In Sumeru, pretend to be a scholar

Chapter 378 Scylla

Two days after the slime evolved.

Recently, the mentor has been engrossed in Nicole's art exchange, resulting in less time to talk to Wang Yan each day, which makes Wang Yan somewhat unhappy.

He didn't even realize that he was a little jealous of Nicole.

Feeling unhappy, Wang Yan channeled his grief and anger into motivation for research. With the film project nearing completion, he stopped visiting Fengdan and instead stayed in the Secret Realm, studying the Remurian Golem he had previously purchased.

The two white stone golems were moved to the experimental area.

This thing looks quite big, but it's not very heavy when you lift it. It has a stone shell with brass ornaments, so it's probably not solid inside.

First, look at the appearance.

The brass seams are somewhat dark, and there are several narrow cracks in the chest cavity and shoulder armor, indicating that this golem had experienced many battles while it was alive.

Wang Yan tapped the hole with his finger; the sound was hollow and hollow.

It's definitely not solid.

He wasn't in a hurry to demolish it.

If you accidentally hit something with a hammer that's thousands of years old, you'll lose money.

Besides, he's a scholar. Although he's not a proponent of the "wonderful theories" school, he's still a student of Estelle, and he knows that archaeology requires caution.

He circled around behind the golem, found a barely noticeable seam between the plates of the spine, and with a slight pull of gravity, he removed the entire piece of white stone.

Inside were indeed individual fist-sized cavities, not connected, but layered, like a honeycomb, or like the broken-up cavity of a musical instrument.

The cavities were connected by thin brass tubes, and there were still some dried white traces on the tube walls. Wang Yan leaned closer and smelled them, but there was no smell. They must have been left behind after the spiritual dew dried up back then.

After thinking for a moment, Wang Yan injected a wisp of elemental power into the central cavity.

As soon as the elemental force touched the inner wall of the cavity, the stone cavity vibrated with a 'hum'.

Immediately afterwards, a series of metallic sounds emanated from those brass tubes.

Several notes are arranged in a high-low pattern, with a slow rhythm, one note after another, and pauses in between.

Wang Yan stood there and listened for a while, and found that the sound was not random; it had its own rhythm and even the melody was somewhat familiar.

After thinking for a moment, Wang Yan realized that the rhythm of this thing was somewhat like the rhythm of breathing, with each contraction and relaxation.

'This is... music?'

He changed the cavity again and injected a little more force.

The sound that came out this time was different; the pitch and rhythm had changed, but it was still a tune with a clear rhythm.

Wang Yan removed all the white stone armor plates that could be disassembled and injected force into each one, listening to each one thoroughly.

After listening to more than a dozen tunes, he sat back, and a rock-made creature automatically appeared and caught Wang Yan.

Wang Yan frowned slightly, pondering these rhythms: "This is a bit strange..."

Logically speaking, these rhythms should all sound nice, but... when a bunch of rhythms are put into a golem, even if they sound nice, they become noise.

It was indeed strange, but strange as it was, these sounds had absolutely no extraordinary effects.

There were no elemental fluctuations, no authority, no will, nothing at all. It was just the sound of his elemental force vibrating through the hollow stone cavity and brass pipe, similar to ringing a bell or blowing a flute.

It can't be said that it's completely useless.

After carefully sensing it for a while, Wang Yan discovered that the structure of these tones was very precise, with each segment perfectly embedded in the stone cavity; adding or subtracting even a fraction would be incorrect.

Moreover, the two stone statues have subtle differences in their internal structure and are not completely identical.

He recalled information about the Remurian dynasty.

The so-called "Phobos" is simply Remus weaving the memories and personalities of every mortal into a "movement," and then unifying all the movements into a grand symphonic poem that aligns with the laws of the world.

Wang Yan looked at the golem in front of him and suddenly realized something.

'Then what's stored inside those hollow stone cavities isn't the golem's own melody.'

'Remus wove the memories and personalities of each mortal into a musical piece, and these cavities and brass pipes are the memories and personalities of each golem. Therefore, the internal structures of two golems will have subtle differences because human memories and personalities are different.'

"The body is forged from immortal magic stones and brass, and the spiritual essence contains and preserves a person's memories, personality, and intelligence, then plays a symphony through a special structure..."

"When countless Petricoes exist simultaneously, the so-called Great Symphony is formed, in which everyone is included, in order to resist [Fatuna]."

Petrichor is the true name of the Remurian Golem, meaning "stone" + "essence of the gods," from which the town of Petrichor derives its name.

"The body is the music... No wonder the Remurians consider war, like music, to be an art that needs to follow rhythm."

Wang Yan remembered that the information about the Golem Overseer also mentioned that it would set up "resonators" to coordinate attacks during battle, directing the battlefield like a conductor of an orchestra.

How could this not be an orchestra? Each of their golems is a musical note.

"However, while it may be said that we are using music to fight against [Fatuna], in essence, it is still about uniting human will to resist fate!"

"Therefore, when people's will is no longer unified, and selfish desires and evil thoughts appear in the grand symphony, this symphony not only fails to play a protective role, but instead drags the entire empire into the abyss."

Wang Yan narrowed his eyes slightly, deep in thought.

"This is a lesson I must learn. The melody of 'Harmony' should be used to unify forces, subordinate to the will, not above it..."

"However... this does coincide with Silagier's problem. Isn't the Grand Symphony a kind of collective consciousness? So, playing the collective game without erasing the individual will inevitably backfire sooner or later."

