What was it like to live as a prisoner in the Far North?

If you asked the former half-demon chieftain Bastaldos, he could sum it up in two words: not bad.

Life was like the endless rotation of a precise magical array: assembly, drills, running, labor… repeated until numbing.

Yet, though strict, there was no deliberate cruelty or oppression.

As for food, it was always mushrooms, rich in mana yet flavored with nothing but salt.

After months, eating had become no more than a biological need, with no pleasure attached.

Well, except for those who squandered their contribution points on “delicious mushrooms,” turning their “three-year sentence” into a life sentence.

On this land of monotony and cold, the prisoners were slowly worn down into obedient little “mushrooms” in the Puji farm.

And strangely… Bastaldos thought it wasn’t bad at all.

After that brief but brutal defeat, he had lost most of his tribe but gained enlightenment.

As a half-demon, the more he schemed for power and status, the more traps he fell into, ending in ruin.

Only by emptying the mind, drifting with the flow, could he find peace within.

This monotonous prisoner’s life was like a purification ritual, elevating his whole existence.

But of course, the Puji Boss couldn’t care less about the waves in his heart.

“Boy, feel honored! I’ve got a glorious mission for you! Do it well, and the rewards will be huge!”

Standing atop a fat Puji and resting a mycelium tendril on his shoulder, the Marshal Puji made Bastaldos—162 years old this year—start wondering about the Boss’s age.

“Right, Bas…” The Marshal Puji paused, as if consulting something. “...Bastaldos, you know how to use a bow?”

After hearing confirmation, the elven longbow Lin Jun had picked up in the Divine Wood Dungeon was delivered into his hands.

Feeling its power, Bastaldos knew it was precious. But after some hesitation, he admitted:

“Boss, I do use a bow, but melee combat… is actually my specialty.”

Even as he spoke, his left arm slashed out. Claws blurred, and a boulder beside him was sliced into fragments like tofu.

At the same instant, his succubus-like heart-shaped tail whipped out, spearing the falling fragments onto its tip.

His narrow violet eyes glinted.

The Puji Boss, who had once crushed his tribal coalition, now stood so close and unguarded…

So close that he could shred him like the stones and string him on his tail if he wished…

Poof—

The Marshal Puji hopped onto his head, crimson cloak covering his face.

“No melee,” came the nasty voice from above, “the enemy carries ‘disease.’ Get close and you’ll be infected! Try your new bow instead!”

With the Boss apparently not planning to leave his head anytime soon, Bastaldos sighed, lifted the cloak from his eyes, and examined the weapon.

Testing didn’t take long.

The bow’s trait allowed the user to set a target point beforehand. Any arrow fired, no matter the angle, would curve in a perfect, symmetrical arc and land exactly on that point.

But that was all.

It wasn’t a tracking magic arrow. It couldn’t dodge obstacles.

In the hands of a master, it could turn the ordinary into the divine. In the hands of a novice, it was worthless.

Bastaldos wasn’t a peerless archer, but he was competent enough.

Once he showed he could handle it, Lin Jun passed him a backpack Puji stuffed with arrows.

Meanwhile, from inside the Marshal Puji’s military cap, a Voice Puji crawled out, wrapping around Bastaldos’s arm as he watched in despair.

“So,” Bastaldos sighed again, resigned, “what exactly am I supposed to do?”

“Be a man and go down to the fifteenth floor?”

“?”

…

On the stairs of the tenth floor, Bastaldos passed a dazed werewolf trailing after a purple Puji.

With his succubus heritage, he immediately recognized enchantment.

He remembered the tailless lizardman waiting outside earlier—it was a whole recruitment process.

He looked a few more times, then turned away.

Nothing strange—just ordinary trafficking. His tribe had done plenty of that before.

Soon, he crossed the spatial rift on the seventh floor and entered the Divine Wood Dungeon.

After a brief shock at the sight, he began his mission to explore the depths—spurred on by the nonsensical cheer of the Voice Puji on his arm:

“Let’s go! Dylan Number Two!”

…

Meanwhile, a scout Puji with green cloth tied to its leg flapped out of the Divine Wood Dungeon, clutching something.

A ranger spotted it and moved to catch it, but his comrade stopped him.

“Don’t bother,” the other elf nodded at it. “That’s Lord Salyan’s little sister’s new pet. Always running around here.”

“Just let it roam? Not afraid it’ll get eaten?”

The elf only shrugged. Who could guess what that eccentric mage and his weirder sister were thinking?

…

At the edge of the treetop city, in a house built against a great tree, Salyan and his mentor, the elven king’s chief magical advisor, Ilos, finalized the details of the surveillance array.

It was simply his composite spell transformed into an array, set across the city’s nodes to monitor all activity and catch the radicals.

“I’ll head back now, teacher!”

“Salyan,” Ilos stopped him. “You’ve read those booklets. What do you think of this so-called ‘Ark’ organization?”

Salyan thought, then answered:

“The Mist is indeed dangerous, but the human-demon war is the true imminent crisis. If we follow those radicals, we’ll only drag peaceful elves into war. That would be disastrous. We must capture them.”

Ilos nodded in approval. “You raised a younger sister yourself, didn’t you? Protecting family from war… you’re a good brother.”

“Teacher, you flatter me…”

With a wave, Ilos dismissed him.

Stepping outside, Salyan exhaled deeply. He’d been so busy lately he hadn’t seen his reclusive sister at all.

He descended the wooden stairs toward the forest floor, heading straight for a familiar hut.

As he opened the door, he found Elawen with a Puji on her head, holding up a broken plank faintly glowing red.

Hearing the door, she ran to him, excited:

“Brother, look! Little Puji picked up something amazing!”