Cthulhu Gonfalon

The bald giant was of course Gerald. He led the team out for training on that trip. Every territory would require a well trained army.

The progress of territory-building had been slowed down due to various accidents that had happened before. However, army building progress couldn’t be delayed.

So, with Sui Xiong’s arrangement, Gerald brought a batch of young adults who performed well during training to the Federation of Gold Coins to participate in the real war.

Their training opponents were naturally those thieves.

The Federation of Gold Coins was a suitable place, as there were groups of thieves everywhere and they could be found easily beyond the city gate. If one were to follow a business group, they would basically come across gangs of thieves every night, big or small.

Under such circumstances, the young people would be able to accumulate experience faster and would have constant improvements.

Of course, if Gerald wasn’t the one that led the troop, these people might have lost a fortune. But with Gerald, the legendary leader, the risk of war had been well under control. There might have been a number of wounded people during the winter, but the number of disabled or even dead were still zero as of then.

Just like the recent war, the man with the nickname “Iron Claw” had extraordinary strength. Even a highly trained adventurer might be killed by “Iron claw” if they were careless.

But, in the end, the outcome of the war was that only one soldier was severely injured. Then, the giant axe that was thrown from the top of his head became a pile of suspicious rubble.

The severely injured soldier received treatment in time and almost recovered, but there would be a terrifying scar on his body.

Gerald left the scar on purpose, so the young people could be alert at all times. It was impossible for him to watch over them forever, they would have to take care of themselves one day. He wished that the young people could get a practical and reliable training through such training methods in order to avoid any unnecessary danger in the future.

The adventurers from far away were upset when they knew they lost their business. They bid farewell to Gerald and left one after another. Only Jose stayed.

“Big guy, what you told me before; you weren’t joking, right?” He took a seat next to Gerald while he asked.

Gerald was shocked, and then he recalled that there was once he brought up building territory with him. He nodded and replied, “Of course not. Can this kind of matter be joked about?”

Jose’ eyes suddenly brightened up, and then he asked softly, “Is there really a God that look upon the people in your territory?”

“Can this kind of matter be joked about?”

Jose nodded slightly. Indeed, in this world, if we were to take God as a joke, it wouldn’t be funny. The God might remember you for that, and cause you some small trouble.

“How about the part when you said that I am welcome to the team? Was that serious too?”

“Of course!” Gerald answered with no hesitation.

Jose obviously deliberated carefully and he nodded again and said solemnly, “Deal! When you are going into action, let me know. I’ll come over and help!”

Gerald laughed and patted his back. Then, he passed his flask over.

“Great! You will not regret it! Come, let’s drink!”

Jose held the huge flask that was almost bigger than his head with both his hands and took a huge sip. His eyes got even brighter.

Sui Xiong, who was watching the scene through spirit connection, couldn’t help but smile.

Ever since he met Jose, he was very curious. He was interested in the handsome barbarian.

Jose was capable, and his way of dealing with people and matters was tactful. If it was only this, it wouldn’t be weird. What Sui Xiong found weird was the line of belief on his body.

In this world, whoever had clear belief would have line of belief. It could be seen on Gods and high levels clergymen so belief couldn’t be forged. Those fake believers that cheated could only cheat the lower middle class people at most. For clergymen close to God, it wouldn’t work.

The line of belief on Jose’s body pointed towards the snowfield and snowstorm Goddess in the north, also known as “Queen of North.” She was the King of Gods in the “Arctic Federation” God system. She was stronger than the Goddess of Ocean and parallel to God of Storms. Under her command, there were Gods of Snow Capped Mountain, Avalanche, and Snow Monster, that used the the alias of “Master of Snow-Capped Mountain;” and Gods of Glacier and Ice Giant that used the alias “Ruler of Ice.” Besides that, although he had another two that were not affiliated directly, they called him leader of their alliance. They were Goddess of winter and north wind, “Chill Maiden” and God of snow beasts, “Snow Lord.”

Of systems of Gods that was formed by Gods, there weren’t many. But the few Gods’ strengths were concentrated north, and their influences were much stronger. So, even though barbarian tribe had their own patron saint, the few that were addressed as “Bear Herding Elder,” their influence couldn’t be compared to the Gods from Arctic Federation.

For instance, Jose, as a barbarian, did not believe in his own patron saint, but the Goddess of Snowstorm.

If it was just so, that would be alright. But Jose’s line of belief shimmered in a weird light. It gave out believer’s radiance, but was filled with bright red anger. The combination of two became a heavy curse.

