Chapter 1263: Crystal Copy

Since time was in short supply, the Tiger King and Wolf King did not have much of it to clean up the battlefield.

Fortunately, the Lion King’s exploration team had taken a different path, hence they would not find the traces they left there.

It would not be too late to clean up the mess after killing the Lion King and reopening the Holy Mountain Temple.

Soon, a grave was built for the victims. After a short rest, the hunters recovered from the fatigue of the long chase and the short battle. Then they disappeared into the dense forest.

The fog inside and outside the valley gathered and dispersed.

Every time it did so, the surrounding environment would change dramatically.

Sometimes, the distance between the valley and the jungle would be very long. With a light leap, one could jump into the depths of the forest from the top of the mountain.

Sometimes, the valley and the forest were thousands of miles apart. There were dark clouds that could not be easily spotted in the middle.

It was unknown how many changes had taken place in that space. When the fog dispersed again, two weary trackers suddenly appeared at the center of the swamp.

No, to be more precise, there were three of them.

One of the trackers was tied to a “big-headed monster baby,” who was half asleep but whose skin was boiling hot.

‘I’ve caught up to him.’

Meng Chao observed the traces on the rock wall that had obviously been cut by some kind of energy weapon. He scanned the broken remains of the evil energy puppets around him, as well as the dried and broken blood trail that extended from the swamp to the forest Also, the grave rough that had been built recently, gave him a mental picture of intense battles and the burial of his companions.

Judging from the spirit energy ripples that remained in the air and the fact that there were not many mosquitoes and flies circling the blood stains, the fierce battle should have ended not long ago. It should not have lasted more than twelve minutes.

The extremely intense killing intent of the jackals, wolves, tigers, and leopards had not completely dissipated.

Therefore, the mosquitoes and flies that liked to lick fresh blood did not dare to gather over.

After witnessing the changes in the space deep within the Holy Mountain, Meng Chao did not think that he could grab the Lion King, Tiger King, and Wolf King’s tails so quickly.

It was all because Ice Storm was extremely familiar with the environment in the depths of the Holy Mountain.

He had truly found the best strategic partner!

“Why do I feel like this isn’t your first time entering the depths of the Turan Holy Mountain?”

Seeing how Ice Storm had explored the place with familiarity and almost never missed a single flower or plant in the swamp or dense forest, Meng Chao could not help but curiously ask, “Didn’t you say that your father stole the map drawn by the Holy Light Army three thousand years ago back to Picturesque Orchid Lake when you were just born?

“Why do I feel like you’ve returned to your own home after coming here? You can’t go wrong even with your eyes closed.”

“That’s right. My father did steal the map back to Picturesque Orchid Lake, but who said there was only one map?”

Ice Storm smiled and pointed at her head. “There’s another map inside.”

Meng Chao raised his eyebrows.

“The so-called map, or route chart, is the kind of thing that becomes mottled and indistinct after three thousand years of erosion on coarse paper. How can it guide one in the correct direction in the treacherous Turan Holy Mountain, an ever-changing three-dimensional maze?”

Ice Storm explained, “The real map of the Holy Mountain is a memory crystal. It contains the memories of the Holy Light Army from three thousand years ago. Thousands of human soldiers were exploring the Holy Mountain when they encountered danger and were on the verge of death.”

“Memory… crystal?”

Meng Chao was deep in thought.

“That’s right. This is a technology bestowed by the ocean of light to the Holy Light Temple. With this technology, the priests of Holy Light can achieve a spiritual connection with the most devout believers. It’s probably like the spiritual connection between ‘Jackal’ Kanus and the Ancient Dream Saintess, right?”

Ice Storm explained, “This way, when their believers are in mortal danger and their bodies are about to die, everything they see and hear can be uploaded to the Holy Light Temple’s memory crystal.

“According to the Holy Light priests, this means that the souls of the believers have been stored in the memory crystal. As long as they are identified, they will be extremely devout to the Holy Light in their lives. They will not commit any blasphemy or have doubt, hence they can be launched into the sky and return to the ocean of light to obtain eternal peace.

“Of course, the wizards thought that it was nonsense. What was uploaded into the memory crystal was just images and sounds. It was not a ‘soul’ at all.

“However, if we use the memory crystal in the depths of the Turan Holy Mountain, we’ll be able to collect those unlucky fellows who have taken the wrong path. They’ll fall off cliffs, sink into swamps, be smashed into pieces by falling rocks, and be squeezed into meat pies by spatial gaps… There are various strange ways of dying.

“As long as there are enough unlucky ones, we will be able to slowly identify all the dead paths within the Holy Mountain. As long as we avoid all these paths, the rest will naturally be the correct way!”

