Everyone turned at once towards him, appearing quite enlivened by his exclamation.
“What is it?”
Everyone threw their shovels aside and rode their hover platforms in his direction. Upon reaching it, they were surprised to see a pointy sharp yellow rock, resembling a spearhead.
“Is it a rock?” Erik inquired while leaning closer.
“Let’s find out.” Malak said as she beamed a small shovel and passed it to Khodri.
In a careful manner, he began digging the sides around the yellow rock, exposing more and more hard surfaces around it.
They weren’t separated from the first rock, making them a bit confused about what it was.
Soon, all of them picked up their own small shovels and began assisting Khodri after realizing that something big was underneath.
After five minutes or so, they were all left in a state of marvel at the sight of a humanoid statue holding tightly into a broken spear!
His cracked head was that of an eagle while his back had two broken wings attached to it.
The statue was not small in the slightest as the squad was all standing on his chest. His legs had yet to be exposed!
‘Doesn’t he remind you of Blacky?’ Asna asked with a surprised tone.
‘Matter of a fact, he does.’ Felix replied.
Asna turned to Lady Sphinx who was bullying Thor and Jörmungandr in poker, and asked her, “Big sis, is there any chance that this temple might belong to you?”
“Hmm?” Lady Sphinx glanced upward to check and responded casually, “Probably belonged to one of my worshipers in ancient time.”
Felix was left at loss for words at the sound of that. He knew that the primogenitors’ worshipers were spread far and wide in the universe, but he didn’t expect that one of Lady Sphinx’s ruins would be in the Milky Way Galaxy.
The fact that it was the first ruins he aimed for was quite unexpected.
‘Elder, you don’t mind cleaning your worshiper’s temple right?’ Felix coughed.
‘Help yourself.’ Lady Sphinx gave half a shrug as she pushed a bunch of coins to the center of the table, making both Thor and Jörmungandr sweat a bit.
Immediately after getting her permission, Felix focused back on the squad that was continuing to reveal the statue.
They were so engrossed in their work, they forgot about their fatigue and also the two suns that were beginning to rise from the east.
A few minutes later, they were forced to break out of their focus as the sand around them began heating up, making them realize that it was time to bounce.
“Good work everyone.” Malak clapped her hands twice and said, “Let’s head back to the spaceship and take a break. We will continue from where we left at dusk.”
Everyone nodded their heads and beamed their shovels. Then, they hovered to the spaceship and closed the gate after them, leaving the machines behind.
Unlike them, they could work 24/7 due to their quality and also their energy that was being powered by a miniature nuclear battery.
…
In an hour or two, everyone had gathered in the conference room after they took a cooling shower and ate dinner.
“Which ancient civilization do you think these ruins belong to?” Malissa asked while chewing bubblegum.
Everyone glanced at Felix, knowing that he was the one who possessed the most information.
“Don’t really know.” Felix lied through his teeth, “The Organization simply informed me that it should be filled with sand-based natural treasures.”
Upon hearing so, the squad began throwing guesses of their own.
“Do you think it belonged to one of the ancestral beings?” Jones inquired.
“I do hope so.” Malak said, “The information harvested from the ruins would net us a noteworthy sum from the Queen and the Intel traders.”
Everyone nodded their heads in agreement.
They understood that most of the ruins didn’t belong to far-off ancient civilizations most of the time.
Instead, they belonged to either aboriginal natives who went extinct due to an apocalyptic event or got destroyed in wars.
Those ruins didn’t have much value in terms of information and treasures unlike ruins belonging to ancient civilizations.
As for the ancestral beings, they spoke about? They were actually referring to the primogenitors!
It was to be expected that those ruins would have traces and marks left behind that mention the primogenitors’ existence billions of years ago.
Though, the information gotten from those ruins gets sold to Intel traders who would then sell it to high profiled people.
Those people had no intentions of enlightening the masses by spreading the information in public.
Meanwhile, The Queen locks that information in the lowest layer of the network, making it impossible for the majority to gain access to them.
Still, some information gets leaked all the time, allowing Malak and the rest to know about the enigmatic ‘Ancestral Beings’.
