Shut up, brave man! I don't want to atone for my sins to you!

So, she concluded:

"Can this also be considered as some kind of common ground? That 'the holy sword will only choose humans as heroes'?"

Charles shook his head upon hearing this:

"I don't know, maybe. At least as far as I know, there are indeed no aliens among the heroes of all generations."

"But..." He quickly added, "The heroes of all generations rarely care about race and position. They generally only care about the peace and stability of the entire Pan-Continent."

"Perhaps, in the future there will be heroes from elves, dragons, or even dwarves. After all..."

Quite rarely, Charles sighed:

"I am not a true hero, and I don't know the secrets that only true heroes know."

When Charles mentioned "secret", Laceline immediately thought of something.

Go back to the source...

Speaking of which, what exactly is a hero?

In other words, what exactly is that holy sword of unknown origin that is the source of the emergence of this group of heroes?

There are many different legends about the origin of the holy sword.

These include but are not limited to the "theory of the gift from the goddess of creation", "theory of natural gestation from heaven and earth" and even the "theory of casting by the dwarf god craftsman".

But neither argument can stand up to scrutiny.

First of all, there are most likely no so-called gods in the Pan-Continent. At least when Laciel and Lao Deng launched the magic revolution, the gods worshipped by human countries and even alien races did not show up.

They seemed to have no problem with the change in magic at all.

Rachel wasn't sure if it was because the gods really didn't care about the changes on the Pangaea, or if they simply didn't exist - in her eyes, whether in the past life or this life, the existence of the gods was in a mysterious state that could neither be confirmed nor falsified.

In this case, all she can do is "do not add entities unless necessary."

——In order to clarify the origin of the holy sword, we might as well use Occam’s razor on the gods.

After eliminating the gods from the many possibilities, the next ones to be eliminated are the theory of natural creation and the theory of forging by dwarf craftsmen.

These two relatively reliable arguments have fatal flaws:

The former obviously denied the obvious artificial forging appearance of the holy sword; the latter could barely deceive the uninformed general public, but could not fool Lacie who had dealt with the dwarves.

In this way, almost all the legends about the origin of the holy sword circulating in the continent can be identified as false.

So, where did the holy sword come from?

It can't have popped out of a stone, right?

Laceier thought about it in a subtle way, nudged Charles, and asked:

"Hey, speaking of secrets... Have you ever asked the previous generation of heroes about the origin of your lineage of heroes?"

"Origin?" Charles was stunned for a moment, then reacted, "You want to ask how the first generation of heroes appeared?"

"Oh, that's right! That's right!"

"I remember..." Ciel replied, "Uncle Elvis told me that the first generation of heroes were also chosen by the Holy Sword."

"What about before the first generation of heroes? Where did the holy sword come from? Was it the hero who gave the holy sword its name, or did the holy sword give the hero the qualifications?"

Just like the old question within the classic -

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Charles' answer was:

"Of course the Holy Sword came first, and those chosen by the Holy Sword became heroes. As for where the Holy Sword came from..."

He shook his head:

"I don't know, and Uncle Elvis doesn't seem to know either. All he can give is a vague answer like 'the original gravekeeper took the fire from the abyss and brought a ray of light to the dying world.'"

"so……"

Lacie pondered over this sentence, and the more she pondered, the more she felt that it had a mystical flavor.

She needs to clarify here -

This is how they engage in occultism: they like to use various images to refer to things, replacing specific nouns and concepts, using vague words, and their main focus is to be a riddle man. If you don't like this, don't play with them.

Of course, this is actually old news.

The older generation of wizards and mystics were still so conservative, always talking about the wind, the moon, the stars, the abyss, and the first fire; however, after the magic revolution, the new generation of wizards and mystics almost all abandoned that inefficient way of communication and turned to speaking human language.

The representative of the former is probably the witch Thea.

The latter is represented by the Lord of the White Tower, the highly respected Lady Veridian.

As a supporter of Lao Deng, Lacier naturally supports Lao Deng more - after all, a considerable number of rules in the existing order of the wizard world were negotiated and finally finalized by her and Lao Deng.

As for the witch Thea...

Although it sounds very cool and mysterious, in terms of practicality, it is absolutely beaten by the new-age communication methods.

Just like now.

Lacele had never hated those old-school wizards who spoke so many abstract words and used vague images to refer to specific people, things or phenomena. Really, can't these old things who can't keep up with the times just roll into the garbage dump of history?

But she just couldn't do anything about those old-school wizards.

So even though she was unhappy, she could only rack her brains and try to interpret the sentence in the old-fashioned way:

"The 'first gravekeeper' refers to the first generation of heroes? The 'spark' he picked up from the 'abyss' refers to the holy sword passed down by successive generations of heroes?"

"Then what is the 'dying world'? Why can the 'spark' bring a ray of light to the dying world?"

Laceel murmured to herself, but her mind couldn't help but emerge with everything she and Charles had experienced in Diesel.

The Slender Man, the Limited Wishing Machine, and the one that was destroyed for unknown reasons...

"Previous civilization!" Rachel suddenly raised her voice. She looked at Charles and subconsciously asked, "Could the Holy Sword... come from a previous civilization that has already been destroyed?"

[To be continued]

-

35. The So-Called Witch

Lacey felt that her guess made a lot of sense.

Strike while the iron is hot, she continued:

"The only thing that can make people think of the concept of 'a dying world' is a former civilization that has already been destroyed, right?"

As she spoke, the witch pulled up the necklace on her chest and showed the now dimmed trioctahedron to Charles:

"The former civilization that was destroyed by those tall and thin ghosts, or as you said, by many other weird things, somehow found a way to fight against those weird things on the eve of destruction."

