Spellcasting Gods

The first thing that catches the eye is a row of huge bookshelves, each over four meters tall, but the books on them have long since rotted and decayed, turning into piles of gray dust.

Besides the bookshelves, the most eye-catching feature is the spiral staircase that surrounds the central pillar, with a lifelike dragon carved at each corner.

Just as the little girl was captivated by the spectacular sight in the tower's hall, Zhang Cheng noticed that a faint energy seemed to be emanating from beneath the moss-covered ground.

He quickly squatted down and parted the moss to examine the patterns and designs covering it.

Perhaps due to the passage of time, or perhaps due to long-term corrosion from humid air, most of the patterns have become blurred and indistinct. Only a flame-shaped pattern near the stairs remains intact and continues to release heat outwards.

Celine quickly noticed this as well, and leaned closer cautiously to ask, "What is this?"

Zhang Cheng smiled and shrugged, replying, "It's hard to say. We need to do a little test first. You'd better wait outside; I don't want to see you get hurt..."

Chapter 163 Exploring the Ruins (Part 2)

Despite the passage of time, Zhang Cheng could still clearly sense the abundant energy contained beneath the fire-shaped pattern.

So after Celine walked away, he didn't rush to activate the pattern immediately. Instead, he carefully added a protective fire barrier to himself before gently touching it with the end of his flint staff.

moment!

A bright flame shot out directly from the center of the pattern, enveloping the entire human figure. If the protective flame barrier hadn't taken effect in time, the person would have been severely burned, or even burned to death.

Just as he began to think it was a device similar to a magical trap, the bright flames quickly began to fade.

At the same time, the moss-covered stone slabs on the ground suddenly made a loud noise and then began to split open to reveal a hidden tunnel.

"Interesting... a secret room?" Zhang Cheng muttered to himself, not entirely sure, as he observed the interior using the sunlight streaming in from above.

On both sides of the entrance, colorful glass candlesticks were placed at intervals. When the cold wind blew through the passage, all the candlesticks suddenly burst out with dazzling light, causing the colors of the surrounding air to change strangely. The white ones were as bright as snow, the yellow ones shone like pure gold, the red ones were like raging flames, and the black ones were like black holes that seemed to suck everything in the surrounding area.

As someone with a deep understanding of the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, he quickly realized that these candlesticks were exactly the same as those placed in the Citadel.

In addition, there is a line of sentences written in Higher Valyrian script at the top of the entrance porch.

Without any hesitation, Zhang Cheng turned around and shouted at the girl hiding in the distance, "Come on! It should be safe now! And help me figure out what this sentence means!"

"Here I am!"

Unable to contain her intense curiosity any longer, little Celine rushed over in a few steps, staring wide-eyed at the line of High Valyrian script. It took her a full minute before she stammered, "Only true...true dragons can gain immortality in...in the flames..."

"A true dragon? I see..." Zhang Cheng nodded thoughtfully.

Without a doubt, the flames that just appeared were not a trap, but a test to see if the person who opened the secret room was a Valyrian.

As is well known, the direct descendants of House Targaryen are renowned for their unique gold and silver hair, purple eyes, and inhuman beauty. Many of them also possess extremely high fire resistance, just like Daenerys, who was unburnt by fire.

In fact, this special trait is not unique to the Targaryen family; almost all Valyrian high-ranking officials are like this, ensuring the purity of their bloodline through incestuous marriage.

Zhang Cheng was almost certain that the Valyrians must have undergone genetic mutation or artificial magical modification at some point in their lives, which is why they possessed such incredible perfect appearances and magical physiques.

Having figured this out, he stepped into the narrow passage without hesitation, and with the eerie light emitted by the glass candlestick, he quickly entered a place that resembled a storage room.

Due to its age, thick dust and cobwebs have buried the surrounding mountains of long, narrow objects.

A curious girl parted the spider web, took out her handkerchief to wipe away the dust, and wanted to see what these strip-like objects were.

But once the dust was wiped away, she froze on the spot, and after a full minute, she screamed, "Valyrian steel! The room is filled with Valyrian steel!"

"What?" Upon hearing this, Zhang Cheng hurriedly picked up a piece of cloth and wiped away the dust covering its surface, revealing the exquisite patterns unique to Valyrian steel.

If calculated according to current market prices, the thousands of steel blocks in the room would be enough to buy almost the entire world.