Of course, although Wang Yan complained like this, he was still aware of the difference between the two.

Siraja essentially uses the 'knowledge and ability' of other scholars, similar to digging a hole in their brains, so he can indeed erase the individual will of others and simply leave behind the mining machine.

But [Phobos] is different. If the individual will of people is erased, then there is no meaning to unification, and it is even more impossible to fight against [Fatuna].

Wang Yan was engrossed in studying the golem's structure when suddenly, a slight ripple came from the earth's veins within the secret realm.

Wang Yan stopped what he was doing and paused for two seconds.

"Hmm? Someone called me?"

He thought about it for a moment and then realized what was happening.

"Oh, it should be fluorescence."

He had previously given Ying a geomantic positioning crystal, saying that she could call him anytime if anything happened. It seems this one has come in handy.

He didn't ask any further questions. He casually tossed the white stone armor piece he had removed back onto the golem's back, dusted off his hands, sensed the direction from which the call of the ley lines was coming, clenched his right hand, and gravity distorted, opening a portal.

Take a step inside.

Take another step forward.

Sure enough, it was Ying, standing on a patch of grass he hadn't seen much before, with Paimon floating beside her, and a ley line anchor nearby.

"Wang Yan! Wang Yan! You're famous! No, Ying is famous!"

Paimon practically floated right up to Wang Yan's face, carrying a stack of newspapers in his hands.

"Look, look!" She shoved the newspaper into Wang Yan's arms. "The knight named Alto that Ying played in the movie, everyone in Fengdan is talking about her now!"

Wang Yan took the top one and glanced at it.

The page was filled with stills, showing Ying dressed in knight armor, holding a sword, standing in the wind, with flashy captions next to her.

He flipped through two photos, praising Ying in every single one, commending her heroic spirit, her emotional performance, and the brilliance of her action scenes.

He wasn't mentioned as the director at all.

Only in the Steambird Newspaper was there Charlotte's interview with Wang Yan.

Wang Yan didn't pay any attention.

He had expected this to happen.

The media, after all, chases after traffic.

Ying's current status and Wang Yan's status are irrelevant; readers will choose who to read and the newspapers will write about. There's nothing more to say about that.

He folded the newspaper and stuffed it back into Paimon's arms.

"You didn't call me over just to show me the newspaper, did you?"

“It’s not just the newspaper.” Paimon hid the newspaper behind his back, looking smug. “Furna and the others read it too, and they raved about it! Vizel even said this film could win an award!”

Wang Yan originally wanted to say that he didn't really care that much about whether the film would be successful or not.

But seeing Ying standing beside him, unable to suppress the smile on her lips, Paimon was so happy he spun around in mid-air, and swallowed back the words he was about to say.

"That's great." He smiled. "Hopefully, we can win an award."

“It definitely will!” Paimon replied immediately.

Wang Yan nodded, then looked at Ying.

"Alright, you've read the newspaper and heard the good things. Is there anything else?"

Ying then spoke.

"Didn't you ask me to take you to see the Remurian ruins when I had time? I happen to be free today, so we can go now."

Wang Yan's eyes lit up immediately.

"Really?"

He had just dismantled the two golems from top to bottom, and was worried that he couldn't figure out anything more from just these two empty shells.

The fluorescence was delivered right to our door.

“Of course it’s true, but where do you want to go first? Directly to the Golden Palace? Or to the Palace of Rest?” Ying asked.

Perhaps accustomed to Wang Yan's extensive knowledge, Ying directly mentioned place names without explaining what these places represented.

Fortunately, Wang Yan did indeed know the locations represented by these place names.

The Golden Palace is the core palace in the Old Sea region and the site of the royal palace of the ancient Kingdom of Remuria.

The Temple of Rest is the place where the traveler played the Requiem in the story, destroying the grand movement.

However, both places were too deep inside and were not where Wang Yan wanted to go.

“Take me to the Avenue of the Lofty.” Wang Yan said.

As expected, Wang Yan knew about Remuria. Ying wasn't surprised at all, and simply nodded: "Okay, I'll go over first, and then use the Earth Vein Crystal to locate you."

"it is good."

Ying responded and turned to walk to a nearby ley line anchor point, calling out to Paimon.

"They're gone."

A flash of light appeared beneath their feet, and they vanished in an instant.

Wang Yan waited in the same spot for a while.

Before long, the call of the earth veins in the secret realm came again, much clearer than before, and the direction was also clear.

Wang Yan closed his eyes, followed the signal for two seconds, then clenched his right hand, and the teleportation portal tore open in front of him again.

He wasn't in a hurry to move forward.

He first put on a composite shield before stepping inside.

Emerging again, I was surrounded by water on all sides. Looking around, the overall color was a deep blue with hints of purple. Underwater stone forests, glowing corals, floating bubbles, and streams of light intertwined, creating a breathtakingly beautiful scene.

Despite being deep in the sea, light shines down from above, falling on the distant ruins of the royal city of Remuria, adding a final touch of majesty to the ancient empire.

He turned his gaze to Ying and Paimon.

The two of them had a faint sheen of water on their skin, which was probably the effect of the exotic marine water.

In the water, they were no different from those on land, floating around without even bubbles forming when they spoke.

"Do you need me to stay with you from now on?" Ying turned to ask him.

Wang Yan shook his head.

"No need, I can shop by myself. You go ahead and do your thing."

"Row."

Ying nodded and turned to leave.

She swam a body length ahead, then suddenly stopped.