Pioneer Lord: Starting From Daily Intelligence

Chapter 957: Chapter 128: Bone Merchant and Valley of Memory (Part 3)

”And although it is not a relic of the Elf Race, I am very interested in it, and I very much hope to discuss the old days of the Elf Race with the Sky Titan. I might even learn the secret of how to make vast landmasses float in the air.”

”But I have to admit, the Knights of your Territory are astonishingly powerful. I sent several adventurer squads and Lanode’s followers one after another to try to retrieve this map, but all of them failed.”

Hm?

So there really is intelligence about a Sky Titan?

Su Li didn’t hold any particular mythic reverence for a Sky Titan. After all, if they could be nearly wiped out by the Great Stomach God and its Ogre followers, the lone one that escaped probably wouldn’t be all that strong. At most Legendary Level, certainly not a Demigod.

And who knows, many Knights of the Hesse Territory might have already seen it. Some mountain range in the Black Pine Forest could very well be its incarnation.

Hilude had said that when she led a treasure‑thieving squad to the Dragon’s Nest, she encountered a Mountain Giant disguised as a small hill along the way. There had always been rumors that Giants were the not‑so‑bright descendants of Sky Titans.

That is why there are so many Giants in the region around the Hesse Territory. During the last war, Su Li had already noticed that the number of Giants in the Green Dragon Legion was almost unbelievable.

However, Su Li didn’t care too much whether it was truly as the myths claimed. What he cared about was whether this Titan Giant actually had any ancient Spirit Plants in its possession.

As a Sage and living fossil who had lived for several thousand, even tens of thousands of years, and as a chronicler of the changes in the Black Pine Forest, it was highly likely that when the High Elves withdrew from their colonies, it was already here, silently watching everything.

So if there really were any Spirit Plants or overlooked Spirit Plant seeds in the Black Pine Forest, it was the one most likely to know. Or perhaps, while no one was paying attention, it had secretly hidden away many seeds and Spirit Plants for itself.

What Nayadalin wanted to discuss with it likely went far beyond just the old days of the Elf Race.

However, although Su Li was interested, he could not directly expose his intentions, so he smiled and said to Nayadalin, ”But telling me this is useless. The map is in the hands of Knight Jeff Hoffman. My Territory guarantees that private property is sacred and inviolable. I can’t force him to hand over the map and give it to you to view.”

Nayadalin was instantly helpless. This Lord really would say anything to decline.

When she was young, she might have believed in so‑called sacred and inviolable private property, but after witnessing how many nobles and merchants would stop at nothing, if she still believed in that, she would be an idiot.

They could just levy fines until the richest man in the Territory was stripped of all his assets and thrown into prison.

Whether property was sacred or not depended entirely on whether this pack of jackals decided to set their eyes on you. Once they did, merchants with wealth were nothing but fat sheep.

But since Su Li had put it like that, she had no way to refute him. She could only say, ”Of course, of course, we all know you, Lord, are committed to maintaining the fairness of the law and the equity of the Territory, ensuring everyone’s safety and freedom.”

”However, you are the Lord of the Hoffman Clan. If you are interested, I believe the Hoffman Clan would be more than willing to present this map for your viewing.”

”And we are willing to seek those old days together with you. If you can let us meet the ancient Sky Titan as well, we can invite you to pay a visit to the Valley of Memory.”

The Valley of Memory!

Su Li’s gaze suddenly brightened. This Valley of Memory was the main reason he wanted to get in touch with Nayadalin Frost Forest!

This was one of the wondrous Holy Lands within the Black Pine Forest, and one of its greatest opportunities. It was said that it contained a vast number of fallen High Elf soldiers from the peak of their power.

Su Li wasn’t planning on looting graves, but this collective tomb could not be left unattended. There were a large number of Undead lingering outside the Valley of Memory. If a Night Wanderer Corpse were to find the Valley of Memory, the situation would completely spiral out of control.

The Knights of the Mole Sect were experts in dealing with such matters. Their Church even held a corpse‑drying festival, where every ten years they would drag corpses out of their graves to bask in the sun, while also reinforcing Mole’s Divine Magic to ensure that important remains would not be defiled by the Undead.

