Upon hearing Count Brandon's words, Odis became very interested: "Oh? Please tell me more."
"The Brandon family acquired their titles during the Twenty Years' War and became earls during the Wars of the White Rose," said Earl Brandon.
"When the Brandon family received the title, they acquired a fief in the northern suburbs of Backlund. However, about half a month ago, the grapevines on that land suddenly died in large numbers. No matter how much water was poured, the land remained dry and barren."
"I've asked many people to take a look and tried many methods, but nothing has worked."
Odis stroked his long beard, which was stuck to his face, and asked, "Has any of your family members been sick or injured recently?"
"No."
Have you been unlucky lately, or suffered any financial loss?
Earl Brandon shook his head and said, "No."
He was somewhat disappointed because some of the people he had approached before had asked similar questions.
Odis smiled and said, "It is that land that is cursed, not your family."
As he spoke, he put away his research notes.
Earl Brandon did not continue the previous topic, but instead smiled and asked, "Is that some of your research?"
Odis hummed in agreement: "The study of witchcraft has no end."
Brandon paused for a moment, perhaps not expecting that witchcraft required further study: "Excuse my frankness, but some extraordinary beings seem to acquire knowledge naturally after taking potions."
Odis shook his head and said, "It's like the relationship between talent and effort. Having talent is certainly something to be happy about, but if you don't work hard, your talent will disappear."
Brandon smiled and said, "That's an interesting theory."
Then he suddenly said seriously, "For a nobleman, the fact that his ancestral land is cursed and there is no way to resolve it is the beginning of the family's decline."
"Although I am not as wise as my ancestors, I do not want to see such a thing happen."
"Therefore, that curse must be lifted."
Odis thought to himself: This must be one of the elite among the nobles.
Although the other party was not an extraordinary person, his way of speaking was very skillful and also very authoritative.
While thinking this to himself, Odis still asked aloud, "What is your belief?"
Earl Brandon replied, "Lord of the Storms."
Have you asked someone from the church to check it out?
"Yes, the church sent rain all day over that land, but it's still very dry." Brandon rubbed his temples. "Where did all that rainwater go?"
"Let me guess," Odis smiled. "Did the church tell you to wait for the curse to disappear on its own?"
Earl Brandon seemed to see a glimmer of hope again and nodded, saying, "Yes."
"Let me guess again," Odis asked. "Did you secretly ask the Church of the Earth Mother for help, on the advice of some extraordinary beings?"
Brandon suddenly sat up straight and said with some surprise, "Yes."
"How was the effect?"
"The grapevines have all survived, but the land is still very dry."
Brad, noticing the Earl's confusion, smiled and asked, "Wizard, did you learn these things through divination?"
"This is just a reasonable guess," Odis smiled. "Although each church has a wealth of knowledge, their styles of doing things are still different."
"The Punisher is better at direct combat than at things like breaking curses."
"Of course, they must have tried to make up for this shortcoming by using some items and by cultivating some extraordinary individuals, but they are not good at it. Even if they watered the ground all day, they would not be able to analyze the underlying principle of this curse."
"In addition, when it comes to land issues, people first think of the Church of Mother Earth."
"Generally speaking, no matter what problems arise with the land or crops, they can usually solve the problem."
"There are only a few problems that they cannot solve, and the problem that Count Brandon encountered belongs to the 'few problems'."
"It's not that they're incompetent, because they're not good at solving these kinds of difficult problems."
He pointed to his notes and said, "This requires erudition and wisdom, as well as continuous study of nature."
Earl Brandon asked with a smile, "You seem to know how to solve this problem?"
"I do have some ideas," Odis said, "but I need to go to the vineyards and find evidence to support them."
Brad clapped his hands: "That's fantastic!"
He asked, "Can we leave now?"
Odis nodded: "You all wait in the carriage for a while, I'll make some preparations."
...
"The Forsaken Land," a swamp north of Silver City.
The exploration team continued onward, but the members' intuitions told them that they were getting closer and closer to real danger.
