Afterward, Leilin and his group encountered several more massive clouds of miasma and swarms of poisonous insects.
With the help of Leilin's potions, the party passed through these areas smoothly.
After Leilin demonstrated his ability to disperse poisonous insects and miasma clouds using potions several times, Jiamen and the others began looking at him with eyes full of conviction.
Even Posain, who hailed from the Lilisite family, occasionally studied Leilin with a look of surprise.
Clearly, although he had heard of Leilin's talent in potionology, he hadn't expected Leilin's genius to far exceed his expectations.
After trekking through mountains and rivers, the group finally arrived at the cliff location marked on the map two days later.
"How beautiful!"
Shaya, one of the five, exclaimed. Even the faces of Leilin and the others showed traces of captivated expressions.
On a small flat area at the top of the cliff, a kind of bright yellow flower was planted everywhere. From the center emerged several threads of bright red stamens, and the blossoms were open to roughly the size of two fists of a normal person.
The entire clifftop was covered with these strange flowers, and a rich floral fragrance continuously permeated the air.
"Leilin, what do you think?" Jiamen asked.
The Moon Harp Mountains were filled with all manner of dangers, and all sorts of strange plants emerged one after another. Often, the more beautiful a plant was, the more dangerous it proved to be — especially now that they were one step closer to their destination!
As a potionology apprentice, Leilin had already resolved three danger traps similar to flower seas along the way.
"No problem!" Leilin plucked one of the flowers into his hand.
"Chip, cross-reference with the database!"
"Ding! Task established. Scanning appearance and scent. Comparing…"
"Database search complete. Identified as Beta Daisy!" the Chip reported faithfully.
"Beta Daisy?" Leilin furrowed his brow. "That's an ordinary plant from the South Coast, usually growing on plains. It represents remembrance and respect…"
"This flower does seem to be a Beta Daisy. The fact that it appears here means someone must have cultivated it deliberately!" Posain also gave a definitive answer.
"Could it be the wizard who left the ruins?" Ross, standing at the back, spoke slowly, his voice somewhat low.
"Possibly, but I can't be certain!"
Jiamen unfolded his tattered map: "According to the map, the ruins should be located at the base of the cliff!"
Leilin silently nodded. On the map he had previously scanned, "Dylan's Garden" was also marked at the base of the cliff. Combined with the vast field of daisies on the clifftop, he was eighty to ninety percent certain.
"Then what are we waiting for?" Shaya's face lit up with excitement.
For apprentices, finding the ruins of a formal wizard and obtaining a wizard's inheritance was often the beginning of a rise to prominence.
The breathing of all five began to quicken slightly. Even Posain was no exception.
The cliff was very high, and its steep walls were covered with razor-sharp, blade-like rock formations. For ordinary people, climbing to the bottom would be completely impossible.
But for five Third-rank Apprentices, this difficulty posed no obstacle at all.
Ross directly transformed into a tentacle-creature form and climbed down, while Leilin and the others cast "Featherfloat Spell" on themselves — a spell that greatly reduced their weight — and simply floated down the cliff.
Boom!!
The Featherfloat Spell's effect dissipated, and Leilin's feet landed directly on the ground.
"This is…" Leilin looked around in surprise. Everywhere there were barbed, sword-shaped stone pillars.
Countless inverted stone swords were densely packed together, occupying more than half of the cliff base.
And on the pointed tips of the swords, various animal remains were pierced and hanging. Leilin even discovered several remains that appeared to be human.
"Looks like they were all creatures that lost their footing and fell from the cliff," Leilin sighed, then suddenly noticed something wrong. "How could there be ordinary people here? Could they be apprentices who came seeking clues before us?"
"Careful — the ground is full of barbs!" Seeing that Jiamen and the others were about to land as well, Leilin quickly called out a warning.
"Damn it!" Jiamen's face darkened. His arm had been grazed by a barbed sword tip during the descent, leaving a blood trail over a dozen centimeters long.
"These sword tips have been enchanted with Eternal Sharpness and other wizardcraft effects! Otherwise, they absolutely wouldn't have been able to breach my defenses!"
"Indeed!" Leilin ran his hand along the grey-white blade, feeling the faint energy fluctuations emanating from it.
"Only a formal wizard could undertake something on this scale — enchanting the stones of an entire area!"
"So where are the ruins?"
Thump, thump! Countless grey-white fleshy tentacles spread out from the cliff wall to one side, carrying Ross down to the ground.
"I probed the area with magic earlier. The subsurface here is only rock and sand — there's no trace of any ruins at all…" Posain held a green eyeball in his hand, his tone somewhat disappointed.
