Mystery: Mr. Witch and Ms. Hunter

Chapter 268: Echoes of the Past
Knowing that her chief engineer was knowledgeable in similar matters, Adele did not care what language it was, but continued to ask, "Besides this, is there any other information?"

However, she didn't hear Wendy's answer.

The archaeologist sat on the ground with lifeless eyes, facing the stone tablet with words mostly covered by moss for a long time without saying a word, as if he had suddenly suffered a great mental shock.

"what happened to you?"

Adele shook the other person anxiously, and without hesitation activated her clairvoyance to check on the other person's condition.
In her vision, Wendy's entire spirit body was dark blue, almost pitch black. This was a sign of extreme depression, which could even make people unbearable and commit suicide. Adele had only seen a similar color on Mr. Rand, who had asked her to give him a quick death.

What did she learn? Adele was shocked and curious.

Wendy, shaken by Adele, suddenly woke up as if from a dream. She jumped up like a cat whose tail was stepped on, and shouted to Adele, "Did you bring the map?"

Adele was startled, and quickly found the map of the northern continent drawn on silk cloth in her pocket and spread it out in front of Wendy. "I brought it, what are you going to do with it?"

Wendy took the map of the northern continent and read it over and over again. Her knuckles were even white from the force she put into holding the edge of the map. After a long while, she collapsed to the ground like a deflated ball and sighed heavily.

"...Yeah, what else can I do?"

……

The Abyss Whirlpool and the Bermuda Whirlpool, the "Fountain of Youth" on the Bimini Islands...

The geographical landmarks, myths and legends of the original world gradually corresponded to the reality before her eyes. It was not until she saw this stone tablet that Wendy officially connected this extraordinary world with her own world.

It now seems that the northern continent here corresponds to North America, and the abyss vortex is near Greenland; if the guess is correct, in the process of falling into the vortex, the "Honeysuckle Queen" has inadvertently crossed the entire northern continent and arrived at the Rorsted Archipelago, which is near the West Indies!
Although it was impossible to explain how all this happened, Wendy suddenly felt that it was not so difficult to understand when she thought about the fact that ships inside the Bermuda Triangle would occasionally disappear mysteriously, and after a period of time, the empty ships would appear far away from the Bermuda Triangle.

This is a shocking discovery. If my original world still exists, I will definitely publish a paper on this and go back to tell the people there that the disappearance of ships in the Bermuda Triangle is actually caused by extraordinary characteristics...

Wendy tried to pull the corners of her mouth and tried to smile, but she found that she didn't even have the strength to smile. She just felt extremely tired.

Although her longing for her hometown was not as strong as it was at the beginning, and she had no urge to go back as she had nothing to worry about there, she suddenly realized that she had never left her hometown, but had just passed through countless years without noticing. She still felt as if a large piece of her heart was torn out, and she felt empty.

But soon, another irresistible idea arose in her mind, and that idea quickly expanded, crowding out all other thoughts.

Since the Northern Continent corresponds to North America, then if I take a ship from the west coast of Intis or Feysac and sail westward, can I return to Asia?
Although the idea sounded unrealistic, Wendy was obsessed with it, looking at the stone tablet and the map, imagining a possible plan to return home in the future, until Adele twisted her body hard and raised her hand.

"Wait, wait, I'm fine!"

Although Wendy had not completely recovered from her depression, her survival instinct still made her body move subconsciously to protect her face. Almost at the same time, Adele's slap landed just beside her ear, and Wendy felt her hair blown a little.

"is it?"

Adele shrugged. "To be honest, Vinata used this method on me before, and it worked very quickly. I'd really like to try it on someone else."

I hope God will protect you from ever finding a test subject...

Wendy swallowed, but then remembered something and started searching nearby.

"Did you find any clues?" Adele followed Wendy and looked around with her.

"…I guess so. I want to find something now."

Wendy deftly turned over the rubble and threw the black basalt fragments aside.

Of course, she was not looking for the Fountain of Youth. If this place really corresponded to some of the previous legends, then she should still remember where the wetland covered by mangroves was in the direction of this stone tablet.

After the mysterious resurrection, there should have been a large-scale crustal change here, causing some ruins that were originally submerged to emerge on the surface, while most of the buildings on the surface sank into the sea. This stone tablet should be located exactly in the center of the volcano, which is why there is not much displacement.

Before traveling through time, Wendy was a marine biologist. She was once invited to participate in a marine life survey near the West Indies. At that time, she even took a photo with this stone tablet.

The islanders there would collect stones from the Bimini Wall in the surrounding sea and place them around the ruins on the surface for tourists to carve words on. This can also effectively prevent tourists from scribbling on the ruins themselves.

Wendy was not very interested in this behavior, but her best friend who was traveling with her was very interested in it and insisted on pulling her to carve their names on the stone tablet.

Since the stone tablet is here, then perhaps the marks left at that time are also here...

Wendy turned over the stones around her like a madman. This was the first time she had worked so hard on an unpaid job.

Finally, before Katarina got impatient, Wendy found what she was looking for.

It was a gray stone covered with moss.

When the earth's crust moved, the stone tablet fell over in the vibration. The exposed part was polished smooth by thousands of years of wind and rain, but the words on the bottom miraculously did not disappear.

The word "游" from "Qiao Qiao visited this place" was engraved on the stone, and the rest of the fragments had disappeared without a trace.

In this case, it was obvious that her former name was more meaningful. However, Wendy had no better choice at this time, as if she had been thrown here inexplicably.

