“How... how was this done?” Leiting opened his mouth wide in disbelief.

Dozens of small holes had appeared on the wall, each holding a stone emitting pure white light. Not only that, but a circle of these strange luminous stones was also installed around the edge of the ceiling. In the soft light, every detail of the hall was clearly visible.

This was the first time Ash had seen the Explorer with such an expression, and a feeling of pleasure arose in her heart. "Don't you know? After a witch infuses magic power into a magic stone, it can stimulate additional abilities."

"What about these? Are they also magic stones?"

Leiting carefully took out a luminous stone and held it in his hand. After leaving the small hole, its light did not weaken at all.

"I don't know," Tilly shook her head. "These stones may have been shining here for hundreds of years—if the ruins really have such a long history. Before, they were hidden behind the stone slabs, so they were never discovered. And only a witch can activate this special mechanism."

"Didn't you make them light up?"

"No, they can emit light on their own," Tilly grabbed a magic stone and held it up to her eyes, the pure white light illuminating her stunning face. "If this were a device that needed magic to maintain, then it couldn't be taken down so easily, just like a candle flame cannot easily leave the candle. Currently, the holes in the wall, apart from providing a place to put the luminous stones, don't seem to have anything special about them."

"If, as you said, it can emit light on its own and continue to shine for hundreds of years, then its value is simply immeasurable," Leiting marveled. "You know, a fist-sized piece of Snow Crystal Stone produced in the Eternal Winter Kingdom can sell for hundreds of gold dragons, and its brightness is less than half of this."

When the sailors heard such an astonishing price, the gazes they cast on those stones changed immediately.

"As we agreed before, you can take half," Tilly said noncommittally, or rather, her focus was not here at all. With sufficient light, she could explore this hall more carefully. Ash couldn't bear to watch her tear seaweed off one by one, so she simply swung her greatsword and swept away the clinging plants on the wall like mowing grass. Soon, a second magic stone hidden in the wall was also discovered.

Tilly injected magic power into it in the same way. Accompanied by a crisp metallic clanging sound, everyone was surprised to see that a huge stone slab above Tilly's head tilted and lowered, with several taut copper ropes pulled on both sides. The inside was actually a chiseled staircase. Finally, one end of the stone slab slowly fell to the ground, and the other end led to the top of the ceiling. Ash looked up and saw a horizontal metal door blocking the end of the passage.

"Tilly," seeing the Fifth Princess walk up the stone steps without hesitation, Ash couldn't help but say, "Let me go first."

"It's okay, this is not some... treasure trove," she climbed to the top of the stone steps, grasped a protruding magic stone next to the door, and the metal door quickly opened in response.

Seeing Tilly crawl into the door and disappear into the ceiling, Ash had no choice but to follow closely, while holding the greatsword in her hand.

After passing through the ceiling, Ash couldn't help but widen her eyes. Above the ceiling was a room much smaller than the hall, and the walls were also embedded with luminous stones—what surprised her even more was that there were almost no traces of water immersion here.

Wooden tables, chairs, shelves, cabinets... all the furnishings were intact, covered with thick dust, and even remnants of cobwebs could be seen. A row of books was neatly arranged on the shelves, all stained gray with dust. In addition to the open book, there were also cups, kettles, and pen holders on the table. Only a lone shaft of a quill pen remained, and the ink had long dried up. Compared to the hall below, which was full of algae and shells, it was like two different worlds.

Leiting climbed up third, and after looking around, he gasped, "This is..."

"An abandoned residence," Tilly picked up the open book on the table, gently patted off the dust, and flipped through it page by page. "Someone lived here for a long time."

"What's written on it?"

"I don't understand," she shook her head and spread the book open to show the two. "They are all words I've never seen before."

"The books on the shelves seem to be the same," Ash wiped the dust off the spine with her finger. The words were like strange wavy lines, completely incomprehensible.

"We can take them back and study them slowly," Tilly said with a smile. "According to the agreement, the books and magic stones are all mine."

"Of course," Leiting stroked his beard. "But when you discover something, I hope you can share this ancient story with me."

"No problem."

……

The three carefully searched the room on the second floor and quickly got a general understanding of the situation.

They didn't find any new magic stones, but instead discovered a strangely shaped object at the other end of the room—at first glance, it looked like a thick metal pipe, one end embedded in the stone wall, the other end gradually shrinking until only the thickness of a wrist was left, with a glass lens embedded at the end.

"What is this?" Ash knocked on the pipe, and a series of crisp echoes came from inside—obviously the pipe was hollow in the middle.

"It looks a bit like a nautical telescope. Maybe the person living here often used it to observe the outside world," Leiting put his eyes to the lens and looked for a while. "It's all dark... can't see anything, it must be broken."

"Not necessarily," Tilly pointed to the wall behind the metal pipe, "Look here."

Ash looked in the direction she was pointing, and saw a copper plate with a handle embedded in the wall. There was also a small hole below the handle, seemingly for a key to be inserted. The Fifth Princess walked over and tried to pull the handle, but the copper plate did not move at all. "It's locked."

"Let me do it," Ash grabbed the handle and pulled hard, and the entire copper plate suddenly came off the wall.

"Ha, looks like you guessed right," Leiting clapped his hands. "Another magic stone mechanism."

A huge magic stone was stuck in the groove behind the copper plate. Unlike the previous two, it looked much larger and the color was more purplish.

"Activate it?" Ash asked.

"Yes," Tilly nodded without hesitation, holding the stone with both hands, but this time there was no movement for a long time.

"What's wrong?"

"It's... too big," sweat had already appeared on her forehead. "I feel it's constantly absorbing magic power, it seems that the mechanism behind it is very large."

"Maybe we should forget about it," Ash frowned. She knew that once her magic power was exhausted, the witch might directly fall into a coma. It was obviously not a good choice to expend all her magic power in such a dangerous place.

"No, it's almost ready, I can feel it." Before Tilly finished speaking, a huge sound came from inside the wall, like continuous thunder, and then the entire room shook.

"Is this... an earthquake?" Leiting held onto the metal pipe to prevent himself from falling. Ash grabbed Tilly as soon as possible and held her in her arms. Dust fell rustlingly, and the three couldn't help but cough.

This kind of vibration lasted for nearly a quarter of an hour before gradually returning to calm.

Moriel poked her head out from the stairwell, "What happened just now?"

"A new mechanism," Ash curled her lips, "Is everything okay below?"

"Everyone was frightened, and several ceiling panels fell, but luckily I covered them with magic power servants." The little girl walked to her side, "Lady Tilly, what are you looking at?"

Unexpectedly, Tilly did not answer her, her eyes fixed on the end of the metal pipe. After a long time, she exhaled, "Incredible..."

Ash curiously put her eyes to it, and then was so shocked by the scene in front of her that she couldn't speak.

A vast land appeared on the other end of the "telescope," the edge of the land like a cliff, and she couldn't see the bottom at a glance. And in the center of the cliff stood a huge stone arch, the inside of the door was deep and dark, like a giant mouth choosing someone to devour.