Chapter 665: The Ancestor's Gift (54)

"What is this?" Yan Hao asked Luo Qi, testing it with a few more Spells, but none yielded any ideal feedback. He didn't really expect Luo Qi to know what it was; ever since they walked into the Seal Land, everything they saw had been unknown, and no one truly understood the Progenitor Mage.

Unexpectedly, Luo Qi said two words with certainty, "Mysterious Bird."

Yan Hao was stunned; he hadn't expected there to actually be a term for it.

Watching Luo Qi walk along one side of the object, he hurriedly followed a few steps, feeling somewhat illiterate as he asked, "What bird?"

"The Mysterious Bird. The Destined Mysterious Bird, which descended and gave birth to the Shang. Didn't you notice? Those bronze vessels are all desperately imitating its form. Although humans performed a romanticized recreation, adding a bird's beak and feet to it, you can still generally make out the original body. Humans used this as a totem and created the image of the Mysterious Bird, though the humans at the time didn't understand that the Mysterious Bird itself was actually..." Luo Qi did not continue.

Yan Hao understood a little, and he immediately realized that the location of this "Mysterious Bird" that Luo Qi spoke of was at the center of the ring; the Mysterious Bird stood in the reflective ring just like those bronze statues. It was just that the Mysterious Bird was truly too large, almost occupying the entire circle, and the reflective ring looked just like the base of the Mysterious Bird. Wait! He looked around abruptly; there were dozens of rings in this massive space. "Could it be that dozens of Mysterious Birds once stood here?"

"Of course. Humans must have been imitating the grand spectacle they saw back then, casting bronze vessels and placing them at the center of the circles to replace the vanished Mysterious Birds," Luo Qi said.

"Vanished? Where did they vanish to? Do you... know?"

"They left," Luo Qi said. "They could have gone anywhere. Or perhaps they were worn out from flying back and forth."

"What does that mean?" Yan Hao asked, bewildered, suddenly feeling inexplicably nervous.

Luo Qi ignored his question. He was silent for a moment, then suddenly said, "Early humans couldn't understand everything they saw. They thought the Progenitor Mages were gods, so they worshipped them. When the Twilight of the Gods eventually descended and it became silent here, humans were at a loss, so they used the most precious metal they could cast to imitate the actions of the gods, filling all the hangars with bronze birds, begging for the gods to descend once more."

Yan Hao sensed that he wasn't speaking for his own benefit; it was more like he was organizing his thoughts, so he didn't ask any more questions and simply kept following him.

But Luo Qi suddenly said, "I have seen a hangar like this before."

"Han... hangar?" Yan Hao couldn't help but repeat it; he truly didn't understand, and he didn't even know where he had started missing the lesson.

Luo Qi didn't explain. He stopped walking because two more bronze vessels appeared before them. This time, they were two bronze tripods, and human-face patterns appeared on the bodies of the tripods. There was a distance of about four or five meters between the two bronze tripods. Luo Qi reached out and touched one; it was still just human bronze.

"This... what is the meaning of humans placing bronze tripods in this position?" Yan Hao asked cautiously.

"This is humans prompting their descendants who would come to offer sacrifices in later generations that this is the door of the Mysterious Bird." Luo Qi looked up at the belly of the Mysterious Bird, which fit seamlessly between the two bronze tripods, and reached out to knock on it. "Go and get that key from the clownfish, will you?"

Yan Hao tentatively watched Luo Qi's expression. He always felt that Luo Qi was in a very bad mood right now, and his expression was overly solemn and sorrowful, perhaps not someone to be trifled with. "May the Great Mage clarify?"

"I told you to go and drag Leader Zhao over here!"

"Oh, oh. This subordinate will go handle it immediately," Yan Hao said hurriedly, and before his voice had even faded, he had already disappeared.

The main force was brought over very quickly. Luo Qi didn't waste words; he compressed the number of people who would enter after opening the door: himself, Wusu, Ziyi, and Leader Zhao. His expression was solemn, his requirements were stated clearly, and neither those who were named nor those who were not had any objections.

Leader Zhao was very excited. Luo Qi allowed him to say a few brief words to the Lotus Burners, but judging by Luo Qi's expression, he also knew that the speech could not exceed five sentences; this short Great Mage who seemed to understand the inside story very deeply was extremely impatient. And he himself was also a bit impatient; after arriving at this Seal Land, most of the things he saw did not seriously exceed his expectations, as the Lotus Burners already inherited many secrets. But the thing before him, which Luo Qi called the "Mysterious Bird," was not among the secrets inherited by the Lotus Burners.

According to his understanding, this Seal Land was one of the oldest among the ruins of the Progenitor Mages. The Mysterious Bird before him might carry core secrets. Judging by Luo Qi's suddenly exceptionally cautious, solemn, and even worried attitude, his guess was likely not wrong.

In the future, he might invent some rituals for this door-opening action to make the process feel more sacred. Following Luo Qi on this trip, he had gained a great deal; in the future, the Lotus Burners would definitely have the opportunity to independently excavate some of the Ancestors' Seal Lands. It wouldn't be long before he could turn this world upside down; he believed he had better methods for governing humans.

A wisp of faint Magic Energy was activated, and a sharp buzzing sound vibrated across their eardrums, as if it were there and yet not. Everyone's vigilance was temporarily raised, but the energy remained within a reasonable and controllable range; no aggressive energy was produced, only the originally perfect material on the belly of the Mysterious Bird split open and retracted to both sides.

"The hatch is open."

He seemed to hear Luo Qi say a strange sentence, but he didn't hear it clearly, as Luo Qi had already taken the first step inside.

Luo Qi's feet stepped onto a non-metallic floor. Unlike the outside, the floor here had a slight elasticity, yet it left no footprints. On the surrounding walls, a protruding crystal was embedded every certain distance, and the crystals emitted a soft blue light. Also unlike the outside, these node-like decorations on the walls were embedded on the exterior and did not extend out only when the energy was activated.

Luo Qi's fingers brushed across the inner wall of the spaceship, and the glowing patterns on the wall fluctuated slightly under his touch, like ripples on the surface of water, the patterns linking into some complex designs. He led the others into the first hall, deep into the interior of the Mysterious Bird. Liu Ziyu and Wusu both seemed interested in the patterns on the walls. Luo Qi kept moving forward and soon arrived at a node, a hexagonal corridor, with a visible door on every wall.

Luo Qi assessed the direction and walked toward a door leading to the most core location. Behind the door was a semicircular space; in the decoration style of the Progenitor Mages, this could simply be considered plain and unadorned. In the center of the semicircular space was a permanently fixed raised platform, on which seven grooves were distributed, arranged in the shape of a ladle, forming an image that everyone was very familiar with.

"The Big Dipper?" Liu Ziyu said in surprise.

In her intense Yajian, Luo Qi perceived another shout in her heart: So tacky?

"Ancient humans worshipped the Big Dipper," Luo Qi said briefly, then suddenly looked up and said to Leader Zhao with a pleasant expression, "Zhao Mage, please come over here."

Leader Zhao moved a step closer to his direction, and the seven grooves on the platform were indeed activated. Luo Qi asked him to place his hand on the platform, and the latter did so. When he pressed his hand on the platform and inadvertently looked up, the focus of his eyes suddenly activated the curved wall in front of the console. The patterns on the wall brightened, forming the pattern of stars. The three bright stars of Orion rose before them, like a distant Lighthouse.