Carl tried hard to memorize the terrain along the way. He planned to restore a 1:1 map in the dream world after returning and then practice his off-road ability.

As the saying goes: Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will win every battle.

How can we expect to win if we are not even familiar with the route to the enemy's lair?

Returning to the edge of the woods along the original route, Carl continued to move forward and soon saw the Mind Flayers and some Brain Devourers heading towards the canyon at the outermost edge of the woods.

No one knew what the Mind Flayer was thinking. He actually used his psychic power to levitate himself in the air and move forward.

Not only is the speed slow, but you also have to stop and rest occasionally.

But as he watched, a guess suddenly popped up in Carl's mind.

'This mind flayer may have just completed its transformation and its control over psychic energy is not very sophisticated, so it uses this method to familiarize itself with psychic energy.'

There are advantages and disadvantages when intelligent creatures transform into mind flayers.

The most suitable ones are naturally humans of the right age and level.

Races with "fey blood" such as goblins, half-elves or elves are not so suitable for transformation into mind flayers.

Although they can be forcibly converted successfully, such mind flayers will be a little slower in adapting to psychic energy.

After all, the fey bloodline has a certain resistance to hypnosis caused by charm and magical effects, which will make the memories of the converted have a greater impact on the mind flayer, thus hindering the newly born mind flayer from using psionic powers.

Psychic power is a power that originates from the mind. If even self-awareness becomes blurred, psychic power naturally cannot progress quickly.

But after thinking this through, a new question emerged in Carl's mind.

'What are they doing in the canyon?'

After a brief contemplation, Carl's face changed.

"That weird thing under the goblin tribe, could it be from the mind flayer? No, no, no, although the mind flayers were once subordinates of those ancient evil demons, the mind flayers living on the surface rarely collude with the evil demons. However..."

Thinking of the information Hope had told him about the mind flayer who kidnapped him, Carl became less confident in his moral integrity.

According to Hope, the mind flayer was dissatisfied with the Mastermind's training of him, so he planned to control Greywall City and use the trade plan with the Kingdom of Breland to seize control of the Mastermind.

However, his plan was exposed soon after it began, and the mayor of Graywall City beat him half to death.

The guy was let off only by begging for mercy.

As a result, he turned around and regretted his decision. He directly robbed an airship, severed the connection with the main brain, captured some local residents of Greywall City, and ran to the Dark Abyss to try to make a comeback.

What can I say about this person? He definitely has some intelligence.

The mind flayers and their mastermind are connected in a form similar to a hive consciousness. Logically speaking, the mastermind will know what the mind flayers are thinking when they are under its control.

The fact that he was able to carry out the plan was considered to be a good job of keeping it secret.

But judging from the current situation, it is not impossible that this mind flayer will collude with the evil demons sealed in Khyber in order to make a comeback.

He even dared to kneel down and beg for mercy in the market of Grey Wall City. It was just such forbearance, plus he was so thick-skinned that he turned around and betrayed her.

At least Carl felt that the possibility of him colluding with the evil spirits was very high! Standing up, Carl was about to rush back home to upgrade his equipment to prevent himself from having to save his life if something that shouldn't appear appeared in this dungeon.

However, the group of mind flayers in the distance suddenly dispersed.

Faintly, Carl seemed to see a figure swaying in the canyon.

"Could it be that the bugbears and hobgoblins from that goblin tribe have returned? What a coincidence?"

Thinking about the fact that he had taken back most of the property of the goblin tribe, the corners of Carl's mouth twitched slightly under his helmet. He always felt that it was a pity that he couldn't be there to watch the show in person.

With the most humble expectations, Carl waved his arms twice towards the distant canyon, cheering for them silently.

Turning his head, Carl took another long detour and returned to the mushroom.

In order to hide himself, he retracted the climbing rope after returning to the cap.

In this way, even if someone discovers this place, at least they won't be able to climb up directly along the rope.

"We need to hurry up and upgrade the power armor, as well as the magic patterns for rapid-fire weapons and firearms. If possible, we can consider changing the model of the power armor to the guardian to strengthen the close combat. With the firearms for long-range combat, the close combat is still a bit weak."

Looking back at the wooden house behind him, Carl took off his power armor, walked to the smelting furnace, and injected spirituality into the rune plate again.

“Ding! Ding! Ding!”

The sound of blacksmithing continued to emanate, as Carl gradually hammered a piece of leftover scrap into a regular octagonal badge and then hung it on the smelting furnace.

This is the mainstream belief in Eberron - the symbol of the Nine Gods of Destiny, or also known as the Gods of Destiny.

Each of the eight sides represents a god in a certain field, and the octagonal emblem itself is a symbol of the god of knowledge and law.

People believe that the sum of all the gods of destiny is all the good things in the world, and most people pray to them whenever they encounter difficulties.

However, although the belief in the gods of destiny is widespread, there has never been a formal revelation from God.

As long as one walks on the path that is in line with their corresponding fields, even if one has never chanted their teachings, one can still receive their blessings and become a priest.

Because of this, the gods of destiny have no church, and people's belief in them is rather casual. It is a folk belief with a large population base but little organizational power.

But there are temples of them everywhere on the continent of Khorvaire, just like the Taoist temples in Carl's previous life.

The reason why Carl made this holy emblem, besides trying to get a feel for it through simple forging, was actually to try his luck and hope to rely on metaphysics to ask the gods of destiny to bless him.

Now with the mind flayers in front and the goblin tribe behind, it is difficult to really change this dire situation through hard work alone.

So Carl finally chose to burn incense.

…

"Disgusting monster! Take my axe!"

At the entrance of the canyon leading to the goblin tribe, several bear goblin barbarians who were sent to guard the place went berserk and rushed towards the brain eaters and mind flayers.

The mind flayer transformed from an earth elf obviously did not expect that so many barbarians would appear in the tribe during the days he was away, and he was a little at a loss for a moment.

The brain-eating monsters originally wanted to use their psychic power to immobilize the bear goblins as they did before, and then teleport into their brains.

But the berserk bear goblins were completely out of their control.

The heavy metal axe chopped down from the air.

With a "puff", a brain-eating monster died on the spot.

"Guji~, retreat!"

With a vicious look sweeping over the group of bear goblin barbarians, the Mind Flayer directly released a powerful psychic energy, which blew most of them away.

He himself took the remaining brain-eating monsters and fled towards the mushroom forest.

Compared with his previous "leisurely stroll", this time, his floating speed was incredibly fast.

(End of this chapter)