The Ancestral Legacy Begins in the Wild West

Chapter 207 The Textual Alchemy Codex on the Dark Green Slate

July 14th, noon.

Although the years are different, the day is still the same as the one destined by fate.

The Parisian sun hung high above the spire of Notre Dame, bathing the entire city in its golden light.

There were far fewer pedestrians on the streets than usual, but the shops that were supposed to be open remained open, as people's incomes did not allow them to stop working just because they heard a little bit of news.

But Paris has indeed changed. From Saint-Antoine to Saint-Germain, from the docks to the markets, there are serious rumors circulating everywhere.

Foreign troops in Switzerland and Germany have received orders and will arrive in Paris soon.

The streets were suddenly filled with a tense atmosphere. Some people were carrying their stockpiled flour home, some were whispering among themselves at the alley entrance, and some were banging on the table and shouting slogans in the tavern, only to look around nervously afterward.

The flames of revolution were already smoldering everywhere, though the Bastille remained just that—the Bastille.

The eight towers stood there, gray and dusty, with moss growing at their base and the rust on the iron railings deepening year by year.

Louis XVI was indeed, as the warden had thought, an indecisive and useless man. Apart from no new prisoners being sent in, the place seemed to be operating as usual.

Fearing that his troops might rebel, perhaps even side with the constitutional monarchists, Lafayette could turn against him and implicate himself.

He summoned a foreign army.

But it was clear to everyone that the army was targeting the revolutionaries; he didn't dare lay a hand on the warden, his guards, or the alchemists.

Even so, the prison was unusually quiet, with an eerie atmosphere. In the basement laboratory, although only one morning had passed, the place had already changed drastically.

Late last night, this place was still piled with countless messy documents, various complicated props, equipment and resources.

At this point, the bottles, jars, and parchment on the long table were gone, and the shelf against the wall had been moved.

The pebbles and debris on the ground were swept clean, leaving only the instruments and pipes directly connected to Charles, and the restraint chair binding him.

The space suddenly felt much more spacious.

Even when you look up, you can only see one figure, De Lamot.

Despite it being July, the hottest month in Paris, he was still wearing a black robe, even more elaborate than any of his previous ones.

He emerged from the darkness and walked among several strangely colored torches that had just been lit, causing his black robe to light up with dense, intricate patterns of gold.

In the firelight, strange patterns of color or gold flowed slowly across his black robe with each step.

The underground laboratory was completely silent, with only the extremely faint sound of his footsteps making their way forward.

"Da-da-da-da" He came to Ciel's side.

At this moment, Charles was completely naked, but his body was now entirely covered with various red crystals. They were densely packed, like armor pieced together from shards of glass, enveloping him from his feet to his head.

Only half of its eye, which was completely unable to blink, was still exposed, its gray-blue pupil revealing no sign of life.

"Da-da-da-da-da"

From the surrounding darkness, several alchemists, also dressed in black robes, emerged from the shadows.

In the silent and dark laboratory, they were scattered, standing in various corners and positions according to an odd distribution.

Then, in an eerie silence, they both bent down and placed their palms on the cold stone slab.

"Truly true—absolutely true—undoubtedly true!"

The warden's and their overlapping voices echoed in the room like muffled thunder!

With a buzzing sound.

One after another, mysterious geometric rune shapes lit up from beneath their palms.

Like someone flipping a switch in the dark, all the lights were turned on at the same instant. The orange-red runes had sharp edges and straight lines, with triangles nested within hexagons, and hexagons connected to circles, all linked together by lines.

Each unique pattern contains Hebrew letters, spreading out from under everyone's palm and extending in all directions along the ground, like a net being woven.

"The lower is like the upper, and the upper is like the lower—thus the miracle of the One is accomplished."

Standing among them, Zhang Chang'an's mind was buzzing from the eerie chanting all around him.

He was one of those alchemists, also dressed in black robes, and was given the same rituals by the warden.

Although he wasn't chanting any incantations, even with his hands pressed to the ground, he felt a strange force climbing up his arm, past his elbow, past his shoulder, and into his chest.

Runes lit up from their palms, connecting with various orange-red patterns.

These patterns quickly began to climb up the wall, and a strange sensation, somewhat like a normal touch but unusually sticky, followed.

Following these patterns, one climbs over the torch-illuminated stone bricks, over the shadowed grooves, over the connecting passageways of the laboratory, extending outwards—

"really----"

Zhang Chang'an felt as if his body had suddenly extended a large number of limbs, nerves, and senses.

Following these spreading runes, along the not-damp but extremely cold stone slabs, they reached various parts of the underground laboratory.

He had already sensed that the layout of this underground space seemed abnormal.

After all, the construction of the Paris Catacombs has always been relatively horizontal and vertical.

However, although the underground laboratory was difficult to observe due to its complex network of pathways, there were always various forks or winding roads. Therefore, he had long suspected that there might be something wrong with the underground laboratory itself.

Only now could he confirm that those patterns had connected all the underground corridors and rooms into the lines and anchor points of a large transmutation array.

The angles of the walls, the width of the corridors, the location of the rooms, and even the spacing of the niches are all pre-designed.

"All things are originally one, and they are created from one through differentiation."

Zhang Chang'an's strange senses clearly perceived that, as the people around him chanted, the runes seemed to come alive, slowly operating like a heartbeat.

Flashing light again and again, outside this underground laboratory, the walls and floor, which weren't exactly straight to begin with, were now...

It slowly returned to its complete state.

As some weathered cracks disappeared and various patterns rapidly extended across the corridor, some scattered pebbles were instantly pulverized and vanished into the darkness.

The instruments in the room also started up at that moment, making a loud rumbling noise.

Zhang Chang'an felt as if his body had become part of a large machine, forming, along with the alchemists around him, a component that enabled the large transmutation array to begin operating.

Of course, although it doesn't directly become its nourishment, it can only use a very small portion of its permissions, so small that they are almost negligible.

But that wasn't his focus to begin with. He had indeed decided to help the warden advance the experiment, and then tamper with it later.

The time he's preparing for this event is right now!

"Buzz!" A series of static echoed in his ears. Zhang Chang'an tried his best to control his body, which was being forcibly pressed to the ground, crouching and touching the ground with his head down.

Relying on his strong willpower, he raised his head amidst the countless dazzling runes around him and looked at the warden in the center.

De Lamothe stood between the instruments and the restraint chair, his back to him, his body turned to face the light of the torches.

His right hand was raised, and he was holding something in his palm.

It was an incomplete piece of jade, emerald green, almost opaque, with jagged edges, as if it had been knocked off a larger stone slab.

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