Chapter 72 - 66: The Abandoned Teleportation Gate
Chapter 72: Chapter 66: The Abandoned Teleportation Gate
"Who?" Shire asked.
"Caocao. I need the Giant to help me move these stone materials or bones," Agatha said with a smile. "And send another Fulu over."
"Sure, no problem. I’ll arrange it. Caocao is easy to get along with," Shire said with a nod. "As long as you give him some jerky."
"But in that case, the apothecary will have to close for now," Agatha said after a moment’s thought, a bit regretfully.
"It’s fine. Little Claw is brewing potions 24/7. He’s way more efficient than you," Shire chuckled.
Persuading the Wriggling Claw had made Shire ecstatic. It was a natural-born worker, a workhorse among workhorses. He even wanted to give Little Claw a title—Chief Engineer of the Pharmaceutical Department. Chief Engineer Claw. It sounded so impressive.
"My dear Chairman, have you forgotten something?" Agatha asked with a smile. Seeing his confused expression, she continued, "Glass bottles. Bottles to hold the potions. You’re brewing so many potions, you’ll need a huge number of bottles. You can’t just have all the customers bring buckets to scoop them out of a giant vat in the shop, can you?"
"Ah, that’s something I overlooked," Shire said, clapping his hands together. He really hadn’t thought of it.
"I still have some, but we’ll need to order more soon," Agatha said.
"WOOHOO!" A cheer came from the distance. Both Shire and Agatha turned to look and saw it was coming from One-Eyed’s group.
"I’ll go take a look," Shire said, and quickly walked over.
"Chief, you’re here," One-Eyed said respectfully.
Shire glanced into the tunnel and asked, "What happened?"
"We broke through! You are truly wise and brilliant, Chief! Just as you said, it really does connect to a stone chamber," One-Eyed said, bowing and scraping.
Watching his subordinate’s actions, Shire sighed softly. ’They were enslaved by the Giants for too long. It’ll take some time for them to unlearn this sycophantic behavior.’
He patted One-Eyed’s shoulder and said, "Good work."
He then stepped into the passage. It wasn’t long. He had guessed there might be a passage inside the mound of earth based on the shape of the wall, and sure enough, he was right.
The air in the new stone chamber was foul, and there were no fluorescent mushrooms growing here. Shire did a quick scan and found two words on the wall near the entrance: Door Room.
"Door Room?" Shire moved closer to look. He saw there were other carvings, but they were damaged.
"Don’t go in yet. I’ll get someone to take a look," he said as he exited the passage, ordering his subordinates to wait. He planned to immediately summon a Fulu to assess the situation inside.
After a short while, a Fulu floated out. "It’s fine inside. Perfectly safe."
Hearing this, Shire had everyone wait a little longer before leading them inside with torches to investigate.
The stone chamber wasn’t large, only a little over 300 square meters. The floor was covered in a layer of dust two fingers thick. In one corner was a pile of stones that looked to be made of the same material as the ones with ancient patterns that Agatha was studying.
As he held up his torch and looked around at the walls, his foot suddenly caught on something, and he stumbled forward a couple of steps.
Shire bent down and brushed away the dust with his hand. By the light of the torch, he could see that the floor wasn’t flat. The stone materials had been arranged into two rings, each two meters in diameter.
"Clean this area up a bit. Be extremely careful not to change the layout," Shire ordered his subordinates. At the same time, he sent the Fulu to get Agatha.
When Agatha walked into the stone chamber, she too was stunned by the two rings on the floor.
Ignoring the dust on the ground, she immediately began wiping one of the stone rings, soon revealing its full appearance.
"So that’s how it is," she murmured thoughtfully, then got up to wipe the other ring.
At the same time, Agatha said to Shire, "Have the goblins check the surrounding walls first. Don’t touch these two rings for now."
Shire nodded and, following Agatha’s suggestion, ordered his subordinates to spread out.
A few minutes later, Agatha stood up and walked over to Shire. She lightly dusted off her hands and said with a smile, "I think I know how to use these."
"How?" Shire asked, his eyes fixed on the wall, not turning back.
"These patterns have their own method of combination. They’re different from the runes in widespread use today. Like the Arcane Runes or Holy Runes I just mentioned, those operate based on a foundation of text. These ancient runes are more like a combinatorial game—arranging specific patterns in a fixed sequence can produce a certain effect."
"What kind of effect?" Shire pressed.
"I don’t know," Agatha said, shaking her head. "It requires trial and error, and I don’t have an instruction manual."
"I think this might help you," Shire said, walking to the wall with his torch.
The goblins had already given the wall a quick wipe. In the torchlight, several rows of carved characters became visible. The top line, written in Common Speech, read: "Teleportation Gate Usage and Maintenance Instructions."
Agatha immediately walked over and cast the Light Technique, examining the text word by word. "This is great! This information is incredibly helpful."
"I think these ancient runes are beginning to shed their mysterious veil," she said with a smile.
"Veils aside, I’m more interested in the words ’Teleportation Gate’," Shire said, his voice filled with excitement. "If these two rings are Teleportation Gates, can they be repaired? How do we use them? This is crucial for us. If we can get them working, it will solve so many of our problems."
’If we really succeed in replicating them, then transporting goods will no longer be an issue. This would massively alleviate the Fortress’s supply shortage.’
"No, Shire, it’s not that easy." Agatha threw cold water on her old classmate’s enthusiasm. "Did you know that modern Teleportation Gates are extremely rare and precious? Creating one requires huge amounts of expensive Magic Materials. I’ve heard that only a few High Tier Great Mages have one or two in their Magic Towers. Even the nobles in Plantagenet City can’t afford them. Besides, we don’t even understand the operational logic of these two rings. We can’t just rashly activate this Teleportation Gate. The consequences would be unimaginable if something evil came through."
"Alright, you should study it for now," Shire said with a nod. He felt that Agatha’s point was more prudent.
"Chief, there’s something on the wall over here!" One-Eyed shouted from the side.
Shire and Agatha hurried over to the wall.
On the wall was a relief carving. Unlike the two previous pictures, this one looked more like a map. The carving, two meters long and 1.2 meters wide, was covered in all sorts of small squares. One of the squares near the bottom border was marked with a cross-shaped star.
"Southern Fortress Defense Map?" Shire held up his torch and read the words at the top of the carving aloud.
"It seems this place really is a fortress, or rather, the underground defense section of a fortress," Agatha said, touching the cross-shaped star. "This star marks our current location."
"This..." Shire fell silent and took a few steps back. He then studied the entire defense map. "This is huge... The area we’re in now is only one-fifth of the whole thing."
Agatha stomped her foot and said through clenched teeth, "Forget it! You can manage Drink Undying for now. I’m putting the Transformation Potion on hold, too. If they call me the Ghost Witch, so be it!"
She grabbed one of Shire’s hands and said with great feeling, "Old classmate, my Chairman, King of the Forest, the moment you conquer a new area, you have to tell me first!"
Then, with a beaming smile, she returned to the rings to continue her research. A manic cackle filled the stone chamber.
Shire looked down at his hand, which Agatha had just grabbed, now covered in dust. After a few seconds, he ordered One-Eyed, "You guys go and start digging at that other buried mound. Let’s see what’s inside."
’Next up, it’s time to have a good long talk with the Hero.’