Chapter 3336

"The cave left by that ancient god in the mountain is just like this."

The ice maid said while extending her finger, drawing the ice-blue "Ouroboros Holy Emblem" in the air. But then she wiped it gently, and the holy emblem began to simplify, finally turning into a ring connected head to tail:

"For the Holy Emblem of Destiny, most people's understanding is like this, but this is wrong."

She cut the ring, twisted one end of it, and then connected it to the other end, thus forming the "Mobius strip" in the saying of the outsider's hometown, which is the "Infinite Ring":

"This is the true understanding of 'destiny'; inside and outside are connected, but self-iteration is carried out in a spiral ascent. Finite life, because of destiny, has the possibility of touching eternity in infinite knots—when you think you are walking towards the back of fate, you are actually writing new patterns on the front."

Xia De almost understood; the snow mountain originally did not have inside and outside, it was only because that ancient snake god had acted in the mountain during the last divine descent, which caused the snow mountain to have inside and outside layers. But this is not a spatial phenomenon, because the inside and outside snow mountains were not stripped, which can be seen from "going down the mountain from any area of the snow mountain can return to the normal island".

"Then the miracle you just mentioned refers to the god dividing the snow mountain into two parts, inside and outside?"

"Not so; after all, even mortals can do similar things. The exploration team sent by Her Majesty originally excavated some stone slabs recording the miracles of the ancient gods on the snow mountain, not only inferring that there is a temple on this snow mountain, but even because of this, Her Majesty peeked into the ritual of destiny.

The stone slab recorded the story of the last divine descent of the God of Destiny; the god came here to see the stories of mortals for the last time, and then handle some tricky problems."

She took a deep breath, and then sang like a bard:

"On the first day, the lame beggar came to the god with a broken bowl, throwing dice to try to reverse destiny, but he harvested a draw, and everything remained unchanged;

On the second day, the swordsman met the god at the foot of the mountain, and after drawing his sword, his long sword was cut off by the god;

On the third day, the blind girl playing the zither played music with the god on the cliff on the mountainside, her zither strings broke before the last note, but although she lost, she saw the light again because of the god's music;

On the fourth day, the merchant poured the rare treasures he had collected all his life in front of the altar, and the god just looked at the girl who had regained her sight; the girl said 'God possesses something more precious—a pious soul';

On the fifth day, the young man held his seriously ill lover and found the god on the mountain peak, the teardrops froze into ice flowers in the snow mountain, so the lover's illness was cured, and the god pointed to the ice flower: if it melts, she will also die;

On the sixth day, the poor mother met the god in the cave at night with her dead child, she longed for the miracle of resurrection by the fire, the god did not give such a destiny, just helped the mother bury the child;

On the last day, the god walked alone in the snow mountain, before sunset, He welcomed the dusty traveler, 'God, I want to gamble a game of cards with you, if I win, I will bear all your mistakes'. The mortal and the god each drew a card in the last light of the sunset, and then the god won the gamble, the traveler turned into a cunning black snake and laughed loudly:

I lost, so I will release all your mistakes.

So before leaving, the god sealed all the mistakes of destiny that had been released in the snow mountain; from then on, even without the care of the God of Destiny, all destiny would be linked together and circulate back and forth.

He was satisfied with the last visit, so he left a blank snake skin, hoping to get more interesting stories in the future."

Xia De and the cat and Ai Li listened carefully to the maid's narration, and after the last voice fell, Xia De said very cautiously:

"The story of the seven days... this sounds like it recorded the God of Destiny coming to the material world for the last time before leaving to handle the omissions of destiny, to ensure that destiny would still be as usual after He left. Sure enough, it seems that every ancient god left more or less backhands.

So in the unobservable area of the snow mountain, are 'mistakes of destiny' sealed? Or rather, the ancestor Infinite Snake?"

The maid shook her head slightly:

"Destiny is invisible, the so-called 'snake' is just for mortals to understand, and the form given in the records. The god handling the mistakes of destiny is also just a concrete metaphor; in fact, perhaps there was no entity sealed here.

Although I am different from humans, I am also a mortal thing, unable to describe to you what destiny is. But Her Majesty once said after reading those stone slabs that if destiny is an invisible web, then Fatumunster Snow Mountain is the only node in the web that can connect to any place. The vibration here will spread to any corner of the web of destiny.

The lady also said that even if something was really sealed under the snow mountain by the ancient gods, it would not be a very critical thing. Materialized monsters have never been important; what is important is destiny itself."

