Chapter 9 1.9 The Sunken City

Loki frowned and carefully turned the old book in front of him.

This is fucking

I am really a bastard

Two sentences, five words each, he has repeated no less than a hundred times.

For two days, he stayed at home and carefully studied the ancient Chinese book in the hands of old Walder with the spirit of preparing for the college entrance examination.

The book cover is made of an unknown black animal skin. Six traditional regular script characters [General Map of the World] were printed in the center of the animal skin with an iron.

There are also two small characters below: Volume 15.

Although Loki is not familiar with the traditional Chinese characters in regular script of Tang people, he still knows them. However, after opening this illustrated color book and carefully studying each word in it, he immediately discovered the unusualness of this book.

"Volume 15" is written on the book cover, indicating that this is only one of a set of books. However, as soon as he read the first sentence, Loki found a huge problem.

The whole book describes a city that does not exist on land.

[The City of Waterfall·Hohenheim]

This is the name of this city.

There are 7 maps in the book, piecing together the complete appearance of the city of sinking water.

The first map accurately depicts the traffic routes in the town and the division of the urban area.

The second map uses contour lines to record the geographical environment, and the next one records the trend of mountains, rivers and rivers outside the city, as well as several roads to the city.

And so on.

The records on the maps are very familiar. Because the thickness of the brush used by the ancients is uncontrollable, each map simply records only part of the details.

In addition to the maps, there are dozens of color illustrations drawn with gold powder, silver powder, cinnabar, and colorful stone powder!

All the illustrations accurately describe the races, hierarchies, beliefs, daily life, etc. in the "city of sinking water", and even detail what they usually eat, how many hours they work, and what kind of work the residents of different areas do.

The problem is that

This is a city that does not exist on land!

The first page of the opening gives an important clue: the person who drew this book is the Tang Dynasty "Mo Yiquan", but this book is not his original work. When Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, Li Longji, asked him to compile the "General Map of the World and the Scroll of the Sunken City", he copied it from an even older bamboo scroll of the Qin Dynasty in the palace, "The Tribute Map of the Tributes of the Tribes in the World".

In other words, this is a city that existed in the Qin Dynasty more than a thousand years ago.

According to the records in the book: The First Emperor unified the six kingdoms and the national strength was extremely strong.

In order to seek immortality, he sent millions of monks to the ends of the earth. On the one hand, he conveyed the glory of the king to the people outside the barbarians, and on the other hand, he killed the old gods lurking in the dark land of Kyushu and took the treasures from them to make elixirs.

Kill the gods of the world and make immortal elixirs!

The "Sunken City" Hohenheim was discovered by these pre-Qin Qigong practitioners who traveled around. They used the secret method of the stars to find this city dedicated to the old gods, killed all the believers of the ancient gods, smashed the flesh of the ancient gods, and tried to melt them into elixirs.

However, this is a city that exists under the sea, and this city can only appear one day every seven years. If the Qi-refiners do not return to the sea surface within one day, the sea water will cover the sea surface again. They will be trapped under the sea for up to seven years.

The Qi-refiners of the Qin State have their own unique secret method to smelt the ancient gods. According to the book, the ancient gods are powerful creatures that float in outer space and accidentally fall on the Nine Provinces. They have extremely abundant essence, qi and blood. It takes at least 49 days to smelt them into pills. As for some large-sized Lords of the Old Days, it takes 81 days.

The Qi-refiners who chopped the ancient gods into pieces had a dispute in the Sunken City. Some people thought that it didn't matter if there was one more or one less pill. There were so many natural treasures in the king's palace that they didn't need this one pill.

They didn't need to trap themselves in the sea for seven years for a pill. With this time, it would be better to follow the instructions of the stars to go to the hiding places of other ancient gods.

This way, it would be more efficient.

However, another part of the Qin King's fanatical fans believed that the king's orders were above everything else. The king said to kill the gods of the world. The task of our cultivators is to kill all the ancient gods hiding in the corners and smelt them.

Not one can be left behind.

In their eyes, the life of a cultivator is as long as a hundred years. The unification of the Qin King is a great achievement that has shocked the ancient times. It is nothing to spend 7 years for such a great man.

