Chapter 648 – Ancient Ruins (Part 1)
Upon reaching the first pagoda located more on the left side of the stone square, the group immediately rushed to the huge metal gate and by nature Chen He stepped forward in an attempt to open it.
“Stop!” Shangguan Bing Xue shouted in an anxious and authoritative tone of voice.
“Uh?” Chen He’s hand froze in mid-air and looked at Shangguan Bing Xue over his shoulder puzzled, “Is something wrong?”
“Idiot Chen, are you forgetting that this place is far from normal?” Cai Jingyi shook her head as she moved her index finger from left to right and laughed quietly, “These pagodas endured shaking strong enough to be compared to historic scale earthquakes and now we just found out that this place is likely surrounded by a huge magic circle…. If you touch these things without being careful, you might die without knowing how such a thing happened. At least don’t involve me please, there are still many things I want to do in my life!”
Chen He’s face changed and he subconsciously jumped backward nimbly to put some distance between him and the huge double door of the pagoda as if he was afraid that a terrifying monster would come out from inside.
“Sorry… I was a bit anxious and didn’t think too much about the consequences.” He apologized honestly as he realized his carelessness.
“It doesn’t matter. To be honest, probably most here would have done the same.” Zhong De shrugged his shoulders and admitted, “If it wasn’t for you being ahead of me, the person in your place would have been me.”
“That’s why Strength-type soul evolvers are no good…” Nangong Lingxin murmured under her breath, inadvertently drawing angry glares from Huang Tian who was also a Strength-based soul evolver.
Bai Zemin shook his head and took a step forward, “All of you stay back.”
Upon reaching the door, he looked at Shangguan Bing Xue and without needing words she understood his intention as she immediately raised several ice walls for safety. Even Nangong Lingxin activated her magical energy barrier to support in the defense.
At the end of the day, it was true that no one knew what might happen next; it never hurt to be a little cautious, let alone considering the place they were in.
“Big brother, be careful!” Meng Qi pleaded anxiously. She had just barely gotten back together with one of the people she loved most on the face of the Earth so if something bad happened to him she probably wouldn’t be able to take the blow.
Even Little Snow grunted under her breath as if to express her heartaches as she could also feel that something bad might happen soon based on the atmosphere around her.
“Don’t worry.” Bai Zemin nodded calmly before turning his attention to the double door that was over four meters tall and at least fifty meters wide.
After making sure of the security measures, he took a deep breath and brought both hands to the doors before pushing inward with moderate force.
“Em?”
Surprisingly, the doors didn’t even move, forget about opening.
“Maybe I didn’t use enough strength?” Bai Zemin muttered in confusion despite knowing deep in his heart that it was definitely not the reason.
In fact, several seconds passed but no matter how hard he tried the pagoda doors did not open. Even after using practically every point of his Strength stat the double door did not move from its place even a millimeter.
My God! Bai Zemin was dumbfounded as he stared at the door before him with his eyes wide open.
His Strength stat was over 900 points in total but even then the door did not move from its place in the slightest! There wasn’t even any trembling at all!
“What’s wrong?” Wu Yijun asked behind the several defensive barriers that had been erected by Shangguan Bing Xue and Nangong Lingxin.
“This… The door isn’t opening.” Bai Zemin didn’t quite know what to say.
Shangguan Bing Xue and Nangong Lingxin exchanged glances as they heard what Bai Zemin said and how by prior agreement the two women deactivated their skills, causing the ice walls to melt and the magical energy barrier to fade away completely.
“What do you mean by the door isn’t opening?” Shangguan Bing Xue asked after Bai Zemin came back into view.
“It just won’t open.” Bai Zemin shook his head and explained what had just happened.
“What?” Zhong De looked at him in disbelief as he heard that the door didn’t even move even after Bai Zemin used all his Strength. “How can that be possible? My current Strength is enough to crush a ten-story building with one punch!”
What Zhong De meant was that if he could crush a building with a single blow then the terrifying full Strength of Bai Zemin should have ripped those doors off the walls as soon as he touched them!
However, Bai Zemin simply shook his head without saying anything more. Even for him it was hard to believe but it was the truth and had to be accepted as it was.
Everyone looked at each other in dismay and not knowing what to do as they watched the leader stand in silence.
Approximately ten minutes passed during which Shangguan Bing Xue and several other people tried to open the door using all kinds of means, but none of them succeeded.
Feng Tian Wu even tried to melt the door using one of her fire skills only to find that the peculiar metal did not even overheat forgetting to melt.
Huang Tian even tried to break the walls of the pagoda using brute force with the help of Zhong De but even with the united strength of the two men the walls did not even miss some of their paint let alone collapse.
It was around that time that the worldwide phenomenon where day and night changed turns for several minutes finally came to an end. With the moon and stars once again reigning over their heads, Bai Zemin was about to order everyone to retire to continue studying the area better tomorrow morning when he noticed that Wu Yijun and Meng Qi seemed to be chatting about something several meters apart.
