Chapter 38: 37. Ancient Civilization (Continuing to ask for follows)

37. Ancient Civilization (Continuing to ask for follows)

The path ahead was right before their eyes, and there were no doubts.

The two unified their opinions and goals, and after resting for a while, they began preparing to leave the island-heart world.

Leon had originally thought it would take a long time to pick up the gems, but Zoe summoned the Earth Serpent.

The golden holy snake coiled beside the young girl amidst a burst of light; it no longer displayed any ferocity, but instead looked to the girl for guidance, snuggling up to her just like a pet puppy.

"She and I are already familiar with each other; we can talk in our minds."

Zoe said as she gently stroked the giant snake's chin; its massive maw was large enough to swallow her whole in one gulp, but it truly seemed as though their minds were connected.

"She can help us collect the gems."

Zoe and the holy snake exchanged a glance, and the latter turned its head, the crown on its brow lighting up as if it had used some sort of spell, causing the surrounding air to tremble slightly.

Soon, the sounds of earth breaking and hard objects colliding filled the hollow; the gems pushed aside the rubble, floated into mid-air, and then flew toward the Earth Serpent.

It opened its jaws, and the gems flowed like water into the snake's mouth, which was lined with amethysts on the inside.

"This is?"

"Her body can store these gems, and then when they merge with me, I can carry them around easily."

That was certainly a good method.

In the Newbis world, equipment like the storage rings or spatial pockets found in some fantasy works of the past were extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely rare, and only forces with significant wealth and power could possess them.

Even for a top-tier team, there might only be one or two, used solely for carrying the most important items.

Leon estimated the value of the gems swallowed into the snake's mouth; he couldn't buy an estate in the Holy Capital, but buying a small building with a courtyard would be no problem at all.

If he wanted to buy an airship, he would still need to scrape together funds for good equipment and a magitech engine, but the hull should be affordable.

The startup capital for his new adventure had arrived in one fell swoop.

The system map wasn't lying when it said "hidden locations have rich rewards."

He was a bit curious: did other places, whether he had been there before or not, also have "hidden locations"?

He felt that this hidden location definitely didn't just refer to the island-heart hollow; it was only because the island-heart hollow of Satus Island had items in it that it counted as a hidden location.

It was necessary to go and check every place he visited.

He just hoped that the hidden locations in the Holy Capital, where the power level was very high, wouldn't be places like bank vaults... though that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing; he still hadn't settled his accounts with the bank.

How exactly did they accept Rams's bribe, freezing his assets just like that?

As he thought about it, all sorts of troublesome matters gradually surfaced: favors he owed, invitations to explore forbidden lands, long-term commissions he had taken on, custom orders, an invitation to join a team from a certain difficult young lady...

Casting these things to the back of his mind, Leon and Zoe returned to the ruins.

The Earth Serpent sent out five successive shockwaves, shattering the rock layer on the cave walls into massive boulders that buried the ruins beneath them, but it seemed to have some mysterious power maintaining its form, so it wasn't crushed by the stones; instead, it propped up the giant rocks, with only a few cracks appearing on the hall pillars.

Now with the Earth Serpent, its body only needed to arch forward to push all the giant rocks away.

Stepping back into the hall and seeing the half-remaining circular array and mechanical pillars again, Leon discovered that a small amount of golden light spots remained in the deepest part of the array's grooves.

He used his gloved index finger to wipe a bit, seeing that it was some kind of golden powder, much like the residue left after a liquid had dried.

And at the center point of this half-array was an egg with a golden shell that had long since hatched.

"This is?" Zoe glanced toward the Earth Serpent.

"According to your father's notes, this snake was hatched right here," Leon said.

The young girl said to the giant snake, "Do you remember this, Xiao An?"

"Xiao An?"

"Yeah, she just told me her name is Anastasia; that name is so long and hard to pronounce, so I just shortened it."

"Fine."

The Earth Serpent, or rather Xiao An, used its head—which was anything but small—to nudge the eggshell at the center of the array.

"She says she can't remember," Zoe said.

