Chapter 825: Earth Escape Technique, Infrasonic Detection

Since it was already late at night, Xia Duo did not wake Laidun or Jiabasi, but instead went directly to the ruins site after meeting with the Night Patrol.

Seeing the ruins site again, in Xia Duo's perception, it seemed as if a long time had passed, but from the perspective of the Main Plane, he had last seen this place via a Scrying spell only one day ago.

However, compared to the last time, a significant amount of time had passed since he had personally come here.

Currently, besides the original passage extending downward from the Troll cave, there were two large exploration pits to the southeast.

As for the ruins further below the Troll cave, only one day had passed on the Main Plane, so there was simply no progress to be seen.

But now, perhaps there was no longer a need for Jiabasi to lead people in huffing and puffing as they dug; Xia Duo had a more convenient and efficient method—

Stone Travel!

A special Spell from the Underdark!

Having already had the experience of Huashanshuiliu and gaseous form, when Xia Duo found this Spell in Maluxisi's private library, he immediately understood that this was the "Earth Escape Technique" he had been looking forward to for so long!

The Underdark was nothing but caverns, rock, and mud, so the Mages there had researched media like rock and mud more extensively and deeply than Surface Mages.

【Stone Travel】 was a typical representative of this.

And accompanying 【Stone Travel】 was the 【Ley Line Detector】, or rather, 【Infrasonic Detection】.

Previously, in the Projection Plane, one of Xia Duo's tasks while disguised as a Drow traveling from the Underdark to the Surface was to use the 【Ley Line Detector】 to search for weak points in the ley lines to facilitate the establishment of Surface passages for the underground world.

Because of this experience, he had gained quite a few feedback characteristics of 【Infrasonic Detection】; besides the characteristics of weak ley line points, there were also many more characteristics of normal geological environments.

In other words, the current Xia Duo could truly be said to possess all channels for travel—by water, land, and air!

The final work of analyzing 【Stone Travel】 and converting it into a Netheril Magic version had been completely finished in the last few days in the Projection Plane.

All that was missing was an actual test.

Through his previous research on 【Petrification Magic】, Xia Duo could be considered quite accomplished in the Earth Element Domain; even if he hadn't obtained the 【Stone Travel】 spell in the Underdark of the Projection Plane, he believed he would definitely have been able to develop his own 【Earth Escape Technique】.

With the relevant Principles and details already clear in his mind, Xia Duo was not worried that this Spell would suffer from "acclimatization issues" upon returning to the Main Plane.

"Then let's begin!"

Standing beside the exploration pit of the original Troll cave, he calmly cast 【Stone Travel】, or rather, 【Turn into Earth and Stone】.

In an instant, Xia Duo's original flesh-and-blood form suddenly collapsed, transforming into a pile of scattered soil; this soil was different from ordinary soil, as it was elemental earth just converted via Magic.

After an initial moment of being at a loss, he quickly regained the familiar feeling he had when using Huashanshuiliu and gaseous form, and this pile of scattered soil began to seep into the ground.

Just like water seeping into sand, his current earth elemental body could also seep into ordinary soil and rock, only compared to the smoothness of water flow and the unrestrained nature of gas, the earth elemental body could be described as "struggling" within the soil.

Of course, this "struggling" was relative to Huashanshuiliu and gaseous form; the actual speed was only slightly slower than a normal person walking.

When he was just on the Surface, he didn't feel much, but once he entered the underground completely, Xia Duo felt like a fish entering water; the deeper he went, the smoother it became.

Occasionally passing through some underground rocks, he did not avoid them at all and charged straight through; his body seemed to remain on another Plane, passing through the rocks easily as if there were nothing special about them at all.

"It really is Earth Escape! It's just a bit slow!"

Following this, while rapidly diving downward, Xia Duo continuously scanned the surrounding environment via 【Infrasonic Detection】, and in his mind, he constructed a more vivid underground material distribution map, one more suited to the perspective of an average human, based on the feedback characteristics of the infrasonic detection.

Before long, Xia Duo found the narrow path leading to the deeper ruins that Jiabasi had pointed out earlier.

Perhaps due to the geological changes over the long passage of time, this path, which should have been nearly horizontal, now extended almost vertically toward the deeper underground.

However, this actually made things convenient for Xia Duo; this path was his best road sign.

Following the path downward, the feedback from the Infrasonic Detection finally had some changes; besides discovering more narrow, ribbon-like paths, he also discovered tall stone buildings.

Perhaps this was the true face of the ruins.

Arriving here, Xia Duo also became increasingly cautious; since those Statues had retained Petrification Magic even after experiencing such long ages, did these ruins also have residual Magic?

……

Carefully circling the perimeter, Xia Duo discovered that the ruins as a whole were like a small town that had been twisted and torn until only half remained.

Most of the buildings were already dilapidated, mixed into the soil, and after the Baptism of long ages, they almost had a tendency to dissolve and assimilate.

But there were still some buildings that remained relatively intact to this day, such as the stone building resembling a grand auditorium that Xia Duo was currently preparing to head toward.

The reason he only wanted to head toward this auditorium-like building was mainly because he detected that there seemed to be a large number of Sarukh Statues inside.

Just like the three that had been dug out on his Territory before.

……

Arriving at the entrance of the building, Xia Duo carefully examined his surroundings; if one were to view the surrounding soil as air, then the gate of this auditorium-like building was suspended not far above the building, appearing somewhat eerie.

However, this was underground after all, and with the support of the soil, it was nothing to be surprised about.

After checking with various means, Xia Duo entered the interior of the building, and with one "glance," he took a fancy to the hundreds of Statues arranged neatly in the hall.

If every Statue could expand his Personal Space, that would simply be a huge windfall!

Who knows how many Arcane Crystals that would save him!

However, the closer it got to such a moment, the more one had to be steady; according to the three Statues unearthed earlier, Xia Duo knew that the Petrification Domain of a Statue was roughly within 10 meters around it.

But that was the Petrification Domain after being triggered; it did not exist before being triggered, and to trigger the Petrification Domain, one had to make contact with the Statue itself.

If it were ordinary people moving the Statues, they could only do as they did with the two Statues Jiabasi excavated earlier: use living beings to trigger the remaining Magic of the Statues first, and only then could they be moved normally.

But for Xia Duo, there was no need to make contact to move them, and he also really wanted to see how much expansion a more "pristine" Statue would bring to his Personal Space when placed inside!