In Sumeru, pretend to be a scholar!

Chapter 91 Topic: [Flora Temple Relief] (14/20, Seeking First Subscription)

Candice acted swiftly, transporting the monster materials back that same day, and the construction team from Aru Village arrived the next day.

Even the people of Aru Village asked if they should find a scholar from the Mystic School to design the camp's layout.

As a result, Farusan rolled her eyes at her and sent her flying back.

She only took half an hour out of her time to inspect the ruins, and based on the surrounding environment, she designed a blueprint for the construction team.

Wang Yan glanced at it and saw that Farusan had even reserved space for the water source to continue expanding under the influence of underground water veins.

Although the timber for building the camp hasn't arrived yet, the construction team has already started the preliminary leveling and stone quarrying work, which means things are on track.

Wang Yan, following Farusan, officially began his investigation of the ruins.

The so-called investigation, in the absence of a large number of books in the ruins, mainly involves the analysis of the visible areas such as the architectural style of the ruins, the use of reliefs and runes, and the decorative patterns of the scenes.

"The relief carving is exquisite. This kind of craftsmanship is not something ordinary people can possess. Even during the Red King's era, such fine carving was only found in some great temples."

After carefully examining almost all the reliefs inside the temple, Farusan analyzed.

Wang Yan nodded, seemingly lost in thought, and said, "Does this mean that this temple is actually of a very high standard?"

Wang Yan's question made Farusan nod slightly: "Yes, although the temple is not large in terms of area, in terms of the exquisite scale of the reliefs, it is in no way inferior to the Red King's Mausoleum."

"Take this flower for example."

She pointed to a detail of a rose relief on the wall.

The rose presents a three-dimensional sense of layering: the outermost layer is a half-open bud, and inside are layers of fully unfolded petals, with the curvature, thickness and even the fine texture of each petal clearly visible.

At the center of the flower, the sculptor even used extremely fine lines to outline the shape of the pollen sac.

"This 'multi-layered openwork carving' technique requires craftsmen to have a very deep understanding of the properties of the stone."

"First, lightly carve the outline on the outer layer, then go deeper and deeper inward layer by layer. With each layer you go deeper, the risk increases. If you are not careful, the whole piece of stone will break."

"Even in today's school of thought, this technique is considered a high-level skill."

Wang Yan was holding a piece of rubbing paper, carefully covering the surface of the relief, and gently patting it with a soft brush to make the paper adhere to each indentation.

This is a process of making rubbings, which is also part of the investigation and record-keeping.

"Mentor, these flowers—they don't seem to be just for decoration," Wang Yan said while making rubbings. "I counted, and there are at least seventeen different flower types in the reliefs I've seen so far. Some of them simply couldn't grow naturally in the desert, like this one."

He pointed to a lotus relief sculpture with ripples on water not far away.

"Blue water lily," Farusan pronounced accurately, "It only grows in clean lakes and has extremely high requirements for water quality. Even if there are underground water veins in the desert, it is difficult to create a suitable environment for its growth."

"So, is it possible that these reliefs contain some other information?" Wang Yan asked tentatively.

As an important component of ancient civilizations, temples themselves also possess a function of transmitting civilization.

Generally speaking, apart from places like academies, temples should be the areas with the largest collections of books.

Even if there are no normal books, there should at least be hymns to the gods and the transmission of myths and legends, right?

There's nothing here.

In fact, when Wang Yan first entered the ruins, he found that there didn't seem to be any treasures here. He had thought that the treasures were hidden deep inside, but now that the monsters had been cleared out and the ruins had been looked over several times, he still hadn't found anything.

Wang Yan was certain that this was either an empty temple, or the information contained within the temple was hidden in a place unseen by people.

What's most unusual about the entire temple is the floral relief that covers the entire space.

On the one hand, there are so many of them, they are everywhere in the ruins; on the other hand, these reliefs are completely different from the decorations of other desert ruins.

Unfortunately, Hua Diao is neither writing nor runes, and it is certainly not a commonly used information carrier, so Wang Yan's cheat code is of little use to it.

"Are you suggesting that these reliefs might be some kind of code?" Farusan countered.

Wang Yan nodded: "Yes, mentor, otherwise it would be too unreasonable for a temple to have no information records at all."

.

"Then try to decipher it. Classify and record the types of flowers, their states, and their order, and see if you can find any patterns." Farusan did not refute Wang Yan's words; on the contrary, she was very supportive of Wang Yan's research in this area.

Archaeology is often a mystery; it requires painstakingly unraveling clues and uncovering patterns to interpret ancient civilizations.

Even if Wang Yan doesn't bring it up himself, Falushan will guide him to do so.

Directly interpreting classical Chinese texts is merely the most basic operation of the epistemological school. Truly skilled epistemological scholars should be able to analyze hidden textual and linguistic patterns, that is, decode the secret language.

"Remember to save your data carefully. Your first paper could be a study on the reliefs of the Temple of Flora."

"Okay, mentor."

Wang Yan also became excited, feeling like it was his first time working on a project alone.

With Farusan's approval, Wang Yan got into the zone and started taking notes in his notebook.

Farusian did not teach the scholars of the Royal Academy how to record things, or rather, each scholar recorded things in a different way.

Wang Yan also has his own habits.

He used a simple system of symbols to mark the characters in his notebook: F-1 (rose type), F-2 (lotus type), F-3...

(Lily of the Valley type) — Each type is further subdivided according to its degree of openness, such as F-1a (bud), F-1b (half-open), F-1c (fully open) —

The key to keeping records is that you can understand them yourself, and then simplify them as much as possible.

Don't use too many words, otherwise it will be tiring to write.

Seeing that Wang Yan was getting into the zone, Falushan smiled with satisfaction and went to the side on her own.

She was also curious about these reliefs, and as Wang Yan's mentor, she should at least be able to understand them once he finished his research.

So, while the apprentices are working hard, the teachers can't just sit idly by either.

Time passed slowly until a sound came from outside the temple.

"Senior Falushan, Wang Yan, I've brought you lunch."

It's Dixia.

Aru Village took over the construction of the camp, and the Blazing Beast Hunter also profited a lot from the previous monster materials. Simply moving a monster corpse was obviously not worth that much money.

So, the members of the Blazing Beast Hunters did the math and decided to stay and take charge of security during the camp's construction, so they wouldn't have taken the money for nothing.

Wang Yan snapped out of his reverie, his gaze returning from the bas-relief flowers, and his thoughts gradually returned to their normal course.

"Okay, thank you for your help, Dixia."

"What's the trouble? The meals are all prepared by the logistics staff. I'm just helping to bring them over."

Dixia put down the food and waved her hand.

With a construction team, there is also a corresponding logistics team, all of which are handled by Aru Village.

With logistics support in place, the people of Aru Village naturally wouldn't allow Wang Yan and Farusan to cook separately.

Therefore, their problem of having food was also solved.

"Have you discovered anything after looking at it for so long?" Dixia asked curiously.

Wang Yan had already taken the rice bowl and was eating when he heard Dixia's question. He swallowed his food and then replied, "The runes that maintain the operation of the temple have been analyzed. Although there are some unique runes, overall, they are still based on the desert civilization template."

After a pause, Wang Yan continued, "However—the temple is too empty; I feel there's a problem."

Farusan ate her meal on the side, not interfering with their conversation.

It's not a classified project, and there aren't any special results, so it's okay to talk about it.

Moreover, Farusan also believed in Desia's character.

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