Chapter 156: Super-large Fire Element (2/2)

Though Zhao Xu had no idea how the primitive spellcasters of the Dark Age had offended the elemental deities, his current situation was quite delicate.

At the very beginning, Antinoya had told him that in this era of the Dark Age, a wizard like him with second-circle spells could be considered a minor invincible entity. This was primarily because human professionals were relatively rare during this period. At the same time, with so few spellcasters around, the means available to target them were naturally scarce.

Had it not been for the interference of the Fire God's oracle, if Zhao Xu were simply to cast the second-circle spell *Invisibility*, those villagers would surely have revered him as a magnificent being and worshipped him accordingly.

In the Dark Age, the messengers of the deities were mostly primitive priests. They sought power by making sacrifices to the gods, falling short of the comprehensive divine magic and advanced classes that clerics would possess in later times. In fact, many remote tribal villages directly worshipped natural spirits as their deities.

As Zhao Xu followed the map in the letter toward the Morin Stele, he kept pondering the matter of the fire elemental. When Antinoya had once offered him a choice of a third countermeasure, she had provided him with a magical item known as a "Fire Elemental Brazier." Just igniting that brazier was equivalent to casting the sixth-circle spell *Summon Monster VI*, capable of summoning a Large fire elemental.

As elemental creatures, fire elementals were categorized by strength into Small, Medium, Large, Huge, and Elder. Beyond them lay the elemental princes who had stepped into the realm of legends.

Back when Zhao Xu was a warrior, he intensely loathed fire elementals—not only were they difficult to fight, but killing them yielded absolutely no loot. Killing a wild beast at least allowed one to skin it, harvest its tendons, and dismantle it for parts. As a 5th-level warrior at the time, he was quite superior to Wu Song, more than capable of slaying a fierce tiger.

Whether the Fire God had ascended to divinity as an elemental prince was something Zhao Xu did not know. He realized that upon arriving in this era from ten thousand years ago, an entire series of knowledge checks had completely failed. Out of caution, Zhao Xu had selected the most straightforward questions, yet they failed all the same, as if he had been disconnected from the very source of knowledge.

This made him realize for the first time, with a start, that he had truly traveled back into the past. Otherwise, the completely normal-looking scenery all around him would have almost made him think he had merely been teleported to some other mysterious place.

Comparing the map in his mind with the route outlined in the letter, Zhao Xu slowly walked deeper into the mountains—the direction in which the villagers had retreated. The area in his mind corresponding to the Morin Stele was entirely blank; evidently, the spell had not replicated it. This was also the reason why the map initially shaped by his *Locate City* spell had failed to find the location of the stele.

Yet as Zhao Xu ventured deeper, he felt increasingly that the air ahead was growing scorching hot. Though he was already enveloped in an *Endure Elements* spell capable of regulating temperatures spanning nearly a hundred degrees Celsius, he still felt somewhat uncomfortable.

Walking now on the gravel ground of the mountain, not only were the stones scorching to the touch, but many fallen leaves were even beginning to smoke. Zhao Xu found it rather strange that no wildfires had broken out in this mountain forest, as if all the energy had been completely drained away.

Stepping over a massive boulder, Zhao Xu discovered that the original location of the stream ahead was now reduced to a dry riverbed, where even the silt at the bottom had lost its moisture and hardened into solid blocks. When Zhao Xu stepped across, the mud and stones were instantly crushed into dust.

*How on earth do those villagers manage to live in an environment like this?* The thought could not help but cross Zhao Xu's mind.

Eventually, as he drew close to the coordinates of the stele on the map, Zhao Xu began to slow his pace.

An immense sense of impending crisis lurked ahead, filling Zhao Xu with a foreboding premonition. Glancing at his pitiful 18 hit points, out of caution, he pulled out a flask of alcohol and used it to mark specific key points on his body with special symbols.

Then, he began to chant the incantation for the second-circle spell *False Life*.

As he completed the casting, the spell slot that had suddenly emptied in his mind instantly released its energy, and the unevaporated alcohol on Zhao Xu's skin vanished into his body in an instant. An invisible surge of vitality erupted forth.

[Adventurer Midsummer, you have cast False Life, gaining an extra 1D10 (1–10) + 4 (caster level) = 7 + 4 = 11 HP, lasting for 4 hours.]

Zhao Xu's hit points instantly skyrocketed from 18 to 29.

Just by casting such an ordinary second-circle spell, his hit points were now on par with those of a warrior or barbarian of the same level.

Assured that he could weather a wave of sudden attacks, Zhao Xu walked forward with renewed confidence.

Passing through a stretch of jagged rocks, the view before Zhao Xu suddenly opened up. A prismatic, spire-shaped stone monument, nearly three times the height of a man, stood erected in the middle of a vast clearing. The soil on the ground was still fresh, evidently having been turned over very recently.

