Chapter 484: Books
In the interior of northern Ukraine, Addis, the capital of Addis.
On the balcony of the hotel in Addis, Dorothy, dressed in a long robe, was sitting on a chair on the balcony, gazing at the Cathedral of Prayer Light outside the city in the distance. She was drinking fruit juice while thinking about the results of her previous investigation and how to uncover the secrets of the Cathedral of Prayer Light.
'If I want to unlock the secrets in the temple, I must trigger a lightning strike and complete the decryption in the hall. These movements are difficult to hide. If the naked Mukhtar is inside the prayer church, he will most likely catch me. Therefore, when I act, Mukhtar must not be inside the prayer church. As long as he doesn't, the others should be able to get away with it.
'Because Mukhtar is a descendant of the Red Stage, I dare not use a small corpse to monitor him, and I don't know his movements. However, I found that at this special time, there is a time and a point in time when he will definitely not enter the prayer church, and that is during the next round of negotiations.'
Dorothy thought so in her heart. At this time, she had already decided on the time to take action, which was when Mukhtar went to participate in the first round of negotiations. Only then could she guarantee to avoid Mukhtar.
After confirming the timing of the action, Dorothy immediately determined the general steps of the action. When everything was almost done, she breathed a sigh of relief, then turned to look at the tall palace on the other side of the city.
'The differences between Shenglinshan and the Savior Faction are too great. I originally thought that I could help Vanya reach an agreement with them this time, but judging from the current situation... there is little hope.
"I feel that after the final negotiation fails, Adus will become quite dangerous. Now I can only complete my main goal as soon as possible, and then protect Vanya's safety depending on the situation. I don't ask for too much this time. In the end, as long as I can get the advancement ritual and escape unscathed, it will be a success, so I have to hurry..."
Looking at the palace in the distance, Dorothy thought this in her heart, and then she began to wait patiently for the arrival of the scheduled time.
…
Time flies, a day goes by quickly, and the time for the second round of negotiations is coming soon.
Because during the day, Vanya, the special envoy of the Holy Mountain Church, led the team to visit some tribes around Addis and was unable to return in time, the meeting time was postponed to the evening. As the sun set in the sky, the time for the first round of negotiations was soon approaching.
At night, the moon was rising, and outside the city of Addis, Mukhtar, the highest representative of Addis of the Savior's Descendant Church, left the church where they lived together with his most loyal and important men, got on the carriage, and drove towards the negotiation site in the city with serious faces. There was a trace of solemnity in the eyes of each of them, because the result of this negotiation would directly determine their next actions.
After Mukhtar left with his entourage, the Prayer Church in India became deserted all of a sudden. By nightfall, there were almost no people coming here to pray. The only people left in the entire Prayer Church were a group of low-ranking Savior priests and some revolutionary soldiers.
Time passed minute by minute, and in the distant palace, the first round of negotiations had officially begun. The priests and soldiers in the Qi Guang Church were living a life similar to the past, doing their own things. But at this moment, a thunderbolt startled everyone.
A few moments ago, without any warning, a streak of incandescent lightning struck from the dark sky, accompanied by a deafening roar. The lightning that fell from the sky struck the obelisk array in front of the Prayer Light Church, and struck the top of one of the stone tablets. A few moments later, at the same moment, the top of the obelisk that was struck, the fangs and claws of the lightning jumped out, connecting the obelisk array, and for a moment, the entire Prayer Light Church was illuminated by the lightning. Then, both the dazzling lightning and the deafening thunder disappeared in an instant.
After the lightning disappeared, many people in the Prayer Light Church came to the obelisk array and looked at the scene in front of them in surprise. Since many of them had read the tourist introduction in front of the obelisk array and knew that the obelisk array had the effect of guiding lightning, their expressions only remained in surprise and did not escalate to the level of surprise. Instead, they discussed with each other whether the sudden lightning was a sign that the weather had begun to change secretly.
