"Stop, don't say any more." Taliel suddenly covered her ears with her hands.
"Whatever comes next is bound to be heartbreaking, and I can already guess without you telling me. I never met Grandmother growing up, and I've even forgotten what Father looked like. I'd rather not know how things turned out for them later."
"You silly girl…" The old man shook his head, though he did not insist. His gaze simply lost itself in the candlelight upon the table, the flickering flames in his eyes seeming to reflect scenes from many years ago once more.
That night, Xilutaiya and Taliel returned to their familiar room and settled in, passing a peaceful night.
The next day.
After finishing breakfast, Xilutaiya wanted to take a walk up the mountains beside the village, where she had first arrived.
"The mountains aren't safe, especially when food is scarce," the old man cautioned, preparing to have a few sturdy young men from the village accompany her.
"No need. I can protect myself." Xilutaiya picked up the short sword at her side, drew the blade, and swept it through the air, tracing a chilling, elegant arc of light.
"Oh? You've already practiced to such a level?" In his prime, the old man had been a second-order adventurer with wide experience, and he immediately recognized that Xilutaiya possessed uncommon skill. "In that case, I suppose I can put my mind at ease. Still, let Taliel go with you. She knows the paths."
"I'll go too!" Hearing her grandfather call on her, Taliel raised her hand.
And so the two paired up and headed toward the mountain forests beyond the village.
Xilutaiya could scarcely recall how she had walked out of these mountains months ago, relying only on a vague sense of direction as she navigated the heights.
"Are you looking for the place where you woke up back then, Tiya?" Taliel asked.
"Yes. To be honest, I still don't understand why I woke up there in the first place," the young girl replied.
The two pushed aside the dense thickets of underbrush with wooden staves as they walked across the rugged mountain terrain. The winter forest was remarkably quiet, with little animal activity, and even the insects among the fallen leaves were scarce.
Estimating the distance and time she had walked back then, Xilutaiya searched hazily for that patch of woods, but after wandering the mountains for a long time, neither of them found the place from her memories.
In the afternoon, having searched in vain, the two turned back and returned to Linden Village.
"We'll go again tomorrow. If we still can't find it, we'll let it be." Xilutaiya felt that some things could not be forced.
***
On the third day, Xilutaiya and Taliel set out once again. Light snow fluttered through the air, and the sky hung gray.
The woods in the mountains felt rather desolate and cold. The rabbits and wolves one often encountered were nowhere to be seen over these two days, perhaps hibernating somewhere out of sight.
They set out again, heading in a different direction from the day before.
This time, Xilutaiya sensed a faint difference. Some of the boulders and ancient trees they passed began to evoke a subtle familiarity.
"It should be this way," she told Taliel with a touch of anticipation.
"It would be wonderful if we can find it." Taliel nodded, though she seemed preoccupied today.
"What's the matter, Taliel?" Xilutaiya asked.
"Yesterday, while you were away, I quietly went to Grandfather and asked about what happened back then," Taliel recalled with a hint of sorrow. "After Father married Mother, they lived in Burnt Stone City for a time before moving back to the village. Father didn't inherit Grandfather's talent, so he usually just herded sheep and took care of simple chores.
"One day, night fell and Father still hadn't returned. Mother was frantic, so she went to tell Grandmother, who was living in the village then.
"Grandmother went up into the mountains to search for Father.
"She searched for about three days before coming back. All she found were Father's leftover wine bottle and basket. She said Father wasn't coming back. I was only about three years old at the time."
"Could he… have been taken by wolves or wild beasts?" Xilutaiya consoled her gently.
"Perhaps. But Grandfather said Grandmother seemed weighed down by worries after that, growing quiet and withdrawn.
"Later, Grandmother went into the mountains several more times, until one day she stumbled back badly injured."
"Did she go alone every time?" Xilutaiya asked, puzzled.
"Yes. Grandmother wouldn't let Grandfather follow. Grandfather wasn't old yet back then, and he certainly had the strength to go.
"Even though she was injured, it seemed Grandmother finally gave up after that, never going back up the mountain to search.
"Sadly, her health worsened from then on, and before I turned five, Grandmother passed away." Taliel looked up sadly at the gray, snowy sky. "According to Grandfather's description, Grandmother must have encountered some formidable foe, and her body was eroded by high-order attribute power. Ordinary herbs couldn't heal that kind of wound at all.
"Tiya, did you know? If an attribute's order exceeds the third order, it crushes and erodes ordinary people completely."
"I heard Scholar Haide mention that." The young girl recalled the lecture where Scholar Haide had used a knight's combat power as an analogy.
"It's terrifying. If a third-order winter beast runs through a forest, the bugs and birds along its path will perish, eroded by the aura of Sleeping Winter, and even the trees will freeze over.
"To say nothing of fighting—just standing near such a winter beast and breathing the same air would make you collapse. That is the dreadful, crushing pressure high-order attributes exert on lower orders," Taliel answered, biting her lip.
"It can reach such an extent?" Xilutaiya found it hard to imagine.
"Yes, it's horrifying." Taliel shook her head. "That's why you almost never see third-order adventurers or practitioners living among crowds, unless their control is exceptionally refined, allowing them to keep their attribute power steady and calm so it won't affect the people around them.
"The requirements inside a city are probably lower, because the power of the Castle naturally suppresses the pervasive erosion of other attributes."
One could only imagine how mad and chaotic the world must have been before Swan King Molansa established royal authority.
"Still, if such a thing happened in the past, why is the village chief so willing to let you go up the mountain?" Xilutaiya wondered.
"That's our family's special talent, hehe." Taliel patted her chest. "Not just me, but my elder sister Wenni too—our sense of direction in the mountains is extraordinary. We've never once gotten lost. They say Grandmother was the same back then, which was why Grandfather felt safe letting her search the mountains.
"It's just that Father didn't seem to inherit this talent. He would occasionally lose his way in the mountains, which was why Grandfather and the others worried about him."
"Does the inheritance depend on gender?" The girl tilted her head.
"Most likely. Grandfather said that Grandmother's ancestors might have been witches." Taliel's words piqued Xilutaiya's curiosity.
"Witches?"
"That's right. Like formal scholars, witches are a powerful class of at least the third order, mostly cultivating the three moon attributes.
"Remember the diviner Grandfather mentioned the other day, Grandmother's maternal aunt? She was a practitioner of the Radiant Moon attribute.
"Witches rarely appear before the world, and there is almost no record of them in history. Supposedly, they had an agreement with the scholars of Candle Fortress forbidding them from recording any trace of witches in books, so only oral tales have been passed down."
"Then where do witches live? To survive, they must need basic supplies," Xilutaiya mused.
"In the forests, of course! They say the origin of the witch's path involved a pact with the fairies of the forest, granting witches the forest's protection. Because of that, witches never get lost in the woods, and they can even construct lost illusions so outsiders cannot intrude." Taliel grew exceptionally animated as she spoke of this. "Sister told me all of this. She was very interested in witches back then, but she said her talent was limited and she couldn't pursue the witch's path."
Lost illusions, forests, Radiant Moon, moon attributes… Xilutaiya pieced together these fragments of information like a puzzle, gradually forming a clear picture in her mind.
Chapter 70