Chapter 2589: Ancient Secret Site

Subsequently, in the laboratory, after the light and shadow twisted and flickered, the scene behind the Folded Space finally welcomed its first peeper after countless years.

Perhaps because it was a near-cross-plane peeping, or perhaps due to the Midi's inherent Avoidance of Detection effect, the scene of the Folded Space that Xia Duo saw through the Projection was not clear, and it was also from an elemental perspective.

Elemental Scrying is the type of Scrying that involves the least movement of the projected Perception Field; it hides within the faint Element Turbulence that naturally emerges and dissipates in space, making it very suitable for the first round of peeping into secret areas.

In the elemental perspective, the Folded Space seemed to be in a state of dormancy; the emergence and dissipation of elements that appear randomly in normal space seemed somewhat mechanical and rigid here, and at the same time, the blurred outline of the Reality it connected to showed no signs of movement at all.

Xia Duo speculated that it might be under a seal and protected by specialized Magic, which was why it had not discovered his peeping at this moment.

Either the ancient Elves had not thought of this trick at all, or the disturbance he created was truly too small, and the Midi, in order to exist for as long as possible, had ignored all disturbances that did not involve its core parts.

The former is likely not the case; the ancient Elves' magical technology was not necessarily worse than it is now, which can be seen from the plane-restraining Folded Space.

Although there is a possibility that development took different directions, in terms of Avoidance of Detection, they could not have been completely ignorant of Elemental Scrying, so Xia Duo was more inclined to believe the latter—

The Midi behind the Folded Space is in a low-maintenance operating state, and the threshold for external intrusion is set relatively high.

This is somewhat similar to some science fiction novels Xia Duo saw in his hometown, where spaceships, during interstellar travel, would minimize non-essential consumption to ensure they could wait for assistance, in order to preserve the most core life-support systems and signal-receiving systems.

Thinking of this, a perhaps whimsical idea inexplicably arose in Xia Duo's heart—

Could there still be ancient Elf Maintainers preserved in the Midi behind the Folded Space?

This is indeed possible, but one must also comprehensively consider how this Midi became "lost"; perhaps it was a refuge from ancient wars, or perhaps it was the Feres Fortress where the Dragon Madness Mythallar Control Center was located.

The former might preserve a large number of ancient Elves, but after so many years, they haven't come out; either the life-support equipment has malfunctioned, or they left a long time ago.

But it is not impossible that one or two were left behind to continue maintaining the refuge.

And if it were the Feres Fortress, there would almost certainly be Maintainers here!

According to the records of the Dragon Madness Secret Scroll, the reason this thing called the Dragon Madness Secret Scroll appeared was that the last builder of the Dragon Madness Mythallar left it behind because he was worried that the Mythallar would not be maintained after his death.

There were two sets of Dragon Madness Secret Scrolls left by that ancient Mage; one is the set circulating in the Northland, and the other is preserved in a Cloud City of the ancient Winged Elves.

From this, it can be inferred that during the period when that ancient Mage died, the Elves had already defeated the dragons and become the masters of the earth, and even the sky and the ocean, but Elven Magic might have also declined after a period of prosperity.

Otherwise, that ancient Mage would have had no need to leave behind two sets of Dragon Madness Secret Scrolls; instead, there should have been a long-term maintenance team within the Elves that frequently maintained, or even updated, the Dragon Madness Secret Scrolls.

The reason for leaving behind a secret scroll with complete details of the Dragon Madness Mythallar is likely that the Dragon Madness Mythallar was already "in disrepair" at that time, and the threshold for maintenance might have been high, making it impossible for that ancient Mage who participated in the construction to organize a maintenance team alone.

Of course, it is also possible that the Elves felt they had already won and there was no need to continue maintaining the Dragon Madness Mythallar; in this case, the original maintenance team might have been disbanded.

And that ancient Mage who participated in the construction knew the dire consequences of the Dragon Madness Mythallar falling into disrepair and collapsing, which is why he left behind the full set of Mythallar data.

But now, it is too far away from that era, and it is highly probable that many speculations cannot Huanyuan the true situation of that time; all Xia Duo can do now is continue to explore and continue to discover.

……

After creating a slight disturbance to confirm that the Midi was in a low-maintenance state, Xia Duo gradually let go of his restraint, and soon, the Perception Field, which was nearly "full-spectrum," transmitted back the most authentic image data of the Midi—

It was an empty square in the darkness, very small in area, less than half the size of the Linshui Village Altar Square, let alone compared to the Code Plaza.

But if this square was built within the stone of a mountain, then it would be completely different; while Magic could be used to reduce the difficulty of construction, the construction itself meant that the builder possessed high magical architectural capabilities.

The ground of the square had a distinct emblem-like pattern, occupying nearly half the area of the center of the square, but unfortunately, Xia Duo knew too little about the ancient Elves and could only distinguish that this pattern was completely different in style from later generations—which are actually also ancient relative to the current era.

If the "later" Elves followed a path of exquisiteness, complexity, and elegance, then the emblem here was a typical example of being primitive and wild.

The pattern was a scene of a Long Spear piercing into the lower jaw of a dragon and coming out from the top of its head; although the ground had accumulated a layer of dust nearly a finger thick, the pattern was still clearly visible under the observation perspective of the Scrying Spell.

Furthermore, judging from its appearance, the dragon being pierced should have been a red dragon!

From this pattern alone, Xia Duo could conclude that this Midi was definitely not built by "later Elves," meaning the construction period of this Midi should be earlier than the Crown War.

That is to say, at least ten thousand years ago!

Ten thousand years is an incomparably long concept even for the long-lived Elves, let alone a past even more distant than ten thousand years.

Xia Duo judged that when this Midi was built, dragons should have still been relatively active in the Main Plane; otherwise, the Elves would not have made the pattern of a Long Spear piercing a dragon into a display similar to showing off their military exploits.

In "later" Elf society, although dragons were still very powerful, because of the Dragon Madness Mythallar, great Elf nations, such as Keman and Yierlan, had more or less mastered the means to control dragons.

In their propaganda, they even treated dragons as a kind of beast, rather than one of the former masters of the Main Plane.

In this situation, which Elf would turn killing a dragon into a display to show off military exploits?

Of course, it is only when dragons are stronger that killing a dragon can be considered an honor, a military honor that can be recorded in a way similar to "engraving on stone."

From this perspective, this Midi was highly likely from the same period as the Dragon Madness Mythallar, or even earlier; it embodied some of the ambitions of the ancient Elves.

"Perhaps this Midi is the Feres Fortress!"