Chapter 575 – Forbidden Land

After the group arrived at the Dining Hall, Zhao Hai discovered that although there were still people in the hall, it wasn’t as many as yesterday. Moreover, the hall before had young Dwarves in it, but this time, only old ones were present.

After Billy introduced them, Zhao Hai understood that they were the elders of the race. Zhao Hai didn’t dare neglect their presence, so he immediately gave them a salute.

The other elders were also very polite to Zhao Hai. Zhao Hai, Billy, and the others were sitting on one table. On the other hand, Laura and the others sat on the another table along with similar aged Dwarves.

This Dwarf custom of also inviting the companions of a guests to a dinner was something that Zhao Hai liked very much.

While the group sat down and ate, the elders kept urging Zhao Hai to drink. However, Zhao Hai didn’t want to, drinking during the day was something that he doesn’t do. But since he was been given hospitality, he couldn’t help but drink a few glasses.

Juno has been watching Zhao Hai getting along with the Dwarf elders. Although Zhao Hai had given the Dwarves a huge favor, there was no change in Zhao Hai’s temperament. He was still very respectful to the elders, just like how he acted before. It was as if nothing happened.

This made Juno settle on Zhao Hai. There were very few people on the continent that were like Zhao Hai. One must know that the Dwarves were viewed by other Humans as a different type of people. Because of this, every time a Human interacts with a Dwarf, they would always fish for huge benefits from them. At the same time, Humans were also looking down on the Dwarves. [1] Therefore, general Humans, even if they benefited from the Dwarves, wouldn’t act the same as what Zhao Hai was doing.

After eating their meal, Zhao Hai didn’t go to the Forbidden Lands along with Billy immediately. He first returned to his room and drank one cup of Spatial Water to sober himself up. Only after that did he come out of his room.

Billy and Juno were currently sitting inside Billy’s cave. When a Dwarf led Zhao Hai to the cave, the two who were chatting immediately stood up.

Zhao Hai quickly asked the two to sit down, then he bitterly smiled and said, “I’ll be frank to you two, my alcohol capacity is too limited. Since I drank some glasses, I needed to return to my room to drink something in order to sober up.

Drinks for sobering up was quite common in the continent, especially to the Nobles. Offering and receiving hospitality in the Human lands also involved some sort of drinking. Since being drunk is uncomfortable, the people in the continent asked some potion masters to make them something that can sober them up.

Billy didn’t care about it, he just smiled faintly and said, “it’s no big deal. We Dwarves are already used to it. Haha. Mister, let’s head to the Forbidden Land.”

Zhao Hai nodded and said, “Alright.”

Billy nodded, and then he stood up, Juno stood up as well. It seems like he intended to come along with Zhao Hai. Seeing Billy’s expression, it seems like there was no problem. This was understandable, after all, Juno was an extremely trustworthy person, and he already knew quite a bit about this matter. Even if one doesn’t tell him anything, he would still know of it sooner or later. As the matter stands, it’s much better to just tell Juno everything in order to not lose his trust.

Billy led Zhao Hai and the others out of the cave and then walked towards another underground river channel. They sat on a boat and then proceeded to travel along the Iron Mountains.

The Dwarves’ Iron Mountains was quite big, but the Dwarves were smart. As soon as they discovered this underground river system, the immediately utilized it to be their transportation channel. When they came to know that this underground system spanned the entirety of the mountains, it became an important line for the entire Dwarf race, which made their travel much more convenient.

The speed of their boat was very fast. After two hours, the group disembarked on a pier. This pier was quite empty and wasn’t as busy as the others. There weren’t any other ships present here at all. After Billy got of the boat, he had a Dwarf wait for them here and went towards the area where the pier was connected to.

The mountain that the pier was located in was just like any other Dwarf Mountain. It seems like this was where the Forbidden Land was, otherwise, there wouldn’t be much absence of Dwarves here.

Zhao Hai was now very amazed at these Dwarves. The map of the Dwarf Mountains were now almost mapped out in the Space. Seeing the display made Zhao Hai feel how extraordinary this race was.

With how long the Dwarves have lived in these mountains, the mountains seemed to become their own underground world. The underground water system looks like an enormous spider web, connecting Dwarves from various mountains together. How much work was needed to do this? Yet the Dwarves were able to accomplish this task, it was unfathomable.

