Chapter 260: Specific Distance

The monks' restraint didn't last long; under enthusiastic invitation, no one refused to seek a little gustatory comfort in such a stifling environment.

When Father Lin returned, he found the camp steeped in the atmosphere of morning tea: a cloth spread over the coffin lid, several bags of biscuits already emptied, the crunch of chewing never stopping.

And the instigator waved generously, inviting him to sit down, rest, and have something to eat.

"I thought you knew what kind of place this was."

"A forward outpost camp?" Kraft shook the biscuit bag, rattling out the last few pieces, ate one himself, then handed the rest to Lin. "But isn't it still safe for now?"

"Pagans and things no one knows what they are wander below—I hope you didn't come all this way just for this." The priest took a biscuit, bit into it.

The taste was decent—slightly hard, but the grain aroma and sweetness blended well, perfect for someone needing sugar after exertion.

"That's part of the goal, but mostly I came to descend myself, and bring my student along."

"If I recall correctly, you told me before that she was your medical heir." Lin glanced at the girl staring blankly at the rock fissure—she was naturally unmoved by the previous path, eagerly anticipating the journey ahead.

"Ah, don't mention it, don't mention it." Kraft let out a heartfelt sigh, beginning his preparations to depart. "I hope she doesn't find this place interesting."

While waiting for Lin to rest, they shed excess weight, checked their gear, ensuring everything stayed where it belonged. It didn't take long—after all, he desperately wanted to finish before the next rain.

The current exploration team had shrunk considerably: only Lin himself and five monks who still dared enter the waterways after that rainy-night incident; even Wang was absent, held back as emergency backup.

Father Lin took a deep breath, stepped into the fissure first, followed by the monks and Kraft, with Yiwen bringing up the rear.

Once inside, the formation adjusted: Lin still led, but Yiwen was placed in the center. Kraft automatically fell to the rear, keeping a certain distance from Lin.

Damp, dark breezes stirred through the underground space; they reentered the shadow of Dunling.

Still descending along the waterway, gradually drawing nearer to the roaring space.

Knowing the sound's nature didn't breed familiarity. The water's crash, filtered through the deep well and hall, resembled the snore of some living thing—each time they passed, it felt as if brushing past its mouthparts.

Lin pulled out a small iron bottle, shook it to his ear, heard the familiar grain-rattling sound, then pressed forward.

When the resonant clamor peaked, they reached the hall.

Darkness expanded before them, becoming an endless, unknown expanse; the team walked its edge, passing identical cave mouths, avoiding slick moss and sharp-edged chasms.

It was hard not to notice a few unusually fresh fissures—no moss grew inside, their glossy surfaces reflecting wavering human shapes beneath the water layer.

Anyone with even a basic sense of stone hardness could tell these weren't part of the ruin's original structure, but creations of some force beyond cognition, cutting beyond the material plane.

Yiwen heard a thin whisper behind her—even the roaring water couldn't drown out its meaning: fear.

Not an acquired emotion, but the primal terror of wingless creatures at a cliff's edge, striking straight into the soul, making the synesthete recall witnessing storm clouds closing in over the sea—the helplessness against inevitable destruction, universal to any form of consciousness, thus clearly perceptible.

【What is that?】

The question naturally received no answer—only pure fear echoed and vibrated within her chest.

She leapt quickly over the fissure, trying to forcibly suppress the synesthesia, with little effect—just as one cannot stop a part of the body from feeling.

She turned to look back at the rear, meeting Kraft's gaze—he seemed to have been watching her, or perhaps always had been—and gave her a slight nod, then shook his head and pointed downward, signaling her to focus on the path.

During this grueling stretch, they passed two corners; Lin stopped precisely before a tunnel, confirmed everyone was in position, shook and listened to the iron bottle, then entered.

The thunder of the waterfall shifted from everywhere to behind them, receding with depth, until only a faint dampness clung to their backs like wet cloth, reminding them what lay behind.

Entering the new corridor didn't relax the monks; they visibly grew tenser, one hand always near their weapons and fuel bottles, eyes glued to the featureless tunnel walls.

【As if something might surface from any of the bricks】

Even though nothing had happened since departure, these small gestures accumulated tension, spreading between them.

