Chapter 631 Sequence of Events and Discoveries

Xia Nan's first attempt to find inspiration for a self-created combat technique through actual combat ultimately ended in failure.

As it turned out, "Shield Counter" combat techniques could not be perfectly integrated into his combined [Spinning Slash] and [Fang Hunt].

In comparison, a simple "Shield Bash" or "Shield Charge" might be more worth trying.

Regardless, it wasn't as if Xia Nan had gained nothing from this battle.

On the bright side, he had at least eliminated one wrong option. Through actual testing, he had confirmed that "Shield Counter" combat techniques did not suit his current self.

Furthermore, Xia Nan had truly finalized his approach for developing subsequent combat techniques.

Sitting around overthinking was completely useless; he needed to fully utilize his Perception specialty to continuously feel and experiment in actual combat.

To put it bluntly, even if he solely relied on the most basic process of elimination, he could weed out one wrong option per battle just like he had today.

Over the course of a few months, he would eventually find a combat technique direction that suited his current fighting style.

Pondering this, Xia Nan shifted his gaze back toward where the survivor had just been leaning, only to find the man no longer there.

He swept his gaze across the area.

The short, stout, bald Ranger had actually dragged his heavily injured, dying body over to the nearby corpse of his dead Swordsman teammate.

His fingers trembled violently from exhaustion. Completely ignoring his teammate's gruesome state—half the man's body had been almost entirely crushed—he managed to dig out a Healing Potion from the corpse's waist pouch that had been drunk down to its last third.

He tilted his head back and chugged it. His desperate thirst resembled a lost traveler in a desert, to the point that he even caught the very last, trembling drop with his tongue.

Only when the potion took effect, curbing his worsening, near-fatal injuries and bringing a faint trace of color to his pale face, did he finally pause.

He lay back on the ground, gasping heavily for air, looking every bit like someone who had narrowly escaped death.

But before he could rest for long, before he could even catch his breath, he seemed to remember something.

His face twisted in pain as he struggled to stand, stumbling his way over to Xia Nan.

His cautious, restrained gaze swept over Winter Wolf Fanny, Xia Nan, and the Armored Elephant behind him in turn.

His tone was humble and filled with gratitude, his posture lowered to a degree that almost seemed contrived.

"M—My lord, thank you for lending a hand!"

"I will repay you with anything you ask!"

Was this gratitude truly from the bottom of his heart?

Perhaps to some extent. After all, Xia Nan had just saved him from the Armored Elephant's shovel-like trunk. Without Xia Nan, his only fate would have been to end up as a cold, gruesome corpse like his teammates.

But more than that, it was fear of the immense strength Xia Nan had displayed.

Just imagine: if the Armored Elephant had also been heavily injured and near death, and the people who managed to finish it off and save this bald Ranger were a group of bottom-tier Adventurers without a single Class Level between them.

He might still be grateful, but would his actual attitude and behavior be the same as they were right now?

There was nothing worth criticizing about this. For the vast majority of Adventurers—or simply from the perspective of human nature—this was perfectly normal.

Xia Nan's main goal had been to find inspiration for his self-created combat technique; saving the man was just a byproduct.

Seeing the bald Ranger's exceptionally respectful and grateful attitude, Xia Nan simply nodded in response.

"I almost forgot to introduce myself. My name is Tal, and I'm a Ranger," the middle-aged man said, raising a hand to rub his bloodstained, bare head. "Though peers who know me usually just call me 'Roundhead,' which is a rather unflattering nickname."

He grinned, trying to put on a harmless, honest facade to minimize the aggressive edge he'd developed over years in the adventuring industry, all to increase his chances of survival in front of this powerful Adventurer.

With his sharp Perception, Xia Nan instantly caught the traces of acting in the man's words and movements.

He sensed no honesty, only a slick shrewdness overflowing from the man's every word and action.

Then again, for the vast majority of ordinary Adventurers, unless they possessed some unique strength, this so-called "shrewdness" was practically mandatory to make it far in this line of work.

His mind unconsciously recalled the image of this bald Ranger rummaging through his teammate's corpse earlier.

Xia Nan casually asked, "You and the three on the ground over there—were you temporary teammates?"