At this moment, a cry of surprise came from outside the Church of Light. The people gathered in front of the obelisk array all looked in the direction of the cry. Then they saw several oasis trees outside the Church of Light burning fiercely. It was obvious that the lightning strike just now had affected the area outside the obelisk and set the trees on fire!
Seeing the raging fire outside, the people in the Qi Guang Church were shocked and rushed to put out the fire. Because the fire seemed to be unexpectedly large, many people went there. Even the priests who were praying in the church were alarmed by the commotion outside and rushed over to help put out the fire.
In an instant, the attention of all the people who stayed in the Qi Guang Church was attracted by the fire spreading outside the church, and almost all of them gathered there. In the wide hall supported by countless tall columns, there was no one in an instant.
At this moment, an agile figure jumped down from the already open ceiling of the hall, passed between the tall stone pillars, jumped back and forth, and finally landed on the empty floor of the hall. Upon closer inspection, it was a woman with a slim figure wearing a black tight-fitting garment, a hood on her head and a scarf on her face. Behind the woman, there was another petite figure carrying her back.
"I'm already here... Thank you..."
After Nefernis landed upright, Dorothy, who was wearing a robe and a veil, slid down from Nefernis's back and stood on the floor of the hall. At this moment, Nefernis beside her spoke softly.
"Is there anything else going on?"
"Not for now... You should hurry up and hide in a safe place. I will let you know when I'm done. By then, I'm afraid I'll need your help to get me out."
Dorothy responded to Nefernis' words, and Nefernis nodded after hearing it and continued to respond.
"Well, I'll leave first. I wish you good luck..."
After saying that, Nefernis left here immediately, still relying on two pillars to jump all the way to the roof of the hall. After watching Nefernis leave temporarily, Dorothy breathed a sigh of relief.
It was obvious that the lightning just now was created by Dorothy. With Dorothy's control ability, it was impossible for her to let the lightning hit the tree accidentally. The reason why the tree was so flammable was all because of the puppets arranged by Dorothy in advance. Dorothy's puppet put a bunch of accelerants on the tree next to it and ignited it when the lightning struck. The fire it created was enough for the people left here to put out for a while.
In the eyes of the people sent by the Savior to descend to the Church of Light, it was just a temporary base that had just been used. There was nothing particularly important in it that was worth protecting, so the key combat forces were concentrated around Mukhtar, and the people who stayed behind were more casual, which allowed Dorothy to sneak in with just some tricks.
After Nefernis evacuated, Dorothy in the empty hall immediately began to move. She quickly came to the altar in the hall that was originally dedicated to the Glowing Savior, and kept stepping precisely on the floor tiles in front of her, stepping on the numbers written on the floor tiles in the general knowledge text.
At the moment when the lightning created by Dorothy struck the obelisk array, Dorothy's bird corpse doll patrolling in the sky saw the pattern formed by the arcs jumping and connecting with each other on the obelisks. It was a thunder-shaped text of the First Dynasty, which was the number nine in the text. Thanks to Berard's research on the mathematical works of the First Dynasty, Dorothy was able to recognize the various numbers in the thunder-shaped text.
Bringing the numbers obtained from the lightning strike into the math game in the hall, and after getting the last condition, Dorothy quickly solved all the answers in the math game. Now she is the one who puts all the answers into the problem-solving area in front of the altar.
In just ten seconds, Dorothy put all the answers in. Then she began to wait amid the noisy sounds outside, waiting for changes around her.
One second, two seconds... Gradually, more than ten seconds passed. There was no change in the empty hall. There was no sound of the mechanism being activated, no secret door or secret passage opening. Dorothy was slightly stunned by the scene and couldn't help but worry if there was something wrong with her solution. Was this the way to solve the puzzle in the temple? Or had the mechanism been broken after seven thousand years?
Dorothy frowned with deep worry for a moment. At this moment, strange things happened all around her.