Clearly, he had inadvertently discovered the place where the Valyrians manufactured and stored steel ingots. If he could transport these ingots back and forge them into weapons and armor, he could quickly arm an elite army that was impervious to swords and spears. Perhaps there would be no other army on the continent of Westeros that could rival it.

After all, standard weapons cannot cause any significant damage to Valyrian steel armor, and standard armor cannot withstand the piercing of Valyrian steel swords and spears.

Just as Zhang Cheng was staring at the mountain of steel ingots, pondering how to deal with them, little Celine suddenly ran to the far end of the room, pointed to a wall, and shouted, "Look! There are lots of words here!"

"Can you decipher them?" Zhang Cheng casually tossed the steel ingot aside and asked with a serious expression.

He was undoubtedly more interested in the inscriptions on the walls than in the priceless Valyrian steel.

“I’ll give it a try! But there are so many words, it might take me a while,” the girl replied enthusiastically.

"Don't rush, take your time, we have plenty of time." With that, Zhang Cheng rubbed the little guy's head.

He understood that the worst thing you can do when it comes to things like deciphering code is rush it, otherwise any mistake could have disastrous consequences.

While Celine was engrossed in deciphering the inscriptions on the wall, Zhang Cheng began to carefully observe the underground chamber, paying little attention to the priceless Valyrian steel.

To be precise, he never intended to transport all the steel ingots at once. On the one hand, the ship didn't have that much carrying capacity, and on the other hand, he wasn't sure how everyone, including the team leader Eric, would react after learning that there was so much Valyrian steel.

It is important to understand that people's hearts are always the most vulnerable to temptation, especially under the lure of immense wealth. Even the most loyal subordinates may stab you in the back without warning.

Although he had enough power to suppress the rebellion, what would happen after the suppression?

Suspicion and distrust can spread like a plague among sailors and soldiers, and may even spread throughout the entire territory upon their return.

As someone who considers himself to be fairly intelligent, he certainly doesn't want to become one of those birds that "die for food."

While receiving unexpected wealth is certainly a good thing, when the amount of unexpected wealth exceeds a certain level, it will bring misfortune rather than good fortune.

Zhang Cheng planned to secretly take a small portion back first, and then have Kuro Kerba handle the transportation of the rest once it grew a bit bigger.

Time passed slowly, and after about two or three hours, the sun finally set slowly below the horizon, and the dazzling stars once again hung in the night sky.

Zhang Cheng, who had just returned from the camp, carried a steaming bowl of seafood stew, two slices of bread, several fried fish and grilled seagull, and gently placed it next to little Celine.

Whether it was hunger or the aroma of food, the girl instinctively picked up the bowl and began to eat in small bites, muttering to herself as she ate, mostly in High Valyrian pronunciation that he couldn't understand...

Chapter 164 Exploring the Ruins (Part 2)

Noticing that the little guy wasn't as focused as before, Zhang Cheng immediately asked, "How's it going? What's recorded on these walls?"

“Hmm… I’ve only deciphered a small part so far; it seems to be someone’s suicide note,” Celine Baratheon replied softly while eating.

Her eyes remained fixed on the wall, surrounded by countless sheets of paper covered in illegible handwriting.

It goes without saying that these papers contain various translations of each word, which are then combined with other words and context in a sentence to deduce its meaning.

In fact, since letters are a form of writing that expresses specific meaning through pronunciation, much like pinyin, ambiguity can easily arise during interpretation. This is similar to how many languages ​​in European countries around the world evolved from Latin.

For people in these countries, the other languages ​​in the same language family are similar to the dialects in China, so don't find it incredible that Europeans can learn several, or even more than a dozen, languages.

As an alphabetic script used by an ancient, lost civilization, High Valyrian shares the same characteristics. Furthermore, since no one truly understands the language anymore, young Celine can only rely on a small portion preserved in the Targaryen family books to try and decipher the rest.

"A suicide note?" Zhang Cheng subconsciously turned around and glanced at the human bones piled up in the corner of the room.

The girl nodded gently: "Yes! When the disaster happened, a fire mage who called himself Orwin and a dozen slaves were trapped. In order to survive, he... he killed all the slaves one by one, and then struggled for a month by eating their corpses..."

As she finished speaking, little Celine couldn't help but shudder, her eyes revealing undisguised terror.

For a kind-hearted woman like her, let alone the extremely cruel act of eating people, the act of slaughtering people like livestock was already beyond her psychological limits.

