Chapter 225: The Sage of the Golden Bull Clan

The next morning, Kaelen was awakened by a smell so familiar that he thought he was dreaming.

The smell of rice porridge cooked with minced meat, with a faint hint of wild ginger and scallions.

He opened his eyes and sat up. Beside him, Finnick had woken up since who knew when, sitting cross-legged on the grass cushion, holding a wooden bowl almost as big as his face, slurping porridge. Chloe on the boy’s shoulder was also extending her tentacles toward the porridge bowl, occasionally dipping one into the porridge liquid then vibrating as if sipping it.

"Who cooked the porridge?" Kaelen asked, his voice still sleepy.

"Uncle Victor." Finnick replied, his mouth still full of porridge. "He said it was cold this morning, cooked porridge for everyone to eat to warm their stomachs. Even using the ingredients of the Golden Bull tribe. Eat it, Papa, it’s very delicious!"

Kaelen received the porridge bowl from the hands of a Golden Bull clan Sub-Beast standing nearby, nodding slightly in thanks. He scooped a spoonful, blew gently, then brought it to his mouth. The sticky and fragrant rice flavor, smooth minced meat, warm wild ginger, it was the familiar meat porridge that Crimson people usually cooked. But there was something slightly different. A very light sweetness, as if the cook had added some kind of vegetable he did not recognize.

"Did Victor add anything else to the porridge?" Kaelen asked.

A Golden Bull clan Sub-Beast standing nearby spoke up, his voice still trying to speak very softly: "Yes, he asked us if we had any sweet vegetables, we gave him Yellow Honey tubers."

"Yellow Honey tubers?"

"It is a type of tuber growing along the swamps, sweet when eaten raw, even sweeter when cooked. We usually use it to cook soup or stew meat."

Kaelen nodded. Yet another new ingredient to research. He silently remembered to ask Victor about this tuber later.

When everyone had finished eating breakfast properly, Maxwell appeared at the hut door. Today he wore a cloak of linen dyed earthy brown, wearing an animal skin cord strung with a few green stones around his neck. This was the most formal attire Kaelen had ever seen on the Eastern continent.

"Let’s go." Maxwell said, his voice as excited as a child about to go to a festival: "The Sage is waiting."

"Did he agree to meet us?" Kaelen asked.

"Agreed." Maxwell nodded: "But..."

"But what?"

Maxwell hesitated for a moment, then sighed: "Never mind, you will know when we get there."

The group followed Maxwell out of the residential area, following a small trail leading up the hillside behind the tribe. The further they went, the denser the trees became. Giant ironwood trunks grew closely together, the thick canopy obscuring the entire sky, only letting down thin streaks of sunlight like golden threads.

Kaelen held Ryder in his arms and walked behind Maxwell. Sane walked beside his mate, his hand resting lightly on his sword hilt. Finnick and Chloe walked behind, occasionally stopping to peek at purple wild flowers growing along the road. Aaron and Evan also followed, but Draven stayed at the tribe. He had made an appointment with several Golden Bull healers to go collect medicinal herbs together this morning.

After about half an hour of walking, the trail abruptly ended before a steep cliff. But Maxwell did not stop. He turned to the side and parted a dense bush, revealing a small crack in the cliff, just enough for one person to squeeze through.

"In here." Maxwell said.

Kaelen looked at Sane, and Sane shrugged. The two ducked together to squeeze through the crack.

Inside was a completely different world.

It was a small valley surrounded by towering cliffs, like a giant skylight. Sunlight from high above shone down, illuminating a vast garden with all sorts of trees and flowers intertwined together.

Unlike the carefully tended gardens in the tribe, this garden grew wildly, not following any order, but had a very unique beauty - the beauty of nature unhindered by human hands.

In the center of the valley was a small hut, unbelievably dilapidated. It was makeshiftly built from dry branches and torn linen cloth, looking as if a strong gust of wind could blow it away.

Around the hut, piles of books and sheepskin parchment scrolls lay scattered, piled high like small mountains. There were book piles as high as an adult’s chest, stacked on top of each other extremely messily. A few scrolls had fallen to the ground, rolling on the grass.

Kaelen looked at the scene before his eyes, not knowing what to say.

"Sage!" Maxwell called loudly: "I brought guests to visit!"

Silence.

"Sage!" Maxwell called again, his voice louder.

Still silence.

Maxwell sighed, turning to Kaelen and Sane with a helpless expression: "I told you so."

He walked to the front of the hut, leaned down intending to peek inside, when suddenly from the book pile on the left of the hut, a skinny hand reached out and grabbed Maxwell’s ankle.

Maxwell was startled and almost stepped straight into the book pile. He jumped back, all color draining from his face.

"Beast God, this old man crawled into the book pile to sleep again!"

From inside the book pile, an old man slowly crawled out.

The man before them was so old that the skin on his face was as wrinkled as ancient tree bark, his snow-white hair reached his waist and was as messy as a crow’s nest. His beard was equally long, tangled with dry leaves and cobwebs. He wore an old cloak, densely covered with patchy ink stains and scribbled drawings.

