Master Kandinsky was actually Jacob’s guardian spirit!
Everyone in the wooden vine villa was shocked speechless by this news; it was completely different from what they had imagined. The guardian spirits they had envisioned were powerful existences like the empire’s successive emperors, generals, guild presidents, and mercenary group leaders, each possessing considerable combat strength to protect the host from harm, and perhaps even having some special abilities, such as King’s Army or Infinite Sword Creation… that would make them worthy of being called guardian spirits, right?
And the Master Kandinsky in front of them…
Debbie walked hesitantly to the master’s side: “What can you do?”
The master continued to scrutinise Debbie with his nostrils, his voice arrogant as he said: “Have you not heard of my name? What time is it outside now?”
“You have been dead for thirty years,” Jacob explained. It seemed guardian spirits did not know the time of their own death and had no perception of external affairs.
“Thirty years?” The master nodded, then said smugly, “My paintings must be widely circulated by now! Just like those art masters Tylor and Bates, abstract art must have flourished across the Castro continent, and I am the originator of abstract art!”
“Sorry, no…” Jacob replied with a twitching face.
“What? That is impossible; how could my art not be celebrated by people? This, this cannot be…” The master immediately said, struck a great blow.
“Hey, you still have not answered me; what exactly can you do!” Debbie continued to press.
The master looked at Debbie coldly: “You actually ask me what I can do? Art cannot be described with such a narrow concept!”
Everyone: “…”
This master felt less reliable than all of them combined…
Jacob asked the master with a bitter face: “Why did you choose me as your host?”
“I can sense the imperial bloodline on you; your bloodline awakened me. We are very fated; I can feel a familiar aura from you. That is my art; you must like my art very much. Only someone who has been constantly accompanied by my works can awaken me from slumber.” The master said this to Jacob with an expression of “your taste is indeed extraordinary”.
And upon hearing this, Jacob’s only thought was: Fuck… Prince Geller had several carts of the master’s paintings delivered to the castle, and the undead butler was enthusiastic about hanging those paintings out. Being constantly accompanied by them was indeed true, but he was completely forced into it!
Seeing the puzzled expression on Jacob’s face, the master then asked: “Do you have any questions you want to ask me?”
“Yes…” Jacob paused, “Can I exchange for another guardian spirit?”
The master immediately flew into a rage: “No! As a master of the twisted school, becoming your guardian spirit is something you should be thrilled about, yet you want to replace me!”
“Guild leader, what do we do?” Grylls walked to Ye Dui’s side and asked.
Ye Dui shook his head, his face thoughtful: “It seems guardian spirits choosing hosts is not entirely random. He said he was awakened by sensing a familiar aura from Jacob… Prince Geller sending those paintings to our castle should not be deliberate harm to Jacob; perhaps his intention was for Master Kandinsky to become Jacob’s guardian spirit… In that case, he might have some special qualities.”
Thinking of this, Ye Dui walked in front of Master Kandinsky: “Hello, master. I am Jacob’s guard. The Crown Battlefield is very dangerous. As a guardian spirit, how is your combat ability?”
“Combat?” Hearing Ye Dui’s words, the master’s expression suddenly turned furious again, shouting loudly: “Combat is a defilement of art! Only the brush and carving knife are the truths of this world. I hate combat; what the world needs is art and peace, not endless battles!”
At this moment, the master was like a neurotic person who had let himself go. Under the surprised gazes of the others, he cheered loudly, spinning and jumping in the hall, finally clasping his hands together over his chest, his body trembling, and said in a quivering voice: “The ultimate aesthetic is twisted art: twisted, twisted, twisted again…”
“Get lost, you bastard!”
Debbie could not tolerate it anymore and kicked the master right in the buttocks. The master immediately screamed and was kicked out of the villa, rolling away.
And regarding Debbie’s action, everyone else in the room wanted to give it a thumbs up. Jacob even sat at the dining table with his hand supporting his forehead, feeling exhausted; his guardian spirit was actually such a thing…
Grylls and Dani hurriedly comforted him: even if the guardian spirit was an idiot, did they not still have them? Without the guardian spirit, their strength was still absolutely not weak.
Just at this moment, a strange laughter suddenly came from outside the wooden vine villa: “Hehehehe~~” “Hehehehe~”
Debbie, hearing this voice, immediately flew into a rage and prepared to go out and beat someone, but Dani hurriedly stood up: “Wait, this sound seems to be coming from my clown flowers…”
The wooden vine villa was surrounded by a circle of “clown flowers” planted by Dani; these things could serve as sentinels. (Previously called clown plants, but clown flowers seems more fitting.)
Hearing Dani’s words, Ye Dui immediately rushed out of the villa first, with the others following closely behind.
Outside, Master Kandinsky’s figure was nowhere to be seen. Guardian spirits were also a type of heroic spirit; he could probably disappear or appear at will. And now, the clown flowers scattered around were all swaying continuously, the clown faces on their disks cracking open wide mouths and constantly emitting that sharp, strange laughter.
Something was coming!
Ye Dui opened the [Crown War] game on the magic tome. In the game, if the full map was not unlocked, the field of view range was the same as the exploration range on the magic tome map, but the game screen would present a pixel style, with the surrounding trees and bushes simply identified on the screen.
