Chapter 256: Solved

It was already night outside the Ninth Ruins. Draconic Seven leaned on his red-eyed lion with a cigar in his mouth, gazing down the hill.

At the bottom of the hill was a group of 50 men marching towards the Ninth Ruins.

He spat a thick cloud of smoke out before he bolted up. He had recovered from the lightning strike which had not hurt him a lot. He was just frustrated about why he lost his calm in front of Tang Ling.

Regardless, the other soldiers around him did not notice anything strange. Draconic Seven was smart enough like a venomous snake hiding in the dark, but his mood always fluctuated and his brutal temper and extreme methods would turn him into a madman at times, so they were always nervous and pressured around him.

However, if he did not fall for Tang Ling’s provocation, he would not be called Brutal Seven either. No matter what, he should not have lost his calm back then. After the lightning strike, he still remained outside the Ninth Ruins as he recovered his cool and acted like nothing happened.

This was probably why Draconic Seven was this scary. He could be a madman in a heartbeat and as cool as ice in the next.

The group of 50 had arrived at the top of the hill and the Ninth Ruins was just in front of them. Draconic Seven walked up to the man who led the troops.

“Colo, do you remember what you said before?”

The man’s head was huge, and at first glance, it appeared twice as big as a normal man. His gaze was a little distracted while a pair of glasses hung over his nose. He looked like an idiot, but no one dared to think as such, including Draconic Seven.

Even he had to be respectful in front of the big-headed man because this man was the smartest and the most remarkable scientist-to-be among the younger generation. The title ‘scientist’ was just a general name since science included a lot of things and there were many special branches of occupations under its umbrella.

However, there was a group of people who were purely known as scientists, so they were a bunch of all-rounded geniuses! This group of people was deemed as tactical weapons or tactical deterrents by the most powerful factions in the Purple Moon era, and their statuses were self-explanatory.

Colo was one of the all-rounded geniuses although he still was not a real scientist; it was just a matter of time.

The president of the Stardust Council once said, “The younger generations have their own rules in their game. If the adults over-govern them, it will slow down their growth.”

Therefore, the best scientist that Draconic Seven could call upon was Colo.

Draconic Seven once doubted the president would follow the rules, but later, he had a feeling that the higher-ups must be holding back too.

Therefore, be it the incident with Tang Ling or with Young Master Long and the Sixteen Prodigies, the Stardust Council had never sent someone with true power to deal with such matters. Otherwise, Tang Ling would not have survived until now. Even Young Master Long was only given the authority to mobilize the Death Adder Squad.

Draconic Seven squinted his eyes. Even though he was asking Colo a question, his mind was thinking about something else.

“This place, eh? Of course, I remember what I said. If you can find me an entry point, I’ll be able to decipher the formation in this town.” Colo pushed his glasses up.

“Very well. We’ve found the entry point, so I’ll bring you there right now.” Draconic Seven then lifted Colo up and sprinted towards the southeastern corner. He pointed at the little alley and said, “Here, this is the entry point for you to decipher the formation. I saw the Ro siblings bring Tang Ling inside through this little alley with my own eyes.”

“Great. I’ll start right away.” Colo glanced over at the little alley and sat down. He fished out a square item from his bag which was similar to a laptop from the old civilization but bigger and thicker. He then skillfully operated the machine and a transparent monitor appeared before his eyes.

A keyboard slid out from the bottom of the machine and Colo’s fingers danced on it gracefully, his speed even attracting a raised brow from Draconic Seven.

Soon, a 3D map of the whole Ninth Ruins appeared on the transparent monitor, and as Colo’s hands continued typing, complicated patterns started to appear on the screen. Then, a dozen more men appeared beside Colo. They were his team of young geniuses that had followed him to the Ninth Ruins. They were experts in analyzing mountains of data.

Colo quickly connected the complicated patterns to the 3D map of the remain, and with every point connected, he told his team, “You, take care of Area A of the ruins. Analyze the data and give me feedback about the result.

“Area B, I’ve sent this part to you. Provide me with feedback after you are done.”

