Bai Shi had already left the underground passage and emerged from the tent the moment he heard the commotion.
After having Slude dump the two Cuckoo Knights outside the tent, the pair easily left the Cuckoos' camp, shrouded in invisibility.
It seemed the Cuckoo Knights had little experience fighting invisible enemies and weren't equipped with any means to counter them.
After all, it was only after the painful lesson of the Night of the Black Knives that the Royal Capital Leyndell had widely distributed the Sentry's Torch.
Of course, it was possible the Cuckoos did have methods of detection.
But after so long in a state of lax security, they probably didn't use them even if they had them.
Bai Shi's actions would surely help the Cuckoos rediscover the good habit of using anti-invisibility measures.
Bai Shi led Slude out of the Cuckoo Knights' camp.
Along the way, he spotted a few uniquely garbed Cuckoos.
It was no surprise to Bai Shi that there were powerful individuals among the Cuckoos.Still, these particular ones had a rather distinctive look.
If they weren't on the Cuckoos' side, they might have been able to land a role as an NPC with that gear alone.
Without observing these Cuckoo leaders for too long, Bai Shi stopped in the woods behind the camp.
He hadn't seen many Cuckoos on the northern half of the eastern shore earlier, save for a small contingent battling a spectral Carian Troll Knight.
But the western shore was completely different.
From Bai Shi's current position, looking south, he could still see the scattered glow of campfires.
Evidently, the areas behind them were also occupied by the Cuckoos, who had established garrisons there.
Bai Shi and Slude were still within Cuckoo territory.
The Cuckoos' camp was vast, occupying nearly the entire western shore of Liurnia.
He just didn't know the exact size of their army.
It seemed the Cuckoos were quite adept at preserving their strength.
Not only had their lineage been passed down since ancient times, but even the Shattering war, which had torn the Lands Between apart, had little impact on them. They had still managed to maintain a sizable army.
However, Bai Shi was curious as to where the Cuckoos had acquired so many soldiers.
These troops hadn't appeared out of thin air.
What Bai Shi didn't know was that the Cuckoos plundered more than just valuables and resources.
They also plundered people.
After conquering a territory, the Cuckoos would centralize the common folk under their rule.
There, the people were forced into all sorts of slave-like labor and were responsible for production.
In truth, they were treated no different from slaves; even a common Cuckoo soldier could bully them at will.
But the Cuckoos also left them a path for advancement.
As long as they proved their worth, they could join the Cuckoos and exercise the power to abuse their former comrades.
It was simple, but brutally effective.
After joining the Cuckoos, these individuals treated their former kin with even greater severity.
And the slaves below became even more eager to prove their own worth in exchange for a status above their peers.
The Cuckoos were the very culprits who had brought them to this state.
Yet under such rule, they gradually came to identify with the Cuckoos and joined them.
Eventually, they willingly became an inseparable part of the Cuckoo ranks.
The Cuckoos' strategy of turning the tables on their victims was always successful. It was their time-tested way of survival.
—
Bai Shi and Slude were now in the forest behind the camp.
It was time to take stock of their gains.
Bai Shi began to take items out of the spatial disc one by one.
There were three stone chests in total, of varying sizes.
Bai Shi opened the largest one first. Inside was a weapon.
A one-handed axe.
Its blade was inlaid with a large piece of green glintstone, and traces of glintstone crystals had spread and grown across the handle and the axe head.
A line of text appeared before Bai Shi's eyes, telling him its name: Glintstone Cutter.
He held it up for a moment and realized it was another weapon he knew nothing about.
The weapon was imbued with a special skill that could project a continuously fluctuating magic blade from the axe head.
It looked a bit like the vibro-blades that appeared in various science fiction works.
It seemed somewhat similar to a tool used for crushing rock beds, and as its name suggested, it was likely a tool specifically for cutting glintstone.
Even if it had some strength as a weapon, it was most likely just a toy.
The second chest contained a finely crafted dagger.
It was imbued with a skill called Assassination Method.
For Bai Shi, it was somewhat useful.
At the very least, he could pair it with his invisibility to eliminate the sound of his footsteps.
As for the third chest, it contained an inexplicable ornament.
