Living Fossil

The desert was scorching hot. Even the wind that blew across it came in waves of searing heat, yet seven people were walking toward its center.

However, the seven of them seemed completely unaffected by the dry, blistering weather. Even after walking for half a day, they had not shed a single drop of sweat.

Anyone who came near them would definitely notice that the area around them was unusually cool. It did not feel like the middle of a desert at all!

These seven were Josh’s party. Compared to how miserable Josh had been when he first left this desert, they were far more comfortable this time.

That was because the idiot Josh had finally remembered that he could use magic to alter the environment around him. Even a little adjustment was enough to make him incomparably comfortable!

Naturally, Josh received plenty of eye rolls. Even Natasha, who doted on him the most, could not help looking at him speechlessly.

With Alexios’s reminder, even though Josh had interrupted him, Garen and Natasha had basically confirmed that this was the damned place they had emerged from.

They did not blame Josh, the walking disaster, for making them take a round trip. After all, no one could accurately tell where they had landed in the vast desert.

Besides, making another trip was no big deal for professionals like them. But when they had come out before, they had suffered terribly from the desert.

Josh helplessly rubbed his hair. He really had been an idiot to forget to use magic, causing them to endure who knew how much hardship in the desert.

But this time, when Evelyn asked, "Why don’t you use magic to make the surroundings cooler?" Josh immediately remembered that he could do exactly that.

"Damn it, I deserved to suffer."

Josh gave a helpless, bitter laugh. He had genuinely forgotten about something like that.

Back on the Muya Continent, he had never encountered weather that unbearable. And when he participated in the Four Nations Invitation, he had mostly used magic in battle, which had made his reactions a little sluggish. He simply had not thought of it.

But none of that mattered now, because O’Connor had failed to find any transportation, leaving them no choice but to continue on foot.

This really was not O’Connor’s fault. Josh’s one-time teleportation had gone a little too far. Put simply, he had overshot the destination, and there were no cities anywhere nearby, not even a place to buy camels.

O’Connor had asked Josh whether he could teleport them back a little, but Josh had only shrugged helplessly. "If you want us stuck under the sand or inside some wall or rock, we can give it a try."

"???"

After thinking carefully about the consequences, would that not be no different from those corpses dug out of walls, underground, or beneath the sand?

O’Connor decisively shook his head and said forget it. He was following Josh and the others to dig up mummies, not to become one himself.

Moreover, he was certain that if that happened, the four people in front of him—not counting Evelyn and Jonathan, who were like him—would be perfectly fine. But Muggles like them, as these people called them, might not be so lucky. He did not want to be dug out of some bizarre place hundreds of years later and studied for half a day as part of some murder investigation.

So they chose to walk. It was a little tiring, but it did not seem too unbearable. Especially with Josh the mage using magic, they even felt that it was much more comfortable than riding camels!

Riding was no easy task. Riding a camel not only made your backside hurt, but also meant enduring the windblown sand and the blazing sun. Compared to that, they were a little more tired now, but suffered far less. As for safety?

With a mage and several people whose professions they did not know but who clearly looked difficult to mess with, how could anything possibly go wrong?

"Josh, what are you planning to do once we reach Hamunaptra?"

The journey was somewhat long, but they were not in a hurry. If Josh and the others rushed, O’Connor’s group of three would not be able to handle it, so they had kept their pace slow and treated the trip like a journey. Taking the opportunity, Garen asked Josh about his plans.

Garen’s question immediately made O’Connor’s group perk up their ears. They had heard Josh say that his goal was the two legendary Books of the Dead, but who knew whether they had other motives? This world was not so simple. In the past, they would have responded with nothing but contempt, but now they had no choice but to believe.

"Didn’t I tell you already? My goal is those two books."

"Of course I know that. Without those two books, how would you resurrect anyone? I mean that mummy who’s been dead for three thousand years. What are you planning to do with him? Are you still going to let him come back to life?"

Imhotep?

Josh rubbed his chin, considering the value of this man’s existence.

It had to be said that Imhotep was actually rather tragic. It was not obvious in the first film, but as the later installments continued, it truly became clear just how unlucky he was.

For the woman he loved, he had practically given everything even after death. Yet at the very end, the woman he loved lost her nerve and abandoned him, causing him to choose to end his own life.

As for how strong he was, Josh really did not take it to heart.