Leon was a bit concerned about one thing: why would a Star Soul have a name?

Monsters didn't name their children to identify individuals like sentient races did; they were born from accidental anomalies like magical disasters, and most behaved like wild beasts.

After forming populations, sentient races would name them, but they only gave them species names.

And some people liked to give names to the monsters or summoned beasts they contracted, with a mindset similar to keeping a pet.

Super-monsters like the Island King or certain regional bosses were identified by titles. For example, "Worm King," "Purgatory King," "Heavenly Calamity God," "Abyss Demon," and so on.

Zoe's father said in his notes that Anastasia was "hatched" by these ruins.

Leon pondered in the ancient ruins for a while.

Keeping the various conjectures that had surfaced to himself, he simply drew the runes in his portable adventure notebook.

Before raiding the Ancient City of Dark Night, he had made a trip to the magic capital, Thousand Towers City, and specifically checked all relevant information in the Corridor of Ten Thousand Scrolls there.

The reason the Ancient City of Dark Night was called the Ancient City of Dark Night was because there was a spatial distortion above it; this distortion caused the supernatural world and the natural world to collide, and magic that wouldn't normally interfere with the material world continued to cause interference within the distortion, making the daylight disappear and shrouding the city in darkness for thousands of years.

Monsters were constantly being generated in the dark night, and they occupied the ancient city below as their nest; many scholars speculated that this was the reason for that civilization's demise.

Among these monsters, the strongest was the Worm King; it manipulated the power of death, constantly resurrecting the dead ancient people in the city into high-level undead creatures, making Moon Night Island, where the ancient city was located, a forbidden land, and even polluting the nearby airspace, affecting other islands.

In the process of subjugating it, Leon discovered that this ancient city belonged to a very special civilization; they had long ago mastered the ability to travel through the sea of clouds and established cities on different islands, all of which contained a large number of runes with unknown meanings.

Scholars in Thousand Towers City categorized the civilization that used similar runes as a people called the "Deus."

Leon didn't continue to look into the Deus; if he had, he didn't know how many more days he would have had to spend in the library.

Newbis was very ancient, and various glorious ancient civilizations had existed and then perished; the time intervals between them were even longer than their own durations.

Some of the wealth from these civilizations was used by adventurers, who often found good items with special functions but whose principles could not be analyzed or replicated.

And the currently prevalent magitech was developed by inventors relying on their own epoch-making knowledge combined with the remnants of various ancient civilizations.

The ruins related to the Star Soul and the Deus were worth noting, Leon felt.

Aside from the circular array and the creation equations the system had hinted at, there was nothing else in the ruins, and Zoe didn't have any further special reactions.

The two then returned to the surface.

The return trip was very pleasant, as they could ride on Xiao An's back; its serpentine body easily climbed the steep surfaces between the rock crevices, carrying the two back to the surface.

On the fifth night on Satus Island, the journey to the island's heart ended, feeling as if they had lived through a whole new life.

Arriving at the wellhead in the basement, Xiao An turned into light and merged with Zoe, and the two returned to her home.

"Finally back, so tired, I want to sleep." The young girl stretched and was about to walk into the house.

"I suggest you wash up," Leon said.

After the battle underground, both of them were covered in sweat and dust.

The backyard only had a wooden shed with a water pipe for showering; to take a proper bath, they would have to go to the pond in the mountain forest, and besides, the toiletries in Zoe's house had long since run out.

It wouldn't be long before Leon would take her away from this life where everything was in short supply.

Avoiding the problem girl's attempt to pull him into the shed, Leon only went in after she came out pouting.

He wetted himself with the water pipe, the cool mountain spring brushing against his cheeks, but a cluster of red light lit up in his dark field of vision.

Opening his eyes, the night sky in the distance was lit up in red, as if stained by the sunset, but it was mixed with a touch of purple.

Various roars resounded through the sky, especially the sounds of explosions.

He frowned.

The purple-red light clusters were dust clouds produced by magitech naval guns, which meant a war was taking place in the sky not far away.