The Record of Unusual Creatures

Master Hymer was reserved and introverted, which could be due to his indulgence in the studies of different magic all these years. Once he talked about the things that he was interested in, the young archmage would immediately become enthusiastic and eloquent as if he had changed into another person. When Hymer was finally done, Hao Ren found the opportunity to interject. “Did you just say that time in the ruins stood still?”

“Umm…” Hymer was a little embarrassed. “I was just guessing. Our research on the ‘time’ element is still superficial. Even the legendary Ancient Magic Empire should have no control over time. When we first entered the ruins, the time there was flowing as usual. So I couldn’t judge what was happening when the ruins were completely sealed. This is just based on the signs after the door opened—”

Long annoyed by Hymer’s non-stop babbling, Becky quickly interrupted, “Well, that’s enough. You don’t have to tell us about that. Now, this person next to me is a professional in demolishing ancient structures. Bring us to the scene now.”

“Of course. We have cleaned out the outer layers of the ruins. Please come with me.”

Hymer selected a few smart apprentices to accompany him, and several senior knights as guards, and took Hao Ren and his team to the entrance to the ruins discovered not long ago.

The entrance was just at the foothill, where a semi-collapsed gray-black hole suddenly appeared not far from the camp. It looked like an ordinary cave from the outside, and no one would have thought of it as the entrance to the ancient ruins at first glance. Vines and black roots covered the mountain walls on both sides of the cave where burning and cut marks left behind by the investigation team were visible. Two knights wearing enchanted armor stood guard at the entrance. Their faces were tense and their swords were planted in the ground.

“How did you find this place?” Hao Ren asked casually before entering the cave.

“The energy field of the Lorissian Wall had interfered with the first energy burst. The investigation team entered and combed the mountains but found nothing. After a while, there were second and third energy bursts, which occurred irregularly but often, giving us the opportunity to lock on the target. After mathematically filtering out the interference from the Lorissian Wall, we finally found this place.”

While explaining, Master Hymer led everyone into the dark cave that looked like the mouth of a fierce beast.

Semi-collapsed, the entrance looked dangerous from the outside. Once stepping into the inside, Hao Ren noticed that the ceiling and walls of the cave were glimmering with magical brilliance. Small magic circles, used by Hymer to prevent the cave from collapsing, seemed to hover on the cave walls at each interval.

After the entrance, it was a long way down a slope before there were forks and turns appeared 100 meters down. More forks appeared as they went as if they had entered into a maze. But the investigation team had explored the place before and left behind signs along the way and even guards at each fork. The magic crystals inlaid in the walls were not bright enough, so Hymer cast a light spell to help illuminate the cave.

There were random broken objects protruded out from the soft soil of the cave. Some part of the cave had traces of human excavation. Other than these, Hao Ren could not find more signs of civilization. “Is here the main entrance to the ruins?” Hao Ren asked curiously.

“No, we haven’t found the main entrance yet. I suspect that the ruins underneath are an enclosed space where there are no entrance and exit, and is only accessible by teleporting.” Hymer explained. “The end of the cave actually leads to a branch another corridor, which was not accessible initially. But a minor earthquake triggered by the energy burst a few days ago had exposed the passage.”

Hao Ren nodded but said nothing further.

After going a distance, the cave in front of them suddenly brightened up by a large number of glowing magic spars on the walls on both sides. Small labs, arsenals, sentry posts, and piles of materials were on the open ground. Several mages and apprentice mages were compiling data in the caves. They stopped their work and greeted Hymer.

“Don’t stop. Keep working.” Hymer did look like an archmage in front of his assistants and apprentices.

After the apprentices and assistants left, he pointed at the crack in the wall at the end of the cave. “There is the entrance. The ruins are right on the other side.”

Vivian summoned two bats and threw them into the crack. A moment later, the two bats came back up to Vivian, who nodded and said, “It’s safe inside. It seems that the investigation team has cleaned it up pretty well.”

Squeezing through the gap, which the earthquake had cracked open in the rocks, Hao Ren’s field of vision opened up.

A broad and straight corridor extended out on both sides. Constructed of man-made material, the passage was smooth emitting a faint glow. There were many straight stripes on the walls on both sides of the corridor, as if some mysterious reliefs or energy conduits. Hao Ren looked at both sides. The collapsed passage had blocked off one end of the hallway, and at the other end was a large door, which had been opened.

The door had a pattern that looked entirely different from the decor styles of today’s Holletta. Various straight lines formed an extremely abstract picture, which seemed like a portrait of a character and a monster, but full of strangeness.

This was the first door of the ruins. Master Hymer and his apprentices had spent three days and three nights to open the door. But they hit a roadblock at the second door inside and only had some progress recently.

Hao Ren stepped inside and found an unusually large chamber on the inside.

The chamber was oval, spacious, and magnificent, without any support columns or beams. There was no visible lighting system, but the chamber was filled with light. It showed the incredible technology of the former magic empire. At the very least, this mysterious lighting method was not copied by the Holletta civilization today. Looking up, Hao Ren saw the dark-blue vault with little white spots on it. These white spots, forming a picture as if a starry sky. Together with the silver-white lines, they outlined the mysterious constellations in the universe, complete with annotations of twisted characters. The entire dome was a huge astrological chart, the grandeur of which seemed to reveal the pride of the magic civilization back then. It was as if other than the stars in the universe, there was nothing else that worth looking up.

There were a series of doors distributed around the chamber. Hymer told that those were labs and storage rooms. At the other end of the chamber was another door, which was the second door that the archmage had yet opened successfully. Master Hymer believed that the core area of the ruins lay behind that second door, and the chamber and labs in it were only peripheral facilities.

“The positions of the stars in this astrological chart are very different from the astrological chart we use today. But part of it fits. It should be the star chart of 10,000 years ago,” said Master Hymer, who exclaimed in amazement. “It is perfect and accurate. Many stars that are impossible to observe on the ground are also recorded, and it can accurately calculate the position of many stars after thousands or even tens of thousands of years later. I tried. To calculate some of them, and found several parameters that can correct the contemporary astrological chart. Incredible! Truly incredible! It is hard to imagine how the magic empire of 10,000 years ago knew so well of the stars.”

“It’s simple. The mage emperors had space observatories and even satellite colonies. They even finished their studies of astrology in orbit.” Hao Ren laughed. He asked the MDT to find out the age of each thing in the chamber. “Incredible! Everything here looks so perfectly intact even after 10,000 years. There are no slightest traces of weathering in this place.”

“Not only that. We have also discovered many unusual phenomena. When we first came in here, the energy circles in some labs are still running. In the alchemical reaction container, the alchemical reaction was not over yet. Some doors were still swinging as if the owner of this place had just left in a hurry—seconds just before we entered here.”

Master Hymer’s description was very detailed and vivid. Apparently, he saw them with his own eyes. No wonder he could make the ridiculous assumption that time had stood still.

The MDT had completed its measurement, and the outcomes surprised Hao Ren.

“Is there really the sign of the time stood still?”

“My calculation will not go wrong,” the MDT replied. “There is a 10,000-year difference between the things in the chamber and the things outside the chamber. Only a stand-still time can explain it.”

“What about now?”

“Look around, and you will know.” The MDT flew in a circle in the air. “Time resumed here not long ago. I guess the recent energy bursts and cave-in may have damaged the space-time structure of this place, causing it to return to normal.”