CHAPTER 411: CHAPTER 396: THE RUINS OF GREAT ELM MOUNTAIN (PART TWO)

Time flies,

Early summer.

Dragon Cypress steered the Dominating Throne, carrying Ink Orchid, returning to the Purple Tung Insect Nation.

Rested for two days.

Then set out again with White Rice, heading straight for Great Elm Mountain.

...

Short mountain ranges sprawled above the plain forests.

To the south of the mountains lies an irregularly shaped small lake; inspecting the soil, one could still find embankments built with the reinforcement of Earth System Abilities back in the woodlands, dating four to five thousand years ago.

During the long years of geological change, flowing soils and wanton growth of plants had filled in two-thirds of the lake.

"Dragon Cypress Ant King, is it here?"

White Rice was most unaccustomed to the Origin Force Vacuum environment, hurriedly jumping back to the Throne, opening its air pores, and inhaling desperately at the Origin Force released by the Throne.

"It should be right here."

Dragon Cypress remained calm, looking around, gaze locked onto the mountain ahead, studying it intently.

White Rice: "This elm tree forest must have been cultivated by the White Starflower Golden Turtle Clan, maybe some of their top elm varieties have survived."

Dragon Cypress: "...It’s not impossible, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up."

White Rice: "Why not?"

Dragon Cypress: "Theoretically, the superior plants selected and cultivated would hardly survive, much less reproduce, without the Insect Clan Warriors’ care, given the brutal competition in the wild. Ink Orchid and I have explored numerous Insect Clan ruins, and field studies have confirmed this hypothesis."

White Rice: "Oh——"

White Rice: "That’s such a pity——"

It was White Rice’s first deep exploration of a pre-Origin Force Era tribal ruin in an Origin Force Vacuum Land, excited and expectant, a little unwilling, saying: "There are always exceptions."

Dragon Cypress: "Indeed. There’s always the possibility that certain cultivated plants possess extraordinary survivability and have persisted to this day."

"Let’s excavate the ruins first. When we’re done, we’ll come back to have a look around."

Dragon Cypress leaped onto the Throne, controlling it to rise and glide horizontally, parking directly below the southeastern cliff.

"Dragon Cypress Ant King? Here?"

White Rice waggled its antennae, pointing to the cliff face.

"Down below! Over countless years, wind and rain have eroded the mountain, rocks have collapsed, and soil drifted, all burying the entrance."

Dragon Cypress condensed majestic spiritual power into a stream, sweeping underground.

Impeded by earth and stone, it could only penetrate three to four meters below the surface.

White Rice leaped to the ground, antennae touching the earth in perception, then suddenly looked up, "Found it! Over there! There’s an entrance about five to six meters down."

"Good!"

Dragon Cypress couldn’t help recalling the days of excavating ruins together with Ink Orchid.

Scouting for entrance locations relied solely on Ink Orchid’s blind intuition.

Nine times out of ten, the guess was wrong.

Countless hours were wasted.

This kind of work really did depend on Earth System Abilities; you could lock onto the right spot at once.

White Rice stepped back, measured, antennae tapping the ground, "Dragon Cypress Ant King, start digging here, slanting downward."

"All right!"

Dragon Cypress landed softly, gathering Primordial Energy at its claw tip to dig.

Soon a tunnel deep into soil and rock was excavated.

Dragon Cypress dug in the front,

White Rice in the rear used Earth System Ability to condense the dug up earth and stones into balls, controlling them to roll out along the tunnel and down the hillside.

A short time was all it took to break through.

Up ahead was an arched tunnel just over two meters high and around 1.5 meters wide; its walls, hardened and reinforced by Earth-Stone Ability, were smooth and engraved with patterns of flowers, plants, birds, and beasts, showing White Starflower Golden Turtle Warriors laboring in the woods.

Turning through the tunnel, they entered the tribe’s audience hall.

The hall was empty, save for a central round stone table for placing food and communal meals.

On both sides were horizontal corridors; in front was a spiraling downward passage.

Dragon Cypress spread out spiritual power, sweeping over, quickly sizing up the situation.

The side rooms to the left and right were for Tribal Warriors to live in. The left room had a door panel salvaged from Starship wreckage; the right room also had a door panel, but it was not an Outworld Civilization Artifact. It had been crafted by Insect Clan Warriors using Metal Ability. The surface bore faint, distorted Original Energy Patterns that still hadn’t decayed after thousands of years—likely reinforced by the ’Jinhe Pattern’ bestowed by ’Jinhe Fruit.’