The people came out of the mountain and was placed outside a small canyon outside the mountain. The Dwarves has built some fences made of wood around this canyon. It seems like they didn’t want people to go and enter the canyon.

Zhao Hai investigated the canyon. It wasn’t very big, about a thousand square meters. The middle of this canyon was a several square meter pool. But the water in this pool was actually blood. Moreover, this canyon didn’t have any plants, the stones in this canyon seemed to turn reddish due to the pool’s liquid.

Whether it was Zhao Hai or Juno, both of them felt a massive pressure coming from the pool. Zhao Hai even felt that this pressure was something much stronger than Iron Hammer’s.

Billy stood at the mouth of the mountain’s cave and stared at the canyon before he sighed and said, “I didn’t know when this mountain canyon has started to exist. When we Dwarves came here, this place already existed. We immediately named it as a Forbidden Place not just because of the blood pool, but also because of those red stones. Once someone touched those stones, their bodies would turn violent before they died. We also intended to study this place, but our findings always turn out nothing.”

After introducing the place, Billy turned to Zhao Hai and said, “Mister, I’ll be clear to you. We’ve dug the places around this canyon and found that there are large volumes of high yield iron ore present here. It’s enough for our race to use for centuries. But because of this place, we didn’t dare to exploit that resource.”

Zhao Hai stared, he didn’t think that the blood of a God-ranked expert would have such a huge energy. Even the stones cannot be touched. Zhao Hai immediately said, “Good, good, this is very good.”

Zhao Hai opened the wooden fence and then walked towards the canyon. Billy also followed behind him and said after a while, “Mister, as long as you don’t touch those stones directly, you will be alright. However, the pool isn’t good. Even if you wore gloves, you would still perish. I ask mister to be very careful.”

Zhao Hai nodded, he stood at the canyon and then looked around. The position that he was standing in right now was something like a cut-off point. If one proceeded for one step, they would be stepping on red stone. But as long as his skin doesn’t touch it, he would be alright.

Zhao Hai took a deep breath, and then with an intention, he absorbed the land in front of him into the Space, including the stones. He made a margin in his action, just in case the stone can influence those around him, so he also dug up about a meter deep.

Since the canyon was almost composed of Iron Ore, he didn’t dare to dig any deeper. Upon seeing that there were no traces of red stones on the ground, Zhao Hai nodded in satisfaction.

On the other hand, Billy and Juno were staring at Zhao Hai with shock. They didn’t think that Zhao Hai would be able to do this. Both of them had seen the big world, and they both arrived at the same conclusion, Space-related Divergent Ability!

Divergent Abilities were already very strange things in the continent. But there was one kind of ability that was very difficult to ponder over, and those were Space Divergent Abilities. It wasn’t only because this type of ability was very rare, it was also because this ability was far too different from the other abilities, people weren’t able to research it.

Sharing this fame with Space Divergent Abilities were Space Magics. Although Space Magic had its own systematic method of practice, people with aptitude for it was extremely rare. Therefore, both Space Divergent Techniques and Space Magic were very mysterious to the people in the continent.

Zhao Hai’s method was naturally due to a Space Divergent Ability, this was because Space magic would need incantations in order to use it. Even an 8th rank Space Mage would need to mutter incantations in order to cast a spell.

Billy and Juno looked at each other and saw the shock from the other’s eyes. On the other hand, Zhao Hai didn’t pay attention to the reaction of the two. In fact, he had the ability to absorb the entire canyon in one go. But since he didn’t want a huge reaction from the two, he decided to do it by parts.

After absorbing a part, he took a few steps before he waved his hand and took another piece from the canyon. He did this action for quite some time.

After absorbing land for a few dozen times, Zhao Hai finally arrived at the blood pool. Zhao Hai inspected the pool, it wasn’t very big, moreover, it wasn’t deep either. However, it still gave people a very strong pressure. Zhao Hai took a breath and then waved his hand, making a Spatial Rift appear. The pool, as well as the ground it was in, was sucked in. Zhao Hai was taking his time with the pool, he even absorbed the ground two meters beneath it. But even with this, Zhao Hai can still see red stones on the pool’s floor. After digging for another meter, Zhao Hai can no longer see any of them.

In the end, Zhao Hai had absorbed the pool as well as the canyon’s walls. The current canyon was much different than it was before. Zhao Hai seemed to clean the valley up. There were no red stones that can be seen anymore.

1. Literally and figuratively