Perhaps she felt that this guess was not perfect, so she quickly added:

"——Of course, it is also possible that the crisis promoted the rapid advancement of technology, so it was not that the previous civilization found the holy sword from somewhere, but that they created the holy sword."

"But," the witch's expression became subtle, "Can a mere holy sword really save a civilization that is about to be destroyed?"

Charles shook his head.

"Probably not. After all, even if the previous civilization found... or created the holy sword, it would still be destroyed in the end."

"If that's the case, then..."

Not only did Lacie's expression become subtle, but her mood also became subtle.

What was she thinking?

Before the holy sword was created, the previous civilization was doomed to be destroyed; after the holy sword was created, the previous civilization was still doomed to be destroyed - then wasn't the holy sword created in vain?

Lacele looked at Charles.

Charles seemed to guess what she was thinking and looked at her.

The two looked at each other, their expressions somewhat complicated.

"That proves that the Holy Sword cannot save the previous civilization. It does not have that kind of power." Charles said softly.

"But this would contradict the second half of the sentence," Rachel pointed out Ciel's omission. "If the holy sword cannot save the ancient civilization, then what about Uncle Elvis's words like 'bringing a glimmer of hope to the dying world'?"

If what the previous hero said was correct, then if we continue thinking along this line, we can only deny reality...

That is, the previous civilization did not collapse, or in other words, it at least retained a glimmer of hope.

However, Laciel had never heard of the existence of remnants of the former civilization in today's Pangaea.

If she had to say, she could only think of elves and dragons - the two immortal races most likely to have connections with the previous civilization.

But now she and Charles both know that elves are not native to Pangaea.

Those pointed-eared creatures came from the depths of the starry sky. To the natives of the Pangaea, they were absolute foreigners.

Thinking of this, Lacie suddenly realized something and said to Charles:

"No! The warning given to us by the previous civilization was 'Never touch the starry sky', but what do the elves of Lentiheim say? They themselves came from the starry sky!"

Charles frowned.

"Well, the elves themselves came from the depths of the starry sky, but their arrival did not seem to cause the destruction of the previous civilization... At least, except for the thin ghost that Diesel accidentally awakened when he was digging for the remains of the previous civilization, nothing like this has appeared anywhere else..."

Lacey shook her head.

"Have you forgotten the thing that contaminated the elves' mistress? Although we still don't know what that thing is, it is definitely from the same source as Diesel's thin ghosts."

She turned her wrist, and the quietly hanging rectangular octahedron began to slowly rotate.

The witch's gaze passed through the cracked shell of the wishing machine and rested on its almost pure black interior, which was impossible to see through.

"After returning from the White Tower, I specifically asked Lao Deng where the limited wish-granting machines that exist in the Pan-Continent came from... Do you want to guess what Lao Deng answered me?"

Charles was stunned for a moment, then he guessed cooperatively:

"Could it be that all those wishing machines are from the previous civilization?"

"..."

After hearing this, Lacier was strangely silent for a while, then she muttered in an unpleasant tone, "Why are you so smart?", and finally she reluctantly admitted:

"Yes, you guessed it right. Old Deng told me that all the wishing machines that exist in Pangaea originated from the previous civilization."

Charles frowned.

"But I remember that the widely circulated story is that a scholar tried to create a true unlimited wishing machine. After failing, he committed suicide, leaving behind only a few semi-finished products - which are the limited wishing machines owned by human countries."

"There's actually something wrong with this statement," Lacie held the trapezoid tightly in her hand, "or rather, the truth is a combination of the two statements..."

She paused, then told Charles:

"The truth is that a scholar who was working on the study of pre-civilizations accidentally got a limited wishing machine, and his instinct prompted him to conduct in-depth research on the limited wishing machine."

"At the same time, a crazy idea was born in his mind - 'Since the ancient civilization was able to create a limited wishing machine, can I stand on the shoulders of giants and try to create a truly unlimited wishing machine?'"

"It would be fine if that scholar was as poor as Old Deng before he built the White Tower, but he is quite prestigious in the academic community and can mobilize a lot of resources..."

After hearing this, Ciel roughly understood what was going on, and continued with what Lacier said:

"But in the end, the scholar failed. He did not succeed in creating a truly infinite wish-granting machine..."

"Well, we don't know the whole story," Rachel whispered, "All we know is the result—"

"The scholar failed and went crazy. He made a wish to kill himself on the limited wish-granting machine he owned. The limited wish-granting machine was passed around for many times and was finally brought to the scholar's homeland."

"Germania," the witch said, hanging the trapezoid on her chest like a necklace again, "the limited wishing machine is now in Germania."

Then she added:

"Including the broken limited wishing machine we got from Diesel, there are currently seven limited wishing machines in the entire Pan-Continent, and almost all of them are controlled by human countries. In a sense, they together constitute a certain deterrent—"

"If a country with a wishing machine attempts to attack another country that also has a wishing machine, it may be attacked by the wishing machine. We have dealt with abnormal accidents caused by the leakage of the power of the wishing machine before, so you should understand that even mortals can easily destroy a country through a limited wishing machine."

"It is precisely because of the existence of these seven limited wish-granting machines that, although the current undercurrents in the Pangaea are turbulent, it has always maintained a minimum level of stability."

"Because of the existence of limited wish-granting machines, all human countries are afraid to start a large-scale war. I even heard a saying..."

Rachel paused, then said to Charles sarcastically:

"Some people believe that only those countries that have mastered the limited wish machine can be called strong countries, and countries that have not mastered the limited wish machine, no matter what level of development they have reached, can only be considered weak countries."