Chapter 16-1
Vol 13: Chapter 16-1.
Such an advance energy system from the Maya civilization shocked everyone. The movie characters might not understand the significance of this fact but the players realized the energy conversion and utilization within the step pyramid far surpassed technology of the twenty first century.
Imhotep’s reading speed was faster due to the light. Everyone got a rough idea of the purpose of the ruins. They then headed to the room with murals that depicted the history of the saints.
“After the saints died from the ten thousand years of lives, few who inherited their knowledge and powers ruled the civilizations located in each continent. They followed the wills of the saints and avoided wars with civilizations in other continents. Thus, one civilization in each continent survived. These knowledge and powers passed down generations after generations until people finally misused them.”
“In Asia and its surrounding lands, two sects appeared and fought each other for the remaining dozens of golden pills left by the saints. They called their sects Taoism and Buddhism. As a result, the civilization in Asia collapsed. Those who lived on the mountains nearly died off. All the golden pills were lost in the event. The new civilization only inherited a small part of the knowledge and powers. No more people resided on the mountains afterward. The locals called those who lived on the mountains, Xian.”
“In the continent of Babylon, two high level species created by the saints ruled the land. These two species had long opposed each other and finally a war started inside the saints’ laboratory, the Tower of Babel. As a result, these two species that had white and black wings, long life-spans but no reproductive ability disappeared along with the Tower of Babel. There was no successor to the civilization. The local who all died in the event called them Angel and Demon.”
“The saints from Africa and the saints from India followed the same theory to fuse the essences of life of humans with the essences of life of the monsters. The two essences came to a perfect fusion under the control of the saints and bore high level organisms that far surpassed humans. The locals called them Gods. Every God had a human body and an animal head. However, as the saints died off, so did the control over the essences of monsters. The Gods destroyed the civilization they were in. Thus, the Africa civilization and India civilization disappeared. Two new civilizations only inherited a small part of the knowledge and powers.”
“In the continent to the north, the saints discovered ways to control the essence of life through external means. However, these individuals had no control over their own bodies’ desires to evolve. Furthermore, the evolution was irreversible. As a result of these two critical flaws, the higher life forms destroyed achievements of the Maya civilization after the saints died. They also disappeared from history.”
Everyone listened to the lost history quietly. Imhotep read. “We document the truest history. Even after our bodies are gone, our spirits live with this passage and this land for eternity.”
Zheng sighed. “Is this the ending to the story? Even the saints who were like gods died. I can’t believe those magnificent civilizations ended up in such fates. Xuan, are you interested in these hieroglyphs?”
Xuan leaned over at the wall. He repeated Imhotep’s words and memorized the meaning of each hieroglyph. Evelyn was doing the same thing. Xuan replied without turning his head. “I got about a hundred hieroglyphs. Imhotep, reading more of it.”
Zheng smiled bitterly at Imhotep. He had no way to deal with Xuan during his lust for knowledge. So he said. “Let’s head to the crafting room. Hope we can find some surprises there.”
They easily found the crafting room in the depth of the ruins with Imhotep as a guide. Half the place had collapsed and the room was basically destroyed. They looked at the room and sighed. But Xuan was crawling through the broken stones quietly. When they were going to leave the ruins, he held out a little rock to Imhotep and asked. “What is the meaning of this hieroglyph?”
Imhotep took the rock and looked at the symbol. “No, this isn’t a hieroglyph. I don’t know what it represents. However, that half a glyph to its side seems like the word, light.”
Xuan took a deep breath after he heard it then said to Zheng. “Found it! This is our biggest treasure. Dig it out, dig the whole room out!”
What Xuan found was a stone tablet that explained the symbols and characters. This tablet was huge and shattered into rocks when the room collapsed. Some of the pieces were unable to be recovered. However, there were also some that were more complete. Xuan collected the rocks like treasures as soon as they found them.
Their days were busy afterward. In order to dig out the room as fast as possible, Zheng had no choice but to hire a group of laborers from the nearest town. He also hired a group of archaeologists. This took seven days due to the need for supplies and tools. Xuan, Evelyn, and Imhotep had no breaks in the time. Xuan had to analyze the meaning of the symbols and characters. Evelyn had to pick out the tablet from the rocks and attempt to piece them together. However, such a large task required the archaeologists to arrive. Imhotep had to translate the hieroglyphs. He was hugely puzzled when it came to specific nouns.
After all, their trip gained them way more than they expected. Zheng received 5000 points and a rank B reward. Everyone else received 4000 points and a rank C reward. One chance to experience the fifth stage after achieving the fourth stage, which might save the whole team in the future. The most valuable was these rocks. Even though they only repaired a corner of the tablet but the knowledge was enough to put them in daydreams.
“A lot of the rocks are beyond repair. We only retrieved 43 elementary rules for symbols and characters, 3 combination rules, elementary energy storage, energy conversion to elementary electricity, energy conversion to elementary anti-gravity. The rest are explanations. However, it also mentioned that there are seventeen such tablets in the Maya civilization. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough time or else we can search throughout the U.S. Some step pyramids are also underground so it further increases the scope of search.”
Xuan held the repaired tablet on his hands. “The elementary energy storage rule can store low level energies such as electricity, heat, light, qi, blood energy, psyche force, Nen, magic. However, it can’t store higher level energies like Xian energy or large quantities.”
The others didn’t totally follow. Zheng felt like he understood and asked. “So what is it for? Sounds like battery.”
Xuan smiled. “Uh. Let me describe it like this. How long does it take you to recover your qi and blood energy after you completely depleted them?”
Zheng thought for a moment and said. “Qi needs about three hours. Blood energy needs five hours. That’s the time if I don’t have one bit of energy left.”
Xuan nodded. “That’s right. In other words, you lose all combat capability when you use up all your energies. You can’t have your enemies wait several hours for you. Even though Destruction will stop due to limitation on your body, but what if you can stay in Explosion without limit? You exhausted all your energies but your body is still perfectly fine.”
Zheng nodded and got what Xuan meant. Xuan continued. “This is the purpose of the energy storage rule. The item created with the rule can store your qi and blood energy that goes back to your body when you need them. Which means you gain additional time in fights. The second rule allows WangXia to use magic infused mines.”