In Dorothy's eyes, the palace in front of her suddenly became illusory, and everything she could see began to become blurred, and even began to appear semi-transparent.
The shapes of things became blurry, but their outlines became unusually clear and shimmered. The walls became blurry, but their corners became distinct. The gaps between the tiles and the structural lines of the stone pillars all became unusually clear in Dorothy's eyes. The details of the objects were ignored, but the structures that constructed their basic forms were clearly visible. It was like a beautiful painting that was reduced to its most basic line drawings, and the scenes of a large 3A game were stripped of rendering, and everything returned to its original simplicity.
In this plain and simple space, rows of strange characters appeared out of thin air. The huge empty hall was almost filled with these strange characters. However, many of these characters were blurred or incomplete, and most of them could not be fully recognized.
In front of Dorothy, on the altar that originally belonged to the Savior, a strange symbol appeared in the air. Different from the holy light of the sun that glowed on the Savior, the symbol showed an open eye. The upper eyelid of the eye covered the upper part of the pupil, and the lower part of the pupil had seven zigzag lines like arcs shooting out, filling the entire lower white of the eye, and three more radiated out of the white of the eye.
Looking at this wonderful change before her eyes, a strange expression appeared in Dorothy's eyes. Her eyes widened slightly and she looked at every scene around her curiously.
"Is this change caused by solving the puzzle? Will the temple become like this after the puzzle is solved? No, that's not right. It's not that the temple has become like this. I have entered some hidden space in the temple..."
Looking at the things in front of her, Dorothy thought to herself that in order to prevent someone from accidentally entering the hall, she had several bird corpses watching the entire Prayer Church at all times. In the vision of these bird corpses, the Prayer Church did not change at all. Only the Prayer Church in Dorothy's vision changed.
Among the bird corpse dolls that Dorothy used for surveillance, one of them was directly above the hall, overlooking the scene in the hall below. In the vision of this bird corpse doll, Dorothy saw that after stepping on all the answers, her real body gradually became transparent and disappeared. Therefore, Dorothy concluded that the phenomenon before her eyes was not that any major changes had really occurred in the Prayer Church, but that she was sent to a space that overlapped with the Prayer Church... or was deeper in the Prayer Church.
Dorothy was thinking about all kinds of things in her mind, and then she walked forward in this simple world full of words, and came to the door of the temple. She looked at the many priests and guards who were busy putting out the fire outside the door. In Dorothy's eyes, most of the details and colors of them had been lost. They seemed like busy moving line people. In the eyes of any of Dorothy's zombies in reality, she could not be seen at all. In Dorothy's eyes, the edge of the Prayer Church had an obvious border line, and she could not see anything outside the border line.
'This feeling is similar to that of entering a dark world or something... As of now, I can see and hear the images and sounds in the real world in this dark world, but people in the real world cannot perceive me.
"This inner world... is this the secret of this temple? As expected of the legacy of the First Dynasty, they created something like this. I thought there would be some secret passages and secret doors after the puzzle was solved..."
Looking at the scene in front of her, Dorothy sighed in her heart, then she turned over and walked into the hall, and began to look at the large text floating in the air in the hall, as well as the holy light floating in the center of the hall.
'That eye-like holy emblem... must be the holy light of the Heavenly Judge. As expected, this temple was originally built to enshrine the Heavenly Judge. The Heavenly Judge was the first deity worshipped here.
'And these words floating in the air... Tsk, although I can tell that they are the language of the First Dynasty, most of them look incomplete or even blurry. Occasionally I can see some words written in common language, but they are all meaningless words...'
Looking at the scene in the hall, Dorothy thought so in her heart, and then a question arose in her heart.
"What is this strange space used for?"
Dorothy murmured this, and just as she finished her words, countless floating characters around her began to change suddenly. They began to change in the air like fish swimming, just like the sentences in Dorothy's navigation log. After a while, a new text appeared in front of Dorothy. She was somewhat surprised to find that this passage was written in general language, which made up the content that she could understand, and this content explained the function of this space.
