Soul echo

Chapter 22 The Echo Sign

The sun rose slowly from the horizon, and at dawn, Zhong Ye ate the last dry food he was carrying.

Gently patted the horse's back to wake the draft horse from its deep sleep, and when the two horses had also finished their breakfast, he hung the rope on them.

Not far away, a dark and solemn castle stands on the top of the hillside, like a giant.

The farmhouses are distributed along the slopes in a radial shape, scattered on the ground, guarding the castle.

There are no fences around the village, but they don't need to fear the invasion of wild animals, because their lord is a powerful mage.

The mage lord of Etruul is also unique in the entire Western Continent-a mage who is powerful and willing to spare part of his energy to contribute to the kingdom can ask the king or duke for a reward, and then he can get a title and a matching title. territory.

Territories and titles cannot be hereditary. At the same time, as a lord, a mage is also obliged to protect the people under his rule.

But in contrast, mage territories do not need to pay taxes, or in other words, the difficulties that mage lords solve for the kingdom are the 'taxes' they need to pay.

Most of the strong have a long lifespan, and mages are the best among them. They have enough time to develop their territories. After the territories develop and take shape, they can get a lot of taxes from the territories to support their magic experiments.

Moreover, although the mage's territory cannot be hereditary, it will be nationalized again after the mage's death, but the mage can hand over the inheritance to the students or descendants, and let them apply for a new mage's territory.

The kingdom can use this to obtain many mature territories, and the mage also has the funds to conduct magic experiments, and everyone is happy.

This system has a long history in the Kingdom of Yitrul, even dating back to 2000 years ago, and other countries simply cannot play it.

Even if the Kingdom of Etruul declines due to various chances and coincidences, it can rely on this system to stand up again.

It is easy to distinguish mage territories from ordinary noble territories. People usually call their territories by the names of mages, indicating that their territories belong only to themselves.

Zhong Ye drove the scooter into Master Victor's territory. It was still early in the day, but there were already farmers on the road.

After he entered the village, he saw a group of villagers gather and get on a donkey cart.

If there is no accident, the donkey cart should pull them to the factory and start a new day of production.

The cart continued to walk, slowly approaching the castle.

Although the villagers who came and went were curious, they didn't react too much.

They have a powerful mage lord, and there are many powerful followers under the lord, so there is nothing to worry about.

There is only one road in the village that can lead to the castle. When Zhong Ye came to the gate of the castle, he found that the gate was closed tightly.

He was silent for a while, got off the carriage, tightened the reins, and took a deep breath.

The breath circulates in the lungs, rises suddenly, and vibrates the vocal cords.

"anyone there?!!!"

Like an angry lion roaring, the loud sound even frightened the two draft horses, and it took Zhong Ye a lot of effort to pull them back.

Soon, the side door was opened, and a young man in a robe looked out.

Seeing a man dressed as an adventurer standing in front of the castle gate, and a carriage behind him, the boy shouted, "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

Zhong Ye glanced at the side door, "I'm Zhong Ye. I came here to ask Master Victor about something. For this reason, I brought a living troll."

"Living troll?!"

The young man screamed, and then realized his gaffe, and hurriedly covered his mouth.

"You, wait a minute!"

The boy dropped those words, and slammed the side door shut, but the sound of eager footsteps coming from behind the door became more and more distant.

Zhong Ye stood in front of the door and waited quietly. About ten minutes later, the main door was slowly opened, and the boy from before walked out of the castle with his companions, following a serious-looking old man.

The boy lowered his head and looked downcast. He ran to report to the teacher before confirming with his own eyes whether the adventurer brought a living troll, and was reprimanded.

The old man was Victor, the lord of this territory. He stood under the city gate and watched Zhong Ye for a long time before walking over again. The apprentices and followers behind him hurriedly followed.

"Your name is 'Zhong Ye'?" Victor frowned slightly, "Eastern native?"

He was very puzzled. An unknown Eastern native came to him with a living troll to ask about something?
The mage secretly set up the trigger technique. Once the Eastern native on the opposite side launched an attack, even if he couldn't react, the spell would automatically counterattack.

But to his surprise, Zhong Ye didn't do anything, but stepped aside so that he could see what was on the cart - a troll with pale skin!

"White troll?"

Victor frowned deeply. He couldn't remember any troll in the world with white skin.

