Newbie Guardians

Chapter 7 The Lost Axe

Running back was easy for Huang Xin. Half an hour later, he returned to the first signpost and took the left path leading to Honesty Pool. Fifteen minutes later, a pool appeared before him, about half the size of a football field. The water was crystal clear, a deep, dark green. Huang Xin circled the pool seven or eight times but found no clues.

"Strange! Why isn't there a quest? Do we have to jump in and search?" After thinking it over, that seemed to be the only possibility. Just as he was about to take off his clothes, he caught a glimpse of a flash of light on a large tree by the pool.

"What is that?"

Huang Xin went over to take a look and found that it was an axe. The axe blade was completely embedded in the tree, with only a half-meter-long wooden handle showing.

The moment Huang Xin reached out and grasped the wooden handle, the mission information appeared.

Quest Name: The Lost Axe

Mission objective: ? ? ?

Current progress: ? ? ?

"Why are there so many question marks? I have absolutely no idea what they mean!"

After racking my brains for ages without any clue, I had no choice but to bite the bullet and start analyzing:

The quest title is "The Lost Axe," indicating that someone lost this axe. Logically, an axe should only be found on the ground; how could it have chopped into a tree, and so deeply? The current situation clearly shows someone used all their strength to chop it in; it couldn't have been lost! Could it be... that we need to pull the axe out first and then return it to its owner? Yes! That must be it!

Thinking of this, Huang Xin gripped the handle tightly with both hands and pulled hard. He tried several times, but the axe did not budge at all, as if it were grown into the tree.

Undeterred, Huang Shen pressed his entire body against the tree, bracing his legs against the branches and pulling with all his might. With a soft "plop," the axe suddenly loosened its grip, as if it had been firmly held by the tree and was now suddenly released. It was pulled out without any resistance. Huang Shen had used too much force and crashed to the ground with a loud thud. Stars flashed before his eyes, and the axe was jolted out of his hand, flying a great distance before splashing into the water.

After a long while, Huang Xin finally managed to sit up, supporting himself on the ground. Looking at the pool, he saw that there was a distance of twenty or thirty meters between them. Did the axe have wings? How could it have fallen in? In any case, this was a big problem. The water was so deep, and he wasn't a good swimmer. How was he going to retrieve it?

Huang Xin scratched his head, at a loss, and paced around the pool. Suddenly, a gurgling sound came from the pool. Huang Xin looked and saw a lot of bubbles rising in the water. Alarm bells rang in his mind, and he instinctively took a few steps back, staring intently at the surface of the water.

A dozen seconds later, a bald head slowly emerged from the pool, its face wrinkled—it was an old man. The old man had a kind face, but upon seeing Huang Xin, his expression suddenly changed. He raised an axe in one hand and pointed at Huang Xin with the other, demanding an explanation in a stern voice.

"Did you throw this golden axe? It hit the old man on the head. What do you suggest we do?"

"Gold...golden axe!"

Huang Shen felt a sense of déjà vu; this... seemed like a fairy tale! But this was clearly a trial mission, how could it be...?

"Hey! I'm asking you a question! Did you lose it or not?"

"Sir, I did lose an axe just now, but I'm not sure if it's this one. Could you hand it to me so I can take a look?" Huang Xin had only seen the wooden handle and had no idea what the axe looked like.

"Here you go!" With a whoosh, the axe flew over and landed at Huang Xin's feet. "Take it back if it's yours, but don't leave it lying around next time!"

Huang Shen picked it up and took a look; something was wrong, the handle was completely different.

"Old man, I didn't throw this!" he said, tossing it back into the old man's hand.

"There are other axes?" The old man murmured, diving back down again.

The second one must be the silver axe, right? That story is too cliché. Huang Xin thought to himself. Soon, the old man floated up again and swung a huge axe over. With a loud bang, the ground trembled slightly, the axe blade sank deep into the ground, and dirt fragments flew everywhere. The long handle was still trembling violently; the handle alone was over three meters long.

"Grandpa, this isn't the axe I lost!" Huang Xin said earnestly, trying to throw the axe back. He pulled hard with both hands several times, but the axe wouldn't budge.

"Are there any other axes?" the old man muttered to himself underwater as he sank. "Shouldn't he be too scared to speak? He's actually looking quite serious."

Two or three minutes later, the old man surfaced for the third time and threw the axe he was holding over.

"This one's yours, right?"

Huang Xin looked at it and found that the size was just right and the handle was somewhat similar, but why was the axe blade covered in blood?

Huang Xin carefully recalled the details of pulling out the axe. At first, he couldn't pull it out no matter what he did; it seemed to be grown together with the tree!

"This blood...could it be the sap from that tree?"

He sniffed it, but there was no fishy smell at all; instead, there was a pungent resinous odor. He grabbed the axe and ran to the tree. He saw that the wound on the tree, where the axe had chopped it, was constantly oozing red liquid. The wound looked as if it had been ripped open by a human!

"Could it really be..." Huang Shen carefully aimed the axe at the wound on the tree and pressed it in forcefully. The axe returned to its original state, as if it were firmly held in place, and no matter how hard he tried, it showed no sign of loosening.

"So this axe actually grew on the tree; it was part of the tree itself!" Huang Shen exclaimed in sudden realization, yet was also deeply moved and bewildered.

Walking back to the pond, Huang Xin bowed deeply to the old man.

"Grandpa, I lost this axe. I'm so sorry! I hit you!"

"Hahahaha!" The old man laughed heartily, laughing for a full minute before continuing.

"Young man, you have good courage and insight! Here you go! This is your reward!" He tossed the item in his hand to Huang Xin, then dived back into the water and never resurfaced.

A light blue card fell in front of Huang Xin. When he picked it up, he saw that the card was exactly the same as the first one.

Let's look at the task information again.

Quest: The Lost Axe

Current progress: Task completed

Task Rewards: Rewards have been issued.

Task Evaluation: You possess exceptional courage and keen observation skills. This task receives an A rating, and you have earned an additional reward: the Seed of X-ray Vision. Holding it in your mouth will grant you X-ray vision, allowing you to see things invisible to others for three minutes. This item is a one-time consumable.

This task wasn't dangerous at all, which gave Huang Xin a lot more confidence. Now, only one card remained.

Huang Xin lifted his leg and walked toward his last destination—the burial ground.

After walking for more than forty minutes, a dilapidated stone gate appeared before us. The door frame was severely weathered, with the right door frame detached and leaning against the left door frame, dividing the entire door frame into two triangles. The plaque above the door read the four large characters "Burial Site," which were as black as ink. Although the plaque was old and worn, the characters were still clearly legible.

Huang Shen squeezed through the triangular doorway and stepped inside. He immediately felt the temperature drop and couldn't help but shiver.

As far as the eye could see, there were graves of all sizes, at least several thousand in total. Some tombstones were broken in half, and some graves had large cracks, as if something had been forced out of them. Scattered everywhere were all sorts of skeletons. In the middle was a slightly winding path, on which beetle-like creatures, as big as an adult's fist, would occasionally dart about. Swarms of bioluminescent insects, as big as scarab beetles, swarmed in the air, their abdomens much brighter than fireflies, clearly visible even at dusk.