The waterway's slope gradually flattened, nearing level, splitting ahead into two directions; Lin silently chose the left, using the pommel weight of his sword to carve a faint white mark at waist height, where it wouldn't easily be noticed.

Torches were held as high as possible, illuminating greater distances—as if guarding against something ahead.

Yiwen interpreted this as an omen, gripped her dagger tightly, waiting for the unexpected.

But the team simply advanced in silence; a pile of indistinct shapes blocked the way—clearly not enemies or strange things.

The tunnel had collapsed here, large chunks of broken brick and silt blocking the path, fine streams seeping from the gaps.

【Dead end】

Lin led Kraft to the pile of rubble, dug away some silt, and explained to the broken stone faces—how the tooth-like marks formed, and how they connected to some distant era.

One monk joined the discussion; his words were full of terms Yiwen didn't understand—convoluted, lengthy phrases prefixed to architectural structures and tools, transforming them into unfamiliar shapes, deepening the confusion.

They reached consensus right there—the conclusion being that this area had been destroyed at some point, and many other dead ends were the same.

Then... the team began to retrace their steps, returning to the fork, marking the other side and exploring forward, discovering new branches, choosing one, then hitting another dead end.

The entire process involved only movement and minimal verbal exchange—most of which was barely comprehensible.

Minor interruptions were alcoves along the corridors and monotonous spaces resembling relay stations, all proven meaningless.

Extreme boredom was even worse than the earlier fear of the hall; she felt weary, drowsy, and a growing irritation—the slightly leaking boots weren't heavy, but made every step uncomfortable.

The novelty had long worn off; only patience and a stubborn defiance kept her going, silent and unobtrusive. This was the first time—at least it shouldn't have been the first—that she felt disappointed.

She began to grasp what her mentor had said—and hadn't said. Before experiencing it firsthand, it was truly hard to feel how things weren't as imagined—how often, the true color of time was repetitive, tedious searching and thinking.

Finally, after the last branch was confirmed a dead end, the team decided to return and rest before continuing exploration, nervously retracing their path through the hall, back to the temporary camp.

"Another unproductive trip, isn't it?" Father Lin sat by the fire.

Due to ventilation issues, the fire had to be kept small; trying to dry their damp clothes with it was pure psychological comfort. The half-dry feeling would persist throughout exploration until their next return to the surface.

There was reason to believe the professor brought students here partly to discourage them, not for true apprenticeship—like children who couldn't memorize scripture being sent to do chores in a monastery.

"Not entirely." Kraft snatched Lin's map, located the entrance they'd just entered, and began tracing the route.

Unlike other symbolic drawings, Lin noticed his markings showed precise estimates of path lengths.

"You counted steps?"

"And angles." As he spoke, the professor had already marked approximate dead-end locations, measuring distances with a wooden ruler. "I can't estimate the vertical difference, but the length is roughly discernible."

"Several collapse points seem roughly equidistant from the hall's straight line—I have a hypothesis, but I'll need more areas to confirm."

"What?"

"This isn't random sealing. There's a fixed distance. Someone deliberately blocked all tunnels within a specific range around the hexagonal well, isolating a roughly circular zone." Kraft closed his eyes, sketching his hypothesis from memory and spatial imagination.

The waterways were a three-dimensional system; even his ability couldn't guarantee accuracy.

"Actually, another angle supports this: why didn't they just seal the entrance at this end of the hall? It'd be easier. That proves the range exists—and has some purpose or function."

"Not just to isolate this place, but for some purpose?" Lin abandoned drying himself, leaned closer to examine. "But how do you remember? Length I can accept—but angles and directions too?"

"You can call it a talent."

"Your family's talents are quite diverse."

"Thank you, but it's nowhere near as precise as you imagine—so for now, it's only a possibility." Kraft set down the map.

"If that's true, they might have left an entrance—a proper one—not like this fissure accidentally dug open by a quarry." Following his hypothesis, Lin made a further deduction.

"Interesting. Now I'm curious where this entrance might descend from."

The speculation, entirely based on shaky guesses, lifted their spirits, sparking an urge to immediately set out and verify it.

But numbers quickly cooled the impulse: "Under the worst scenario, we still need to search thirty waterways and their branches to find this entrance."

Yiwen understood that sentence—she now felt a faint twinge of regret.