"You figured all that out just by reasoning?" Daniel said after a moment of thought. It seemed this boy was smarter than he looked.
In fact, none of the details he mentioned sounded particularly strange, but they were all so small and specific that most people would overlook them.
After all, there were many monsters that only acted during the night and slept during the day, but it was rare for that to be related to their weakness.
And more importantly, there was the matter of the remaining flesh on their bodies. At first, Daniel had thought it was just part of their species, something like zombies or similar undead creatures.
But now that he thought about it, the fact that only certain parts of their bodies still had flesh while the rest were just bone was... odd.
Yet this boy had managed to deduce all that.
"Yes, but honestly, there was a huge margin of error. A lot of my reasoning had big holes in it," Drael nodded slightly, "but at the time, I didn’t have another choice, so I just shouted for them to burn the creatures."
"I see. Still, I should thank you. It was thanks to you that I managed to kill them."
"Wha—no! Don’t say that! I just did a bit of reasoning! You were the one who crushed them with your power!"
"Anyway, what’s your first phase?" Daniel didn’t seem to care much and changed the subject again. Now that he knew the boy was somewhat intelligent, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to befriend him.
"I’m supposed to find a place called the Crimson Temple," Drael said after a short pause, as if debating whether he should reveal it or not.
In the end, he decided he had no choice. First, he was weak and had no idea why he’d been brought to such a dangerous place. Second, if both of their first phases were the same, he might be able to ask for help, making his journey easier.
"My first phase is also to find the Crimson Temple, but I don’t have any clue where to start looking."
"Perfect! Then we can help each other. Actually, I have a bit of an idea where it might be."
"Oh? Sure, I don’t mind. Having a travel companion isn’t a bad thing," Daniel said with a faint smile, not refusing.
"So how do you know where the temple is?"
"Well, I don’t know exactly, but I’ve tried to figure out the full size of this shore and form a general image of it in my mind. If I’m not mistaken, we should reach a mountain range soon, and behind that range lies the Crimson Temple," Drael said with a smile.
"You measured the whole Shore? How?" For a moment, Daniel felt a strange emptiness—he didn’t even know what to say.
"I have a skill called [Supermind]. It makes my mind much stronger and clearer, allowing me to easily perform any task that depends on intelligence or reasoning."
"In theory, you can estimate the entire length of a shore using the sun and moon and even predict whether there are large formations like mountains nearby. But practically speaking, the human brain isn’t powerful enough to handle that. With my skill, though, I can."
"I see. So you’re basically a living supercomputer," Daniel said, now looking at the boy in front of him with slight fascination.
"Huh? A what?" Drael looked confused, clearly not understanding the reference.
"Oh, nothing. Forget it. Let’s go to those rocks you mentioned. We should rest for the night and continue tomorrow," Daniel said.
The two of them started walking toward the large rocks Drael had mentioned. It didn’t take long to reach them.
Huge stones were scattered along the shore. Some were nearly the size of small houses, and the cracks between them could easily serve as good shelters.
Each of them picked a separate gap and settled there. Daniel, not wanting to risk any surprises, created several defensive layers using mana.
Then he sat cross-legged on the ground and entered a meditation state. All he wanted now was to recover the mana he had lost as quickly as possible.
Time passed slowly. The moon gradually disappeared from sight, replaced by the sun. The once-dark sky was now bright, with clouds scattered above.
Daniel slowly opened his eyes and looked around. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but it clearly wasn’t long.
Using his spiritual senses, he checked on his companion and noticed that Drael had just woken up as well.
He glanced at his mana. Fortunately, his mana pool had fully replenished, and there was no longer any deficit. For reassurance, he also checked his soul.
Luckily, there was no significant damage visible on his soul either...
"What’s that?" he suddenly noticed a strange blotch on his soul. He frowned slightly and tried to examine it more closely.
"Is my soul... burned?" It looked exactly like that, as if a part of his soul had been burned, though it also seemed to be in the process of regenerating.
He stood up, dispelled all the defensive layers, and stepped outside, letting the sunlight hit him directly.
"It’s so hot," he muttered with a slight frown. He could feel the burning sensation on his skin. If not for his physical toughness and the durability of his flesh, he might’ve been scorched under this sun.
Now he understood why the Undead Sea creatures never dared to come out during the day. This sunlight truly had the power to burn them.
"Ugh, it’s even hotter than yesterday," Drael came out too, groaning as he felt the heat.
"This heat is unnatural, just like the cold during the night."
"Yeah, it’s because during the day, the sun is much closer to us than it normally should be, and at night, it moves much farther away," Daniel explained.
"So that’s the reason, huh? What a strange place," Drael nodded in understanding.
Daniel also nodded but frowned slightly. This Shore was even stranger than he had expected.
Did a place like this really exist within the Celestial Domain?
Or could it be that this wasn’t part of the Celestial Domain at all... but somewhere entirely different?
He was starting to think that maybe this place wasn’t connected to the Celestial Domain