Chapter 118 – Vanishing Cocoon
The matter of the evil spirits was a bit strange, as a matter of fact, an unopened Perception Gauge was a useless mirror, it was impossible to see the evil spirits.
But Byron and Nick weren't so sure that Saul had misread it.
Anyway, no matter whether Saul saw the hallucination or not, there are only two results: the existence of evil spirits and the non-existence of evil spirits.
"This is the entrance to the Draped Hand Valley, there can't be any evil spirits that are too powerful." Nick activated his Perception Gauge and checked the surroundings again.
No spirits were found.
"But Saul, why did you put the Perceptron on the ground." Nick looked up curiously, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly, "Is it because it's too short to reach?"
"Pfft!"
Saul immediately turned his head angrily to look at Byron, but only saw Byron's calm face and innocent eyes.
Saul's eyes shifted to Byron's throat, where he swore it had definitely cracked just then!
But the problem of size wasn't something he could solve right now, although he was convinced that he would be able to grow to one meter eight.
"Right." Saul returned to the topic, he looked around again to make sure that there were no more head monsters around, then he whispered to the two of them, "I just saw a lot of ... monsters with only a head and two feet. But they disappeared before you guys came back."
Saul lowered his voice again, "I didn't dare to startle them, do you guys know what kind of monsters they were?"
When he looked up, he saw Byron's cheeks actually start to twitch.
And on the other side of the room, Nick's pupils plummeted, and obvious fear flowed out of his eyes.
"Slap!" Nick suddenly gave himself a slap, he looked up, his expression was a bit hideous, "Those ... monsters, they all disappeared now?"
Saul saw Nick's state is not right, and quickly nodded his head, "All disappeared, or I wouldn't dare to open my mouth and ask you."
"I'll stay alone for a while." Nick suddenly stood up and drilled into his tent.
Not a moment later, the kind of moan that covers the mouth with force but still leaks out a little bit of sound came from the tent.
Byron fared a little better, his throat cracking, "Good thing you didn't startle them. Those were human-headed monsters, originally they could only be seen deep in the Valley of the Drooping Hand."
Byron sighed when he saw the confusion in Saul's eyes, "I didn't tell you before because the more people who knew about the existence of the head monsters, the easier it was to meet them. I didn't expect you to meet them anyway. If you caught their attention, they would probably turn you into a human head monster as well. And you, yourself, will even forget that you were once a normal person."
So that was it, no wonder Byron and Nick hadn't mentioned a word about such a dangerous monster.
"How many monsters have you seen?"
"... all over the place."
"Hiss-" Byron sucked in a breath of cold air as he immediately stood up and walked over to Nick's tent, "Nick you hurry up and vent, we'd better get out of here now."
Inside, Nick responded vaguely.
Byron came back and instructed Saul, "The instruments don't need to be dismantled, just move them to the car and we'll change locations."
Because of the fear that the man-head monster would come back at any time, both Byron and Saul just brought along the important things, as for the tent, they simply abandoned it.
Apart from some books, Saul himself didn't bring much. But when he had just picked up his backpack and headed out of the tent, his movements suddenly froze.
Where was the Nightmare Butterfly's cocoon?
Saul was observing the silver blob-like cocoon when he suddenly saw the human-headed monster.
After that, because of his nervousness, he hadn't been paying attention to the cocoon in his hand.
Recalling it now, he couldn't remember at all if he had put the cocoon away.
Saul quickly rummaged through the pockets on his body, and lay down on the ground to look around, but there was no sign of the silver-colored ball.
"It can't be lost, could it have been picked up by the head monster after it fell to the ground?"
Saul simply sat down and closed his eyes and began to recall.
"Nope, I stopped feeling like I was holding something in my hand the moment I saw the man-head monster, that's why I never remembered the cocoon of the Nightmare Butterfly."
Saul gave his hand a false grip and slowly opened his eyes, "Yes, that cocoon was gone in an instant."
After becoming an apprentice sorcerer, memory was augmented by the mental body, and there was no such thing as forgetting where he had left something in the last moment of the ouroboros.
He could even recall all those subtle things he had done by focusing on his memories.
Therefore, Saul was certain that he hadn't accidentally lost the cocoon, but rather the cocoon had disappeared in an instant. And in that instant, he didn't notice it at all, and didn't realize something was wrong until he calmed down afterwards.
"Saul!"
Outside, Senior Byron had begun to urge.
Thor glanced at the tent reluctantly, "Did he escape on his own, or was it stolen by another being?"
Damn it, he hadn't even started his research yet!
But it wasn't safe here anymore.
Even Senior Byron, a third-level apprentice, is cowering.
Saul couldn't take it lightly.
He left the tent in a hurry, his heart filled with regret.
At this time, Nick finally recovered from his emotional outburst and also rushed back to the wooden spider with his things in his arms. Only his hands were full of bruises, and he wondered if he had pinched himself.
Saul had already understood that Nick, because of his study of emotional sorcery, would usually deliberately suppress his emotional changes.
However, if there was a situation where he couldn't help but laugh, or couldn't help but be scared, extreme emotional outbursts would occur.
For example, laughing and jerking over, or being so scared that he vomited.
This side effect is actually very scary. Because it's fine in normal times, but if you are in an extreme situation and can't handle it calmly, you are likely to be in danger.
Saul guessed that this might also be one of the reasons why Nick had been unable to advance to the third level.
The Wooden Spider activated and quickly left the already unsafe camp.
As Saul looked through the window of the car behind him, he vaguely saw blackened heads at the foot of the mountain again.
He withdrew his gaze and pretended he hadn't seen anything.
Saul's opposite side was none other than the mirror of the Soul Fluctuation Perception Instrument.
Because of the rush, they didn't disassemble the instrument, but just carried it up to the wooden spider intact.
This caused the originally spacious carriage to become crowded, and the three people had to sit close to the wall.
As soon as Saul saw the mirror, he remembered the black shadow that once appeared in it, and with some discomfort in his heart, he simply twisted his head to avoid it.
However, the moment he moved his eyes away, he suddenly seemed to see a bright silver light.
He immediately turned his eyes back again.
His blurred and distorted face was reflected in the mirror, but there was no silver light to be seen.
"Could I be seeing things wrong?"
Thor brought his face closer so that his distorted face became a little clearer in the mirror.
But still, he didn't see anything wrong.
Just as Saul tried to lean back in confusion, he suddenly realized that his left eye actually lit up a bit.
Saul was stunned and looked around at the two men.
They shouldn't be able to see Saul's face because of the Sensory Gauge's cover.
Only then did Saul narrow his eyes and enter a semi-immersed meditative state.
This time, Saul finally saw it.
In his left eye, a small silver-colored ball appeared. The small ball was covered in starlight and glittered.
Sol resisted the urge to go rub his eyes and slowly lowered his head.
That Nightmare Butterfly's cocoon had actually taken the initiative to run into his eye!
(End of chapter)