Suddenly, Chief Colin, who was walking at the front, raised his hand, and the team members immediately formed a defensive formation.
They gazed silently ahead and noticed what appeared to be points of light moving in the darkness.
Just then, a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, and in the instant the lightning illuminated the earth, they saw a strange sight in the distance.
It was on a small island in the middle of a lake, with several tall plants, grass, and some small, faintly glowing flying insects.
The reason they found it strange was that they had never seen such plants and insects before.
At first, they thought they were monsters with plant-like shapes, but later they thought the plants were beautiful and the island looked quite nice.
They stared blankly for a long time before Chief Colin suddenly said, "Those are normal plants."
The team members were initially surprised, then their eyes filled with tears. They had never seen what a normal plant looked like before. The only normal plant they knew was black-faced grass, but this plant did not grow in the ground and seemed somewhat abnormal.
They were surprised to find that they didn't recognize the normal plants they were seeing!
Colin added, "This should be a sealed artifact that is relatively unfamiliar to us."
Everyone immediately became more alert and followed the chief step by step.
After taking a few steps forward, Derrick suddenly felt an itch in his left hand. He looked down and saw that another thumb had grown next to his original thumb!
Before he arrived, the chief of staff, standing beside him, said to the "psychologist," "I... I think I've grown an extra eye."
Everyone looked at her, and sure enough, this female "psychologist" had grown a third eye on her forehead.
Then the "Guardian" discovered that another nose had grown on the back of his head, and the "Undead Mentor" was the most unlucky, as he felt as if he had grown an extra heart.
Colin watched all this quietly, then suddenly drew his longsword again and smeared some pure white grease on it.
Then, wielding his sword with both hands, he slashed fiercely at the crowd. Derrick and the others sensed that their bodies had been severed from some external connection.
Immediately afterwards, their mutations disappeared, and they returned to normal.
Colin glanced at the small island: "That sealed artifact seems to have the ability to eliminate mutations, as well as to generate them."
He sheathed his longsword, gripped it tightly with both hands, and suddenly a bright light of dawn appeared around him: "Keep going!"
The Witcher's "Dawn of Light" can eliminate surrounding anomalies and evil, as well as most status-affecting extraordinary attacks.
After walking a short distance further, several roars suddenly rang out from ahead.
Colin said in a deep voice, "Derrick!"
Derrick immediately stepped forward and prayed fervently, when a ray of sunlight pierced the darkness and shone ahead.
Not a single mistake, not a single poem, not a single post, not a single piece of content, not a single look!
The exploration team members saw huge figures crawling out of the swamp in the distance.
Some of them were made of rocks, and some were made of the surrounding green plants. What they had in common was that their faces were ugly and ferocious, and they were roaring at Derrick and the others!
Derrick and his men gripped their weapons tightly; they were not afraid of this real, hard-fought battle.
After a brief observation, Colin drew his sword and led his men in a charge, while the "stone golems" and "wooden golems" also charged towards the intruders.
Their charge began, but as they drew closer, the "stone golem" suddenly slammed its two thick arms into the ground, causing strange rocks to spring up and making the path in front of Colin and the others extremely rugged.
The wooden golem pounded the ground with its thick arms, and vines sprouted from the swamp, sweeping towards Derrick and the others.
Angel, the vice-captain of the "Council Guard," charged to the front, gripped his fists tightly, and made a downward slashing motion, creating a giant sword that shone with the color of dusk in mid-air!
The somewhat ethereal giant sword suddenly exploded, forming countless fragments of dawn light. These fragments, densely packed, resembled a hurricane of light that swept towards the enemy.
Thump thump thump~
The shards of light struck the emerging rocks, hitting the "stone golems." These hard rocks cracked as if hit by a barrage of armor-piercing bombs.
At the same time, these fragments of light also struck the vines and the "wooden golems," blasting the vines into wood chips and blasting holes in the "wooden golems."