Colo’s languid eyes looked different when he was in a working mode as he looked vigorous and lively. He was speaking in technical terms that even Draconic Seven could not understand but his unique aura as a scientist was amazing to witness.

Draconic Seven let Colo do his work and skipped the questions. He stepped back and continued watching the town from outside.

Tang Ling, I’m really looking forward to seeing how you are going to kill me!

…

It was still early morning in the town, but it had already been a day and night since Tang Ling and the siblings entered the town.

Ro Xin was busy from the moment they entered. In front her was a piece of white paper and on top of the paper were some complicated drawings and patterns.

Beside the paper with the complicated drawings was another paper with recordings about the formation of ancient Huaxia. It was the example Ro Xin had used to explain the concept of formation to Tang Ling earlier in the afternoon.

“You asked why is the owner of this town a wizard. It’s because of the formation that he set up here. It’s totally different from the eastern formations and the patterns used in the formation are quite different as well.

“Look, here, here and here. These are where the patterns or lines connect. In the eastern concept, these points are usually the eye of the formation. In simple words, some special items must be put on the specific point to connect the whole formation.

“And look at the formation that I’ve drawn for the Ninth Ruins. At all the key points, there are no items, but a special magic symbol is used. Didn’t you notice how the lines are drawn? They are completely different. The east calls this method ‘formation lines’ while the west calls it ‘magic lines’.

“Despite the differences, our family has analyzed the Ninth Ruins for many years and we discovered that both the western and the eastern formations ultimately produce the same result, so we kept sending people over to test the effects of the formation and decided to decipher it from the results.

“In the end, we discovered a certain formation that has a similar effect with the formation in the Ninth Ruins. When we compared the two of them side by side, we actually deciphered a part of it.”

That was what Ro Xin had explained to Tang Ling in the afternoon.

Therefore, she could not help but wonder if there were even more smarter people in the camp. That way, they might be able to decipher the entire remain by winter this year. More smarter people meant more people to test the formation, so they could decipher the formation quicker.

If they had an extra pair of hands, they did not even need to decipher the entire ruins. Just a small part of it would be enough for the camp to move in safely and wait for winter to pass.

Tang Ling had also finished another session of healing during the afternoon and the effect was better than the previous. There was only a third of the blue energy left in his body.

Originally, after achieving the strength of eight bulls, he thought the latest session could bring him to the strength of nine bulls, but something strange happened. The blue energy was siphoned into Tang Ling’s dantian but was not absorbed or digested as his own energy. Consequently, his strength did not grow after reaching the limit of eight bulls.

It was the first time he faced a bottleneck that he had no idea how to break through.

Even though he was growing at an absurd speed from the others’ perspective, only he himself knew that he was seriously lacking knowledge about cultivation and anything related to enhancing himself.

He only went through several classes of cultivation back in the Hope Barrier and Su Siao did not have time to explain anything about cultivation to him either, so whenever he ran into problems, he was totally lost.

Even until now, Tang Ling had no idea how to differentiate the Purple Moon Warrior ranks. What was the difference between rank 1, rank 2, and rank 3 or higher Purple Moon Warriors?

As for the knowledge about other occupations, he knew even lesser than cultivation. All he had learned was the little bits and pieces back in the information room. He believed that he would need some systematic learning before he could break through.

At this juncture, Tang Ling could not interrupt Ro Xin. Even Ro Li did not chat with Tang Ling or whatsoever as he was helping Ro Xin as her assistant and performing some complicated calculations.

Tang Ling’s interest in formations was piqued. He made a copy of Ro Xin’s drawings of the magical formation of the Ninth Ruins.

Ro Xin was not overly concerned. If she spared too much attention to care about what Tang Ling copied, she would be overwhelmed and shocked because the copy had no mistakes at all. It seemed as though the copy had been done by a machine.

What kind of talent was that? Even someone who had studied formations for five to six years could not make such precise drawings of formation, let alone a newbie who had only gotten to know about formations for the first time.

