Bright sunlight shone through the gaps in the leaves.

Rod straightened up, looked at the bumpy path in front of him, and shook his head, and then he turned back to look at the panting girl not far away.

"Miss Marlene, can't you be faster?"

"Wait, wait."

At this moment, Marlene has long lost the steady and majestic demeanor of the eldest lady on weekdays, the robe outside is full of muddy water and blades of grass, Bai Temporary's face is flushed, and beads of sweat are floating on her forehead, if someone who doesn't know sees this scene, I am afraid that this young lady has gone through a long journey, hardships and hardships——— but in fact, this is just climbing a mountain.

"Really, I really didn't expect it to be so tiring."

The girl who leaned on her body with her staff in the style of a no-name man was already staggering, and the enthusiasm she had had had had now seemed to have vanished, and it was no wonder, after all, they were not out in the wilderness at the moment. And looking at Marlene, who was almost exhausted and collapsed on the ground, Rhodes had the idea for the first time that it might be a wrong decision to bring her here——— after all, mages are generally not in good physical condition, and he has obviously forgotten this.

When she was in the Pavel Cemetery before, Marlene was not so embarrassed, and at that time she could rely on spells to levitate her body, but that was because of the relatively steep mountain path. And now, perhaps it was the seemingly gentle slope that dispelled Marlene's doubts, so that she rarely planned to climb the mountain into the forest with her own "feet".

At first, Miss Mage was very high-natured, after all, this was the first time she had gone out on a field trip without anyone to take care of her, and no one would take care of her, and no one would open the way for her. This adventurous feeling made Marlene quite longing and full of energy, and at first she was even more proactive than Rod.

But unfortunately, enthusiasm cannot be eaten as a meal after all, nor can it be converted into energy.

And for Marlene, after the initial enthusiasm, the difficulties of reality immediately appeared.

The rough roads, the shrubs with their thorny branches, and even the dense grass are not as good as they seem, according to Rod, before resting, you must carefully check the situation around you, in case you do it and you happen to be sitting on the body of a snake, and it happens to be a poisonous snake——— thanks to the Holy Spirit, at least you still have time to write an epitaph for yourself or something.

Along the way, Marlene was already tired and dizzy, and she even felt that it was more painful than sitting in the mage tower and facing the spell theory book as high as a mountain.

"I really don't know how Lijie persevered."

In the end, Marlene did not sit on the ground, she leaned against the trunk of the tree, gasped a few times, and finally came to her senses.

"I think she must have suffered a lot at the beginning, she used to be a very crying child........."

"There's a habit for everything."

Rod pressed the long sword at his waist and carefully observed the mountain peak in front of him, while comparing it with his own memory, he responded nonchalantly. The sword was a thank you gift from Clete, and it was clear that the Keller patriarch was very grateful to Rhodes, so he gave him a magic weapon——— the Bloody Weeping Blade.

Unlike Starmark, the Bloody Weeping Blade is a pure Western thin sword with an eerie dark red color attached to it and a rare spell attached to it, and when this sword sees blood, it becomes sharper than usual, and the more blood it absorbs, the more unstoppable it becomes. It can be said that it is a pretty good rare weapon.

As for Keller's thank you, Rod naturally accepted it unceremoniously, it is true that the star mark is still his favorite, but after all, it has to occupy the number of summoned elves, which is a hard injury for Rhodes, of course, he is not without a way to change this. The circle in the hand of the summoned swordsman is called the Ten Essentia, and the wielder can designate a core to each ring of his own will. If you take the Legion as an analogy, the player is the Legion Leader, and the summoned Elves are soldiers, then this core is equivalent to the Squad Leader. After being designated as the core of the ring, summoned spirits can always exist in this world in physical form, and they no longer need to consume soul power from the holder, but maintain their existence by absorbing the power of their own power. When the force is not enough to maintain their form, they will temporarily return to sleep in the ring, waiting for the force to be sufficient before "resurrecting". …,

It is very important and prudent for summoned swordsmen to designate cores for the ten essentia positions, because the designated cores cannot be changed and deleted, that is, if the player messes up, then this core position is equivalent to being invalidated. This is also the reason why Rhodes did not decide to designate the star mark as the core, after all, its level is too low, and the position is low, if there is a better one in the future, then he really has nowhere to cry.