"Sir, your eye for detail is sharper than everyone I know combined! To think you could even tell that!"

Still laying on the flattery, the short, stout bald Ranger Tal sighed and explained, "Hector and I—he's the half-orc who's already dead—were a bit more familiar with each other. We've done two or three quests together in the past."

"As for the other two, I only met them for the first time not long ago, after we took on this quest at Bloodcast Keep."

Xia Nan had anticipated as much.

After all, based on his observations of Tal, the man might seem a bit shrewd, but he didn't appear to be someone entirely cold and ruthless.

If the deceased had been permanent teammates whom he had fought alongside for a long time and trusted with his life, seeing their corpses after the battle would have definitely stirred up some emotional fluctuations in him, rather than remaining as calm and composed as he was, treating them like strangers.

Furthermore—Bloodcast Keep?

According to Tal, the group had taken on the quest at Bloodcast Keep and only became temporary teammates then.

This reminded him of the conscription squad heading to Salt Rock Port that they had encountered earlier on the road.

"By the looks of it, none of you are locals from Calm Peaks Province?" he asked.

"I didn't expect you to figure that out too, sir." Tal grinned, laying on more praise as he explained, "I used to make a living on the border between Cloudclimb Province and Calm Peaks Province, doing dirty work with no real future."

"A while ago, I heard from other Adventurers in the tavern that there was lucrative work here, so I came over to see if there were any opportunities."

Although he looked rather miserable right now, he was a legitimate Class Holder, after all. His information channels were much better informed than the bottom-tier Adventurers in Salt Rock Port, who only found out about things through conscription orders.

He had probably learned that Bloodcast Keep was recruiting Adventurers from his peers much earlier.

Judging through his Perception that the man wasn't lying, Xia Nan nodded. He glanced at the Armored Elephant corpse a short distance away and asked with a subtle tone, "So—was this the target of your quest?"

He had been harboring this doubt for a while now.

An adult Armored Elephant had a Challenge Rating of Level 5, while the average level of this nearly annihilated Adventurer Squad was roughly around Level 4.

Choosing such a target to hunt—unless the reward was overly tempting, or the team had an overpowered individual like himself whose actual combat strength far exceeded their surface level—was far too arrogant. The risks were too high, and it wasn't a decision a veteran Adventurer should make.

And judging from the tragic state of the battlefield, the reason clearly wasn't the latter.

As soon as he finished speaking, the bald Ranger named Tal revealed a bitter smile from the bottom of his heart, without a single trace of acting.

"Of course not, my lord!"

He was just an ordinary professional Adventurer. Having worked in this industry for so many years, knowing his own limits was one of the reasons he had managed to survive until today.

Let alone a monster on the level of an Armored Elephant, for safety's sake, he rarely even took on ordinary targets around Challenge Rating Level 4 or Level 3.

He made his living entirely on low-level monsters that posed little pressure, allowing him to earn a stable and continuous income.

"The others in the team and I had all just arrived at Bloodcast Keep not long ago. We weren't very familiar with the surrounding terrain and the distribution of monsters," Tal explained.

"Out of caution, we took on a quest with a slightly lower danger level. The target was a Challenge Rating Level 3 Manticore. Hmm—it might have also had two cubs with it."

Although it slightly exceeded the danger level of the quests Tal usually accepted, the strength of his teammates this time was quite good. He had also hoped to use this opportunity to form a permanent team with them, aiming for greater profits at Bloodcast Keep in the coming period.

Thus, he had made a slight exception and accepted the quest along with his teammates.

"But I never expected that just two days after leaving Bloodcast Keep, we would run into—"

At this point, Tal once again looked at the Armored Elephant corpse ahead with a complex expression.

"From what I understand, this kind of monster is usually quite docile. Did you guys provoke it first?" Xia Nan asked.

"No! Absolutely not!"

Perhaps because the Armored Elephant's attack had already left a shadow in his heart, Tal's reaction to this was huge, his voice involuntarily rising a couple of pitches.

Only then did he catch himself. He gave an awkward smile and said, "You're absolutely right. Monsters like the Armored Elephant really aren't the type to attack Adventurers on their own initiative."

