Black Hearted Mage

Chapter 273 Endless Forest 4

At dawn, bursts of snoring awoke Kaisas. He rubbed his sleepy eyes. The sound was all too familiar, coming from the puppy lying outside the tent. This dark red lava dog pup had been sent from the Abyss by his ancestors when it was just a dark red egg.

Caesars lifted the flap of the armored leather tent, and the morning light enveloped the camp like a veil. The puppy, sensing movement, lifted its head and whimpered softly. As Caesars took in the puppy's condition, his sleepiness instantly vanished—its once-smooth fur was dotted with tiny wounds, the marks left by the viper's fangs, and the wounds were mostly healing.

"Where were you last night, you idiot?" Caesars asked softly, carefully avoiding the wounds as he examined the pup. The pup licked his hand wearily, then pulled out a saliva-soaked stone from the inside of its collar. It was the photo stone he had tied to the pup yesterday, used to record the scene in the viper's lair.

Caesars donned his frayed leather coat and cleaned the image stone. The stone's surface was cool and moist, shimmering faintly blue in the morning light. He took a deep breath and slowly channeled his magic into the stone. As the magic flowed, the air above the image stone began to distort, forming a translucent curtain of light.

At first, the light curtain was pitch black, with only the puppy's rapid breathing and the scraping of its paws. Caesars waited patiently. After about five or six minutes, a faint gray-green glow suddenly appeared in the light curtain. Like a sickly firefly, it gradually outlined the contours of the cave.

At first, the cavern was so narrow that the pup had to duck to pass through. But as it went deeper, it gradually widened, eventually forming a passage wide enough for an adult to walk upright. Caesars squinted, trying to identify the light source—it was a tiny crystal he had never seen before, barely the size of a grain of rice, irregularly embedded in the damp cave wall, emitting an eerie gray-green glow.

"An alchemical product? Or a natural mineral?" Caesars muttered to himself, his fingers unconsciously tracing the puppy's trajectory in the air. As a knowledge-hungry magician, he possessed an almost paranoid curiosity about the unknown.

The image on the screen suddenly shook violently, and the puppy let out a warning growl. Then, a group of stubby, mutant vipers appeared. Caesars gasped—these vipers were completely different from the species he was familiar with from Roland Continent. Their bodies were as thick as an adult's arm, but only about the same length. They looked like strips of flesh forcibly compressed by some force, their thickness almost the same from front to back.

"This doesn't make sense..." Caesars stared at the screen. "Snakes' physiological structure can't..." His academic mind automatically began to analyze, but the scene before him shattered all his assumptions. These mutant vipers had almost no discernible tails, only tapering slightly at the end, like the stump of a limb that had been roughly amputated and then healed.

Even more disturbing was their behavior. While ordinary vipers avoid creatures larger than themselves, these mutants were exceptionally ferocious, repeatedly attacking the pup. Suddenly, a viper descended from the cave ceiling, its fangs pointed directly at the pup's eyes. The pup nimbly dodged, then struck back, its sharp canines catching the viper's vital points and ripping it in two. The torn body twisted on the ground, spurting not bright red blood but a thick, dark green liquid.

"The venom glands have mutated..." Caesars quickly wrote in his notebook, "Changes in the color of body fluids may mean increased toxicity or changes in composition." He thought of the wounds on the puppy's body, turned around and examined them carefully, and found that they were already healing.

The video continued, showing the puppies navigating a maze of caverns, occasionally battling attacking vipers. Caesars noticed that the gray-green crystals on the cave walls grew denser and brighter as he went deeper. A hunch told him there might be a connection between these crystals and the viper's mutation.

About half an hour later, the puppy arrived at a vast cavern. Caesars held his breath—it was a crystal palace. Countless gray-green crystals, like stars, inlaid on the walls and ceiling, illuminated the entire space like a dream. The crystals weren't randomly distributed, but formed a regular pattern, like ancient runes or a constellation map.

The puppy advanced cautiously, passing through a forest of stalagmites that resembled a crystal forest. At the end of the cave, a shocking sight appeared in the light curtain: a seat made of even larger crystals, shaped like a throne, and atop it sat a pale skeleton.

Caesars stood up abruptly, leaning in closer to the image on the screen for a closer look. The upper half of the skeleton was entirely human—a distinct skull, clavicle, ribs, and arm bones. But from the pelvis down, a long snake-like skeleton extended, its vertebrae gradually tapering to form a complete snake tail.

"Naga? No... Naga legend has it they live in the deep seas of the Abyssal Plane, and have fish tails..." Caesar's voice trembled with excitement. "Could it be some ancient human-snake hybrid?" He quickly estimated the skeleton's dimensions. Using a puppy's height as a guide, the upper body alone was over two meters long, and the snake bones in the lower half were at least ten meters long. If this creature were still alive, it would be a terrifying behemoth.

The puppy in the light curtain circled the crystal throne and suddenly barked wildly in a certain direction. The picture shook violently, then stopped abruptly, and the light curtain dissipated like smoke.

Kaisas sat there, his mind replaying every detail of what he had just seen. The mutated viper, the gray-green crystal, the half-human, half-snake skeleton... these things pieced together a vague yet alluring puzzle in his mind. As a seeker of knowledge, he could not resist the allure of the unknown; as an adventurer, the desire for exploration in his blood was boiling.

"We have to check out that cave!" Caesars made up his mind, then immediately dismissed the idea. The narrow passage the puppy had sprinted through for five or six minutes would have taken at least several months to dig. He pulled out a map and, based on the time the puppy left camp and its running speed, roughly calculated the cave's likely location—it should be about five kilometers northwest of the camp, deep underground.

