If Ro Xin was around, she would definitely have scolded Tang Ling, “Look, this is your punishment!”
It was indeed a punishment because when Tang Ling noticed the Underground creature, it also noticed him. It grumbled strangely and said something in a foreign language as it waved its hand. Immediately, a huge swarm of black-toothed rats flooded towards Tang Ling.
F*ck! Tang Ling cursed in his heart. He continued running towards the direction where he came from with Darcy. He had to hope that his decision was the right one. Otherwise, it would be the end of him.
He did not bring Darcy away from the town. Her house was at the border of the town in the north-west corner, so running out of town from her house was definitely closer than running back to Joshua’s house, then running out of town.
Tang Ling’s actions were stupid regardless of perspective, but after he set his mind on something, he tended to do everything to revolve around that and he believed his decision was the right one.
Withstanding all the difficulties, Tang Ling carried Darcy back to Joshua’s house which had turned into a slaughterhouse.
Joshua’s stupid, mean uncle and aunt died on the roof and the yard respectively. The two self-righteous cousin sisters ended up dead as well in the yard. It seemed like the black-toothed rats’ habit never changed. They always liked to chew on their prey in spacious areas.
An indescribable feeling rushed into Tang Ling’s heart when he glanced at all the badly mutilated bodies. Joshua’s relatives might be mean, but they did not deserve to die.
The cruel night, however, had reaped their lives mercilessly.
The horrible scene reminded Tang Ling that humankind would soon face a similar fate. How could he stay calm about it?
This night was just a recreation of history. He could not stop anything. Moreover, he had no idea how to. While his current speed and strength were like Superman’s in the old civilization, it was exhausting enough to save just Darcy alone.
At that very moment, Tang Ling realized how helpless humankind was in the vast river of time. Unfortunately, he did not have the time to sigh. He still had to figure a way to decipher the formation. The Underground monster did not just command the rats to slow Tang Ling. It also joined the chase soon after that.
If my decision is correct, this… Tang Ling’s mind started to recall the magical lines that appeared from the stone tablet.
A quick turn later, he headed to the basement of the house. No matter how ridiculous his decision to run in the opposite direction was, he had to follow the guidance of the formation line to secure a chance to escape this attack alive.
Fortunately, the formation lines of the third-level formation were relatively easy even for his current level of understanding, so he was able to decipher the formation quickly even though he only knew how to compare the magical and the formation lines.
In the basement was a little tunnel that Joshua had dug secretly. The tunnel led towards the second exit of the sewer. The tunnel was poorly designed and was not at all effective or efficient for escaping, but miraculously, even though he could have run into danger, he was able to avoid all of it. Even that Underground creature coincidentally missed several times when attempting to catch him.
The whole escape was nothing less of a miracle. It was hard to be put in words but the rough escape led Tang Ling and Darcy to the border of town and even presented them with a pickup truck.
According to the formation lines, the pickup truck was the goal, but it was not the end yet. Without further ado, Tang Ling punched the truck door open and lifted Darcy inside, but there were no keys.
At that second, the familiar voice of an old man rang in Tang Ling’s head and guided him to start the pickup truck without the keys.
No wonder he wanted to be a mechanic! Tang Ling exclaimed as he miraculously started the pickup truck and drove towards the highway outside town. Darcy was weeping on Tang LIng’s shoulders as she held his hand tightly.
The night was dark while the purple mist lingered, but somehow the situation was filled with hope.
Hope? When Tang Ling thought of the word, he suddenly felt very sleepy.
“Welcome to the Dream World, Joshua.”
Dream World? A Dream Seed? As expected!
It was the last thought that Tang Ling had in his mind before he lost consciousness.
…
Krooom!
A loud noise woke Tang Ling up. His eyes sprung open and saw a purple light burst out from the stone tablet. The stone tablet then sank into the ground.
Did I get it?
Tang Ling was filled with excitement.
At the same time as the stone tablet sunk into the ground, an electronic voice articulated, “Access granted. Everyone will be awoken in 10 minutes. Warning! Warning! Access to the House of Legacy is only valid for 10 minutes. The entrance will be closed after that and the third-level formation will be reset.”
Ro Xin! Ro Li!
The electronic voice uttered a few simple sentences, but the amount of information was tremendous. Tang Ling immediately reacted to the situation. He neglected the so-called House of Legacy that he was granted access to after deciphering the formation and sprinted towards another direction madly.
After he triggered the formation, everyone in town fell asleep. Then, when he deciphered the third-level formation, he was granted 10 minutes to enter the so-called House of Legacy.
In relation to that, the others who entered the Ninth Ruins would wake up after 10 minutes.
The third-level formation will be reset? Does that mean that someone else will have the chance to decipher all this again? This isn’t what I expected.
As Tang Ling pondered upon the question, he searched the entire town quickly. Three minutes later, he found Ro Li and Ro Xin, who were sound asleep, and his search rewarded him with a tiny clue as well.
Ro Xin was tasked to mislead the Stardust Council by acting like she was going to decipher the formation, so she would have brought the enemy to a fake starting point to make it seem real. Therefore, with that clue in mind, it was not difficult to find the siblings.
He carried Ro Xin on his back and Ro Li on his shoulder. Around him were all the soldiers from the Stardust Council, including Draconic Seven. A quick thought popped up in his mind: why not seize the chance to kill Draconic Seven?
The thought was quickly discarded because he did not know whether he would wake Draconic Seven up or not if he really attacked. People at his level were mostly very sensitive towards their surroundings, even in their sleep.
