
"Feast to your fill, carrying my hatred with you. This island is a hunting ground prepared for the Sovereigns."
The Siren Queen continued to call upon the entity at the other end of the whirlpool, her expression unchanged — cold and still as carved ice.
...
Night had fallen. The herb-gathering party set up camp in a wide, open stretch of ground.
Skewers of roasted meat hung over the campfire. Fat dripped steadily into the leaping flames, filling the air with sizzling crackles and the rich, heady scent of roasting flesh.
Beside the fire sat the large jade-green Turning Dragon Pot — its surface shaped like a coiling azure dragon, its craftsmanship almost supernaturally fine — brimming with a pale, milky soft-shell turtle broth.
"I have to ask — are we actually here on a mission, or did we just come camping?" Li Fei sat cross-legged by the fire, nostrils flaring as she breathed in the scent of roasting meat. "Technically speaking, lighting a campfire at night is supposed to be a bad idea, right…?"
"It's fine," Beatrice said with a wave of her hand. "The apex predator of Viranean was personally put down by Lady Bai. The higher-Sequence creatures have either been killed or surrendered under the combined pressure of the various factions, and the more dangerous stragglers left in this zone have been swept clean by Lady Leona multiple times. It's not zero risk — but it's genuinely low."
"Maybe so — but while the natives aren't a concern anymore, what about our fellow travelers?" Li Fei pressed, frowning.
She'd read enough web novels to know the score. Even if Turtle Island's native population posed no real threat, there was nothing stopping the flood of Transcendents pouring into Viranean from getting ideas — murder, robbery, taking what wasn't theirs.
"City Hall laid down the rules for Viranean's development long before anyone set foot here," Beatrice said, patting Li Fei's hand with a reassuring smile. "The major factions have already carved up the main spoils. What's left are the scraps — a few mouthfuls of soup for solo explorers to sip. But anyone who turns on their own? That falls under city law, plain and simple. Lady Bai has made it very clear: this venture is built on 'mutual cooperation and shared benefit.'"
"I'm certain the constabulary has deployed more than a few high-Sequence Transcendents to patrol this island and maintain order. You know perfectly well what Loxibrook's enforcement capacity looks like. With them around, even total strangers can meet out here without too much wariness — there might even be opportunities to cooperate."
Right, I know exactly what the constabulary is capable of — I was sitting in their holding room just two days ago before someone came to collect me…
Li Fei recalled the image of the righteously upright Asuna, and the equally upright — in a very different sense — beautiful senior officer, and quietly withdrew her hand from Beatrice's. She hadn't forgotten the stolen kill from the afternoon. She wasn't in a cuddling mood.
Qin Zhihua produced a small silver knife and carved off a slice of roast meat, fatty and lean in equal measure, then cut it into thin, delicate slices and placed them on a blue-and-white porcelain dish, which she set before Li Fei with a soft murmur: "It should be done by now — eat while it's hot."
"I've got it, thanks."
Li Fei shook her head, reached out with both hands, and grabbed an entire roasted deer leg she'd had her eye on for some time. She blew on it a few times, squinted, and sank her teeth in.
The leg had been rubbed with salt and a pinch of spices, roasted to a glossy, golden crisp on the outside and a tender, dripping succulence within. Li Fei couldn't be bothered to wait for it to cool — she chewed away with great, audible enthusiasm, lips hot and eyes happy.
Madam Zhihua rested her chin in her hand, the pupils of her lake-deep eyes reflecting the utterly endearing sight of her heart's person eating.
"Mr. Cowell — it's been a while."
Old Jiang's voice rang out suddenly.
Everyone set down their food and looked. By the light of the campfire, Li Fei made out four Transcendents approaching the camp.
She furrowed her brow. Something about them felt vaguely familiar.
Her Transcendent-grade intellect stirred, and a memory surfaced: yesterday, at the Mercenary Guild, she had caught a passing glimpse of three of these four — the broad-shouldered, square-jawed man in silver armor carrying a greatsword was impossible to miss.
But what puzzled her was the masked figure. She hadn't spotted him at the Guild yesterday — and yet, somehow, he felt even more familiar than the others. Why?
"Hey, Old Jiang!"
Cowell, silver armor and all, called out with a voice that carried half the island. "Something smells incredible over there. Mind if we help ourselves to a little?"
"Come, come — please, help yourselves."
Old Jiang smiled warmly.
The constabulary really does inspire confidence, doesn't it…
Li Fei narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. The one called Cowell radiated a certain competent, solid dependability. Under normal circumstances, a group of Transcendents simply helping themselves to another party's food in the wild — that wasn't something that happened without some kind of law enforcement presence keeping everyone on their best behavior.