The record of the "story" in the whole book ends here. Did these cultivators stay in the underwater city in the end, did the elixir succeed in making, and how did their subsequent tasks progress?

This author seemed to have died suddenly halfway through the book, leaving no records.

"Brother, if you reincarnate to write online novels in your next life, your first order must be fucking outrageous." The interruption here made Loki feel like a hundred claws in his heart.

Turning to the next page, the annotation of the copyist, Tang Ren "Mo Yiquan" appeared again.

"Because your majesty attaches too much importance to the 'Overall Map of the World' and requires prudence and pragmatism, I have used many methods to find the entrance to the Sleeping City. However, I have sailed in the 'Small Cold Sea' for more than 20 years with many ancient books from the pre-Qin period, but I have never found the secret passage to the sinking city!"

"Your majesty gave a deadline of 30 years to return. When I was about to fall into despair, the Hongmeng Patriarch finally blessed me!"

(Is the Hongmeng Patriarch the deity that this author believes in? Or is he some kind of foreign god?)

On the full moon day of the "Frost Eclipse Moon", the four stars Tianshu, Tianxuan, Tianji and Tianquan will appear above the sea. Every seven years, the distance between the four stars shortens by three points. On that day, the sea will be calm and there will be heavy fog. "

"At this time, take the blood of the believers of the ancient gods and scatter it into the sea. The bright moon and stars will generate tidal vortexes, mapping the passage into the submerged city of Hohenheim."

After reading this, Loki kept shaking his head and almost broke his neck.

If it were before time travel, a book with so many "fantasy creatures" and "weird creations" and such a nonsense way to find a way would look like a die-hard fan of fantasy novels. A peripheral magazine made with bad money.

For example, "The One Hundred Hidden Secrets of Harry Potter", "A Song of Ice and Fire Setting Collection" and so on.

It's all a joke.

There is a group of people who naturally like to read settings. Don't tell any stories, just give them an imaginary world, and imagine a bunch of creatures that exist in this world out of thin air. They can read it with interest, and spontaneously enjoy it in post bars and forums. Cute.

The "SCP Foundation" that became popular a few years ago is exactly this kind of thing.

The ancients who co-authored the same routine have played it for more than a thousand years. With a sigh, Loki silently closed the ancient book in front of him.

It is tasteless to eat and a pity to throw away.

This is his only feeling about this "set collection of fantasy novels". As a highly educated atheist, he did not believe a single word written in this book. In his eyes, this is just a more advanced book of strange stories, a science fiction novel written more than a thousand years ago.

It did not provide any substantial help to the "Hanshui Village Production and Construction Corps" managed by him.

He gently closed the ancient book and asked the maid outside the door to bring a basin of hot water. He washed his face carefully and patted his cheek hard to regain consciousness. Glancing at the bright moon rising slowly in the sky, he grabbed the big ax standing in the corner, stood by the basin, cleaned the ax surface, and polished it carefully.

This is a 4 feet 7 inches long Viking axe. The bronze ax blade was inlaid on a piece of dark and shiny pine wood, glowing dark red under the light. It was the mark left by the blood of hundreds of dead souls soaking into the wood. It was also the only relic left to Loki after his father died.

"My son, I can see that you are no ordinary person. As a father, I don't have much to teach you, but you have to remember."

"Martial skills are the foundation of a Viking! Whether you are a farmer chopping firewood or a farmer raising chickens in a mountain village, everyone must learn how to wield a big ax, otherwise this cold barren mountain will immediately swallow up your bones and dregs None left!”

"I am about to enter the Hall of Valor and drink wine with the gods. This ax has been with me all the way. I hope you will continue to use it and find your place in the Hall of Valor."

After saying that, the father, who was only half a body left, closed his eyes and died. No one knows how he managed to return from the Slavic land with such a broken body for more than ten days.

But from that day on, Loki never stopped training in martial arts.

After sharpening the axe, he walked to the center of the courtyard with his bare upper body resisting the heavy axe. After chopping for a long time, I inadvertently looked up and saw fine snowflakes starting to float on the horizon.

The snowflakes fell on his skin, which was red from exercise, and immediately evaporated into white mist. Unconsciously, he found that he had become accustomed to the feeling of wielding a giant axe.

Perhaps, he has already recognized his identity as a Viking in this life.