Meng Chao clicked his tongue in amazement.

He did not expect there to be such a magical mapping method in the world.

However, in order for such a “trial and error method” to work, the number of lives consumed would surely be astronomical.

It seemed that it was the same as what he had seen in the memory fragments of his previous life.

The so-called Holy Light Temple was definitely not the incarnation of the “holy, righteous, benevolent, and universal love” that they boasted about.

The Holy Light faction and Chaos faction were birds of a feather. For a certain purpose, they would not hesitate to wager trillions of lives. In a short moment, they would be exhausted like ants.

Aside from that, Meng Chao also noticed something very interesting.

When Ice Storm mentioned the word “uploaded,” she did not use the transliteration of the Holy Light language.

Instead, she used the combination of two roots in the native Turan language.

One root was usually used to describe the vastness and subtlety of a long war epic. Translated directly, it meant “the principles contained in the poem are as bright and numerous as the stars in the sky.” It could also be simply translated as “astronomical information.”

The root of the other word meant countless streams converging into puddles during the rainy season, turning them into lakes.

When the two root words were combined, it became something that even advanced orcs could understand. It expressed the meaning of “astronomical information, like streams converging into lakes, being transmitted to a huge database.”

It was not surprising that the Holy Light language had words like “upload.”

After all, according to Meng Chao’s speculation, the Holy Light humans should be inextricably linked to the Ancients from hundreds of millions of years ago.

The Holy Light Temple might still be in contact with the space station in the synchronous orbit around the Other World, so it naturally had the ability to upload and download massive amounts of data, and even set up global communication.

However, in the seemingly savage land of Picturesque Orchid Lake, there was actually a similar vocabulary in the local language.

This made Meng Chao have new expectations for the heights that the Turan civilization had reached.

Speaking of which, whether it was the Holy Light civilization or the Turan civilization, they were once able to create words like “upload,” would only appear in the information age.

Now, however, the Turan civilization was about to degenerate into a savage world, where its people ate raw meat and drank blood.

The Holy Light civilization was not much better. Under the Holy Light Temple’s rule, the entire Land of Holy Light had seemingly been sealed in the Middle Ages. The only meaning of human life was to worship the ocean of light in the sky. They did not have the desire and courage to explore the universe. They did not even acknowledge the existence of the universe.

What kind of power had turned the once advanced, developed, prosperous, and powerful Holy Light civilization and Turan civilization into what they were today?

If the Dragon City civilization was trapped in the Other World for hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of years, the people of Earth would also be affected by this power and be sealed in the long river of time. Civilization would no longer evolve. Instead, would they not slowly degenerate into orcs, who ate raw meat and drank blood, or the Holy Light race who only knew how to worship?

The Holy Light Temple was so afraid of the secret hidden in the depths of the Holy Mountain of Turan.

Was it because this secret could contend with the mysterious power that had sealed the Turan civilization and the Holy Light civilization, helping them, as well as all carbon-based intelligent beings living in the Other World, to break free from the shackles of self-sealing, to regain the motivation to evolve continuously and charge into the universe?

Thinking of this, Meng Chao’s gaze on Ice Storm became even more searing.

Ice Storm thought that Meng Chao could not understand the complicated concepts of “uploading” and “memory crystal,” so she smiled bitterly before she added, “The memory crystal that the Holy Light Army collected from the depths of the Turan Holy Mountain is stored in the grand temple and protected by the Holy Light day and night. Naturally, no one can steal it.

“However, the sounds and images hidden in the memory crystal can be duplicated.

“In the three thousand years after the great extinction order, in order to crack the secrets of the Holy Mountain and prepare for the next purification war, which could completely destroy the Holy Mountain Temple and the remains of the big fireball, the Holy Light priests duplicated dozens of memory crystals and sent them to the altars and magic towers in different places. They were handed over to the wise ones, the night watchers, and the mages for various studies.

“My mother stole a ‘memory crystal copy’ from a magic tower.

“Do you know what ‘copy’ means? How should I put it? It’s like a mother and her child. No, it’s more like a pair of twins…”

Ice Storm gestured with his hands. It was difficult to find the right words in Turan.

“I can understand.”

Meng Chao nodded. “It’s like the image of the Zombie Rat God first appeared in the Ancient Dream Saintess’ mind. Then, in the dream, she could project the image of thousands of Zombie Rat Gods into the rat warriors’ brains. The Zombie Rat Gods that the rat warriors saw were the ‘copies.’”

Ice Storm’s eyes lit up.

She felt that Meng Chao’s description was more accurate than her analogy of “mother and child” or “twins..”