In a more straightforward explanation: he was once the believer of the Goddess of Snowstorm, and he still believed in the Goddess, but was fuelled with rage and anger towards Her too. Such resentment combined with his faithful belief turned into a curse to the Goddess.

A commoner blaming and cursing the God that he believed in?

Sui Xiong felt that there must be a heavy-hearted story behind this.

He was very curious about it so he instructed Gerald to attract Jose to his side.

Of course, if Jose’s encounter was worth sympathy, he wouldn’t mind lending him a helping hand at his convenience.

Anyway, according to Snowflake’s prediction, when he became God officially, Goddess of Snowstorm would probably come to cause trouble. Instead of waiting for Her to bring along a bunch of wicked Gods to cause trouble, he might as well find ways to weaken Her influence and power. It’d be best if he could cause Her some trouble so that She would be unable to fend for herself.

When he saw that Gerald lodged a representation with Jose successfully, Sui Xiong smiled faintly and redirected his attention to the other side.

It was a deep and gloomy underground world, within a natural limestone cave.

In the current world, there wasn’t any huge and complicated underground world like those in the fantastical production before Sui Xiong crossed. But they could find a limestone cave that was bigger. Most of them were located at the border of the mountain range, deep underground. Naturally, there would be a unique life form system that was interesting there.

Palin brought a few adventurers into the limestone cave underground to explore with great care.

His mission was to look into ecology underneath and collect specimens of animals, plants and especially mushrooms, in order to aid Arcaian with his research.

To cultivate mushrooms that could grow normally under negative environments and were not poisonous but edible, was not an easy task. Arcaian spent almost the entire winter trying, but only managed to cultivate two kinds of mushroom that barely fit the requirements.

The first type of mushroom could resist negative energy. Not only it could be eaten, it could provide resistance towards negative energy for a short period of time. But its output was problematic. Even within Arcaian’s cultivation room that provided it with a better growing environment, its output was not enough to reach the level of “food.”

After all… it originally existed as medicinal material.

The second type of mushroom would push the negativity onto the tip of its cap. So, once the tip of the mushroom cap was cut off, the rest of the mushroom could be eaten. But it was impossible for it to smooth away all negativity onto the tip of its cap, so there would still be part of it left on the other parts of the mushroom. According to the experiment results with the animals, any common wild beast would not be able to resolve the remaining negativity. Their activity level would drop and they would be in listless spirits after consumption.

Arcaian didn’t want to do human experiments and Sui Xiong didn’t want to either. They could both imagine how would a human be like after eating the mushroom. Obviously, any common frontiersmen would never take it as food.

The experiment didn’t go well and Arcaian felt sorry but he emphasised that research was a task that required time and luck. It wouldn’t be easy to get a satisfying success in a short period of time.

“Then what should we do?” Sui Xiong asked. “Is there any way for you to speed up your research?”

Arcaian pondered in silence and indicated that if he could go to the limestone caves underground to collect more specimens of mushrooms that grow in underground environments as a reference, it might be helpful.

Mushroom was a huge system of organism. Even the Pasteur family that had been researching mushrooms for many years couldn’t possibly collect all kinds of mushrooms from all over the world. Those they collected were species that were representative because those were sufficient for their research in the past.

If they were to switch their research to a rare situation according to Sui Xiong’s requirements, what the Pasteur family collected was not enough. He would need to scout for more material.

Sui Xiong accepted Arcaian’s suggestion to send people to limestone caves nearby to pick some mushrooms.

He sent out two troops. The first troop was Frost and Graupel. The brother and sister were in charge of an isolated limestone cave. It was said to be less dangerous for magic beasts. It would be risky for commoners to visit.

The second troop was Palin. The limestone cave that he was sent to was a famous tourist attraction. Many travellers often visited to explore. To a complete troop with mages, warriors, priests, archers, and thieves, such a place was considered safe.

The development of the task was as expected by Sui Xiong; Palin and his troop had been exploring underground for two days, and they didn’t come across any significant danger.

No doubt they slowed down their schedule in order to ensure safety, but the limestone cave itself was pretty safe.

Even though… It was safe, but their working efficiency dropped. These two days they found a few types of mushroom, but judging from the images that were transmitted, they were all types that weren’t worth much attention. Arcaian vetoed the mushrooms’ values with one glance.

To find mushrooms that he needed, they needed to go deeper underground…