A slight hesitation later, he went back. He was only granted 10-minute access to the House of Legacy, so he did not want anything unexpected to happen. Otherwise, he would have seized the chance to end Draconic Seven.
…
Six minutes later, Tang Ling returned to the little square with the siblings. The stone tablet was nowhere to be found, and in its place was a hole that emanated a purple glow.
Tang Ling was very familiar with the purple glow. It was none other than the glow of the Universal Source Rock. Nervously, he brought the siblings to the purple hole, and to his surprise, nothing stopped him. He got closer, and still, nothing happened.
Then, Tang Ling clenched his teeth and jumped into the hole with the brother and sister.
Nothing happened except for the electronic voice which started talking again, “Entry into the House of Legacy detected. Entrance closing. In three minutes, the third-level formation will be reset.”
What’s going on? Tang Ling put Ro Li and Ro Xin down and started to size up the so-called House of Legacy excitedly. It was a huge house that was as big as a soccer field.
The interior was filled with western design elements including the striped wallpaper, the comfortable sofa, the tea table, and so on. Other than that, the large house was full of miscellaneous items. Some of the items were decent armor and weapons even by the Purple Moon era standards. There were even some dried vicious plants.
Aren’t they valuable? Yet they’ve been simply thrown around here!
Tang Ling did not touch any of those, not because he was suddenly a well-mannered person, but from the moment he stepped into this house, there was a big Universal Source Rock in front of him.
This Universal Source Rock was around a sixth of the size of the rock back in the Hope Barrier, but it was a brighter purple and the glow was thicker and richer with energy.
A mere Universal Source Rock would not have threatened Tang Ling, but this rock was unlike any other. It was covered with all sorts of complex magical formations plus magical symbols that he could not understand.
The center of the rock was hollow, and the size of the void was as big as a bedroom. Inside the void was a seemingly advanced machine that resembled the computer from the old civilization. There were also many other precious-looking items around the machine, one of which was a pen. From the moment Tang Ling spotted that pen, his eyes were glued to it. He had a feeling that there was more than met the eye when it came to that pen.
Despite the hollowed center and the advanced machine present in the Universal Source Rock, none of those were what petrified Tang Ling. He was terrified because in front of the advanced machinery was the hollow projection of a figure.
The projection showed his back to Tang Ling and was dressed exactly like a wizard of the west in a pointy hat with a black robe similar to a scholar’s. Even though it was just a projection, Tang Ling could tell that the hat and the robe had a luster unique only to metal.
The figure’s attire reminded Tang Ling of someone. He remembered that when he first met Kun, Kun had worn a black long robe which looked like he had cut a piece of the galaxy out and donned it as it was glimmering with stars.
I don’t think this robe is as high-level as Kun’s.
It was at that moment that the figure turned around to Tang Ling. It was a very old man with a thick white beard covering half of his face. His exposed eyes and forehead were covered with wrinkles.
“It has been many years since I died, but since you are able to see my projection, it means that you’ve almost gotten the highest access to the House of Legacy,” the old man began.
What’s with the projection? How come he can even answer my question? Tang Ling was baffled by what he saw. He asked, “Are you a projection? Can you converse with me?”
“Of course, I can. This brain stores many of my memories. It can simulate my thoughts and perform a normal conversation with you, but if you are talking about things that are beyond my memories, I won’t be able to answer you.”
Is this advanced? Tang Ling was overwhelmed. He was silent for a while before he asked, “So, are you Joshua?”
“I am.”
After the confirmation, Tang Ling asked the next question, “Then, are you the Dream Seed?”
“You’ve cleared the third-level formation perfectly, so you must have seen the Easter egg at the end. Isn’t it obvious?” The projection smiled.
Perfectly? So, my guess is correct all along? The whole Ninth Ruins exists like this to commemorate something that he lost?
Tang Ling had his speculations at first and was able to confirm it when he read Joshua’s diary.
Just think about it: a little town was well-preserved with formations and the whole town was repeating the same day over and over again. The person who set this all up had something that he missed about this town, and on this particular day, there must have been something that he could never forget for the rest of his life.
This particular memory could not be explained using the normal method since it was so poignant, and usually, the strongest memories revolved mostly around regrets.
Tang Ling was not sure at first. It had been days since he stepped into the Ninth Ruins and he had been observing what exactly made the owner of the Ninth Ruins regret to this extent.
However, his observation returned fruitless until he read that diary. Tang Ling realized that the diary was all about Darcy and she was the ultimate reason this town existed. As for the regret, the answer was self-explanatory at this point.
Deciphering the last level of formation with this particular thought from the owner was the correct way.
“Darcy died on that night that you experienced. In fact, everyone in town died except for me. I’ve lived through two different eras and experienced countless dangers. I’ve fallen to the bottom and risen to the highest before, but the nightmare that kept me awake for almost every night is the regret I went through on this particular night. I wish I had been able to bring Darcy away.
“I’ve always imagined how life would be if I managed to escape with Darcy. How much would my life have changed? But that’s just my imagination. I wasn’t satisfied with the outcome, so I used my final wish to set up this third-level formation. Young man, you’ve completely seen through my thoughts.”
“So, I’ve been rewarded with what is almost the highest access to the House of Legacy? But why is it just ‘almost’?” Tang Ling spread his hands in confusion. It seemed like the risk he took rewarded him with something big.
He was curious about how high ‘almost’ was. What kind of access would that be? Would it be enough to take everything from the house?
