Chapter 760 A Ruin!

Hao Ren was shocked to hear the news, his surprise no less than when he had just learned that this planet had two crusts, the surface crust being the petrified canopies of giant trees. He immediately zoomed in on the images, confirmed the authenticity and approximate scale of the ruins, and then asked the data terminal to teleport everyone there immediately: the ruins were quite far from here, almost on the other side of the planet, and it would take too long to drive there.

The data terminal emitted a blue halo, and everyone's figures disappeared in the teleportation light screen in an instant. The next moment, they had arrived at the location of the distant probe.

It was also a magnificent prairie.

Hao Ren reached out and caught the probe flying towards him, put this little guy who had made a contribution into his portable space, then climbed onto a high ground and looked out at the large building complex not far away. The vast and magnificent scenery here made people unable to breathe.

The endless green grass stretched to the horizon, and the vast prairie undulated slightly like a gentle sea wave. The magnificent scenery was like an oil painting, and on this prairie, an ancient city built of giant stones stood majestically. The city had an architectural style similar to that of the Aztecs. Although most of the walls had collapsed, the former scale could still be seen. In the center of the city and on the side of the high ground, there were several large and small flat-topped pyramids, and between these pyramids were wide avenues paved with giant stones. These roads divided the city into several orderly square areas, each with rows of stone houses. Except for the pyramids, most of the buildings in the city were no more than three stories high, which made the pyramids even more spectacular.

"Incredible..." Hao Ren murmured, "There are such ruins here... I thought the eldest son would cause earth-shattering vibrations when making those Tianzhu giant trees, and everything on the second crust should have been destroyed."

As he spoke, he looked up into the distance. At a distance of only a dozen kilometers from the city, a spectacular black giant pillar connected the sky and the earth could be seen, and in the other direction of the horizon, another such "pillar" could also be seen. In fact, in this "underground world" with excellent air quality, even if you don't stand on a high place, you can always see at least two Tianzhu giant trees supporting the sky and the earth: those magnificent pillars are too big, and they extend all the way to the rock dome, so you can see them from any angle.

The city was only a dozen kilometers away from the Tianzhu giant trees, but it was safe and sound. Hao Ren thought this was an incredible miracle: he had witnessed the scale of those giant trees with his own eyes. The aerial roots exposed on the surface were mountains as high as a thousand meters, and considering that these giant trees were evolved from the eldest son's tentacles, the movement when they emerged from the ground must have been earth-shattering. Even if the eldest son was deliberately careful, it was impossible to tear a crack a dozen kilometers wide in the earth without harming the city so close at hand, because this was an inevitable physical process. So there was only one conclusion...

This city was built after the dome closed.

But according to the judgment of those crazy "third sons" on the surface crust, this planet should have encountered a complete ecosystem reset, so who built this city on the original crust after the dome closed? Were they mortals? Did they escape the eldest son's purge? Or... did the purge not happen at all?

A lot of questions entangled Hao Ren's brain nerves, and the answers seemed to be in that city.

The group came to the city ruins. Closer up, this ancient and solemn stone city exuded an even more desolate and heavy atmosphere: if the Tianzhu giant trees and the canopy dome were the "natural power" created by the eldest son, then this city ruin was the "human miracle" built by mortals with manpower. Even if the scale was vastly different, it also had a side that could shock people. Even Lily couldn't help but become serious. She didn't even pay attention to the small stones that could be seen everywhere (usually these would be collected into her dog's treasure), but rubbed a square pillar she passed by with her hand: "It looks like it's handmade, and you can still see the traces of axes and chisels on the edges. It takes a lot of manpower to pile up so much stone into a city."

Rows of stone buildings that had been sleeping for thousands of years stood silently on both sides of the road. Moss and vines eroded the gaps in these buildings, leaving mottled green traces in the stone crevices. Many buildings showed signs of cracking, and many houses had even completely collapsed into piles of rubble. In the collapsed rubble, tenacious grass and green vines still grew from the cracks, fluttering in the wind.