The movies said he was powerful and terrifying, but in Josh’s eyes, he was merely so-so.

The limits of this world were what they were. No matter how powerful he was, he could not surpass this world. After all, he was a native, not an outsider like Josh.

So Josh really did not care whether Imhotep would be resurrected as in the original story. What mattered was what he could bring Josh.

After thinking it over, Josh had his answer. Since this man was no threat, there was no need for Josh to care so much.

"Let him come back to life. After all, I don’t really believe that simply reading the contents of those two books can truly resurrect someone. That would make souls and life seem far too cheap. Well, life does seem rather cheap to us."

Josh spread his hands and said something that O’Connor and the others found utterly horrifying. Never mind a mummy coming back to life—Josh saying that life was very cheap to them was frightening enough.

At that moment, O’Connor and the others suddenly realized that these people’s disregard for life was even more terrifying than O’Connor’s as a soldier.

And they were not wrong. Josh rarely killed people, but that did not mean he had never killed anyone. Before Garen was taken away by Josh, he had only been a new recruit, but he was still at least a captain-level figure. The bloodiness of the cold-weapons era was not something the age of firearms could compare to.

Natasha was much the same. In Assassin World, she had carried out plenty of missions to train herself, and the number of people she had assassinated was countless.

As for Alexios, well, he was a real badass. From his conversations with him, Josh knew that whenever a mercenary picked a fight with Alexios, there was only one outcome—ending up dead in the street.

Especially in Alexios’s era, life was worth nothing at all, and slaves were the foundation and symbol of the age. Thus, Alexios had personally dealt with more lives than anyone among them. It was only because he had lived for a thousand years that the bloodiness on him had gradually been worn away. Without looking carefully, no one would notice anything.

"So you’re planning to resurrect Imhotep, teach him a lesson, and then have him teach you how to use this resurrection magic?"

"More or less."

Josh nodded and admitted it without hesitation. His reason for bringing Evelyn along was to learn the language of Ancient Egypt and then try to cast the resurrection magic.

Once he understood the magic, he could have Imhotep explain its principles to him. Josh felt that he would probably be able to learn it.

Even if he truly could not figure it out, he could always go back and have Akathosh learn it.

Ever since Natasha and he had become intimate, that lazy dragon still hid inside Josh’s body during the day, but at night he would very consciously leave and wander off somewhere.

Josh could not be bothered to care much about it. In that guy’s words: "What’s so interesting about you humans mating? I’m sick of watching it—in your mind. And you’d better hope your little bean sprout lasts longer."

Combined with that bastard’s contemptuous gaze, Josh had really wanted to strangle him to death. That bastard did not even consider that Josh’s performance in the past had indeed been pretty good, but what about now?

Could Akathosh’s current size compare to before?

Still, that guy’s understanding of magic was truly extraordinary. Josh felt that even if he could not learn it, that did not mean Akathosh could not.

"Are you trying to resurrect someone?" Evelyn was a little stunned, but her intelligence was absolutely exceptional. From Josh and the others’ scattered remarks, she had already pieced together quite a lot.

"Yes. Our purpose in going to the legendary City of the Dead is very simple and clear: those two books. More accurately, we want to study what those books can do, then help Alexios resurrect his friends and family."

Now that he had made up his mind, Josh was not afraid to say it outright. But after he finished speaking, Jonathan unexpectedly looked at Alexios with pity and patted him on the shoulder. "I’m sorry, mate, for the tragedy you’ve faced."

"Uh, thanks. But I think you may have misunderstood something. My friends and family all died naturally. Nothing particularly tragic happened to them."

Alexios shrugged, accepting Jonathan’s consolation, before adding, "They’ve been dead for over a thousand years, that’s all."

"…" Jonathan’s face stiffened, and O’Connor and Evelyn were no different. Over a thousand years? What the hell? Did you look like someone who had lived for over a thousand years?

But Alexios seemed to remember something. Rubbing his chin, he continued, "Oh, no. What year is it now? I was probably born around 480 BC."

"…" O’Connor and the others stared blankly at Alexios. Finally, Evelyn asked with a twitching mouth, "So you lived through the Peloponnesian War? You’re Greek?"

"More or less, but let me correct you. I’m Spartan!"

"…"

"Oh, right. My maternal grandfather was Leonidas, King of Sparta."

"…"

O’Connor and the others felt like they were collapsing inside. Just what were these people? Were they all Living Fossils?