However, Ye Dui could not see any anomalies on the game map now.
“Has something come?” Dani rushed to the side of a clown flower, looking around strangely left and right.
The surroundings were completely silent; aside from those clown flowers emitting “hehehe” laughter, no other sounds could be heard at all. Ye Dui waved his hand at Dani, signalling her to retract the clown flowers, but the surroundings remained utterly silent.
No sounds…
Wrong!
Ye Dui suddenly looked up at the sky.
In the grey, overcast sky, a black dot was circling above their heads. The moment Ye Dui spotted that black dot, it suddenly dove downwards.
The killing intent sensed by the clown flowers came from this black dot in the sky, and the black dot’s true form was… a massive bird!
It resembled some kind of eagle, its body a golden yellow, as if sculpted from gold sand. As it dove downwards, it simultaneously emitted a clear, resonant cry from its mouth, its wings flapping constantly, and with that, beams of black light descended from the sky.
Those were its feathers.
This sand eagle was undoubtedly a magical beast that could shoot out its own feathers to attack enemies.
One feather after another was like daggers or hidden weapons, bombarding the ground indiscriminately.
For this kind of attack, Lessa was the most suitable to counter. She immediately drew her dark holy book in perfect coordination, shouting: “This lady’s got you covered!” And with that, a layer of holy light barrier appeared above everyone.
Then came the sounds of “crackling” noises, like hailstones falling on a window. In their view, on Lessa’s light barrier, a dense layer of black feathers appeared.
Through these feathers condensed in the air, Ye Dui saw that the massive sand eagle had already dived to a height of just over ten metres from the ground. This magical bird was enormous in size, with its wings spanning at least three or four metres when extended, and what surprised Ye Dui the most was that on its back, there was actually a person riding it!
Yes, it was a person wrapped entirely in rags, with only their eyes exposed.
There were indeed native inhabitants surviving in this secret realm!
Looking at his attire, it was clearly an adaptation to the harsh environment here. Ye Dui knew that in some desertified villages near Stan Town, the sand dwellers also dressed like this.
At this moment, this sand dweller realised his attack was ineffective, so he hurriedly grabbed the sand eagle’s head. The originally diving sand eagle immediately let out an “ang” cry, flapped its wings, and instead glided away into the distance.
“Since you took the initiative to attack us, do not blame me for being impolite.” An illusion of a large cannon immediately condensed on Ye Dui’s body. With a boom, he fired a shot, but this shot missed.
The sand eagle moved nimbly, dodging the shell with a sway.
Ye Dui followed up with the second shot immediately.
This time, he did not fire directly but first quickly opened the iPad magic tome’s camera. In the camera interface, a shaking red frame rapidly locked onto the sand eagle speeding away. Boom! This time, the shell shot out swiftly. The sand eagle began to sway again, dodging the attack just like last time, but under the magic tome’s lock-on, Ye Dui’s shell now possessed simple homing navigation capability.
This was a new ability Ye Dui had discovered recently: using photography to assist cannon fire, turning ordinary shells into guided missiles.
Boom!
The sand eagle was directly hit and exploded into a cloud of blood mist in the air.
Ye Dui and the others immediately chased after it, arriving at the spot where the sand eagle had exploded. This place was already near the edge of the small grove, and they had just arrived to see the corpses of the sand eagle and that sand dweller. Before they could even begin inspecting them, a terrifying roar came from the side.
There, over a dozen sand dwellers riding strange beasts had appeared not far away.
These people were clearly native residents of this place, dressed identically to the one on the sand eagle. Their mounts were very strange, about the size of horses but covered in a layer of scale armour like rock. If crouched in the desert, they would definitely be easily mistaken for mere sandstones.
“It is you!”
With that, Ye Dui heard an exclamation. From behind these sand dwellers emerged a person dressed completely differently from the others. This person wore leather armour, the style clearly from the outside world, and on the armour was painted a ferocious and terrifying beast guardian magical beast, the emblem of the Beast Jores family!
“He is the tenth prince’s guard; I remember him,” Grylls said quietly to Ye Dui. Among the four great families, the Beast Jores magical beast family supported the tenth prince, and most of the tenth prince’s guards also came from the beast family.
But if this person was the tenth prince’s guard, how did he end up together with these natives? Ye Dui and his group had been in this forest for over six days since arriving in the secret realm. It seemed that during this time, some events had already occurred in the secret realm.
“Ye Dui, I did not expect to encounter you here!” That guard urged his mount forward a few steps and shouted loudly, “You killed my cousin, the snake-haired Yuren, but I can let that debt slide. Now, as long as you hand over the thirteenth prince to me and declare loyalty to the tenth prince, I can spare your life!”
Hearing this, Ye Dui could not help laughing on his face: “Hehe, who gave you such great confidence?”
That guard sneered coldly and pointed to the sand dwellers behind him.
“Have you all been staying in this oasis these past few days? The secret realm world is not just a barren wasteland; there are also cities and various tribes here. And the tenth prince has now gained the support of the most powerful tribe, the Blood Scorpion Tribe!”