Derrick and his team seized the opportunity to rush forward and quickly dealt with the "golems".
Finally, the exploration team arrived at the lake shore in the swamp.
At this moment, one monster after another crawled out of the lake. They were covered in moss and were extremely ugly in appearance and posture, as if they had undergone a huge mutation.
The battle resumed immediately, and Derrick and the others quickly discovered that these monsters were practically unkillable. No matter how severe their injuries, they would heal rapidly and continue fighting.
Colin suddenly shouted, "Charge to the island!"
He drank a bottle of potion, then raised his hand, and a road bathed in the light of dawn appeared on the lake, the water seemingly freezing.
Derrick jumped onto the frozen water with the others, and his feet suddenly went soft, as if he were stepping on something soft.
It's a pity he's never eaten jelly, otherwise he would definitely have used jelly to describe the feeling under his feet.
But this didn't stop them from running. They soon reached the island in the middle of the lake. Derrick looked at the lush grass and the insects that were emitting a faint glow, and suddenly heard his own heartbeat.
He felt a surge of vitality coursing through his body, and it seemed as if he was growing taller.
Everyone's hair, beards, and nails grew rapidly, and even the leather clothing they wore grew a layer of animal fur.
At that moment, they saw a tree branch emitting a faint green light in the center of the island. They knew very well that this was the sealed artifact they were looking for.
Colin's pupils flickered with an ethereal light once more, and his gaze became incredibly deep.
Suddenly, the surrounding weeds began to grow, and in the blink of an eye, they had grown from knee-high to chest-high.
The number of insects in the grass suddenly increased, and they grew larger. They were originally smaller than a little fingernail, but now they were the size of a palm.
The large trees also began to grow wildly, their canopies growing larger and larger, blocking their view and preventing them from seeing the sealed object in the center of the island.
The group of monsters behind them had also rushed onto the island and were attacking them.
Soon, the weeds grew taller than their heads, and before they lost sight of the distance, they huddled together, preparing to face the onslaught of the monsters.
Colin, who had been observing the surroundings, suddenly shouted, "Block those monsters!"
As he spoke, he smeared a layer of iron-black grease on his longsword, thrust it forward, and the grass in front of him immediately stopped growing and turned withered.
Colin dashed into the withered grass and quickly disappeared into it.
At this moment, the monster also rushed over, and Derrick and the others fought hard and finally stopped the monsters.
But the surrounding plants were still growing wildly, the trees and weeds had grown so tall that they blocked out the sky, and Derrick had a strange feeling that he was going to be buried on the island by the grass.
The battle was intense at first, but soon the surrounding bushes began to severely hinder the fighting.
These weeds grew thicker and thicker, constantly encroaching on their space, until even wielding weapons became extremely difficult.
The surrounding space became increasingly cramped, and even as he struggled to cut down the surrounding "weeds," the feeling of being buried alive became more and more pronounced.
Suddenly, after a certain moment, the "weeds" stopped growing and quickly became smaller and shorter.
Soon the surrounding vegetation returned to its original state, and Derrick and the others saw that in the center of the island, Chief Colin, whose body was wrapped in thorny vines, was holding aloft the branch that had a faint green glow.
The branch quickly changed its appearance and became a green wooden walking stick.
Immediately, the vines on Colin's body disappeared, and everything around him returned to normal!
Chief Colin has obtained this sealed artifact!
At this moment, the monsters charged at Colin like madmen, and the battle became fierce again. However, this time the monsters could be killed, and their wounds were no longer so easy to heal.
Soon, Dekry and his companions discovered that these monsters could actually extract extraordinary properties.
After a moment's thought, Derrick realized that, because of the "Law of Convergence of Extraordinary Characteristics," these monsters with extraordinary characteristics were attracted by the sealed artifact.
However, these monsters' spirits and bodies had undergone significant mutations before they arrived, making it impossible for them to control the sealed artifact.
...
On the northern outskirts of Backlund, Odis rode in Count Brandon's carriage to the nobleman's vineyard.