Unbeknownst to them, the ancestral being behind these ruins was currently reading a book in enjoyment while receiving a shoulder massage and a foot rub from Thor and Jörmungandr.
It was clear how that poker game had gone down!
***
28 hours later…
The ruins site had been completely changed compared to the first time they found that spear’s tip.
Now, they had exposed more than two statues and thousands of broken rocks, spread through the entire site.
While the statues had been discovered in the left and right corners, the majority of the rubble was in the center, making them assume that the entrance should be buried below it.
That’s because they believed that the guardians were put at the sides like doorkeepers.
However, no matter how much they dug, there was no sight of a single opening. Only yellow square rocks were greeting their desolate eyes.
If it wasn’t for the statues, they would have already given up on this spot and tried another one.
“Anything yet?!” Khodri shouted after taking a sip of water from a flexible tube.
‘Nothing here.’
‘Same.’
‘Just rocks as usual.’
Only negative responses resounded in their minds. All of them sighed in dejection and continued digging or picking up rocks.
They had dug deep enough they were required to use plenty of water to wet the sand plus create walls using the rubble to keep it steady.
…
Hours went by and still, no positive results came in.
“Can we take five?” Jones dropped on his back while breathing ruggedly inside his helmet.
Upon hearing his breaths, Malak scolded, “Drink the stamina recovery potion and start pacing your breaths! You are wasting precious oxy…”
THUUD!!!!
Malak’s voice got interrupted halfway through by a loud noise of something falling down then crashing into another hard object!
Quicker than lightning, she turned her head and focused on Nicci as the noise had come from her area.
What came in her view was the sight of a dark hole between two large boulders! Nicci was standing in shock right at the edges of the right boulder!
“Is that the entrance!?” Erik asked with an excited tone as he dashed towards Nicci. The rest went after him, eager and hopeful about this discovery.
“I don’t know.” Nicci replied shyly while peeking through the dark hole, “But it is quite deep.”
When everyone climbed the boulders and glanced down, they were also confused if this hole was the entrance or just another dead end.
“There is only one way to find out.” Malak requested in her mind, ‘Queen, please ask Momo to come here as fast as possible.’
As a slime, it was only natural that he would be left in the spaceship instead of helping them with this hard labor.
His jelly-like body didn’t have a solid mass, making it almost impossible to exert strength on objects.
‘You need me, captain?’ Momo spoke telepathically.
‘Yes, we have found a lead, we need you to scout the situation.’
‘Right away.’
In less than a minute, Momo could be seen hovering towards them while wearing a suit but not the helmet.
Slimes were known for being immortal due to their survivability in any atmosphere and environment. So, he didn’t care about the chill or the lack of oxygen.
When he reached the hole that they found, he immediately split his arm that had the AP bracelet and sent it down.
The bracelet turned on the flashlight plus a recording camera that was synchronized with a holographic screen before everyone.
The first thing they noticed was that the walls of the hole belonged to the boulders they were standing on.
The deeper the slime arm reached the more astonished they got at the size of the boulders. It had already reached 25 meters below ground, yet no signs of a floor or another hole in those walls.
“Is this a well?” Erik wondered.
“Highly doubtful.” Malissa clarified, “Wells shouldn’t be this deep and they must definitely not be between two boulders. This must be a chimney or an escape route, or something.”
The reason she thought so was because of the almost perfectly shaped hole.
It appeared like those two boulders were merged, leaving this hole behind, or it got dug after they got merged.
Maybe this was just one gigantic boulder that got split in half and the hole had been dug before that.
Whatever it was, everyone was filled with anticipation as they began to believe that they had found at least a way inside the temple!
Seconds went by then minutes…The slime’s arm kept gliding down the wall continuously while having its distance tracked by the bracelet.
Right now, it had already gone 80 meters underneath, making the squad skeptical if this hole had any floor.
However, just as they began to believe that there were a hundred meters more to cross, the holographic screen had brightened up akin to a golden crown placed under the sun.
The light was golden and mesmerizing in this dark hour, making everyone allured to focus on it.
The moment the blurriness of the light went away, their hearts started pounding thunderously at a scene that would remain with them for the rest of their lives!