Xia De didn't quite understand Chloe's meaning, but fortunately, these things could be thrown to Luweiya to think and understand, and he only needed to be responsible for fighting and killing.

As for the stone slabs that were excavated back then recording the miracles of the ancient gods, that is, the story of sealing the mistakes of destiny, they were as important as the parchment recording Xia De's miracles by Dorothy, and of course, they would not remain in this abandoned laboratory.

Therefore, what Miss Maid could provide was only this, but this was enough. The ancient god of destiny "Mr. Ring" could almost be considered the most mysterious one among the thirteen ancient gods; stories about other gods could be consulted even in the current era, but only stories about the God of Destiny almost did not exist.

Xia De believed that the last divine descent of the ancient god must have other purposes, not to mention that the story clearly mentioned those snake skins. So even without this castle, the story told by the maid was precious enough.

"The beggar and the dice, the swordsman and the broken sword, the girl and the zither strings, the merchant and the treasure, the lover and the ice flower, the living and the dead, destiny and the card game... hmm, it feels like some of the elements were encountered recently."

Xia De was not in a hurry to leave here, but spent half an afternoon browsing the books in the library on the fourth floor of the castle.

Those "ice boards" of course could not be flipped open, but similar to the "stone slab books" passed down from the First Era, these books also needed specific ways to be read. Most of the books recording mystical knowledge could not be memorized by "speed reading"; these ice boards were also prohibited from being directly recorded into Xia De's library because of the castle's power, so Xia De just determined the content of these books first in half an afternoon.

Miss Maid was right; most of the books left here had no value, and most were experimental notes that Xia De couldn't understand. The few books with value were relatively advanced alchemy and potion textbooks, and Xia De guessed that there should be some very good formulas in them.

As for those books that truly recorded mystical knowledge and might allow Ringed Shushi to obtain spiritual runes, such as "Winter Traveler: Me and the God of Winter", "Mountains of Madness: White Silver Snow Mountain", "Song of Snow", etc., they were also related to the power of ice and snow. However, Xia De was quite interested in the witch secret arts recorded on them, and he wouldn't mind learning some in the future if needed.

Around three o'clock in the afternoon, he left here with Little Mia and Ai Li, but he told Miss Maid Winnie that the great witch of space might come over recently. If Sylvia could establish a portal connecting the high tower on the mountain top and the castle at the foot of the mountain, Xia De wouldn't have to pass through the Time Wheel City every time he went to Kyle-Todd Town.

The maid sent them to the castle gate, bowed and sent them away as they left along the canyon. Ai Li also didn't show any intention of staying; after returning this time, it seemed to remember that it had seen the male beside it walking with its master by the ice lake, so it happily followed Xia De.

After all, the clever unicorn knew that the demon had been beaten back, and it could come back at any time.

Afterwards, Xia De was not in a hurry to return to the town, but took out the map, intending to go to the spring mentioned by Claire that could increase the wisdom of animals to take a look.

The location of the spring was on the mountainside, similar to the spring at the foot of the mountain that was polluted that Claire took Xia De to see last time, this spring was also one of the sources of materials for the preparation of "snow mountain water". The one at the foot of the mountain was called the "Lower Spring", while the one on the mountainside was the "Middle Spring".

Climbing up from the narrow entrance of the canyon, he left that unobservable area unconsciously, and returned to the normal area of the snow mountain. Then according to the map, he continued to climb up, and Xia De successfully found the "Middle Spring" around four o'clock.

This spring was not in an open-air location, but in a mountain cave; of course, this was a normal cave.

The cave entrance was wide but very low, and Ai Li had to lower its head to enter, not to mention Xia De. Although Claire had come in during the "Crown of Glory" ritual on Sunday, there were still icicles hanging on the upper edge of the cave entrance.

Xia De and Ai Li both lowered their heads very carefully to enter, and after walking forward for dozens of steps, the height of the cave finally allowed Xia De to straighten his waist completely. The moonlight lit by his fingertips made the unicorn very excited, and Xia De looked at the cave that split into two forks in front of him, and walked along the left one according to the map.

It was extremely wet and cold in the cave, and after going deep all the way, he didn't encounter other branch intersections, just gradually being able to hear the sound of water from the depths of the cave.

About five minutes later, they walked to the end of this passage, which was the edge of the cave lake. This water area looked very large, and it was only after extending forward for at least a hundred meters that it reached the cave rock wall. But in the underwater part, one could still pass under the rock wall; Claire dived here yesterday, and after diving underwater, left the cave from the exit at the other end of the lake and then continued to climb the mountain.

(End of chapter)