In the game, Rhodes made such a mistake before, and here he will not be stupid enough to make it again.

"But then again, that kid seems a little weird."

"Is there one?"

Hearing Marlene's self-talk, Rod was stunned, Lijie is weird? Why didn't he feel it?

"Hmm......... How can I say it........."

In the face of Rod's question, Marlene also frowned, it seemed that she didn't seem to know what to say.

"I don't know, but she feels a little strange, not the same as before, and ............ Forget it, nothing. ”

Recalling that before she and Rhodes left, Lijie held her hand, and the expression of wanting to say something but not saying anything also made Marlene puzzled, also as a woman, she could see that Lijie was a little jealous of herself and a little worried, but what was this for, Marlene didn't know. Could it be that it was because I couldn't come along, so it was awkward? Lijie isn't that kind of child, is she?

Marlene straightened up suddenly.

Fluctuations of mana passed through the air and into her body, responding quickly.

"How?"

Sensing Marlene's abnormality, Rod's face was slightly gloomy, and he pressed the hilt of his sword with one hand and asked in a low voice.

"Someone's coming."

Marlene turned her head to look at the foot of the mountain, which was hidden by vegetation.

"My magic marker senses that someone is coming in our direction...... One, two, three people. Maybe it's more than ......"

"When you're ready, move on."

Rod's hand let go of the hilt of his sword, and the order was given shortly thereafter.

"It's business as usual."

"It's good."

Hearing Rod's words, Marlene raised her staff and pointed it at the trees beside her, and soon, a bright, mysterious symbol appeared out of thin air, then seeped into the trunk of the tree, and soon disappeared.

"If you're well rested, let's continue our journey."

"Why don't we just ambush here and kill those pesky henchmen?"

Marlene very simply threw out her own questions, in her opinion, the strength of those nasty guys is not too strong, with the strength of herself and Rod, it is not difficult to leave them here completely. So why should you be afraid to be followed by these people? This is really incomprehensible to Marlene.

"Quite simply, because it's not too far from Deep Rock."

In the face of Marlene's question, Rod also gave an explanation.

"If we kill them here, then those guys will soon find out, and then they can send another group of people, and then we will be very passive. But now it's different, although they are following us, but they don't know that we already know about their existence, and we can grasp their whereabouts, so it is easier for us to let these guys continue to follow. And then, when we lead them deep into the mountains, it will be very difficult for those guys to detect anything unusual, and even if they finally find out that something is wrong, by the time they send someone again, we will have already left the forest and gone back. Rather than kill them now, we should fish them behind us so that we can not only keep track of their movements, but also be prepared whenever they want to attack us. ”…,

"I see."

Marlene nodded, didn't say anything more, she was not stupid, Rhodes solved the doubts in the girl's heart in just a few words, but she still wiped the beads of sweat on her forehead, and then looked at Rhodes dissatisfied.

"But is it really necessary for us to run that far just to find some magic plants?"

After a morning of climbing the mountain, Marlene was really tired. Although many magical plants are indeed located deep in the mountains, there is no need to go to such a ghost place to suffer crimes.

"It's really not necessary to just look for magical plants, but coincidentally, I got a few treasure maps before, and many of them are buried in the Twilight Forest, and it would be a good thing for us to get them."

When he said this, Rod's face was as usual, and he couldn't tell that he was lying, and his attitude did frighten Marlene, who was still a little skeptical.

"Treasure?"

The girl muttered under her breath, unable to imagine what treasures would be here. But in the end, those fantasies in the adventure story also loosened Marlene's attitude a lot. Compared with digging through corpses in the catacombs, treasure hunting is quite close to the orthodox romantic adventure story imagined by girls——— and it is also more normal.

"So, where do we go next?"

"Continue north."

Rod pointed ahead.

"We're going to enter from there, and we're going to the Rock of Sighs."