Holding the stone that she had carved thousands of years ago, Wendy felt warm liquid swirling in her eye sockets.

After wiping her face twice, Wendy carefully hid the stone in her pocket and said to Catalina and the others:
"Let's go, I almost know where it is."

……

There was not much information to be seen from the top of the mountain - the trees here were very dense, almost obscuring everything on the island. However, Wendy still vaguely determined the direction based on her own impression.

According to Wendy's memory, the Fountain of Youth was located in a saltwater swamp with mangroves. Of course, after thousands of years, the environment here must have changed dramatically, and it was not easy to find.

Because they were worried that the environment here would respond to extraordinary abilities, no one used their extraordinary abilities actively. Instead, they simply relied on the physical fitness improvements brought by the magic potion and struggled forward in the forest like ordinary people.

"...So, you think we have reached the Rorsted Archipelago now?"

Tracy asked doubtfully, "This is... a little too bizarre."

Wendy did not tell them about her time travel, but told them that according to the information on the stone tablet, she found some special phenomena in a nearby place, which might be related to the Fountain of Youth.

Anyway, the witches couldn't understand either English or Spanish. Although Catalina had some doubts, she had originally planned to search the island thoroughly, so it didn't matter to her where to search first.

"But there is some truth to it."

Catalina frowned, but reluctantly agreed with this view. "At the end of the Fourth Epoch, the God of Death was killed by the Seven Gods, but he did not die on the spot. When he returned to the southern continent, he caused violent storms and completely blocked the north-south route. This is a well-known legend."

"At that time, our Witch Cult and the Death Cult had very close cooperation. The current leader of the Spirit Cult, Shia Lumpark Eggers, is a descendant of the blood of the Witch and the Death. Since high-sequence intermarriage has been achieved, it is indeed possible that something like the leakage of the Sealed Artifacts may occur."

"So, the sunlight here is most likely produced by the relics of angels from other churches? For example, the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun?"

Adele demanded.

"It's just a guess, and it's not our goal this time." Katerina said cautiously, "It's not easy to seal an angel-level seal of the 'Witch' path. Add a high-sequence seal of the 'Sun' path, and even if I can withstand it, your ship will soon fail."

"I'm just saying." Adele shrugged. She certainly knew this.

"We should be almost there... If the description is correct, there should be a forest of spindle trees there. However, it would be great if we could find fossils of spindle trees now."

The names of plants in this world are somewhat different from those in Wendy's memory. The mangroves here are called spindle trees, named after the shape of their fruits.

"To be honest, I'm very curious. There are only a few symbols on the stone tablet. Even if you count the small words on the back, there are not many that can be seen clearly. How did you find so much information?"

Seeing Wendy's confident look, Adele couldn't help but ask.

Because it's not written on the stone tablet, I'm showing you the way based on my personal experience...

Wendy complained in her heart. Even in her time, the Fountain of Youth was a well-known legend. The famous "Falling into Science" program even analyzed it in an episode. The spring, located in the center of the wetland and accessible only by boat, became a must-see tourist attraction in Bimini Island. She even swam in it.

"This language is very expressive," Wendy said to Adele as they hurried on.
"Do you know Elvish? The elves can express quite complex meanings with a few short syllables. This language is similar to it. It uses simple symbols to express a lot of meanings. Later, it was gradually abandoned because it often caused ambiguity."

The underlying meaning of her words was that this language has a lot of ambiguity and it is very common for translation errors to occur, so don't get too angry even if someone takes you the wrong way.

"Well, I hope you're right."

Adele stopped pestering and continued on her way.

Nearly half an hour later, Wendy, who was walking in front, suddenly shouted in surprise:

"There's a wall ahead!"

Adele and her companions looked in the direction of the sound and saw a section of gray, broken wall.

Although they are called walls, in some places only a few white brick and stone foundations are left, and cement-like fillings can be seen between the gaps.

The remains of the wall were intermittent and stretched to the end of everyone's sight. The high places were about two meters high, and only the foundations were left in the low places.

The wall is built with white marble, each block is about five meters long and the width ranges from half a meter to two meters. It makes people imagine and wonder what these walls looked like before they collapsed.

"It doesn't look like the architectural style of the Balam Empire."

Katerina, who actually experienced that period of history, commented in confusion, "The ancient architecture of the Balam Empire liked to build large steps and platforms around a certain building, and the walls in the direction of the outer city also have a right-angled trapezoidal cross-section. I have never seen such a straight up and down wall."

"Anyway, let's go in and take a look."

Wendy carefully took the pistol in her hand. "Since there are buildings like this here, there must have been civilization. And if our direction is correct, then this area is likely to be much more dangerous than the environment just now."

Then she glanced at Katharina and Tracy anxiously.

Of course, her intention was not to remind them to be safe, but to remind them to protect themselves. As the weakest member of the four-person team, she had to rely on her teammates to continue exploring.

The three witches nodded. Katarina asked Wendy to come to her side, while Tracy moved closer to Adele. Then, the four of them split into two groups and walked to the other side of the wall.

However, despite walking with the Saint, Wendy unfortunately encountered an accident.

Wendy was wearing jodhpurs, while Catalina was still wearing a long white dress, so when she stepped over the wreckage of the wall, she was one body length ahead of Catalina. However, it was precisely because of this body length that the archaeologist hit the air in front of her with a "bang", which bounced her back.

Seeing what happened to Wendy, Adele, who was only one step away from bumping into her, quickly used the assassin's muscle control ability to stop herself in her tracks.

Although the visible stone wall has been destroyed, there is an invisible air wall here!
(End of this chapter)