Most noteworthy was the black, lightless gem embedded in its center.
Bai Shi studied it for a while and felt the black gem bore a slight resemblance to the Black Moon of Nokstella.
Of course, Nokstella's Black Moon wasn't this shape.
The text prompt Bai Shi saw was: Sealing Key of the Eternal City.
To be honest, the name didn't provide any useful information.
It didn't specify which Eternal City, nor where it was a key to.
But at least he knew it was a product of an Eternal City, and that this thing was a key.
Still, to call this thing a key...
Bai Shi felt that if he didn't have his system to display item names, he would never have thought of it as a key.
A normal person would find it difficult to associate this item with a key.
If they found out this was some kind of key, they would probably store it away separately.
Bai Shi examined the key's shape and thought it looked more like a talisman.
Moreover, the black gem in the center, which mimicked the Black Moon, was very similar to the Moon of Nokstella.
Both the Black Moon and the Memory Stones forged from its fragments possessed power. This key, so similar to the Black Moon, probably wasn't an ordinary item either.
Thinking of this, Bai Shi placed it into his talisman pouch to try it out.
When the key was placed in the talisman pouch, it actually began to fuse with it.
In other words, although this item was a mysterious key from one of the Eternal Cities, the extraordinary nature of the black gem also housed additional power.
However, it seemed that none of Bai Shi's current abilities resonated with it.
He only felt that his thoughts on sorcery had become slightly clearer.
Though the enhancement was minuscule, for a sorcerer, it was undoubtedly a precious item.
However, Bai Shi felt that for such a valuable key and talisman, the effect was far too weak.
Perhaps it boosted a type of sorcery he didn't yet know.
In short, all three items were things a normal person might find somewhat useful but would have no idea what their true purpose was. That certainly fit the place where they were kept.
Bai Shi put them away again.
He planned to store them in his collection at Stormveil for safekeeping.
Although he had some ideas, apart from the dagger with the assassination skill, he had no immediate use for them.
The two set off again, and soon Bai Shi found one of his objectives for this trip: the location of the Jellyfish Shield.
On the road was a destroyed wagon, with several human corpses lying beside it.
Judging by the purple skin of the corpses, they had been killed by jellyfish poison.
However, the jellyfish that had killed them were nowhere to be seen. It seemed they had left after taking their revenge.
A few Cuckoo soldiers were gathered around, perhaps investigating the cause of the incident...
Alright, they were stuffing things into their pockets.
Bai Shi went over to the wagon to take a look.
The wagon was destroyed, and its cargo was scattered all over the ground.
It was all very ordinary goods, much of which had been picked up by the Cuckoos.
The Jellyfish Shield that was supposed to be inside had vanished, and there was no place on the Cuckoo soldiers' bodies to hide a shield of that size.
Bai Shi thought for a moment. He guessed that after the jellyfish avenged their comrade, they had taken the shield, which was made from a jellyfish head, and buried it somewhere.
Jellyfish were creatures transformed from human souls, and they were highly intelligent.
Not only did they have their own consciousness and thoughts, but when a comrade was attacked, all other nearby jellyfish would become hostile in unison to protect their own.
This was demonstrated by how when one jellyfish was attacked, it and its nearby companions would all turn red-hot—becoming red jellyfish.
As a weak species, if they wanted to protect themselves and their kind in this world, their only option was to link their anger. A shared rage was the only way to protect their species.
The skill on the Jellyfish Shield, Contagious Fury, was based on sharing this very ability.
Undoubtedly, anger brought power.
Since the Jellyfish Shield was gone, he decided to just forget about it. It was just one less way to apply a buff.
Besides, using a jellyfish head as a shield in the real world was indeed a bit strange.
Bai Shi looked up at the vague outline of the building complex on the hillside.
Even at night, the cluster of buildings on the mountaintop was still conspicuous enough.
Bai Shi and Slude made their way up the slope.
Remembering the spectral Carian Troll Knights here, Bai Shi once again used his invisibility.
On the way, Bai Shi saw three headless troll knights. Clearly, the headless spirits, who didn't rely on sight to detect enemies, were not fooled by invisibility.
