Mist Empire’s Rise: Fake Noble to Fog Queen

The mere thought that someone could peek into her dreams made Luo Wei's toes curl.

Who knew how much the Dark Elf could see? There were things in her dreams that were not meant for others' eyes. If he had seen everything, she would rather be burned at the stake by the Church right now.

However, glancing at the Dark Elf's tall figure, Luo Wei doubted he had the ability to spy on her dreams.

If he could see everything, he would probably revoke his faith in her immediately.

The Dark Elf carried the gold ore through a tall stone doorway. Luo Wei looked up to see a sign that read "Alchemy Chamber" hanging above.

Could the Dark Elf do alchemy? Curious, she followed him inside.

There were many methods to refine gold ore - she remembered heap leaching, gravity separation, and amalgamation, and she was familiar with ancient gold refining techniques too.

If the Dark Elf didn't know how, she could perhaps manifest a "divine miracle" here to guide him.

As Luo Wei entered the chamber, the Dark Elf was just emptying the gold ore from his basket onto the ground.

Looking around the room, she saw no stone mill for crushing ore or kilns for roasting metal - only several sunken circular pools in the ground. So how did he purify the gold?

While she pondered this, she saw the Dark Elf scoop up a handful of gold sand and knead the hard crystalline ore into powder as easily as if it were dough, before sprinkling it into the water.

Finding this too slow, the Dark Elf took a charred wooden staff from the wall - a wand made from withered Spiritwood.

Under the grinding force of his magical whirlwind, the gold ore was pulverized into powder, falling precisely into the circular pools where the heavier gold particles slowly settled to the bottom.

Luo Wei... excuse her assumption - so it was magical refining after all.

It seemed the Dark Elf had devoted his magic to physical enhancement, explaining his incredible strength.

Growing bored after watching for a while, Luo Wei left the alchemy chamber to explore the small town.

The town was lifeless, the silence too complete - even the passing wind seemed to sigh with melancholy.

She wondered how the Dark Elf had spent all these years. Such prolonged solitude was akin to death; his soul had been buried for centuries.

Perhaps she should leave something to let him know she had been here.

Luo Wei looked around and dug up some clay from the damp riverbank grass. After some thought, she molded it into the shape of a traditional gold ingot.

She carved some large characters on the bottom: "Fog Empire Currency". This would be the highest denomination currency issued in the Misty Plains.

She quietly placed the clay gold ingot at the entrance of the alchemy chamber where the Dark Elf would surely find it when he came out. With his intelligence, he would understand her meaning.

After placing it, Luo Wei spread her wings and flew above the small town.

She wanted to check on the teleportation array she had carved last time, to see if those magic runes were still functioning.

The Misty Plains and Western Continent were separated by tens of thousands of miles with nearly half a day's time difference. The sun was just rising here, making it easy to determine directions.

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They had arrived on the western coast of the Misty Plains last time. She was now in the center of the continent, so she would need to fly west to find the teleportation array.

But flying there seemed like a waste of time - having finally made it to the Misty Plains, she didn't want to spend the whole night in the air.

Luo Wei returned to the ground. She had spotted an altar in the town from above that would be perfect for carving a teleportation array.

The Dark Elf was still busy in the alchemy chamber, unaware that someone had climbed his carefully constructed altar and was drawing on it.

After completing the array, Luo Wei placed her hand on the center of the runes. The altar flashed with light as the teleportation channel successfully opened.

In the blink of an eye, she was transported from the town to a lush forest.

This forest looked different from her last visit - the surrounding weeds and rubble had been cleared away, and the collapsed altar platform had been propped up again with stone pillars.

The stone slabs where she had carved the teleportation array had clearly been renovated. The uneven edges of the stone blocks had been smoothed round, feeling sleek to the touch without any roughness.

Luo Wei looked down at the teleportation array at her feet and was surprised to find her carved runes had been modified.

Her original runes had been shallow - just light scratches really. But now the runes were as deep as a finger joint, and the patterns were much more elaborate.

The six magic stones were still at the center of the array, but amazingly, their luster hadn't dimmed at all.

This meant the array wasn't drawing power from the magic stones - someone had infused it with sufficient magical power, making them unnecessary.

Only the Dark Elf could have done this.

Luo Wei eyed the six magic stones by her feet, her greedy fingers twitching.

Since they weren't needed, could she take them back?

If she took them, would the Dark Elf think she was being petty?

After hesitating for a long while, she decided against it - she shouldn't lower herself for a few magic stones.

She crouched down to study the runes on the ground.

The additional patterns the Dark Elf had added were absolutely brilliant, elevating her basic teleportation array to an advanced level.

If she could replicate this array in the Western Continent, she could truly achieve trans-oceanic teleportation!

Advanced magic runes shouldn't be studied too closely - they could make one dizzy.

Luo Wei divided the ground array into several fan-shaped sections, forcing herself not to visualize the complete runic pattern but instead memorizing the patterns in each section separately.

Even so, her brain was throbbing with pain. After memorizing all the patterns, her nose suddenly began to bleed.

Luo Wei wiped her face, only now realizing she had a nosebleed.

Soon after, her vision was clouded with red mist as two trails of bloody tears slid from her eyes.

Before she could find a cloth to wipe away the tears, her ears became wet as well.

Were advanced runes this powerful that even memorizing them in sections was dangerous?

The backlash wasn't this severe even when she had secretly learned advanced magic spells before!

Luo Wei pushed herself up from the ground, but as soon as she straightened her legs, her body swayed and a sweet metallic taste rose in her throat.

Great, now she was bleeding from all seven apertures.

Worse still, she didn't know how to get back.

Her physical body was still in the Western Continent - only a trace of her dream consciousness had projected here. If she died here today, no one would even know.

Right - dreams. Was it possible this was just a dream?

If she woke up tomorrow in her academy dormitory bed, how could she prove she had really been to the Misty Plains?

Luo Wei swallowed the blood in her throat and wiped the blood from her face as she looked to the sky.

With such severe backlash from the advanced runes, she probably wouldn't be able to teleport from the Western Continent to the Misty Plains for quite some time.

If everything that happened in the dream was real, there must be a way to prove it.

Like the Rainbow Fantasy Birds that liked to carry tree branches across the ocean.

After resting until her nosebleed stopped, Luo Wei took to the sky again.

The Misty Plains were vast, with many unexplored areas. If she searched carefully, she might find unexpected treasures.

Like the spices worth their weight in gold in the Western Continent - no one knew where they actually came from.

The Western nobility currently used spices collected by mercenaries from the coastline, but strangely, no spice plants grew along the coast.

The Western Continent's climate wasn't suitable for growing spices either. Some spice merchants had tried cultivation but all attempts had failed.

The Wastes were even less suitable - they were just an enormous desert with a dry climate and scarce rainfall. Spices couldn't possibly come from there.

Since her first Potions class, Luo Wei had suspected there must be a landmass in this world with geography similar to South Asia. Only tropical rainforests provided the ideal conditions for spices.

The spices in the Western Continent were likely carried over by migratory birds, just like the Rainbow Fantasy Birds.

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