In the northeast of the upper town of Pushang Town, there is a steep hill overlooking the whole town. On the flat area of ​​the hill is an ancient castle that has settled down in the vicissitudes of life.

Today, the rotten wood, broken stone pillars, and collapsed ruins of the castle have been cleaned up and replaced by a dark black wall built by gray dwarves.

The surrounding of the city wall is full of white thorns, and the thorn flowers in the spring breeze sway gently in the bright sunshine, exuding a clear smile.

In the open field outside the city walls, burly tauren people are working hard to reclaim this long-forgotten wasteland with various agricultural tools, preparing to sow crops.

Although the tauren race is a demonic ritual born in the mortal realm, savage conquerors and carnivores who hunt.

But there are still very few tauren people who are eager to break the shackles of authority, liberate life and freedom, and let their body and mind embrace nature.

They refuse to dismantle their humanity and return to their wildness. They just want to clear their name of "Barbarians" and become an independent civilized race.

Therefore, after these tauren slaves who had been tortured in the Underdark regained their freedom and saw the Land of Sunlight they had never seen before, most of them were willing to sweat and sow their own hope.

As for those tauren who are still dominated by wildness, they have already threw themselves into the arms of the King of Horned Demons with the help of their kin.

In this humble castle, in an open place flooded with sunlight, a group of people gathered around a stone table and seemed to be talking about something.

But judging from the solemn expressions on everyone's faces, they seemed to be negotiating very important matters.

Among the group, only two of them sat on the stone chairs beside the table, facing each other, while the others stood beside them.

Thorne, who was sitting on the stone chair, held a simple quill in one hand and a sheepskin scroll full of common characters on the continent in the other. Being quickly browsed by him.

Standing quietly beside him is the half-elf girl Lilia, her pale blue eyes are also very focused on the sheepskin scroll in Thorne's hand, sometimes frowning, sometimes stretching.

Standing behind Thorne were Orc Sword Saint Kutaig with a long sword, Alistar the Tauren with a giant axe on his shoulders, and Vel'Koz the Mind Flayer with an octopus head.

Sitting opposite Thorne was Carlos in a simple robe. He leaned his entire body on the back of the chair and tapped the table with his palm lightly. There was a faint smile on his face, and he looked at it with ease. Facing Thorne with a focused expression.

Next to Carlos is Torvi, who is shrouded in smoke, and behind him are the cursed swordsman Yas holding a rune sword, the storm lord Albert, and the trickster Chris, who is shrouded in a black robe.

In this slightly dignified atmosphere, a few unknown birds were chirping on the walls and eaves, and there were also vague insects that were unwilling to be lonely in the depths of the grass.

"This place needs to be changed." After some time, Thorne, who frowned slightly, looked at the contents of the sheepskin scroll and said to Carlos opposite:

"The forces in Shangcheng can provide support when you expand your territory, but the premise is not to hurt other compatriots in the Emerald Field. I hope you can understand."

The growth of the power in the lower city means that the wizard tower can get more resource support, which is naturally very happy for Thorne to see.

But he didn't want this kind of growth to be obtained by stepping on the corpses of other compatriots, and this was his last bottom line.

After all, the world is so big, and as long as you have enough strength, there are too many places for development and growth, so he is very disgusted with those who stare at his compatriots' territory and play infighting.

Just like the people in the lower city did not think about how to expand outward, but kept their eyes on the upper city.

Of course, if someone really dared to take the initiative to infringe on his interests, he would definitely make the most aggressive counterattack without hesitation.

He slaughtered that gang of bandits formed by players is the best proof.

"I was negligent, this is no problem." Carlos took the scroll handed over by Thorne, smiled slightly, and said indifferently.

He likes to cooperate with people who have a bottom line, at least such people will not lose their humanity and reason for the sake of profit, so he deliberately wrote this to try to explore En's reaction.

Although he and Thorne have known each other for a long time, they have a similar understanding of the character of this ranger.

But today's significant alliance will determine how far the players in the town of Falls can go, and whether they can establish their own kingdom, so he has to be bold and cautious.

The reason why he is so willing to form an alliance with Thorne is that in addition to the potential of the wizard tower, he is also very optimistic about Thorne's future, so he is willing to invest all this investment in the other party.

For him, life is a gamble. In addition to having sufficient funds, the most important thing for this gamble is to have a unique vision.

After Carlos changed the content, he handed it to Thorne and asked, "Is there anything else to modify?"

"No problem." Thorne looked up at Lilia who was beside him, noticed that the half-elf girl nodded slightly to him, so he answered, picked up the quill and signed his name directly on the sheepskin scroll.