Trolls have stubborn genes and are not easy to mutate. The latest research has confirmed that trolls, humans, and elves were born at the same time. However, humans and elves have developed prosperous civilizations, but trolls are still like wild beasts. Their intelligence is not as good as that of monkeys.

This is a mutated troll with extremely high research value, and it is still alive.

—Victor saw the troll's chest rising and falling, and heard the troll's breathing and heartbeat.

"...you don't look like a mage."

After pondering for a moment, Victor slowly said: "As a warrior, it must have taken you a lot of effort to catch a living troll. I don't know if you know the value of this troll, but I can tell you You, the troll, are of great value to me—and now I ask again, do you still insist on the previous conditions?"

"Your justice is amazing." Zhong Ye praised Master Victor, his face became serious, "But I insist, I do have some things I want to know!"

Victor opened his mouth slightly and froze for a moment, he had never seen such a stubborn person.

I have already pointed out the value of that troll, but this Eastern native still only wants to get answers to a few questions...

Stroking his short beard, the old mage took a deep breath, "Okay, what do you want to ask?"

Zhong Ye looked around strangely, "Here? As the host, shouldn't you invite me in as a guest?"

Victor almost pulled out his beard, his eyes widened, and he looked at the Eastern native in disbelief.

Does he know what he's talking about?

That is his mage tower. In a complete and exclusive mage tower, mages can be said to be almost invincible - it is impossible for low-level mages to have their own mage tower.

"...if you insist."

Victor made an inviting gesture, and asked the servant to pull the carriage into the castle, and led Zhong Ye inside.

After entering the castle, the old mage first let the apprentices and followers disperse to do what they should do, and then took Zhong Ye to the reception room.

The old mage just pushed open the door of the reception room, when Zhong Ye saw the tea pots on the shelf flying out automatically, unscrewed the lid, poured the tea into the teapot, the teapot twisted its huge body and ran towards the stove, the cupboard door suddenly opened, and the tray He flew to the coffee table with two cups, the tea cups jumped onto the coffee table, and ran to both sides of the coffee table.

Victor led Zhong Ye to a seat, and billowing steam came out from the spout and air hole of the teapot, and the teapot flew up, pouring hot tea into the cup, and the black tea swirled a few times in the cup.

"Please."

The old mage smiled and picked up the tea cup, and when inviting Zhong Ye to drink tea, he took the lead in taking a sip as a demonstration.

Zhong Ye tried it with some curiosity, and was surprised to find that the temperature of the tea was just right.

"I don't know Mr. Zhong Ye, what questions do you need to consult?"

Although Victor is a lord, he doesn't like twists and turns like secular nobles. Compared with lords and nobles, he prefers his status as a mage.

The Dongtu man sitting opposite him paid a 'big price' anyway, so he naturally had to show corresponding respect.

Hearing this, Zhong Ye put down his teacup, and silently sorted out his thoughts and words in his mind.

Seeing Zhong Ye's calm and serious expression, Victor waited quietly.

"I don't know Master Victor... what do you think of 'another world'?" Zhong Ye took a deep breath and raised his eyes, "I had a dream, which lasted on and off for more than ten years. In that dream, there is a logically consistent and complete world, and everything seems to be real. I would like to ask, do you think there is 'another world' in this world?"

"The question you raised is not the school I specialize in." Victor shook his head, pointing this out first.

Then, he changed the subject: "However, I can tell you with certainty that 'other worlds' exist. Not only do they exist, but in recent years we have also observed that our world is approaching another world. And the two The approach of the world will naturally have some effects. For example, the dream you had now has a scientific name: echo sign.

"'Echo sign', as the name suggests, the proximity of the two worlds has caused many ripples. These ripples contain a lot of information, some from this world and some from another world. The ripples can be received by the soul, manifested in the knowledge acquired suddenly, and also There is your dream.

"But you can rest assured that this is not a disease, it's just a symptom. It may cause you some trouble, but it won't actually cause you any harm."

With that said, Victor paused for a moment, and then continued: "Speaking of this, the last few days are just the window period for stargazing. If you are not in a hurry, you can stay here first. I can let you watch it tonight." Look at the world that is approaching us."

Zhong Ye was silent, he heard his heart beating wildly.

"……it is good!"

(End of this chapter)