But the thing that caught everyone’s attention the most was not his appearance. It was the pair of glasses on the bridge of his nose.

It was a pair of glasses made from two transparent quartz pieces, polished smooth, with a thin animal bone frame. It looked somewhat similar to reading glasses in the modern world, but much more primitive. Kaelen looked at those glasses, an indescribable surprise rising in his heart. This was the first time he had seen something resembling Earth’s technology in this world.

The old man pushed the glasses up the bridge of his nose, narrowed his eyes looking at the group before him, then spoke in a shrill voice:

"Maxwell! You brought strangers to bother me again! Don’t you see I am busy?"

"Busy with what?" Maxwell asked back, his voice full of skepticism: "You were just sleeping in that book pile."

"Sleeping is a form of research!" The old man shouted: "While sleeping, the wisdom of the ancestors will appear in dreams and transmit knowledge to me! What do you know!"

Maxwell shrugged, turning to Kaelen and Sane to whisper: "There, like I said. Special."

Kaelen stepped forward, bowing in greeting: "Sage, I am Kaelen, Priest of the Crimson tribe. We came here to ask for your guidance regarding the spatial array."

The old man narrowed his eyes looking at Kaelen, then suddenly stepped closer, pressing his face right against Kaelen’s face. So close that Kaelen could smell the scent of old paper and ink on him. He instinctively leaned back slightly, but still maintained a calm demeanor.

"Priest?" The old man muttered, staring intently at Kaelen through the quartz glasses: "You are a Priest? How much do you know about magic arrays?"

"A little." Kaelen answered: "I know how to draw basic arrays, know how to channel spiritual energy into the array, and know how to activate them. But regarding spatial arrays, especially how to establish an anchor point, I have completely no experience."

The old man did not say anything, just stared at Kaelen for a while longer, then suddenly turned sharply to Sane.

"And you? Who are you?"

"Chief of Crimson." Sane answered briefly.

"Chief? Hmph, what is so great about a Chief. Do you know how to read?"

"Yes."

"Do you know how to draw arrays?"

"A little. But not as good as my mate."

The old man snorted once, then suddenly turned to Finnick. The boy was standing behind Kaelen, his hands hugging Chloe, his eyes wide open looking at the old man with undisguised curiosity.

"And this little brat?" The old man leaned down, pressing his face right against Finnick’s: "Who are you, brat?"

"I am Finnick." Finnick answered, his voice polite but not scared at all: "I am Papa and Daddy’s son."

"Son?" The old man looked at Finnick, then looked at Kaelen and Sane, then looked at Finnick again: "Looking at your bone ages, you two are only nineteen, twenty. So young yet you already have a son this big? Getting someone pregnant before reaching adulthood, your Daddy is truly good for nothing."

"That... Grandfa, I am only half a year old. I encountered a small accident so I grew fast..."

The old man remained silent for a moment, then suddenly burst into laughter. His laughter was shrill, ear-piercing, echoing throughout the valley. Finishing laughing, he turned to Maxwell: "Good! This bunch is good! None of them are boring!"

Maxwell breathed a sigh of relief: "Then you will help them?"

"Help? Who said I will help?" The old man glared his eyes: "I only said they are not boring. Whether I help or not is another matter!"

He turned to Kaelen, narrowing his eyes: "You said you want to know about the anchor point? Fine. But first, answer me a question."

"Please ask."

"What principle does the spatial array operate on?"

Kaelen thought for a moment. This was not an easy question. The spatial array was one of the most complex fields of magic, and his knowledge about it mainly came from what was taught at the Spiritual Planter academy, which were only basic concepts.

"The spatial array..." He said slowly: "Is basically a system of spiritual energy conductive lines arranged in a special structure, allowing space to bend, creating a tunnel connecting two distant points. The energy needed to maintain this tunnel is directly proportional to the distance between the two points and the mass of the matter being transported."

The old man did not say anything, just stared intently at Kaelen.

"But that is only theory." Kaelen honestly added: "I have never practiced it before."

A long silence passed. Then suddenly, the old man clapped his hands with a "smack", startling everyone.

"Good! You passed the first question!" He turned around, walked toward one of the book piles, and began rummaging frantically. Books and sheepskin parchment flew everywhere: "Anchor point... anchor point... Let’s see what I have on anchor points... Ah! Here it is!"

He pulled out from the mess an old, yellowed sheepskin parchment scroll, its edges frayed. He spread it out on a flat stone slab, then waved for everyone to come closer.

"This is the diagram of a standard spatial array." He pointed at the complex lines on the paper: "Look here. This is the central circle — where the object to be transported is placed. These are the main spiritual energy conductive lines. These are the navigation symbols. And here..."

His finger stopped at a small symbol located at the edge of the array. It was a small circle with a dot in the middle, surrounded by three concentric curves.

"...is the anchor point."