Today was the second day after he returned to Waterfall Town from Merikai Temple. The purpose of gathering people in the lower city and upper city was to form an alliance.

The people of the lower city lack high-end power and a strong strategic fortress such as the wizard tower, and Thorne lacks huge construction funds.

The purpose of their cooperation is nothing more than that people in Xiacheng provide them with funds, and their obligation is to help Xiacheng expand its territory and develop resources.

Thorne knows that he is not a qualified lord and leader, and this kind of worrying is not what he likes to do, because he is very aware of his strengths and weaknesses, and he does not want to be affected by these things. The improvement of his strength.

Therefore, he also understands the importance of finding a partner in the field that he is not good at, so under Malvasia's suggestion, he chooses to reach a condition that both parties can satisfy with the people in the lower city.

"My goal is actually very simple. It is to protect our common home, Waterfall Town. I hope we can cooperate happily in the future."

After the signing, Thorne stood up and stretched out his right hand to look at Carlos, with an unprecedented solemn expression.

Guard the waterfall on the town.

A few words seem to be a very simple sentence to Thorne. If he tastes it carefully and thinks about the past and the future that has not yet happened, he will be able to understand how heavy these words are.

Whether it's the Insight, the Godslayer, and Sigil, or the god-building project and the goblin wizard Malvasia, who knows many obscure secrets, they all indirectly mentioned vague fragments of the future to him.

When Thorne knew these things, he probably understood how difficult and dangerous the road ahead was.

After all, they are all visitors from another world under a conspiracy. Surviving in this magical world, there will definitely be powerful beings who question their identities.

In fact, he still has a choice, and that is to walk away and ignore it.

But he certainly won't do it, because here are the people he deserves to guard and the promises he once made.

Of course, there is another point, that is, he has regarded this place as his second home, and he does not want to lose this home.

It is everyone's duty to protect their homeland, that's all.

"My goal is the same as yours, but a little bigger than yours." Carlos got up and held Thorne's right hand, and said with a smile, "It's a pleasure to cooperate."

Looking at Thorne's determined face, Carlos sighed with emotion.

Who would have thought that Thorne, who was once dubbed the "Facial Paralyzed Ranger" by people in the lower city, has changed so much in less than a year.

He not only helped the town of Waterfall to relieve the crisis of the hobgoblin assassin, but also became the guardian of the town of Waterfall that people talked about in the tavern.

It also left an indelible fear in the land of Silent Forest, so that whenever they heard the title of the stalker of the silent way, they would subconsciously shrink their necks.

"Fortunately, we have been tied together because of common interests." Carlos secretly rejoiced.

"Today is a day worth celebrating, so I invite everyone to go to the 'Sleeping Dragon' tavern to enjoy a drink for a day." Seeing that the two sides reached a consensus, Tolvey put away his pipe and said to everyone with a relaxed smile.

"Great!"

As soon as Torvey's voice fell, the excited voice of the tauren Alistar exploded first, causing a group of birds on the eaves to flutter their wings and disappear into the sky.

Such a loud voice caused everyone to stare strangely at this excited old cow. Brother Octopus, who felt a little uncomfortable, subconsciously distanced himself from the tauren.

"Is there any problem?" Feeling the strange gazes of everyone, Alistar asked suspiciously with a pair of bull's eyes.

No way, in order to set an example for his new tauren subordinates and let them endure the temptation of flesh and blood, he has not touched wine and meat for half a month, and every day is bread and fruit, and he has already had enough.

Since the other party sent an invitation, he naturally nodded rudely and agreed.

Moreover, the Sleeping Dragon Tavern is the best tavern in the entire waterfall town, and the taste is naturally not picky.

"Then have a good time." Seeing the slightly embarrassed Tauren, Thorne turned around and replied with a smile, and said to Torvey, "I have other things to do, so I won't go."

After that, he led Lilia out.

"Go on your own, you know, I never drink alcohol." After the orc swordsman Kutaig finished speaking, he picked up his sword and left.

In Kutaig's eyes, nothing can shake his determination to practice swordsmanship, and since Thorne gave him a book on swordsmanship skills obtained from the Underdark, he has been deeply attracted.

"That... I still have to learn spells. Instructor Malvasia has arranged a lot of work for me, so I won't play with you." After the mind flayer Vel'Koz said, he left the tauren and left quickly.

Since he came to the surface and worshipped the goblin wizard as a teacher under the recommendation of Thorne, he has deeply fallen in love with the knowledge of arcane arts.

And the sequelae of his brain sucking disappeared without a trace because of the reason for learning arcane magic.

But in the past few days, he has found that he seems to have acquired other hobbies, that is, as long as he does not stay in the elemental pool of the tower one day, he will feel uncomfortable.

