The elf knew that he had encountered Tu City, and even the most perfect and sharpest blade he had ever seen in his life. It was ink black and of a suitable width.
A single glance was enough to inspire fear.
Because that blade was pressed against his neck.
"Calm... calm down."
In the alley, the man's body stiffened, and he said in a trembling voice:
"Whatever I stole from you, I will return double."
"You are an elf?" Xu Mu's face was suspicious. He remembered that books said elves were golden-haired, blue-eyed women with heavenly beauty, but why was this guy a man?
"Sort of," he stammered in reply.
"This is clearly a human." Qiongqi stood opposite him, clearly seeing the pale-faced young man hidden under the shadow.
"If you're not an elf, you're useless, kill him." Xu Mu tightened his grip on the hilt of the knife, releasing the intent of death into the man's mind.
"Don't, I am an elf!" the man shouted in terror.
Xu Mu smiled and said coldly:
"Looking like this, you still claim to be an elf."
"Do you take me for a fool?"
As he spoke, he pulled the knife back slightly.
"Because I'm a half-breed. My mother is human, and my father is an elf. I only have half of the elf bloodline!"
The man, fearing death, quickly said.
Xu Mu smiled slightly, slowly placed his left palm on the elf's head, and the intent of death permeated as he said:
"Tell me your name, your detailed origin, why you are here, who instructed you, and what your purpose is, otherwise, I will search your soul!"
The man was startled and quickly trembled as he said:
"I... my name is Nash. I was born in a tribe in the border region of Alfheim. My mother was an ordinary person, and I never met my elf father. Seven years ago, my tribe was destroyed by a sandstorm, and I couldn't find the elf kingdom, so I wandered to human towns, living a life of petty theft."
"Hmm, continue," Xu Mu nodded and said.
Nash swallowed, his face gloomy, and his voice bitter as he continued:
"Because my special abilities are unique, I have never failed in stealing. But about a month ago, on the first day I arrived in Tu City, I was caught by an old man."
"He forcibly made a contract with me, making me his subordinate. For ten years, we would split stolen treasures three-seven, with him taking the larger share. Otherwise, he would kill me directly!"
"An old man," Xu Mu's eyebrows twitched. He had also captured this elf with his Dragon Seeking Ruler. What did that old man rely on?
"That old man lives in the blacksmith shop in the east of the city. The people of Tu City all call him Master Degar. He is at the peak of the fourth stage and loves to forge various weapons, which is why he needs so many materials."
Nash pointed to the stolen magical artifacts on the ground and said weakly.
"How could a master blacksmith discover you?" Xu Mu asked suspiciously. There was more than one lord in the fourth stage among those chasing this elf, but they were all deceived by the elf's special abilities. How could a blacksmith in the fourth stage catch him?
"I don't know. I'm still very strange about it."
Nash shook his head, his face full of bitterness.
"At that time, I saw that the weapon forging techniques in his shop were excellent, so I developed malicious intentions and wanted to pretend to be a buyer and steal some back. Unexpectedly, before we even exchanged a few words, he dragged me into a cell."
Xu Mu: "In other words, you hadn't even made a move, and he had already seen through your identity?"
Nash nodded: "That's right."
Xu Mu and Qiongqi exchanged glances. After a brief communication, they felt that what this half-elf said was not a lie, so he withdrew the hunting knife in his hand.
"Don't think about running away. I have no ill intentions."
"I want to enter Alfheim to find the elf kingdom, and perhaps I will need you to provide me with some clues. Of course, it would be best if you could go with me."
Nash, who had just escaped the fear of death, then heard these words. He looked at Xu Mu with a bitter expression:
"It's impossible to find."
"Our tribe has lived in Alfheim for generations. Only my mother has seen an elf once. At other times, elves are more like legends to us."
"That's just bad luck for you," Xu Mu said seriously, "My luck has always been very good."
"Luck?" Nash thought he had misheard and repeated the word, feeling it was utterly absurd.