But in Zhang Cheng's view, if a person goes hungry for six or seven days, their subconscious survival instinct will begin to activate the bestial nature hidden beneath the guise of civilization.

When this animalistic instinct reaches a certain level, they will not only treat their own kind as food, but they will also desperately stuff even more disgusting things such as excrement, cockroaches, and rats into their mouths.

Perhaps saying that 100% of people can resist the onslaught of hunger is too absolute, but it is definitely true that more than 99% can.

Ignoring the girl's overreaction to cannibalism, he continued, "What about the contents of the suicide note? Did it mention any specific details of the apocalyptic catastrophe? Did he leave behind any detailed information about Valyrian magic?"

"He did mention something about the apocalyptic catastrophe. According to his description, he first heard loud shouts and screams, then the ground shook violently, and soon after, a deafening roar echoed throughout the city. He tried to open the door to the secret chamber to see what was happening. Unfortunately, the door had triggered some kind of protective mechanism, completely sealing the inside. He also mentioned that the tremors initially came from the southeast. As for the magic possessed by the Valyrians, it was all recorded on a huge dragonstone slab, hidden deep underground in this tower."

After saying that, Celine pointed to a giant dragon statue that was about three meters tall not far away.

Clearly, this statue is the entrance to a deeper level.

Upon hearing this, Zhang Cheng immediately walked closer and carefully examined every detail of the statue.

Before long, he noticed that the red gemstone inlaid in the dragon eye area seemed to be a little different from ordinary gemstones.

To confirm his guess, he raised his staff and poked at it.

moment!

A burst of scorching flame shot out from the dragon's mouth!

Fortunately, he reacted quickly and rolled away in time to avoid the flames head-on.

In just a few seconds, the stone slabs on the ground began to melt, turning into a pool of magma radiating terrifying heat.

"Damn it! The Valyrians really love fire magic..." Zhang Cheng quickly pulled off his burning cloak and complained through gritted teeth.

Keep in mind that he had only been exploring the ruins for less than half a day and had already encountered two fire attacks; there would definitely be more to come.

No wonder many people say that Valyrian magic is all about blood and fire; now it seems that's certainly true.

As the flames spewing from the dragon's mouth gradually diminished and disappeared, a tunnel leading deeper into the tunnel appeared.

Unlike the previous ones, this tunnel was devoid of light and ornate decorations; the sides were simply rough rock.

Braving the waves of heat emanating from the lava, Zhang Cheng bent down and passed through the dragon's mouth, which was less than 1.5 meters long, and casually pulled out a pearl that emitted a soft, milky-white light.

With the help of the dim light, he saw that the winding tunnel was like a spiral staircase, leading deeper and deeper. The higher he went, the higher the temperature of the surrounding environment became, and in some places it even exceeded the limits of human endurance.

"Interesting, could there be an active volcano down there?" Zhang Cheng muttered to himself, squinting his eyes.

As a fairly cautious person, he had no intention of venturing too deep, at least not before he had completed his preparations. Who knew what dangerous things might be lurking at the end of the bottomless tunnel?

"Do you really think there are stone tablets down there that record Valyrian magic?" Little Celine had somehow joined in and asked with a curious look on her face.

“Of course! Why would someone who knows they’re about to die lie? I’m just a little worried that there might be something else besides the stone slab,” Zhang Cheng replied with a shrug.

"When do we go in?" the girl asked again, her eyes shining.

Zhang Cheng smiled and held up a finger, waving it in front of Xiao Xilin: "No, no, no, it's me, not us. You should just stay in the camp. It's too dangerous down there for you."

"Hey! That's not fair! I helped you find the entrance! You can't enjoy the adventure alone! You have to take me with you!"

Upon hearing that they weren't going to take him along, the little guy immediately protested and loudly defended his rights.

For her, this trip was likely the most exciting and only adventure of her life, so she didn't want to miss it no matter what.

"Hahahaha! Fun? Where do you get the idea that I'm enjoying the adventure? Remember those sailors and soldiers outside? Do you know why I brought them along?" Zhang Cheng laughed and asked rhetorically.

Celine hesitated for a few seconds, then quickly shook her head: "I don't know..."

"It's okay, I can tell you if you don't know. They are expendable, cannon fodder used to die and buy time at crucial moments!" Zhang Cheng's eyes flashed coldly, directly shattering the girl's unrealistic fantasies.

Chapter 0165 Deep Underground