Chapter 361 - 350: Civilization Graveyard
Chapter 361: Chapter 350: Civilization Graveyard
Under a lead-gray sky, a blizzard cut across the frozen earth like blades.
Deep within the ruins, an unusual team was advancing at a steady pace.
Twenty Peacekeeper Golems, arranged in two columns, escorted six members of an investigation team as they advanced toward a peculiar building within the metal city.
A translucent AT Field formed an oval-shaped safe zone, like a moving bubble.
Outside, a few scattered metal lifeforms crawled out from crevices in the ruins. The moment they came within ten meters, they were repelled by the Force Field.
THUD.
A metal monster resembling a hound slammed into the Force Field, its body instantly twisting into a mangled heap.
A nearby Peacekeeper raised its right arm.
A beam of light flashed.
The metal hound was pierced through, its core shattered, and its limbs collapsed into a pool of inert metal.
Captain Silas walked in the center of the formation, watching the monsters outside the Force Field charge them like moths to a flame.
The team could easily handle the metal lifeforms as long as they didn’t swarm, but it was always better to conserve Magic Power.
"First time in my life I’ve been coddled like this on an investigation." The Bloodline Wizard beside him rubbed an arm that had returned to its human form, his tone complex.
"It’s surveillance."
Silas corrected him, his voice low. "That lord needs us to get to the bottom of this place. Let’s get to work. The sooner we hand in our report, the sooner we get back to the Association."
The team advanced with incredible speed. Freed from the pressure of having to fight for their lives, the First-level Wizards’ professional skills were on full display.
They soon arrived before a massive, hemispherical building over five hundred meters in diameter. Half of it was buried in the frozen earth, its surface coated in a layer of grayish-white frost.
This was also the spot where their communications had completely failed during their first incursion.
"Everyone, stick to the plan."
Silas raised a hand. "Emma, you search for spiritual residue. Luca, determine the material layering. Baron, you find the biological traces. I’ll stand guard and record our findings."
Eno, the Contract Wizard, asked in a low voice, "And what about these Golems?"
Behind the group, the twenty Peacekeepers halted in unison. Blue light flared in the eyes of one.
"Guard protocol remains in effect."
The voice was flat and emotionless.
Eno let out a dry laugh. "So polite."
Luca muttered under his breath, "More polite than some Second-level Wizards."
The next instant, the heads of all the Peacekeepers swiveled toward him in unison.
Luca’s expression froze.
"I didn’t say anything."
Silas shot him a look. "Shut up. Every sound here is being recorded."
Luca immediately fell silent.
The Peacekeepers fanned out to guard all the entrances.
"Secure," a Golem reported in a cold, synthetic voice.
The six members of the investigation team filed inside.
The interior of the hemispherical building was even better preserved than the exterior.
The hall was nearly a hundred meters tall. Its domed ceiling was pieced together from fan-shaped metal plates, and the floor was covered in numerous grooves that looked like some kind of transport rail, or maybe the base for a colossal instrument.
The walls were covered, tier after tier, with metal reliefs.
There were no Runes, no Magic Circuits, and no traces of anything supernatural.
Silas’s heart sank.
If a ruin lacked a system of knowledge related to Magic Power, its appraisal value was usually not very high.
Emma walked to the first mural and closed her eyes.
Her Spiritual Power reached out like fine needles, touching down on the edge of the relief.
A moment later, she opened her eyes. "There’s emotional residue."
Silas perked up.
"Can you read it?"
"It’s very faint. Too much time has passed." Emma pressed a hand to her temple. "But it’s not an individual emotion; it’s a collective one. Fear, panic, ecstatic joy... A lot of people touched these reliefs over and over."
Luca chipped off a small sample from a corner and stimulated it with an elemental Skill.
The metal fragment glowed faintly in his palm.
"The building’s main material is ordinary steel mixed with a small amount of Magic Metal. The craftsmanship is exquisite, but there are no traces of magical Alchemy."
"The dating is complete." He withdrew his hand. "Based on the oxidation layer and the decay of its Magic Power, this building was completed roughly three to four thousand years ago. But the strange thing is..."
He paused, a flicker of doubt in his eyes. "There are almost no traces of Magic Power being actively infused into the building materials. They didn’t understand Runes or Arrays. Their application of Magic Power was as crude as a primitive human’s use of fire. This was a civilization at a ’pre-Magic Power’ level."