"Qiwen Temple, it seems like this... The purpose of this space is to be a library..."
Looking at the contents of the general knowledge book in front of her, Dorothy was stunned for a moment. Now she knew the purpose of this space: it was a library.
The Qiwen Temple is a temple dedicated to the Judge of Heaven. Like other Qi temples in the First Dynasty, it is a religious sacrificial site and also bears the function of collecting knowledge. For ordinary people, it is an ordinary temple. Only those who can understand the general knowledge text, solve the thunder pattern puzzle, and complete the "Qi" of sacrificing to the Judge of Heaven can enter this hidden hiding space.
In mysticism, the real world is also called the outer world. It is a part of the complete world and the outer skin of the world. If we use a pocket watch as an analogy, the real world is the dial that everyone can see and the pointer on it. Places like the underworld, the dream world, and heaven are under the dial, where various gears mesh with each other to provide power for the dial and determine the time of the dial. They are called the inner world.
The inner world is the vast majority of the inner world, with a volume countless times that of the outer world. It is the muscles and internal organs under the skin, and is the internal factor of the outer world. Therefore, it is also the residence of various gods and inner world creatures. The current location of Dorothy is like a shallow inner world, which is a hidden space created by extraordinary power under the outer world but not yet reaching the inner world. In addition, this temple also serves as an examination room and assists the city in defending against enemies.
A library, a sacrificial site, an examination center... the integration of sacrificial research and education is a feature of the Temple of Heavenly Judge. Even after seven thousand years, this temple still has some remnants of extraordinary functions and is operating normally. The main reason for this is the temple's own spiritual collection system, which is called Lei Ji in the introduction before Dorothy.
The obelisk arrays on the temple square are not only used to generate random numbers for sacrificial decryption, but more importantly, these obelisks can convert the self-falling lightning they receive into spirituality, and transport it to the hidden space to maintain the continuous operation of the entire extraordinary system. Over the past thousands of years, this lightning system has received countless self-falling lightning, and the spirituality converted from it has kept the hidden space of the temple in standby mode for thousands of years.
In the First Dynasty more than 7,000 years ago, this Temple of Qi was once a city temple of another ancient city different from Addis. In that disappeared First Dynasty city, only the extremely intelligent "Qi" was qualified to complete the decryption sacrifice and enter this hidden library to acquire knowledge. This library has a convenient query function that can easily query all kinds of information that visitors want. Dorothy's words just now inadvertently triggered this query mechanism, and the introduction of this library was called out.
After realizing that she was deep in a library of the First Dynasty, Dorothy suddenly became interested and began to scan the various texts around her, but found that she could understand very little.
It seemed that due to the lack of maintenance for thousands of years and the wars, the extraordinary system of this temple seemed to have suffered serious damage. Many words were blurred and damaged. Some of the words that were not damaged were not written in common language but in thunder script, which Dorothy could not understand. Among the few contents recorded in common language, many of them were also incomprehensible to Dorothy herself because she could not meet the reading requirements. Dorothy speculated that these common language texts were for people with special identities in the temple. The reading requirements introduced by the library seemed to be that as long as they were "enlightened" extraordinary people, it would be fine. These were the few contents that Dorothy could understand at a glance.
Some of the content was damaged, some was in linguistic text that Dorothy could not understand, and some was general text that Dorothy could not understand because she did not meet the requirements. For a moment, Dorothy found that although there was a lot of content in this library, there were very few that she could read. This phenomenon made Dorothy nervous and worried about whether the information she wanted was missing.
After taking a quick look at the strange space around her, Dorothy took a breath and then spoke to the library space.
"I want to read the contents of the promotion ceremony to the Chicheng stage of the Path of 'Qi'."
Dorothy murmured like this. Although she was not speaking Pritt, the library's reference system seemed to use some kind of cross-language communication technology similar to general knowledge, so it could still understand her and began to help Dorothy look up the information she wanted.
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