"It's not just luck. Just like how I found you, there are always special methods," Xu Mu nodded and smiled. "If you don't try with me, how will you know it won't work?"
"Do you want to stay in the human world forever?"
Nash was stunned for a moment, then lowered his head:
"Of course not. I'm not used to the food and accommodation here. But I might not be used to the elf world either. I just want to see my father and ask him why he abandoned my mother..."
Xu Mu nodded: "Then let's go find him together."
"But, it's really impossible to find," Nash said with a tired expression. "And even if I wanted to go, there's no way, because I'm still under a contract."
"I'll help you solve it," Xu Mu said.
"Peak of the fourth stage, you can solve it?" Nash asked in surprise. Xu Mu looked about his age, how could he possess such strength?
Xu Mu smiled slightly: "That's not something you need to worry about. You just need to answer me, go or not."
"I..." Nash hesitated.
"Don't rush. Think carefully." Xu Mu took a step back, clearing the path for Nash. "Give me your answer within ten days."
"You're just letting me go like this?" Nash asked in disbelief. He had expected Xu Mu to extort a fortune from him, or perhaps make a contract with him like the old man.
"Of course, we have no enmity."
"Go back and consider it carefully. I'm staying at the Green Cloud Inn, the second room on the left on the third floor. If you've made up your mind, come find me anytime." Xu Mu patted his shoulder and said with a faint smile.
Nash nodded dazedly: "Okay."
After speaking, he cautiously took two steps forward, then transformed into a mass of black mist and instantly vanished into space.
"A type of spatial magic." Qiongqi looked at the black mist, then turned to Xu Mu: "What now? Go back to the inn and wait for news?"
"Let's go to the Hunter's Alliance and check on that old man."
Xu Mu picked up the little Qiongqi, his figure flashed a few times, and he soon disappeared from the alley.
...
"I'm truly sorry to bother you so late at night."
In the incense shop, Xu Mu sat at the wooden table, and Le Lingyun, at his request, brought out a pile of bamboo slips.
"This is all the information Master Degar has had from the age of ten until now. It's all here," the girl pushed the thick bamboo slips towards Xu Mu and said calmly.
Xu Mu nodded, didn't stand on ceremony, and immediately opened the first volume to read. He read it with a serious expression. After half an incense stick of time, he put down the last bamboo slip with a strange look on his face.
"How is it? Have you found anything?" Le Lingyun looked at Xu Mu calmly with her willow-leaf-like eyes.
"It's beyond my expectations. It's too normal." Xu Mu frowned, took a sip of tea, and then carefully filtered the information in his mind, slowly saying: "From the time he was ten until he was eighty-nine years old, he had been forging iron. When he was mortal, he was a blacksmith, forging many weapons and armor for high-ranking officials and generals of the dynasty. After the Apocalypse Incident, he became a master blacksmith, continuing to forge magical artifacts and divine weapons until now."
"Is there a problem?" Le Lingyun asked with a frown. In her opinion, this was a perfectly normal life of an "ordinary person."
"When you were young, did you want to open an incense shop when you grew up?" Xu Mu asked, looking into the girl's clear eyes.
"I..." Le Lingyun thought for a moment. What did she want to do when she was young? She seemed to have forgotten.
"Joining the Hunter's Alliance might have been your intention, but opening an incense shop and guarding the forbidden land must have been an accident."
Xu Mu's voice was soft as he said:
"Whatever you want to do, or don't want to do, there are always external factors that bind you and try to make you deviate from your intended course. This is irreversible, unless you have no attachments, but that's impossible for most people."
"You mean... I roughly understand," Le Lingyun's eyes became serious, and she nodded thoughtfully. She was only twenty-three years old, and her life had already undergone many changes, both willing and unwilling. Master Degar had lived to be eighty-nine years old, and in his long life, his passion had always been the same thing. What kind of astonishing perseverance would that take?