However, due to the vast difference in agility, Bai Shi and his companion easily shook off the spectral trolls.
Just like that, the two arrived at the Site of Grace on the mountaintop: The Four Belfries.
After lighting the grace, Bai Shi turned back to observe the structures of the Four Belfries.
The treasure chest that held the Stonesword Key was long gone. It seemed that Bai Shi had indeed been the one to take it just now.
As its name suggested, there were indeed four belfries of ancient architectural style, scattered across the mountain.
The four belfries were identical in design, with three large bells hanging in a triangular formation at the top. Carved on the walls below was an image of an old man, cradling a stone tablet and held aloft by the branches and leaves of the Erdtree.
Bai Shi found the image of the old man very familiar.
He felt it resembled the sage statue from the Uld Dynasty, but the facial carvings had been blurred by the passage of time, so he couldn't be certain they were the same.
After all, one was a carving on a wall and the other a three-dimensional statue. Once the former became faded, it was almost impossible to make out.
These ancient belfries even connected the underground Eternal City and the isolated city in the sky via portals. Given the timeline, it was very possible that they depicted the same figure.
Bai Shi looked up at the pitch-black night sky.
The stars twinkled brightly here, and with the massive moon hanging high above, one could take in the entire starry sky over the Lands Between.
For what purpose were these ancient Four Belfries built?
Then, while exploring the Four Belfries, Bai Shi was stunned to discover a difference from the game.
In the game, only three of the belfries had portals at their base. The topmost one had no portal, just a treasure chest containing a Stonesword Key.
But here, true to the name "Four Belfries," there were four portals.
Among them, a Stonesword Key had already been inserted into the imp statue next to one of the portals, allowing it to be used.
It seemed the Cuckoos had found the Stonesword Key that was once stored here and had already used it.
Before using it, the Cuckoos certainly wouldn't have known where the portals led, unlike Bai Shi. They probably just picked one at random and opened it.
Since this place was different from the game, with four portals instead of three, there was naturally one additional location besides the Precipice of Anticipation, the eternal night sky, and the crumbling lands.
This location was completely mysterious and unknown.
And because there was an extra portal, Bai Shi could no longer be certain if the portals corresponded to the same destinations as in the game.
Bai Shi considered this. If that was the case, he couldn't afford to waste a Stonesword Key as he had planned.
He had already obtained one Stonesword Key from Sellia, Town of Sorcery. He had thought there was another one here, and since the Chapel of Anticipation was his own backyard, he only needed to open two portals in total. He would have had enough.
But the situation now was that he only had one Stonesword Key, but three portals waiting to be opened.
The pressure was now much greater.
First, he could rule out the portal the Cuckoos opened leading to the Chapel of Anticipation.
If they had entered the Chapel before his arrival, it would have been impossible for there to be no signs left behind.
And if an army or something had entered after he had taken control of Stormveil, it would have been impossible for him not to know.
So the portal the Cuckoo Knights opened definitely led somewhere else.
Bai Shi thought for a moment, then touched the active portal and teleported, wanting to see where it led.
When Bai Shi opened his eyes again, he found himself in a place filled with all sorts of glintstone crystals.
Looking at this unfamiliar place, Bai Shi had no idea where he was.
There was no external light here; illumination came entirely from the glowing glintstone crystals. It was definitely a cave, and not a small one at that.
There were indeed places like this in the game, such as certain caves in Liurnia, or Master Lusat's sealed cavern.
But this was clearly none of the places he knew.
At least, Bai Shi didn't remember any crystal cave where Cuckoo corpses were impaled on the glintstone crystals.
Bai Shi looked around and found no Site of Grace, but there was another portal behind him.
Without rushing to explore, Bai Shi touched the portal.
And so, Bai Shi returned to the Four Belfries.
After he came out, Bai Shi stood frozen in place.
Bai Shi remembered that the portals at the Four Belfries were one-way tickets.
But this one had a portal to go and a portal to return.
That was what he found most unbelievable.
Because there was no return portal at the Chapel of Anticipation.
This meant that the portal he originally thought led to the Chapel of Anticipation might not lead there at all.
It could be another portal leading to an unknown location.
Bai Shi pressed a hand to his forehead in distress.