Curious, he walked over to them to ask what they were talking about and as he approached he heard some weird words that he didn’t understand at all.
“Girls, did you discover something?” he asked, startling them.
Wu Yijun even jumped slightly scared as she hadn’t felt him at all.
Meng Qi didn’t look at him and instead pointed at the lion statue in front of her, “Big brother, look at this. Come closer.”
Bai Zemin obeyed honestly and with his hopes high he walked forward.
“Em? What is this?” he said in amazement.
“See? That light inside the mouth wasn’t visible before probably because of the sun but when the night came back I thought I noticed something unusual so I came to see what it was.” Meng Qi replied as she looked at the pale white light inside the lion’s mouth.
Had it not been for the fact that she happened to be there right at the moment when the world went dark, she definitely would not have noticed the pale light since when night descended again all the light from the statue was absorbed so that only by looking specifically inside the mouth very carefully could it be seen.
“That shape… That faint glow…” Bai Zemin suddenly thought of something while looking at the white light and quickly glanced at Wu Yijun before hurriedly ordering, “Wu Yijun, take that object out for me.”
“O- Okay.” Wu Yijun nodded and quickly pulled out a small pink seed from inside her leather sack.
She seemed to do something with the seed as soon a small sprout began to grow and within seconds a sort of super-thin vine formed that with Wu Yijun’s care went into the mouth of the lion statue.
The cavity was so small that probably only something the size of a newborn baby’s fist could fit in there but the statue was actually tall enough that even an adult’s arm could not reach the bottom where the small glowing object was located.
Soon, Wu Yijun’s eyes lit up as she said in a low voice, “Success!”
Under the watchful eyes of Bai Zemin and Meng Qi, the pink-colored vine began to contract in such a way that a few seconds later it appeared outside the lion statue again. However, the pink vine was clinging to a small, irregularly shaped white object about the size of a marble.
“I knew it!” Bai Zemin snapped his fingers as he took the object in his hands.
“Soul Stone?” Wu Yijun said in amazement. “What was a Soul Stone doing in there?”
“Actually, it’s an Unclassified Soul Stone.” Bai Zemin nodded but he suddenly frowned and said in confusion, “But, who would throw a Soul Stone into the statue’s mouth?”
“Could it be that a human was here before?” Wu Yijun said with some hesitation as honestly, such a theory was hard to believe.
“Although I doubt it, we can’t deny that possibility.” Bai Zemin nodded before shaking his head and pointing out, “But if it really is the case, then why in the world would a human come here to throw a Soul Stone into a statue? It doesn’t make sense.”
The trio’s small gathering soon caught the attention of the others who were discussing possible theories and options in order to open the pagodas. Curious, they walked toward the group of three.
“Soul Stone?” Shangguan Bing Xue said immediately upon seeing the small object in Bai Zemin’s hands. “Did you find out something?”
She, like everyone else, thought that perhaps Bai Zemin and the two girls had discovered something to do with Soul Stones and that was why they had taken one out. However, when they heard from Bai Zemin that such a Soul Stone was actually inside the statue they were so shocked that they were at a loss for words to say.
“This… What is this all about?” Feng Tian Wu asked in astonishment. “That Soul Stone has always been there? I don’t think a person would go to the trouble of coming deep into the forests just to hide a Soul Stone inside a bronze statue…”
The words of Feng Tian Wu were greeted with silence. No one said anything since although her words implied something crazy nobody could really argue against it since, in their hearts, they were also thinking the same thing as her.
However… Wouldn’t such a thing imply that in the past the Earth also had evolved creatures? How else could the appearance of that little Unclassified Soul Stone be explained otherwise?
Bai Zemin had a deep frown on his face as he tried to find a clear answer to this whole confusing situation they had inadvertently stumbled upon. Somehow, many things were heading in a way that he could not control regardless of his strength due to lack of knowledge and information.
“Big brother, look at this!”
Bai Zemin quickly looked in the direction of the voice and saw Meng Qi lying on the ground, looking directly under the bronze lion’s chin. He didn’t even think about it before he threw himself on the ground and looked up in the same position as his sister.
“… Thousand?” Bai Zemin murmured in a low yet clear voice in the middle of the night silence.
Right on the bottom of the statue’s chin, the number one thousand was written in Mandarin characters.
“Could it be that this thing wants one thousand Unclassified Soul Stones?” he reasoned immediately.
“I was thinking the same thing too.” Meng Qi looked at him and nodded with a serious expression on her face. “I think the only way to open the pagodas is through these bronze statues, and apparently, the statues work with Soul Stones.”
She hesitated for a moment before saying what everyone was thinking in their hearts:
“… Maybe… Maybe someone left that Soul Stone as a clue…”
The real question was: Who had left that Soul Stone there?
With only one question at the base, many more were born automatically.
Was it really someone from ancient times?
Had the Soul Record visited this world before?
Could the pagodas have been built to hide something?
…
