26: Chapter 26 Joining and Tracking Missions

The second person to step forward was a gnome who only reached Richard's waist in height.

He had a face surrounded by thick, chestnut-colored curly hair and a matching beard, with round, bright eyes, and he wore a strange pair of goggles made of at least three or four layers of differently colored glass lenses.

The mustache beneath his nose was stained with several streaks of solidified, charred black grime.

He carried a leather tool bag on his back that was larger than his own torso, stuffed with various bottles, jars, and metal parts, creating a clanking sound with every step he took.

"My name is Jinbao!" He patted his chest, his voice booming and completely disproportionate to his stature.

"Remember it well, this is my name."

"I'm currently an Alchemy Apprentice, but those two words 'apprentice' are only temporary; sooner or later, the entire Adventurers Guild will know the great name of Jinbao."

"The greatest inventor in history, Alchemy Master, mechanical engineering genius—these are the titles that will belong to me in the future!"

"For now, if you have something that needs blowing up or need some gadgets for an emergency, you can't go wrong with me."

"Heh, last time that little gadget of yours almost blew us all to heaven," Black Cat interjected.

"That was a successful explosion test, what do you know!" Jinbao retorted unconvinced, his beard puffing up.

Morpheus coughed lightly, quickly interrupting the bickering that was about to begin between the two:

"Although Mr. Jinbao occasionally causes some minor accidents, his inventions have indeed proven useful at critical moments more than once."

"And his character is trustworthy, heh, provided you can handle his temper."

Seeing Richard's furrowed brow, Morpheus quickly added:

"Apologies, apologies, let me formally explain our intentions."

"Currently, the three of us can provide support in terms of knowledge, infiltration, and alchemy, but the gap in frontline combat capability remains unfillable."

"We have recently been looking for suitable teammates, and we learned that a warrior named Richard was mentioned in the recent Vampire incident, having single-handedly killed a high-level undead creature; that must be you."

Richard's expression was a bit surprised: "Your intelligence is truly timely. Of course, being able to kill such a powerful opponent, I was just lucky."

Richard glanced at Cecilia again. She stood there, her veil and helmet obscuring her expression, but Richard could feel that she was also sizing up these three people.

Three completely squishy classes.

Mage Apprentice, Rogue, and gnome Alchemy Apprentice.

Their team was indeed lacking someone who could stand in the front and tank damage.

If he wanted to continue getting stronger, fighting alone definitely wouldn't work; he needed to find suitable teammates to assist him so he could continue to level up.

And while these people right now weren't exactly ideal choices, at least Richard felt they were passable, and he and Cecilia weren't afraid of being backstabbed.

He slammed his halberd onto the ground and reached out to Morpheus: "Fine, let's do a quest first and see if we can work together."

Morpheus smiled and shook his hand.

"Then, from now on, we are temporary teammates."

"Please take care of us, Mr. Richard, and..."

Cecilia replied in a low voice using her alias: "Just call me Lia."

"Very well, welcome aboard, Ms. Lia."

Then Morpheus said: "We have already accepted a quest commission to find the wealthy merchant's son, Victor, who recently went missing. Of course, other squads have accepted this quest as well."

"However... I am very confident in this kind of tracking quest, and we happen to need the help of the two of you."

The location where the wealthy merchant's son went missing was in the Glimmerstone Hills, located north of Blackwater City, about a three-day journey by horse.

This was a stretch of rocky hills saturated with some kind of ancient magic.

The rocks on the hills were not the usual grayish-brown, but a dark green, looking like moldy bronze from a distance.

Between the hills grew dense forests of petrified ferns; these ferns had feathery leaves, but their texture was like stone, and when the wind blew, the leaves would collide with each other, emitting a crisp sound similar to porcelain gently clinking together.

The entire hill area was shrouded in a thin layer of grayish-green mist, and the air was filled with the smell of mineral dust, which felt unpleasant when inhaled into the lungs.

Richard's party arrived at the edge of the Glimmerstone Hills at noon on the third day.

Morpheus stood on a protruding piece of glimmerstone, his slender fingers taking a set of divination cards made from thin obsidian flakes out of his sleeve, the surfaces reflecting strange, colorful light in the sun.

He arranged the cards one by one on the flat rock surface, muttering under his breath, his purple pupils slightly dilating as if reading some information only he could see.

A moment later, he put away the cards and pointed toward a winding, narrow canyon deep in the hills.

"Over there... The remnants of Victor's last magical message point in this direction."

"The divination cards tell me that his flame of life... or rather, his former flame of life... is in the deepest part of that canyon."

Black Cat crouched on a low rock beside him, using the tip of her dagger to draw a few short marks on the muddy ground.

She had hardly spoken a word on her own throughout the journey, but every time she passed a fork in the road or suspicious terrain, she would stop and carve a small cat-paw mark on a nearby tree trunk or stone with her dagger.

Her eyes, just like her nickname, seemed to see more clearly than a normal person's in dim light, with pupils dilating to a ratio that almost filled the entire iris when needed.

This reminded Richard of some dark races from the underground, who often possessed the unique ability of darkvision.

"There are at least four sets of different footprints here, the most recent batch no more than two days old."

Black Cat stood up and pointed at the ground with the tip of her dagger.

"Probably other adventure squads; let's each do our own thing, hopefully they don't complete the quest first." Richard glanced at the traces on the ground and didn't stop walking.

Jinbao pulled a strange device made of copper wire and colored glass shards from his huge tool bag, held it up to his eyes to look toward the canyon for a long time, and then stuffed it back in with satisfaction.

"Air pressure is stable, humidity is on the high side but not enough to rain, suitable for working."

"You need to know, if it rains in the Glimmerstone Hills, it will be very troublesome."

Cecilia walked at the back of the group.

She wore a helmet and veil, and the daytime sunlight falling on her through the sparse gaps in the ferns was blocked by her armor and clothing.

She had gotten used to this rhythm, passing quickly through places with sunlight and pausing briefly in the shadows.

Richard looked back at her, and she nodded slightly to indicate she was fine and didn't need extra care.

The further they went into the canyon, the narrower it became; the stone walls on both sides gradually closed in, and the sky overhead was compressed into a thin, long, grayish-green slit.

The ferns became exceptionally dense here, with petrified leaves packed tightly together, and at the narrowest parts, one needed to use weapons to hack through the fronds just to barely get through.

The female Rogue, Black Cat, was the first to discover something unusual.

She crouched beside a rock at the narrowest point of the canyon, wiped her finger on the ground, sniffed it near the tip of her nose, then stood up and gestured with her chin toward a spot not far ahead.