Some Elves whose souls were successfully sent to the Death Realm, attaining complete release and rest, would leave behind abundant opportunities and gifts—such as their weapons, treasured Witchcraft Items, and certain Gemstones.

Those were treasures from the absolute pinnacle of the Elves. Even if only one percent remained, it would still be an unimaginably vast fortune, perhaps far surpassing all the wealth the Hesse Territory had created up to this day!

So Su Li immediately asked with great interest, ”Invite us to the Valley of Memory as guests? What kind of place is that?”

Nayadalin did not heap mindless praise upon it, but instead spoke with heavy solemnity and reverence: ”Deep within the Black Pine Forest—a forest famed for its hidden glades and shadow‑shrouded ravines—lies a valley trapped in an almost impassable Darkness, as if twilight has no end. There, paths twist into one another, and time flows in a strange fashion: as people often say, you turn a corner here, only to see another you in the distance turning a similar corner. This is the Valley of Memory, brimming with Magic Power. Without me to guide you, anyone who enters will be lost in the long river of misaligned time and space.”

”The existence of the Valley of Memory is widely told in many folk tales—some even claim that it is the origin of the Imperial People’s notion of déjà vu—and in truth it was once a collective tomb of the Elves, burying those who fell in the final stages of the Battle of the Longbeards. When the surviving Elves retreated, they cast a Magic upon the countless dead Elf soldiers, so that their flesh would not rot, and their minds would not step into death while wandering, not until the Elf Race returned to take these bodies back to Ossuan, to fall with the leaves and return to their roots. Yet after endless ages, soil covered these neither‑living‑nor‑dead Elves, and vigorously growing trees pierced and enveloped their bodies. Now, this entire place is haunted by the dreams of fallen soldiers hovering at the brink of death.”

”Many come in search of the Valley of Memory for the sake of knowledge of the past, because those Elves left below the earth dream of what they remembered in life: ancient Elven cities, ancient trade with early humans, and the terrible atrocities of the Great Sundering and the War of Vengeance. For those willing to risk their sanity, the Valley of Memory offers much—though they will soon find that their dreams no longer belong solely to themselves.”

”Within the Valley of Memory there are a few structures and a single settlement, dedicated to the Elf Gods: Radlia, Lilith, and Mole Hog. These Elves, also known as Rock People, attempt to record the dreams granted by the slumbering soldiers with statues, hoping thereby to piece together a complete and true timeline of the Old World before the Battle of the Longbeards. Yet almost all of them have irreversibly gone mad in the same fashion. Surrounded by them, under their hospitality, I often sit in silent contemplation, and in doing so I have developed the ability to visit the dreams of my secret agents. Through this, I can conduct long‑distance communication and issue orders and commands on the battlefield.”

”I believe all of this must be of great importance to your Territory and military as well!”

Hiss~ Su Li drew in a sharp breath on the spot!

He knew the Valley of Memory was powerful; otherwise the Daily Intelligence would not have spent so much space introducing this opportunity and urging him to contact the Bone Merchant, Nayadalin Frost Forest.

But he truly had not expected the functions of this Valley of Memory to be this formidable!

Wasn’t that essentially Mole’s Divine Office ability?

Only Mole’s Divine Magic could grant him enlightenment for Knights, allowing him to intrude into the dreams of his followers.

Yet this Valley of Memory alone allowed Nayadalin Frost Forest to enter the dreams of her secret agents. And her secret agents were scattered all over the world.

She could still use this method to contact her subordinates and issue orders.

This already felt like a power at a sinister, uncanny level—forcing a meeting into being.

Moreover, this ability was immensely powerful for military command. In the future she could rely on contemplation to conduct long‑distance communication, issuing instructions and orders over great distances!

At the current stage, this might not be of great assistance to the Hesse Territory, since with just over two thousand infantry and Cavalry, messengers, Banners, and military music were enough to handle command.

But as the armies of the Hesse Territory grew, once their strength expanded to ten thousand men, or when they engaged the main forces of the Night Wanderer Corpses in a decisive battle, this ability to issue real‑time orders would be incomparable in its usefulness!