"This is not achievable through perseverance," Xu Mu shook his head. He couldn't understand what kind of fanatical pursuit of forging Master Degar had, to have never changed his profession his entire life, and even after capturing the elf, he threatened the other party to steal magical artifacts for him as forging materials.
Obsession, perhaps, was just that.
"Master Degar seems very short," Le Lingyun said, as if she had thought of something. Her pupils dilated, and she gestured to Xu Mu with a solemn expression: "Only as tall as your waist."
Xu Mu also seemed to have thought of something. He and Le Lingyun saw the shock in each other's eyes, and three words came out of their mouths simultaneously: "Dwarves!"
Le Lingyun's hair stood on end, and she then panicked and ran to the basement where the bamboo slips were stored. After searching for a long time, she finally found an ancient book bound in parchment at the bottom.
"'The Myths of Ymir.' I originally thought of it as just a storybook, but if dwarves really exist, then what is recorded in it might be true!"
Le Lingyun solemnly handed the book to Xu Mu. He took it and, with a heavy heart, slowly opened the first page and read softly:
"Ymir was the giant god who created heaven and earth. He was framed and died by small beings. Half of his body became a desert called Alfheim, his eyebrows became the boundary walls in the vast space, his blood and sweat formed the sea, his bones formed mountains, his teeth became cliff stones, his hair became trees and grass, and his skull hung above the land and sea, regarded as stars and the sun and moon. His brain was transformed into clouds."
"The maggots produced from the other half of Ymir's decaying corpse, when exposed to light, were fair-skinned, beautiful, and gentle in nature, thus becoming elves and fairies. They were favored by the world and lived in the elven kingdom in the sky, doing nothing but planting flowers and nurturing grass, detached from the secular world."
"The maggots born on the dark side of Ymir were called dwarves or gnomes. They were despised by the world and lived in the underground gnome kingdom. In order to be looked up to by others, they constantly utilized underground resources to mine treasures and forge weapons and jewelry, seeking to be valued by the world."
"Later, under the wisdom, schemes, and power struggles of elves, dwarves, and humans, the elf race disappeared, the dwarf race returned underground, and Alfheim gradually degenerated into an ordinary desert."
Xu Mu softly finished reading the content above, then closed the ancient book. The shock in his heart was almost uncontrollable.
So the formation of Alfheim was actually similar to the Domain of Gloom, both formed by the death of legendary beings. The Domain of Gloom was a demon god, and this was a giant named Ymir.
"Do you know Ymir?" Xu Mu asked the artifact spirit demon god after a moment of thought.
"I don't know. If this information is true, it can only mean that he and I were not in the same era, or not in the same spacetime," the demon god replied indifferently.
"Alright," Xu Mu nodded with a grave expression. Since that was the case, he didn't need to waste any more effort guessing. He was almost certain that Master Degar was a dwarf from legend, which was why he was so fanatically obsessed with forging!
"Please keep today's events a secret," Xu Mu said with a solemn expression to Le Lingyun after a long while, his mood having calmed down.
"Don't worry, even if you tell others about this, they won't believe it. They'll just think it's a coincidence," Le Lingyun said calmly. In fact, she herself didn't fully believe that Master Degar was a dwarf from legend, as it was too incredible.
However, if she knew that Xu Mu had already captured a half-elf, Le Lingyun's attitude towards these matters would undoubtedly change drastically.
"Thank you for your hospitality. It's getting late, so you should rest early," Xu Mu cupped his hands in a salute and slowly took his leave. Le Lingyun nodded and saw him to the door. Just as she was about to wave goodbye, a person walked up to the dimly lit incense shop.
"Why are you here!"
Ma Chuan, who had just finished his late-night snack, was slightly surprised to see Xu Mu emerging from the incense shop. Before he could react, he saw Le Lingyun walking out.
The girl was neatly dressed, but her face was unnaturally flushed, as if she had just experienced something intense or exciting.
Ma Chuan despaired. A man and a woman alone in the middle of the night, what could they be doing?
"Adulterers and prostitutes!"