Chapter 36: Wooden Building

In just a single night, the amount of information Xia Nan gained from the half-elf and Wood was greater than what he had gathered over the previous several days combined.

Being out in the wild, neither time nor space allowed him to truly begin the training and study of his new combat skills.

However, he now had a goal worth striving for—

To learn two more combat skills and obtain a professional level.

Even if he chose not to continue in the adventurer trade in the future, the status of a "Professional" would act much like a "technical certificate" from his previous life, allowing him to live comfortably in this world.

The half-elf, Heian, had already made an agreement with Xia Nan: once the mission ended and they returned to Neum, he would attempt to help Xia Nan find a suitable mentor to assist in his study of combat skills.

From a cold, pragmatic standpoint, a single favor would exchange for the channels and the massive amount of capital required to hire a professional—resources that Xia Nan, having just transmigrated into this world, did not possess.

Although he hadn't considered it from such a perspective himself, there was no doubt that this exchange was highly advantageous for him at this stage.

Driven by the desire to absorb as much relevant knowledge as possible, Xia Nan sat by the campfire and questioned the two of them further about information regarding "Professions," "Combat Skills," and "Adventurers"—topics involving the supernatural powers of this world.

It was not until the moonlight grew deep and the mist thickened that they reluctantly brought the conversation to a close.

This was no cozy, safe tavern; they were still in the middle of the dangerous Mist Forest, and they had a long journey ahead of them tomorrow.

They assigned people to keep watch while the others retired early.

...

They were nearing the location where the wooden plaque had been discovered.

At the crack of dawn the next day, the group packed their belongings and pressed on into the forest, pushing through the mist.

Unexpectedly, despite having gradually moved deeper into the outskirts of the Mist Forest—where the frequency of danger should have been increasing—they had not encountered a single monster throughout the entire morning.

The only thing that could be considered remotely thrilling was a passing black panther with golden eyes, roughly the size of a calf.

Its body was pitch black with glossy fur, and its paws made no sound as they stepped on the meadow.

No combat occurred; the panther merely cast a distant glance at the party, and once it confirmed they were not prey it could hunt, it slowly retreated into the shadows of the dense forest.

Had it not been for Wood's warning, Xia Nan and the others might not have even noticed this brief interlude.

According to Wood's later explanation, it was likely because the four Rust Monsters from the previous day had caused the weaker monsters in the vicinity to instinctively avoid the area, allowing them to travel so smoothly.

"Hiss!"

A long snake with pale yellow spots on its scales was driven out of the grass by a battered one-handed hammer. Its slender body wound through the air before vanishing into the depths of the bushes.

"Another one! Have we wandered into some kind of snake pit?"

Larry reached up to wipe the thick sweat from his forehead, muttering under his breath.

Because his one-handed hammer had been contaminated by the venom of the Rust Monsters, it was no longer functional for combat; he was now using it as a probing stick to drive away snakes and insects.

However, the weight of the metal hammer seemed to be causing Larry to expend excessive energy as he swung it from time to time.

He was already breathing heavily.

Yet, he did not suggest stopping to rest.

This was because, compared to just a moment ago, the entire squad's pace had slowed down significantly.

Much like how the soil becomes wetter and more fertile the closer one gets to an oasis, or how the moisture in the air thickens near a lake, as the group approached their destination, strange objects—similar to the carriage they had seen earlier—began to appear with increasing frequency.

Xia Nan alone saw half a thatched hut, a collapsed mud-brick house, and even a five-story wooden building.

Though they had all become ruins, the remaining details within the wreckage allowed him to clearly identify a very strong Eastern style, identical in origin to the token and the carriage.

Under Wood's guidance, they had also cautiously entered the ruins to conduct a thorough inspection.

While they discovered many traces of life left by intelligent beings, they had not found a single corpse.

Furthermore, although these heavily damaged buildings looked like lost relics, the construction materials themselves were quite new, showing almost no signs of erosion by time.

*Snap.*

A branch broke.

Walking through the mist within the dense forest, Xia Nan kept his gaze fixed ahead, his mind focused and alert to the surrounding thickets and tall grass.

In his left hand, hanging naturally at his side, he gripped a smooth, cold, hard object.

It was a fragment of some kind of porcelain he had found in the ruins just now.

It was hard to imagine that, having transmigrated to this fantasy world, he would still encounter such a traditional object with thin body and warm glaze.

He had been quite surprised at the time, instinctively picking it up from the rubble.

Feeling the soft texture against his fingertips, his mind couldn't help but recall Wood's judgment when they had faced that towering, partially collapsed wooden building over ten meters high

"Based on the degree to which these wooden materials have been affected by the forest mist, this building must have been constructed in the Mist Forest only one or two months ago."

"Of course, considering the resources and manpower required, as well as the dangerous environment, I don't think anyone would actually settle here."

Upon hearing this, Heian and the others had countered him.

After all, the building was right there; if no one lived there, what was the point of building it?

Xia Nan, however, had his own perspective.

Unlike the others in the squad, who were native inhabitants of this world, the soul within Xia Nan's body came from another realm.

The knowledge and memories of modern society from his previous life, combined with the many familiar details in the ruins, allowed him to recognize the purpose of that towering wooden building at a single glance—

It was an inn!

The more he thought about it, the stranger it became.

Who would frequent an inn built deep within a forest filled with dangerous monsters?

Moreover, judging by the density of the buildings along the way, even if all those thatched and tiled houses that had become ruins were fully inhabited, the population would certainly not be enough to support a lodging and dining establishment of this scale.

Furthermore, in Xia Nan's view, anyone with even a slight concept of urban planning would not have built things the way he had seen them along the road—one moment a dilapidated thatched shack in a slum, and a few steps later, an exquisite tiled residence for the wealthy and powerful.

One after another, with absolutely no discernible pattern.

It didn't feel to him as if people had specifically come to the depths of the forest to build these structures for settlement.

Instead, it felt more as if an invisible hand had reached across the barriers of space and time, plucked a few buildings from a different dimension with a completely different aesthetic from this fantasy world, and casually tossed them into the Mist Forest.