"Not to mention, it isn't in some agitated breeding season right now, nor did it have any cubs around that needed protecting."

"Under normal circumstances, even if you walked right past it or casually patted it, it wouldn't react at all."

Even so, given the rich and relatively cautious experience of the veteran Adventurers in the team, if they encountered such a monster during an adventure, they usually wouldn't approach it rashly.

"But we couldn't do anything about it charging at us on its own!"

At the time, Tal's Adventurer Squad had already finished setting up camp and was planning to spend the night nearby.

He didn't know if this frenzied Armored Elephant had caught their scent, but it charged straight at them from a great distance.

The commotion it caused was even more obvious than the warning traps they had set up around the perimeter of their camp in advance.

And because of the dense forest and shrubs concealing it, they couldn't identify exactly what was coming.

They could only watch helplessly as the traps were triggered one by one, and trees were knocked down one after another.

It was their first time teaming up as a group of four, so their synergy was quite average. Even though their individual reaction speeds were decent, it still took them quite a bit of time to form into a combat formation.

Moreover, they all had different thoughts on their minds.

"Actually, I had originally planned to just retreat," Tal hesitated for a moment before recalling.

"After all, the commotion coming from the woods at the time was simply too loud. Judging by its size and strength, it was no ordinary monster."

"But Nate and Hector decided to stay. The other guy, who was a bit hesitant, was dragged into staying as well."

Nate was the Swordsman lying on the ground right now with half his body crushed, and he was also the leader of this temporary squad.

This was the difference between being in a team and being a lone wolf.

Setting aside the impact of personal combat strength and actual survival difficulty, at the moment Tal had hesitated, if he had been a lone wolf like Xia Nan—whose actions and decisions were responsible only to himself—he probably wouldn't have suffered this disaster at all.

Hearing the distant commotion and finding it troublesome, and not wanting to bear such risks for no reason, he could have just turned around and left. There would have been absolutely no possibility of being forced into a fight.

But at that time, as a member of a team, with the enemy's identity unconfirmed and the squad's eventual annihilation impossible to predict...

Given the basic professional ethics he had cultivated over the years, he naturally couldn't just abandon the team and run away.

He knew clearly that if he did that, and if his teammates managed to survive the ensuing battle, the reputation of "Roundhead" Tal would be completely ruined in Bloodcast Keep.

No proper squad would recruit a teammate who fled in the face of danger.

Therefore, even though he was hesitant at the time, with his other three teammates choosing to stay, Tal ultimately remained with the team.

On the other hand, the Armored Elephant's identity was also somewhat deceptive to a certain extent.

If what charged out of the woods had been an adult red dragon or an Abyssal Balor, the Adventurers present probably wouldn't have even had time to flee, let alone entertain the thought of fighting it.

But as it happened, the Armored Elephant's Challenge Rating was Level 5. With their squad's average Class Level of Level 4, if they gritted their teeth, took some risks, and suffered a few injuries, it wasn't completely impossible for them to take it down.

And if they could kill a monster of this level, its loot materials might not be worth much, but they could still gain a considerable reward from the officials at Bloodcast Keep.

Furthermore, surviving such a bitter battle would greatly increase the team's cohesion. As long as the subsequent distribution of profits was fair, becoming a permanent squad would be practically guaranteed.

The situation was rushed, so no one knew exactly what the Adventurers who insisted on staying were thinking at the time, but it was likely along these lines.

But judging from the results—

It could only be said that things didn't go quite as ideally as expected.

Overall, this was an annihilation caused primarily by the leader's erroneous judgment.

'A docile monster inexplicably going berserk and becoming highly aggressive... a border fortress recruiting a massive number of Adventurers,' Xia Nan analyzed the intelligence he had gotten from Tal in his mind.

Beside him, Fanny—who had resumed her originally cold and arrogant disposition as a Winter Wolf due to the presence of an outsider—silently brushed her tail against Xia Nan's calf.

Realizing it was getting late, it was time to return to camp.

Xia Nan glanced at the exceptionally respectful bald Ranger in front of him and asked, "What do you plan to do next?"

"Continue your quest, or—"