At that moment, a man daubed in colorful paint, hung with a string of animal bone ornaments, and wrapped in a thick felt cloak was kneeling before the stele in prayer. Even though the air was thick with the acrid stench of burning sulfur, it still could not completely mask a faint trace of blood.

With a solemn expression, Zhao Xu looked toward the kneeling priest and asked, "Where are the villagers?"

At this point, he no longer had the leisure to pay attention to the completely blank Morin Stele.

The priest slowly stood up. Across his cheekbones ran two massive knife scars, giving him an indescribably ferocious appearance.

"Oh? You don't feel like the villagers from around here," the priest said in a cold voice, gazing at Zhao Xu with eyes devoid of the slightest emotional tint. "Strange, I recall sending people to hunt down and shoot the villagers who tried to flee. How is it that you managed to approach this place?"

Zhao Xu's pupils contracted slightly.

So the three individuals who had attacked him at the start hadn't done so simply because he was a spellcaster. It had been to cut the weeds and root out the problem.

At this thought, Zhao Xu could not help but glance at the freshly turned earth ahead.

"Truly a clever man. I remember one villager kept shouting his son's name right before he died. Could it be that you are him?" the priest laughed in a low voice. "They are all quite honored to slumber beneath this earth; their glory belongs to my lord."

"Lesser Globe of Invulnerability? No—Command: Pain!"

Zhao Xu raised his hand toward the priest ahead, shouting the incantation.

A bolt of pitch-black spell energy instantly shot forward, striking the priest and plunging straight into his body. The priest trembled violently and immediately vomited blood, yet he stared at Zhao Xu with a cruel grin on his face and roared, "Is that all the power you have?"

Zhao Xu looked back at him with cold detachment.

Having gone through the Final Scroll Chamber and copied every single spell, he was no longer the rookie whose only resort when facing uncertainty was *Magic Missile*. Even when casting the most ordinary first-circle spell, he could select the one with the most devastating destructive potential.

*Command: Pain*—the arcane spell of the first circle that theoretically could be tailored to inflict the maximum amount of damage.

It could affect any living creature with 100 hit points or fewer, dealing a mere 1D6 (1–6) points of damage per round, roughly equivalent to an ordinary arrow. Its true strength, however, lay in its ability to persist for numerous rounds. The hit points of the priest before him certainly did not exceed 50, meaning he would have to endure 4D4 (4–16) rounds of damage.

Zhao Xu glanced at the dynamic information on his interface; the result of the check was 10 rounds.

This meant that even if the opponent managed to survive for ten rounds (one minute), he would suffer anywhere from 10 to 60 points of damage, with a theoretical expected damage of 35 hit points. For a low-level character, this was essentially a death sentence.

Six seconds later, when the priest felt the second wave of agony tearing through his body, his expression finally changed.

"You evil sorcerer, what kind of dark sorcery have you cast?!" the priest screamed. He realized that this travel-worn man was entirely different from the sorcerers he had encountered in the past. Why would he possess such a potent curse?

"Go down and ask your deity yourself," Zhao Xu said.

"I curse you!" The priest immediately pulled out a small dagger, fiercely slashed his own palm, and began chanting an incantation directed at Zhao Xu.

Instantly, waves of intense heat rushed toward Zhao Xu, and the ashes on the ground began to reignite.

[Adventurer Midsummer, your Endure Elements spell has expired.]

"Great Master Antodealus, your servant begs for your arrival!" the priest suddenly shouted, simultaneously slicing another deep gash into his arm in an attempt to amplify the power of the sacrifice.

Abruptly, a massive column of fire burst directly from the subterranean depths, slowly beginning to take on a humanoid shape. Gradual as it was, a Huge fire elemental stepped forth from the blaze. It turned its head, looked down with disdain at the kneeling priest behind it, and instructed, "Remember to make up for the sacrifice later."

The priest hurriedly kowtowed and said, "I will offer more, I certainly will!"

Having received this reply, the Huge fire elemental turned its gaze toward Zhao Xu, eyeing him with a haughty expression. "Was it you, a mere ant, who disturbed my peace?"

Zhao Xu could not help but lift his chin, gazing up at the Huge fire elemental, which stood nearly ten meters tall—taller than most of the withered trees in these deep mountains.

A Huge fire elemental with a challenge rating of 7 and an average of 133 hit points was indeed not something he could handle with his 3rd-level spells. However, this fire elemental hailed from the Elemental Plane of Fire; it was one of the oldest and most authentic creatures of that plane.

The moment they arrived in Toril, they naturally became extraplanar creatures—just as Zhao Xu, a human from Earth, was classified as an extraplanar entity upon coming to Toril.

Back when Zhao Xu dared to descend into caverns and face the Abyssal tongue without a shred of fear, it was precisely because demons, upon appearing in Toril, were similarly extraplanar beings constrained by the laws of the Prime Material Plane.

Clutching the *Staff of Defense* in his hand, Zhao Xu pointed it directly at the Huge fire elemental before him and uttered:

"Return."

*Banishment!*