Chapter 3662

To figure out the purpose of these transmission arrays built by high-level cultivators, Ye Chen seriously sorted out all the clues and analyzed them one by one.

He first made one thing clear: the transmission array certainly requires a large amount of spiritual energy to support; the ring Lin Wan'er sent him, the spiritual energy needed to transmit him once, is the sum of all the spiritual energy it had drained from him several times before.

This means that even a single-person, single transmission requires a large amount of spiritual energy.

Moreover, he still cannot determine one thing: whether the spiritual energy required varies with the distance of transmission; if transmission is charged per use, it's still manageable, but if charged per distance, then this intercontinental transmission would likely require hundreds of times more spiritual energy than what he used last time when transmitting from Xiangxieli to Zijin Mountain Villa.

What's more, these transmission arrays in the past had to satisfy the constant transmission and shuttling of tens of thousands of people, with possibly tens of thousands of transmissions per day, making the required spiritual energy astronomical.

Based on this, it can be proven that the cost of building and maintaining these transmission arrays was high, even for them back then, a huge expenditure.

This is very much like a nation's infrastructure: if a nation spares no expense to open a road or railway of extreme difficulty and high cost, then that nation must have a very high strategic purpose, far more than simply letting this place be built and opened to traffic.

Therefore, they must have had their strategic goals when building these transmission arrays back then.

The inheritors, perhaps, were merely the carriers.

Thinking of this, Ye Chen had a sudden flash of inspiration: they built such a massive underground city in Antarctica, those blue stones, those Bai Yu, those gold, those timber—how were they transported here? These things are not native to Antarctica! Not to mention anything else, just speaking of timber, there isn't a single tree in all of Antarctica.

Even if cultivation was already highly developed in that era, their technology and manufacturing level certainly did not meet the standard.

The earliest cultivators who came to the Antarctic continent might have been able to force their way through the devilish westerlies with their physical bodies, but they absolutely could not have built ships capable of transporting large quantities of building materials.

So how were all those building materials, not native to Antarctica, transported here?

The answer seems to be on the verge of emerging.

Ye Chen can be certain: those building materials were certainly transported here via the transmission arrays.

Only in this way could materials sufficient to build a city be efficiently delivered to Antarctica.

Moreover.

The entire underground city has such dense spiritual energy, and even these arrays have a continuous supply of spiritual energy driving them—then, what provides the spiritual energy?

Elixirs?

Impossible.

Because elixirs can only be absorbed by the human body, they cannot be directly used to power the arrays.

So, the possibility is likely only one: spiritual stones.

And, in astronomical quantities.

Just like the Peace and Wealth Stone he obtained back then.

The characters, possibly, were carved on by later generations who didn't understand them.

And its essence is a spiritual stone containing spiritual energy.

Before the Dharma-Ending Age, heaven and earth already contained spiritual energy.

Moreover, after hundreds of millions of years of evolution, the earth has also nurtured spiritual stones rich in spiritual energy.

To cultivators, the meaning of spiritual stones is like that of uranium ore to nuclear physics—both are gifts from nature to humanity.

But spiritual stones themselves are also a non-renewable resource; when the Dharma-Ending Age arrives, they will certainly become the target of frantic competition among cultivators, and these nine transmission arrays distributed worldwide might very well have been their channels for obtaining spiritual stones back then.

Furthermore, judging from the behavior of these cultivators who expended enormous human and material resources to migrate to the Antarctic continent, they must have made the decision to migrate after the arrival of the Dharma-Ending Age, in order to, during the Dharma-Ending Age, build a cultivation utopia using nearly national-level strength to counteract the negative effects of the Dharma-Ending Age.

If these speculations hold true, then before or after their journey to Antarctica, they must have still been searching globally for spiritual stones, because they needed vast quantities of spiritual stones to sustain the operation of the underground city and meet the cultivation needs of the tens of thousands of cultivators here.

Thus, the existence of the transmission arrays also finds a reasonable explanation.

Ye Chen's mind already has a hypothetical picture.

In the underground city, while most cultivators are in seclusion, desperately cultivating and pushing their cultivation levels, there is a group of cultivators similar to worker ants, constantly traveling via the transmission arrays to all corners of the world to find materials and spiritual stones for their mother nest.

They scour the world for precious spiritual stones, then continuously transport them back here; if there are no enemies, they diligently mine and treasure-hunt; if they encounter enemies, they quickly gather large numbers of cultivators to rush to support, for enemies cannot be their match, as enemies lack such a massive cultivator base, and even more so, such vast infrastructure and global deployment capability.

Even if they temporarily fall into a disadvantage in a certain region, it doesn't matter, for their transmission arrays have powerful array protections, like the safest harbor; as long as one enters, enemies without the method or mantra to activate the array are completely helpless.

Ye Chen even believes that in these past years, their transmission arrays have never encountered any threat, because the compass has only nine positions, and the nine transmission arrays corresponding to them are all intact and undamaged.

And Ye Chen also believes that those worker-ant-like cultivators certainly have no complaints, because all this is based on a perfect utopia framework: everyone for me, I for everyone; when they are cultivating, I protect them and provide necessary support so they can wholeheartedly push their cultivation; and when I complete my stage-by-stage mission, someone will wake up to take over my work, so I can calmly cultivate.

Ye Chen cannot help but yearn for this society of tens of thousands working together in unity, advancing and retreating as one, and he truly admires the founder of this framework—what kind of determination and charm must he have had to drive tens of thousands to achieve such a mighty and grand blueprint?

It's a pity that after the cultivators here left, they left behind no written records.

They probably never thought that after they left, someone would still come here.

After all, in such a Dharma-Ending Age, later cultivators' strength will only grow weaker, and it seems impossible for anyone to break through the utopia built by the strength of tens of thousands of top cultivators.

But if that's the case, then the problem arises again.

This place—Wu Bolin, with higher cultivation, cannot enter, so how did I get in?

Why does this place's array seem naturally friendly to me? Not only did it let me in, but it also transmitted the array's methods and mantras to me.

Compared to Wu Bolin, what differences do I have?

Ye Chen racked his brains, thinking of three possibilities.

First, my Ascending Dragon Pattern.

Second, the ring Lin Wan'er gave me.

Third, the mysterious object that guided me here.

The first and third are both invisible and intangible, but the ring is a real, tangible object, so he hurriedly took it out.

Here there is a transmission array, and the ring itself also has transmission function—could it have some connection with this place?

At the very moment Ye Chen took out the ring, he suddenly discovered that this ring had actually undergone a change unlike before!

Originally, this ring was just bare ancient bronze, with no patterns or characters on its body, but now, this ring actually has a string of seal script characters appearing on it, the content clearly visible: 2804.

In seal script, the writing of the numbers zero, one, two, three, four, eight, nine is basically the same as modern simplified Chinese characters, only differing slightly in writing style and brush habit, so Ye Chen recognized this string of numbers at a glance.

He stared at these four characters in shock: 2804—could this represent the ring's number?

This number appeared only after entering this place—does it mean that it originally belonged here?