Chapter 15: Return to the Altar Once More

“Well done, but I have a task for you now.”

After briefly praising Feather, Zhou Xu quickly got to the point.

“The five of them were originally in charge of gathering supplies, but from now on, they will temporarily be assigned to your hunting team. All their gear has been prepared. Take them to the adjacent area and teach them the ropes.”

Feather’s command ability capped at four stars, so Zhou Xu intended to give him some tasks for practice.

Feather didn’t overthink it; since the leader gave the order, he would follow it.

In a limited area, piling up too many traps would be wasteful.

At this early stage, their exploration of the Black Forest was confined to the outskirts, so most traps were concentrated in two relatively small outer zones.

In the coming days, as they found opportunities to explore deeper and the map expanded, the hunting team’s range for deploying traps would naturally grow as well.

[The follow-up exploration of this Black Forest should gradually begin in the next couple of days...]

After summoning Feather and arranging the personnel shifts, Zhou Xu made some appropriate adjustments to the larger plan in his mind.

He then looked up to confirm the sun’s position.

[There should be two or three hours left before sunset.]

With that in mind, Zhou Xu turned to Da Shan.

“Da Shan, you and a few others come with me to check out the altar.”

They had some time, and the altar wasn’t too far from here.

The only concern was potential danger, so he needed Da Shan and four others as bodyguards.

Without delay, after moving a certain distance, Zhou Xu spotted the altar—a stone structure—across the barren wasteland.

Approaching it, he wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but the altar seemed much more dilapidated than before.

Taking a few steps onto the altar, the stones beneath his feet felt somewhat loose.

Standing in the center of the altar—the very spot where he had been summoned—he recalled the many strange symbols once painted here.

But now, all those symbols had vanished.

[What’s going on?]

Filled with doubt, Zhou Xu crouched down and brushed away the dust on the altar, trying to find any trace of the symbols, but to no avail.

“Da Shan, were you the one who painted the symbols on this altar?”

Da Shan shook his head quickly upon hearing the question.

“They were originally on the altar.”

[The symbols that were once here have disappeared, meaning the altar exhausted its power after summoning me?]

Just as he pondered this, Zhou Xu noticed several stones at the edge of the altar beginning to fall with a ‘clatter.’

Without time to think, Zhou Xu’s instincts told him something was wrong, and he leapt off the altar.

Almost simultaneously, the entire altar collapsed into a pile of rubble.

Turning to look at the ruins, Zhou Xu let out a long breath.

[From what I understand, those symbols on the altar were most likely incantations.]

[According to Da Shan, these altars were created by the Old Gods, who have long since perished and become legends. That means a very long time has passed.]

[For such a simple altar to have lasted this long, it must have been sustained by the power of those incantations. Once their power was depleted, the altar lost its foundation and naturally crumbled.]

Zhou Xu had originally wanted to study this altar further, but now that it had collapsed, there was no reason to linger.

After all, coming here carried a certain degree of risk.

Just as Zhou Xu prepared to call Da Shan and the others to leave, a thought flashed through his mind.

[Wait, why not try it?]

With this change in thought, a few archaic and difficult tones passed from his lips.

“Eye of Insight.”

Instantly, the world before Zhou Xu’s eyes sharpened, even a grain of sand blown by the wind became vividly clear.

Clearly, the Eye of Insight was not merely for viewing character stats.

Besides passively enhancing his vision and perception, when actively activated, the improvements were significantly stronger!

In this state, he immediately caught sight of a faint silver glow seeping through the rubble.

“Come help!”

Calling out, Zhou Xu hurried over and began digging.

Though Da Shan and the others didn’t understand what was happening, since their leader ordered it, they began digging without question.

The altar wasn’t particularly large, and with their combined effort, the stones pressing down were quickly cleared away.

Zhou Xu’s gaze fell on a fist-sized stone.

Da Shan and the others seemed unaware of the faint silver light emanating from it, but Zhou Xu, with his Eye of Insight, noticed it clearly.

He also noticed an ancient character on the relatively smooth surface of the stone, as if it would vanish completely the next moment.

[An incantation?]

At that moment, Zhou Xu’s heartbeat quickened slightly. After steadying his breath, he tentatively reached out toward the glowing orb.

As he approached, the silver light condensed into a thread of silver that entered his palm.

In that instant, a character surged into his mind—identical to the sensation when he absorbed the Eye of Insight before.

During this process, he clearly understood the meaning represented by the character.

If the Eye of Insight was a complete word, then this character was a single letter, with the rest missing.

This character remained intact, perhaps because the Old God who created the altar had inadvertently left a trace of power behind; it had not vanished despite Zhou Xu’s arrival.

Converted into a comprehensible word, the character corresponded to “Transmit.”

[Was the original inscription on this altar something like “Teleport”?]

As the thought crossed his mind, he decided to give it a try.

The next second, that ancient syllable escaped his lips...

“Transmit.”

At that moment, he faintly sensed a subtle wave of energy, but it quickly dissipated.

Exhaling deeply, Zhou Xu concluded,

[This is probably because the incantation is incomplete. The full incantation is needed to manifest its power.]