The spiraling tunnel had caves along the way, inside which lay piles of Divine-Given Seed remains.

Dragon Cypress ran forward, spiritual power probing downward; quickly touching bottom, encountering a room with a door.

"White Rice, this way! Down, to the bottom."

"Is anything there?"

"There’s a door panel blocking spiritual sense. Let’s go down and check!"

"Let’s go!"

Dragon Cypress ran down the winding tunnel.

White Rice closely followed.

Soon they reached the bottom,

and what blocked their way was a rare type of side-sliding metal door like those found on Starships.

Opening it,

in the rectangular cave directly ahead stood two wardrobes neatly embedded deep into the rock face.

There was one on each side as well.

Just as the Huagi Divine Tree foretold, exactly four wardrobes.

Dragon Cypress and White Rice worked together seamlessly, rushing forward to yank open the cabinet doors and check.

Nothing inside.

They moved closer to inspect the stone wall.

The wardrobes were wholly embedded into the rock.

White Rice tried to use ’Soil Improvement’ ability, attempting to disrupt the reinforced effect on the stone wall.

"This is an Earth System Insect King’s reinforcement. My degree of evolution’s too low, I can’t budge it."

White Rice explained, antennae tracing and sensing along the stone wall, shaking its head vigorously.

"There’s a layer of metal inside the wall too, must’ve been reinforced by a Metal System Insect King. We’ll have to wait until Ghost Fan’s evolved further, then come back and try..."

This was all as expected.

Dragon Cypress: "No problem, when you and Ghost Fan reach Evolution Lord Level, we’ll come again."

White Rice: "...Alright!"

White Rice: "Dragon Cypress Ant King, should we check the other caves?"

Dragon Cypress: "Let’s look through each cave."

Dragon Cypress and White Rice quickly searched all the caves, finding the exuviae of a White Starflower Golden Turtle Warrior, but nothing else.

Examining the remains stored in the caves carefully, there were a total of four Divine-Given Seed exuviae: one poplar, two elms, and one suspected grapevine wood, which could be taken back for Black Yellow’s use.

Searching the forest sea below the mountain, they found two elm varieties unrecorded in the inherited memories. In autumn, they could come back to collect some seeds and try to cultivate Life Seeds with two Barley Bug Warriors.

After resting for a night at Great Elm Mountain,

they didn’t linger; set out at dawn the next day, heading for the next ruin: Triangular Mountain, marked atop the dome map in Huagi Knowledge Hall...

...

With White Rice’s Earth System Abilities for exploration, they almost never missed the ruin entrance at each site, and dug in quickly.

With a super-high efficiency of one site per day, before high summer, they examined all the Great Tribe ruins whose precise locations were marked in Knowledge Hall.

No Tree Heart or Outworld Civilization Artifact as hoped was found.

They discovered over eighty Divine-Given Seed exuviae, but sadly not the poppet Divine-Given remains Dragon Cypress had hoped for.

White Rice stayed behind to help in Purple Tung Insect Nation.

Dragon Cypress catalogued all the Life Seed plants of Insect Clan Warriors on Cloud Trace Continent, traveling alone between ruins and Origin Force Points, transporting Divine-Given Seed remains.

Braving the blazing sun, flying back and forth for yet another month.

At the end of summer,

Black Birch, using the Dominating Throne, completed its sixth evolutionary leap; as predicted, its body size stabilized around one meter, and its evolutionary level dropped to Age Period 1, High-Level Assistant King.

Four blue rings circled its abdomen; at the High-Level Assistant King stage, it could master four kinds of Water System Abilities—otherwise, there was no difference.

Cypress commanded the First Blue Soldier Legion, Black Birch the Second Blue Soldier Legion, Black Leaf the Fourth Mixed Legion; these three Assistant Kings led the armies to guard White Poplar Divine Seed.

Dragon Cypress and Ink Orchid set out east from Purple Tung Insect Nation.

The Dominating Throne hugged the eastern Divine Force Barrier, flying low to search all the way south.

They discovered nothing.

They then flew the Dominating Throne along the equatorial Divine Force Barrier, searching from east to west.