The siblings were doing their best to calculate the formation while Tang Ling read the Ro family teachings, more particularly, the book about formations.

One had to give it to Tang Ling for his learning capability. He had only picked up the topic for a very short amount of time, yet he already understood that the essence of formation was about energy gathering.

Similar to a circuit board, if electricity ran through the different circuits, it could produce different effects and a switch could be used to control the electricity flow. As for the formation, its energy came from Mother Nature and it was not just a groundless statement.

For example, the oxygen in the air could be used for combustion, thus it was the energy for fire. The humidity in the air was the source of water, and the friction between air molecules would produce static, and so on.

Be it the formation lines or the magical symbols, all these felt more like some super-advanced technology and its essence was the scientific formula such as how one should use many different kinds of mathematical formulae to calculate a math question.

Tang Ling did not know why he would have such realization to understand the most difficult part of the formation lines and the magical lines, but he was heading in the right direction.

These formation lines and magical lines contained mathematical traits while including other knowledge in the equation. The highest study about formations would be similar to basic science, mathematics, and physics from the old civilization. The most complicated formula was usually derived from the simplest things. Therefore, the complicated formation consisted of many simple formation lines and they were used to calculate the effect that the formation could produce in the end when everything added up.

Even those huge formations consisted of mostly smaller formations that formed the base!

It was profound and vast knowledge to learn, and no matter how much of a genius Tang Ling was, asking him to master the formations and draw one by himself in such a short period was impossible.

However, now Tang Ling did not need to draw a formation. He needed to help Ro Xin decipher the equation within the Ninth Ruins.

It was at this moment that his Precise Instinct played an important part, which was an accurate comparison. He was able to precisely compare the effect between the formation lines and the magical lines.

With that in mind, Tang Ling also grabbed a piece of paper after he found that ancient Huaxianese formation in the Ro family teachings and started to compare it with the magical formation of the Ninth Ruins.

While Ro Xin and Ro Li were busy with their own calculations, the pen in Tang Ling’s hand drew stroke after stroke on the paper, forming the formation line from the book with the magical lines beside it for comparison.

He started slowly at first but got faster as he drew.

…

“Draconic Seven,” Colo, who had devoted his attention into calculating everything, called loudly.

Draconic Seven was waiting beside him ever since the calculation started, so with a call from Colo, he bolted up. “Did you get it?”

“It takes time.” Colo looked at Draconic Seven like he was looking at an idiot. He said, “You can now go into the alley and the first step you take should be with your left foot landing on the third floral brick. Your right foot goes there, yes, that second brick diagonally from the first one.”

As he explained, Colo stood up and pointed the two bricks out for Draconic Seven. He emphasized, “Remember, step with your left foot first and then your right. Don’t mess up the sequence.”

“Now? Am I supposed to go in now?” Strictly speaking, Draconic Seven was a little frightened by the Ninth Ruins and his heart was restless, but since Colo got minor results, it would be wasteful for him not to test it out.

So, he grabbed a soldier beside him and said, “You, go in. Follow Colo’s instruction and go into the valley.” The soldier dared not disobey Draconic Seven because he might end up worse than being electrocuted by a bolt of lightning if he did, so he nervously walked in.

A miracle happened this time around as there was no lightning or whatsoever. The soldier managed to step into the Ninth Ruins!

“The calculations will be faster from here on.” Colo pushed his glasses and grinned.

Draconic Seven could no longer hold back the joy in his heart because he knew that there were great secrets hidden in this little town.

…

After a while, Tang Ling found 22 similar spots between the formation line and the magical lines. He looked up and asked with a furrowed brow, “What does deciphering the formation have to do with our escape? Or is there something else behind all this?”

The more he deciphered, the more suspicious he got. Aside from the connection between deciphering the formation and escaping the council, or why Ro Yan claimed that this Ninth Ruins was related to his journey to Darkness Port, the owner of this little town could not have set up this formation for people to escape or travel to Darkness Port, so what was the true purpose of the formation?

How did the Ro family ancestors know about the formation without deciphering the one in the town?

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