Neither the crater nor the Elven Council had gone in to investigate, so there must be some reason unknown to him. Caesars took out the communication stone and contacted Old Ethan in the Magic Tower. The other party quickly replied: Don't go underground to explore. Those are the remains of a demonic creature. The gray-green crystals are formed from demonic blood and are quite dangerous. They can cause mutations in monsters and humans.

Old Ethan's advice to him was to block the passage and prevent the monsters outside from reaching the gray-green crystal. The crater and the Elven Council had not excavated or explored it in order to prevent the gray-green crystal from flowing out.

The remains of a demonic creature could actually transform the underground into such a state, which gave Caesars a deeper understanding of the power of demonic creatures. And the puppy beside him was undoubtedly a genuine demonic creature.

"Hey, dead dog, can you eat those gray-green crystals?"

Kaisas replayed the video, then pointed at the huge gray-green crystal in the picture that looked like crystal, and asked curiously.

When the puppy heard what Caesar said, it grinned, revealing its sharp fangs. It then extended its large, scarlet tongue and gently licked the crystals. This simple action instantly made Caesar understand—this guy could definitely eat these crystals!

Upon seeing this, Kaisas gave a thumbs up without hesitation, secretly sighing in his heart: This lava dog is worthy of being called the Abyss Scavenger!

Through this incident, Kaisas seemed to have a vague suspicion. He began to realize that his ancestors had sent the lava dog back from the Abyss for more than just his protection. The aberrations and ghouls at Bitterwater Farm, as well as the demonic blood that could cause corruption, might all require the lava dog's purification. And the gray-green crystals there might also be a crucial source of food for the lava dog.

Kaisas searched for rocks around him. He needed a few rocks of the right size to completely block the hole. Not far away was a gray-black rock that was a bit too big. Kaisas needed to cut it and make it into a large stone plug.

Since there were no suitable tools at hand, Kaisas could only use the magic blade to split the stones. For a moment, gravel and dust filled the dense forest.

A few minutes later, the dust settled. His workmanship was a bit lackluster, and the stone plug was a bit ugly, but it was roughly the right size. To make it more secure, he used a shock spell to destroy a section of the hole before inserting it. Then he dropped in large pieces of rubble, then smaller pieces, poured in a bucket of alchemical glue, and lowered the stone plug.

"You dead dog, it's your turn. Fill the dirt you dug out so the mutant viper inside won't escape!"

The puppy whined and dug in the dirt reluctantly. It had dug this big hole yesterday with great effort, and now it had to fill it back.

"You dead dog, I'll give you a snack today: two slices of pickled beef!"

To get the puppies to work hard, they had to trade delicious food for them. The effect was immediate: the puppies, who had been a bit lazy at work, were now digging the soil like crazy.

The breakfast was simple, consisting of a large cheese from the Safin family. Kaisas cut off less than a tenth of the cheese and left the rest for the pup.

"Hey, dead dog! There are more than just herbs in the Endless Forest. Maybe we can even come across a beehive!" Caesars said to the puppy while cutting cheese.

When the puppy heard the word "beehive", it blinked its round little eyes, as if it was a little unfamiliar and confused about the word.

"There are good things hidden in the beehive, that's honey! It's extremely sweet honey!" Caesars continued to explain, his voice revealing his longing for honey.

The puppy's eyes suddenly widened, as if he could see the golden, fragrant honey flowing in the honeycomb. His mouth was almost watering, and the cheese that he had originally thought was quite fragrant now became tasteless in his eyes.

You know, the reason why the Safin family's soufflés are so delicious, in addition to the unique ingredients and exquisite production techniques, is that they add a small amount of honey. The taste of this honey is very familiar to puppies.

"Look at how greedy you are! Even if you really find honey, you can only keep it and eat it slowly. Honey in the Endless Forest is very rare. Even the old elves in the Magic Tower can only taste it occasionally!" Kaisas looked at the puppy's greedy look and teased with a smile.

The puppy didn't seem particularly hungry. It casually ate a few bites of cheese and then put the rest into its storage ring. After finishing all this, it began to sniff the surrounding dense forest with its nose, as if searching for some important clue.

Caesars also packed up his things and set off with the fat puppy.

After a short exploration, the puppy seemed to have determined the direction, and without hesitation, it led Caesars towards the other side of the Grand Canyon. Along the way, they passed through dense woods, and the plush moss under their feet gradually disappeared, replaced by a thick layer of fallen leaves.

As they went deeper, various herbs began to appear frequently. Caesars showed great interest in these herbs, but he did not want all of them. He only selected those with high value. He completely ignored the common, inexpensive herbs.

Time slipped by unnoticed, from sunrise to sunset, as Caesars and his pup wandered the Grand Canyon. The sheer number of valuable herbs here was astonishing, and he had to stop every few minutes to collect them. It was obvious that this place had been untouched for so long that even Caesars had difficulty accurately determining the age of the herbs.

However, after a long day of trekking, the puppy finally felt hungry and tired. No longer as energetic as before, it lazily lay on the fallen leaves, unwilling to move. Seeing this, Caesars also stopped. After all, he had been walking in the dense forest of the canyon for a whole day and his body was beginning to feel a little tired.

"Dead dog, omelet, roasted monster meat, roasted fish, stewed meat, which one do you want to eat?"

Kaisas promised to give the fat dog a snack today. He had some pickled meat for lunch, and he needed to give the fat dog a snack for dinner. The puppy blinked his eyes. He was a little confused about the delicious food and didn't know which one to choose.

"Hurry up and choose! Stew takes the longest, grilling fish takes the shortest, and omelets are the most troublesome!"

Caesars urged on, as it was about to get dark.

The puppy gestured, and Caesars understood. The hungry puppy didn't want to wait too long, so it chose grilled fish.