Chapter 716: Turning Back
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
At last, Benjamin had to stop his exploration, mainly due to the lack of space in his backpack.
In the beginning, he had only flown north; no matter what kind of undead creature they encountered, he would kill them and retrieve their corpse so that they could perform further research on it in the academy. Now, after exploring for more than half the day, they left the wilderness and flew into a boundless swampland.
Each time they got close to the swamp, undead creatures would crawl out from the muddy ground and glare at them ferociously. Perhaps this was the instinctive hate that the dead felt towards the living that is so often mentioned in myths and legends.
As for the variety of undead creatures, Benjamin still could not figure out anything about them.
"This is such a bore, why are all the undead a bunch of autonomous beasts that act and fight according to instinct?" The System could not help but complain, "Why can’t there be a great and powerful undead monarch anywhere that can send you flying with just one punch?"
"... What good will that do you?"
"It would be very interesting."
"..."
Benjamin returned to the Space of Consciousness, kicked the System ruthlessly, then returned to the real world. Dick who was still standing around did not even realize what had happened.
In reality, Dick was probably too overwhelmed with fear to notice anything else.
"I’m begging you, let's return as soon as possible, alright? This place... This place is really terrifying." His tearful begging was constant throughout the whole exploration, "Also... Can you stop stuffing all the corpse of those ghostly things into my backpack? I can feel them still moving around in my backpack..."
Benjamin smiled and continued flying as if he did not hear a thing.
In fact, he had built an air wall and trapped Dick’s voice inside of it, so that he would not have to hear the constant drone of his whining.
Nevertheless, Dick got his wish and the quest came to an end, even if it was just because of the overloaded backpack. No doubt Benjamin could construct a gigantic ice box to carry the remains of the undead creatures, but, he had to consider the problem regarding his spiritual energy.
Since they had entered the world of the undead, their legs had never touched the ground. This was because the undead would emerge from the ground as soon as there was any sign of the living and pounce towards them aggressively. Benjamin had to remain in the air throughout the journey, which caused his spiritual energy to be gradually worn out.
He still had to consider the fact that there were still potential risks lurking around as they explored an unknown world.
So far, the revenants he met were not very powerful. But as he flew deeper into the swamp area, he encountered higher concentrations of them. If this continued, it was very likely that he would soon meet a tough opponent. He had to maintain a good amount of spiritual energy at all times or he would be done for if any accidents were to happen.’
Thus, as soon as he consumed half of his spiritual energy, Benjamin had no choice but to stop moving forward.
"Finally, are we finally leaving?" Dick almost cried on the spot.
Benjamin quietly removed the air wall that had muted him, nodded and showed a friendly smile. But deep down, he still felt rather regretful.
The corpses of the revenants had been put into a big water bubble. His estimations told him that it would use up a lot of his spiritual energy for him to just carry the water bubble all the way back to the academy. If not for that, he would not have left just yet.
The majority of this world was still unexplored!
"Do you think that the real secret could be hidden underneath the ground?" On the way home, Benjamin asked in his heart.
"Why do you think so?" The System asked in return.
"Because those revenants all crawled out from underground." Benjamin recalled everything he had seen and heard throughout the journey and said slowly, "Moreover, although I’ve not inspected the soil properties in detail, it seems like the soil is quite thick with dark elements."
"That’s an interesting thought. However, the dark elements on land have always been thicker than it is in the air; this is a common phenomenon, it doesn’t prove anything."
"Then just take it as if I’m imagining things." Benjamin shrugged and said, "Anyhow, I didn’t see any revenants moving above ground, each time they sense possible food, they’re always crawling out from underground. This shows that the underground is where they usually reside."
"Next time you’re here, you can try to dig and find out, provided that you aren’t annoyed to death by the waves of skulls and zombies, of course."
"I understand..."
Benjamin rubbed his chin and seemed to look annoyed.
Digging would not be very difficult, but there would be too many of those undead creatures! So far, they had only come close to the Earth’s surface, and yet, the ghostly things were already crawling out like frenzied maggots worming out of a corpse, imagine if they were to dig even further down...how much worse would it get?
He was started to get the feeling that exploring the world of revenants would not be an easy task that just anyone could do, and that only those with psychopathic behaviors would attempt it.
And so, they raced against time and flew out of the swamp, returning to the abyss very quickly. In the abyss, they flew east. After flying past the borders of the Kingdom of Helius, they turned around and entered the domain of Icor.
They were completely safe once they reached Icor.
What would the situation be like at the Church...
They had lost what seemed to be an extremely important key and had even used a huge army to seal off the borders in a frenzied attempt to hunt down Benjamin and Dick. However, while they were searching industriously day and night, Benjamin had gone on an unexpected adventure instead, cracked the secret of the Skyfall Mountain, discovered the revenant world, captured a spirit along the way, and leisurely returned to the safe zone.
If the Church knew about the things that had happened over the past few days, what would they think?
Benjamin could not help but pity those priests who were waiting to ambush him in the mountains at the border.
But pitying them was one thing, he was not planning to leak anything regarding the revenant world to the outside world. According to the doctrine of the Church, their people would definitely be disdained from obtaining powers from the revenant world, but it would be good to have a trump card anyways.
It would probably be hard to completely keep a new mainland as a secret, but at the very least, they would try to keep knowledge of its existence to as small a group as possible while the academy tries to gain an advantage in exploiting it.
This group included Dick.
"You know... Throughout the journey you’ve experienced and seen many things, you should know what you can tell and cannot, right?" As soon as they entered Icor, Benjamin turned around and said to Dick while smiling.
"Don’t worry about that, of course I know!" Dick was very shocked, he nodded his head with all his might and shouted loudly like a trained soldier.
"But, I’m still worried." Benjamin tilted his head as he said, "How about this, you’ll risk being assassinated by the Church if you stay in public anyway, so why don’t you stay in the academy and be our guest for some time. Wait until after the uproar dies down, then you can return to inherit the things left by your father."
"That... How long will that be?"
"I’m not sure either, half a year? A year? It might even take three to five years’ time. Don’t worry, we’re quite good at hosting guests, at most, you will have your movements restricted, but you definitely won’t be starved."
"..."
Dick looked like he was about to burst into tears, but when faced with Benjamin’s devilish smile, he grudgingly nodded his head.