"Let's search around for clues. We'll regroup at the top of the cliff in six hours!" A hint of anxiety appeared on Jiamen's face, and he spoke directly.
This expedition had been his idea, and nothing could disappoint him more than coming up empty-handed.
Moreover, the anxiety of having found something but being unable to locate the entrance, combined with the fear of being targeted by a formal wizard, had been tormenting the young man. In Leilin's eyes, Jiamen was already showing signs of nervous exhaustion.
"Search freely?" The other four fell silent for a moment after hearing Jiamen's suggestion, then all nodded in agreement.
For them, now that they had reached the destination, Jiamen's role had become quite limited. And if someone could find the ruins before the others and claim the resources, it would be far better than excavating together — they could also obtain a greater share.
All five had confidence in their own abilities, so no one suggested searching in groups.
Each person chose a direction and departed from the spot.
"Chip, scan the surrounding terrain and project a map!" Leilin stopped after walking for a short while and communicated with the Chip.
"Task established. Terrain scanning in progress…"
The Chip faithfully executed Leilin's command, and soon a pale blue three-dimensional image was projected before Leilin's eyes.
On this map — visible only to him — the terrain around the cliff was depicted in clear detail, right down to every blade of grass.
According to the Chip's probe, beneath the cliff was nothing but solid rock layers, with no traces of wizard activity.
And in the surrounding area, there was no situation similar to the previous laboratory where the Chip couldn't scan.
"Nothing?" Leilin frowned.
"Perhaps the wizardcraft array deployed by the other party is too well concealed for the Chip to detect!"
Leilin thought for a moment, then inspected the surroundings with his own eyes once more.
After six hours, the sky gradually darkened. Several tents had been erected at the top of the cliff, with a campfire burning in front of them. A pot of wild vegetable soup gave off an enticing aroma.
Unfortunately, none of the five gathered around had much appetite for food.
"Everyone's back — let's hear what you found!" Jiamen looked around and spoke first.
"Nothing! The base of the cliff has nothing except those damned inverted stone swords…" Ross said. "Tell me, you didn't intentionally lead us the wrong way, did you?"
"What did you say?" Jiamen shot to his feet, and a ring of green light flared from the badge on his chest.
"Enough! Are we really going to start fighting each other before we've even seen any treasure?" A powerful energy fluctuation erupted from Posain's body as he stepped directly between Jiamen and Ross.
"I trust Jiamen. Otherwise, he could have simply come here alone," Leilin added from the side.
The reason he said this was that he had the map from the Gothic Sage's Cottage team, which confirmed that Jiamen had indeed led them all the way to their destination.
Hearing Leilin and Posain intervene, Jiamen and Ross glared at each other fiercely, then sat back down.
"I even re-checked the base of the cliff. The subsurface is completely solid — there's no underground city or anything like that," Shaya said with a bitter smile from the side.
"The ruins of a formal wizard were never going to be discovered so easily. Otherwise, they'd have been looted long ago!"
Leilin added. Then he asked Jiamen: "Do you have any other clues?"
At Leilin's words, the other four also turned their gaze toward Jiamen.
Jiamen was silent for a moment, then spoke: "The clue I obtained was the route map to this place. On the original diagram, there were also a few ancient words that seemed to be some kind of poetry…"
"Let me see!" Leilin and Posain said in unison.
"Let's all look together!" Jiamen smiled and unfolded the map from inside his robe.
Leilin looked carefully. Jiamen's map was no different from the one in the Chip — the route was identical, leading to this very cliff.
But Jiamen's map was clearly more aged. In the upper right corner, there were several faded words, their script twisted like serpents.
"That's Ancient Jagolian. I saw it in a book once. It seems to say something like 'One who carries… and respect, may… the garden'…" Posain's eyes brightened as he struggled to translate.
"'Only one who carries courage and respect may see Dylan's Garden!'" Leilin translated the Ancient Jagolian directly from the side. "That's the only sentence written on the map!"
Posain was visibly startled. "That kind of obscure knowledge… you actually…"
"I just happen to enjoy spending time in the library," Leilin said with a faint smile.
"The ruins are clearly called Dylan's Garden, but what do courage and respect mean?"
Shaya scratched his head from the side.
"I always thought courage meant the courage to enter the Moon Harp Mountains, but now it seems that's not it!" Jiamen said with a bitter smile.
"The Moon Harp Mountains are only somewhat dangerous to ordinary people. For Second-rank Apprentices and above, they pose no real threat…" Posain looked deeply at Leilin and spoke slowly.