Chapter 396: Chapter 395 Mo’er?!

In the courtyard of the experimental facility, the main laboratory.

Richard continued reading the letter from Heidi at the experiment table, reaching the last part, he furrowed his brows, reading it several times over.

“Right, Mr. Richard, I almost forgot to tell you at the end. Wooden Island is actually not an island, but simply a place name. It got its name apparently from a legend a long time ago. It’s said that there were many Thief Groups wreaking havoc here, and for safety, people built fortresses out of wood to defend themselves. In the end, they turned this place into a strongly fortified island-like location surrounded by water on all sides, easily defended and hard to attack, causing all the Thief Groups to know the difficulty and retreat, thus peace was obtained.

After peace was restored, the people tore down the fortresses, but the name remained, hence the so-called Wooden Island. Of course, now people call it by its new name, which is… Mo’er.

Correct, this place is called Mo’er.

Anyway, if you, Mr. Richard, plan to leave White Stone City but don’t know where to go, you can come take a look at Mo’er, and I will always look forward to meeting you.

With gratitude, Heidi.”

“Rustle–”

Richard folded the parchment and placed it aside, his fingers gently tapping the tabletop, producing a rhythmic “tap tap” sound.

“Wooden Island? Wooden Island! Mo’er? Mo’er!”

A simple name was one thing, but connecting the two names made him involuntarily think of something. Like…

Richard flipped his hand and pulled out a wooden box from the Space Iron Ring. He opened the box and took out a small piece of neatly cut, well-preserved parchment.

This was exactly what he had extracted from the inside of a Metallic Ball after solving the Seventeen-step Magic Cube. Unfolding it, there was a place name written on it that still held no clues to this day–Stockholm.

Wooden Island? Mo’er? Stockholm?

No matter how you looked at it, it seemed like these three had some special connection.

Not to mention the current world, but at least on modern Earth, this was the case.

Richard remembered very clearly, on modern Earth there was a city with a similar name to Stockholm–Stockholm.

This city was the capital of Sweden, and of course, what was more famous than the city itself was the psychological condition named after it–Stockholm Syndrome, also known as the hostage complex or syndrome.

This is a situation where a hostage in a criminal act has a fragile bottom line of fear when faced with a completely irrational criminal who could take their life at any moment, leading them to subconsciously entrust their right to life increasingly to the criminal. Over time, eating a bite of food or drinking a sip of water, the hostage would feel it’s a sign of the criminal’s tolerance and mercy. Eventually, the hostage’s fear of the criminal turns into gratitude, and then avid worship. At this point, the hostage delusionally believes the safety of the criminal is their own safety and actively helps the criminal escape punishment.

Simply put, this is humanity’s submission to brutality.

This phenomenon was first discovered during the 130-hour standoff in a bank robbery case in Stockholm, hence the name.

Of course, what Richard was now focusing on was the city itself–Stockholm!

Stockholm is a special name. In the local language, “Stego” means wood or wooden, and “Mo’er” means island; combined, it translates to “Wooden Island.”

Thus, modern Earth’s Stockholm is also known as Wooden Island.

About this name, there are many origins.

One of them says that in ancient times, a huge log floated on Melar Lake, guiding the first group of immigrants from Sigtuna to establish the city, thus named Wooden Island.

Another legend says the locals were often harassed by Pirates, so they built a fortress out of huge logs on a small island at the entrance to the lake from the sea and set up wooden stakes in the water as obstacles to fend off the Pirates, hence the island got its name “Wooden Island.”

The latter legend is extremely similar to what Heidi described in the letter.

This clearly cannot be explained by a mere coincidence, making Richard inevitably suspect that there must be some unknown secrets involved.

The current Wizard World, compared to modern Earth, has many similarities, something Richard had known for a long time; the universality of certain physical rules already illustrates this point. However, he didn’t really think that it was the same world, or rather that it wasn’t presentations of the same world at different time points.

He thought this way, but as he visited more places, experienced more, and met more people, he increasingly felt that the truth of the matter might not be as simple as he imagined.

Like Mo’er now, it was a living example.

“Wooden Island? Stockholm? Stockholm? Mo’er?” Richard muttered to himself, his eyes narrowing into slits, “Let’s not say whether this is really one place, or whether it hides the subsequent secrets of the Black Spirit King’s Treasure, but there’s indeed a reason, after leaving White Stone City, to take a look at this place.”

“So, I’ll spend the last few days tidying up some loose ends and then leave White Stone City to go to Mo’er?” Richard decided.

Just then, a sudden “boom” of an explosion sounded not far from the courtyard, and the entire courtyard shook, causing a large amount of dust to fall from the ceiling of the main laboratory.

“Hm?!” Richard’s gaze sharpened, and with a bounce of his feet, he quickly left his original spot, dodging the falling dust.

Then, with a slight glow from the No.1 Ring on his finger, the “Wind Light Spirit” Magic Rune was activated, air condensed under his feet, increasing his speed, and with a “bang,” he knocked open the door to the yard.

After scanning around, without seeing any suspicious targets, Richard raised an eyebrow, thought of something, and immediately cast the powerful Spell “Wind Lord” that he obtained from the tomb.

The power of Wind Magic was enhanced comprehensively.

“Snap!”

With a light sound, Richard’s body shot up, he tapped the wall with a single foot, quickly scaling the rooftop. Then, like a quiet feather falling, he crouched down, looking in the direction where the noise had come from.

Then Richard saw, at the end of the street, a Black Shadow escaping, with several figures chasing closely behind. The pursuers continuously cast spells to slow down the fleeing Black Shadow, who was extremely agile and managed entirely to evade being hit. The previous booming sound was caused by a dodged spell.

After seeing this, Richard relaxed a bit, knowing it wasn’t coming for him. But then his brow wrinkled again: Considering the location of his residence in White Stone City was already quite remote, and the fighters managed to chase all the way here, it seemed that the situation in White Stone City was truly dire, and it was unknown what the rest of the place looked like.

In that case…