There's even an urge to taste the waters of the elemental pools.

Aware of this situation, Vel'Koz felt that his life seemed to be up and down again, so he couldn't be delayed by other things, and he had to upgrade his wizard rank as soon as possible to suppress this temptation.

"Forget it, I'll go farming." Seeing that everyone had left, the tauren suddenly lost interest.

As the tauren patriarch of the Broken Horn clan, he has long-term considerations. He not only wants to make the tauren race a civilized race, but also enables them to be self-sufficient. The premise of all this is to learn to reclaim wasteland.

But if you expect these silly tauren to farm the land, you might as well let them harm the crops.

This is too embarrassing for them, so in order to teach these Hanhan subordinates hand-in-hand, Alistar almost alone has cultivated five or six acres of land from reclamation to seeding, and this is the easiest way to teach them to reclaim the land.

Thinking of farming, Alistar couldn't help rubbing his old waist. Yesterday, he had been bending over to sow seeds and water for almost a whole day, so much so that he was so tired that he could barely straighten his waist.

"Building the tauren civilization is a long way to go. The priests of the Church of the Mother Earth don't know when they will come." Alistar sighed as he walked.

At this time, he finally understood the true meaning of "only exhausted cattle, no ploughed land".

Thorne led the half-elf girl Lilia silently on the quiet road in the upper city.

When the two came to a fork in the road, Thorne suddenly stopped, so that Lilia, who was following behind, collided with him directly.

"Anything on your mind?" Thorne supported Lilia and asked with concern.

Although Lilia was not as melancholy as when he first returned to Fallstown, he always felt that she was preoccupied every time he saw the other party.

Thorne understands that the half-elf girl in front of her may never return to the way the two first met.

"It's okay." Lilia reached out and stroked the hair in front of her forehead, smiling perfunctoryly at Thorne.

Then she hesitated for a while, and finally summoned up the courage to ask, "Brother Thorne, will you guard our waterfall town forever?"

A few days ago in the temple of the Forest Goddess, she often saw Archbishop Lausien mentioning the Emerald Fields with deep worry in his eyes, and even prayed to the Goddess all night.

Such a strange move made her smell an inexplicable crisis.

"Didn't you already see my resolution on that contract." Thorne was startled for a moment when he heard Lilia's strange question, and then said with a smile.

"Well, I see." Lilia nodded at Thorne and smiled.

All of the contracts signed by Thorne and the lower city revolved around guarding the upper town of the waterfall. She was naturally very clear about this, but she didn't know why, she just wanted to hear Thorne admit it.

Seeing Lilia's sincere smile, Thorne looked dazed, as if he had returned to the time when he first came to the waterfall town, and sighed involuntarily.

"Archbishop Lausian asked me to tell you a word, if you have time, you can go to the ruins of Three Wild Boar Town in the Northland Wasteland." At this time, Lilia seemed to remember something and spoke again.

"The ruins of Three Wild Boars Town?" Thorne whispered, and then replied: "I know, I will go there when everything is stable."

The Town of Three Boars is the sleeping place of the **** of tracking, Guiren Storm, when he was a mortal ranger. As his follower, he is naturally very clear about this knowledge, but he doesn't quite understand the meaning of Archbishop Lauthian asking him to go there. .

"Then we are separated here, you go back and rest early." Thorne, who didn't quite understand, glanced at the bushes above his head and said goodbye to Lilia.

After speaking, he disappeared into the depths of another road.

Lilia stared at Thorne's back in the direction of the tower, until he disappeared from her sight, and then she looked back.

"boom!"

Just as she was about to leave, a fist-sized green fruit fell in front of her, and then Sigrid jumped from the tree.

Then the lively girl pulled the silent half-elf and disappeared on another road while talking and laughing at her.

Thorne walked along a grass-covered path, gradually stepping into the depths of the woods.

He passed through the sleeping place of the half-elves in the town on the waterfall, and felt the vigilant eyes hidden in the dark, and walked all the way to a wide open space.

Immediately afterwards, the vague outline of the tower came into his eyes.

Just as he was about to move on, a familiar figure appeared from among the flowers.

Not far away, Andrina, who was wearing a red dress with a waistband, walked in front of him among the first green flowers, and then wrapped her arms around him affectionately.

"Why are you here?" Thorne looked relieved, looking at Anderina and said unexpectedly.

"I guessed you'd come back from this road, so I'm waiting for you here." Andrina, who was next to Thorne, smiled slightly, and then asked, "How is it, is everything going well?"

"It went very smoothly, and it surprised me a little." Thorne met Andrina's bright eyes, and reached out to stroke her long loose hair.

…………