"Cowell is a regular at the apothecary — I'll be right back."
Qin Zhihua set a bowl of soup in front of Li Fei with a murmur, delivering the brief report with the quiet matter-of-factness of a wife informing her spouse of her whereabouts, before walking over to exchange introductions and pleasantries with the four men.
Li Fei watched them sideways. As Qin Zhihua approached, the four men followed her direction with their eyes — and found themselves looking at a table of devastatingly beautiful young women, visible surprise crossing their faces.
Even Su Ling'er's looks were nothing short of dazzling, rivaling what Li Fei herself had been right after transmigrating; dressed in that Charisma +20 Liuxian-style dress, she was a certified moon-hiding, flower-shaming beauty. Beatrice and Grace, for their part, could hold their own against Aurora, the Golden Kumquat's former top courtesan — to say nothing of the queen of the establishment herself, whose face could topple kingdoms.
Li Fei observed with sharp attention: Zoller, the sword-carrying man, and Simon in his cloak, wore expressions of distinct awkwardness after the initial flash of admiration faded. The masked youth Sherlock's entire body went rigid for a fraction of a second.
Only Cowell's expression remained perfectly natural. He even caught Li Fei's eye and offered a friendly smile.
Interesting. Sherlock has definitely crossed paths with me somewhere — I just can't place it. But why are those other two so tense? Did they say something behind my back?
Filing the question away for later, the queen of the establishment — master of time management — seized the window while Qin Zhihua was busy with pleasantries to personally ladle a bowl of soft-shell turtle soup and carry it over to Grace, who had been radiating a hermit's aura all day.
Fufu, observing this exchange, swiveled her head toward Beatrice. A distinctly human look of sympathy flickered through those large, liquid eyes.
Among all the females present with a Charisma score in the triple digits, only Fufu had truly grasped the caliber of the queen of the establishment — and understood, with the quiet certainty of instinct, that her contract partner was probably not going to escape this particular net.
...
"Tch. Can't fault the young mistress — while the rest of us are roughing it out here, they're eating and drinking like they're on holiday. If only we could…"
Simon, halfway through his turtle soup, had already started running his mouth again — until a piece of roasted meat was shoved into it.
"Don't forget who gave you that dinner," Cowell said evenly, and tore a glistening rib off the spit with his teeth.
"A table full of gorgeous women — wouldn't it be better if each of us got one? Keeping it all in-house is just a waste of perfectly good resources."
Simon mumbled the rest of his complaints around a mouthful of food before finally going quiet and eating.
Sherlock opened his mouth to speak — but his mind flashed back to Simon throwing himself into the fray without a second's hesitation on his behalf that afternoon. He closed his mouth, bowed his head, and drank his turtle soup in a single long pull. His mask was a Transcendent item; when eating, the lower half could retract, revealing a complexion that was notably fair.
On the other side of the fire, Li Fei had finished dinner early and was heading for the largest tent.
Out in the wild, there was little reason to keep burning daylight after dark. The standard practice was to set up camp when night fell, assign a watch rotation, and rest until dawn.
She ducked inside, slipped off her deerskin ankle boots, and let her feet — still clad in white cotton socks — sink into the thick, plush bedroll. The softness under her soles drew a long, contented exhale from her as she wiggled her slightly tired feet back and forth.
She hadn't dared to wear the full-body stockings worth several hundred gold coins. The Transcendent-grade material was exquisitely comfortable, yes — but the weave was so delicate that a single snag would have sent her into mourning. No matter how fine the material's origins, a run was still a run.
She peeled off the warm, faintly damp thin socks. A rush of clarity and coolness spread from the soles of her feet all the way to the back of her skull. Li Fei let out a soft, satisfied hum, leaned back against the bedroll with a hand resting on her stomach, and curled and stretched her pale, finely shaped toes with unmistakable pleasure.
And then, acting on pure human instinct, she picked up the socks and brought them to her nose for a sniff.
Thanks to the physical refinements that came with over two hundred points in Charisma, even after a full day of marching across the island in boots on a summer day, the white cotton socks carried only a faint, mild warmth — nothing off-putting, and, if one were being entirely honest, rather pleasantly something else altogether. She was about to take another exploratory sniff when a rustling sound came from the tent entrance.
The very image-conscious queen of the establishment flinched so hard her whole body jolted. In approximately zero seconds flat, she flung the socks into the far corner of the tent, pulled a textbook from her pack, and arranged herself into the portrait of a dedicated, literary young woman absorbed in her studies.
____
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