Silas nodded.
"Continue."
Baron crouched in a corner, his fingertip tracing a dark brown stain.
His nostrils twitched.
"Biological residue. It’s from a humanoid species. The bone dust has mineralized, meaning they’ve been dead for at least a thousand years."
"Can you determine their build?"
"Height is between one-point-seven and two meters. Upright bipeds. Their bone density is on the low side." Baron stood up. "They weren’t a combat species. I don’t detect the remains of any supernatural creatures."
"Without a system for Magic Power, how did they create those monsters outside?" the Bloodline Wizard asked, puzzled.
"The answer is on the wall." Silas raised an illumination crystal, its bright light flooding a giant relief in the far depths of the hall.
Everyone gathered around it.
The relief was divided into three parts, like a silent epic.
The first panel depicted a group of stocky-limbed humanoids deep underground, swinging crude metal pickaxes to excavate a faintly glowing vein of ore.
In the center of the image, where the extreme cold of the blizzard met a weak, subterranean field of Magic Power, a strange piece of ore suddenly cracked open. A dark golden core rolled out.
Immediately, the surrounding scrap iron and slag were drawn to it as if by a magnet, rapidly encasing the core and assembling themselves into a small metal beast.
The expressions on the miners’ faces were rendered with incredible realism—shifting from sheer terror to incredulous, ecstatic joy.
"This is the origin of those metal lifeforms."
Silas said grimly, "They didn’t create these monsters. Under the coincidental conditions of extreme cold and a specific Magic Power environment, the ore vein spontaneously condensed a ’core.’ This is a naturally occurring form of metallic life."
The second panel showed the civilization at its zenith.
The humanoids had mastered some sort of technique. In the image, they stood on high platforms, holding special, tuning-fork-shaped tools.
Below them, tens of thousands of metal lifeforms worked like docile ants, fusing metals and erecting towers as a magnificent metal city rose from the ground.
"Their metallurgical technology advanced tremendously," the elemental wizard said in awe, staring at the mural. "They used the metal lifeforms as a perfect labor force. They didn’t need food, never tired, and could work indefinitely as long as they had materials."
"But they all died," Emma said, pointing to the third panel.
The sky was blotted out by heavy, dark clouds as massive ice spears rained down from above. In the streets, countless humanoids huddled together, frozen into ice sculptures.
The lines of the carving here became chaotic and frenzied, conveying a profound sense of despair.
And surrounding these ice sculptures, the once-docile metal lifeforms had spun out of control.
They stopped building and instead began to devour and merge with one another. Their bodies grew ever larger, eventually transforming them into hideous monsters that wandered aimlessly through the silent, dead city.
"Sudden climate change," Silas said, exhaling a puff of white air. "The extreme cold destroyed the fragile humanoids; the masters of this civilization were wiped out. But those metal laborers wouldn’t perish so easily."
A dead silence fell within the hemispherical building, with only the faint sound of the blizzard audible from outside.
Silas took out a Memory Crystal Stone and recorded the contents of the relief and his team’s analysis. His expression was grim.
"Captain..." the young elemental wizard couldn’t help but ask, his voice filled with disappointment. "So... this city itself is worthless?"
"No advanced Magic, no ancient weaponry, no Energy Cores."
The Bloodline Wizard kicked a piece of metal debris on the floor. "This was just some low-level civilization of miners and blacksmiths. They got lucky and found some lumps of iron that could move on their own, and then they all froze to death."
"So much for an A-rank evaluation," Emma sighed.
According to the Wizard Association’s rules, the value of a ruin was determined by the technological advancements or resources it could contribute to the Wizard Civilization.
In the eyes of Wizards, a metallurgical civilization that couldn’t even use Magic Power was fundamentally no different from a primitive tribe.
Silas remained silent for several seconds before giving a wry smile and stowing the Memory Crystal Stone.
"It has value. Its only value is the metal lifeforms outside."
He looked toward the Peacekeepers standing at the entrance. "I suspect that lord of ours saw this from the very beginning. Let’s go. The mission is over. Time to report back."
Filled with disappointment, the investigation team set off on the return journey to their temporary base.