Some ancient stone walls still had some color on them. They were paintings and words from ancient times: the ancients who left this ruin obviously had special technology. The pigments they made still had some remaining after so many years of weathering and erosion, which attracted Hao Ren's attention.

He bent down in front of a broken stone slab. This stone slab should have been inlaid on a high platform in front of him. The high platform looked like a ritual site, with special rules and a solemn atmosphere. And on the stone slab, Hao Ren saw mottled paint and some faintly discernible relief images.

The relief should be depicting some kind of natural phenomenon. Hao Ren saw a sphere emitting light at the top of the picture, and undulating wavy lines at the bottom of the picture. He didn't know whether it represented the sea or the prairie: this "underground" world didn't have large-scale oceans, only a lot of lakes and rivers, so he wasn't sure whether the ancients who left these reliefs had the concept of "ocean".

Hao Ren found something at the bottom of the stone slab, so he reached out and cleared the moss and weeds on it. He saw some symbols that looked like words, which looked a bit like cuneiform.

"Terminal, translate."

The data terminal came over and scanned it, and floated to the side: "Wait, this machine needs more characters to form a sample library. There should be other texts nearby."

Lily stood in front of a huge stone tablet and shouted: "There are! There are a lot of words here!"

The data terminal flew around collecting texts, and associated the character sample library with those relief images, and then returned to the stone slab: "It says: Praise the sun, which once brought light and heat to the earth. We firmly believe that it is still burning in the sky of its hometown, and its light shines in our spirit."

Then it found another stone slab next to it. This stone slab depicted a large number of plants and animals, as well as curved symbols floating between the plants and animals. There were also words under this stone slab: "Praise all living beings, the goddess's outstanding creation. Souls flow between all living beings, the dead are not dead, and the living are also in death. We are with all the living and the dead."

"These are all religious stone slabs," Hao Ren stood up and came to the stone tablet that Lily found, "What's on this?"

"Spells, a lot of prayers, no clear meaning," the data terminal's light wandered on the stone tablet, "Calling for the power of the wind, calling for the power of the clouds, calling for the power of the earth, water, plants and stones, and also large paragraphs of text praising a certain natural phenomenon. This looks like something that would be used in a magic ritual. According to the style of the prayer, it's a bit like druid or some kind of natural totem belief."

Hao Ren oh-ed. He only had a smattering of knowledge about magic itself, and he was even more ignorant about such unpopular things as totem beliefs. But at this time, Nangong Sanba seemed to have suddenly discovered something. He took out a small bottle from his arms: "Wait, let me try it."

As he spoke, he poured out some grayish-white translucent viscous grease from the bottle, applied the grease to the surface of the stone tablet, pressed his hand on the greased area, and injected magic power into it. With a slight humming sound, layers of light green light appeared on the stone tablet. This light resonated with the surrounding stone platforms and stone slabs, and continued even after Nangong Sanba took his hand away, until the magic oil suddenly burned to ashes before it stopped.

Lily didn't understand: "What is this?"

"Testing whether there is any residual magic power," Nangong Sanba wiped his hands, "Items that have carried magic power will leave traces more or less, and they will change after being stimulated by the Night Owl potion. These stone slabs and stone tablets are not only ritual items, they have really participated in magic reactions."

"That is to say, the builders of this city were a magical civilization," Hao Ren understood, "No wonder they could build such magnificent things, they should have been assisted by magic."

At this time, a subtle aura of outsiders suddenly appeared not far away. Everyone sensed it almost at the same time, and looked up in unison. The next second, a sharp "whoosh" sound pierced through the air towards them. Lily immediately reached out and grabbed an arrow with a green light on the arrowhead.

Hao Ren looked in the direction of the aura in surprise. He saw a tall and strong humanoid creature flashing past the top of a collapsed stone wall!

(Double monthly tickets! Double monthly tickets!)