Volume 1: Stranger in a Strange Land Chapter 29: Wang Kou's Transformation
As William expected, the miners rejected his proposal.
Fearful, humble, but resolute.
After repeated reminders failed to change their views, William felt that he had done his best.
There are some things you can't do if you can't convince others. Using force to suppress others will only leave hidden dangers for yourself.
"But why did you stay here too?"
William turned around and looked at the boy named Colter and asked in confusion.
The young man who was whipped by the supervisor for dozing off stayed with William. He neither went through the portal to the Mountains of Sorrow nor returned to the ground with the rest of the miners.
"My father needs someone to take care of him. He cannot leave Thorn City now."
Colter replied.
"Why don't you go up with them?"
William pointed to the path leading to the mine elevator.
"It's safer to stay with you."
“A wise choice.”
William said as he walked up to the statue of the three goddesses.
"But I don't have time to send you home. After I get you out of the mine safely, you can find a way to take your father out of Thorn City."
As he spoke, he carefully examined the statues of the three goddesses, confirming that they had no special function other than being the initial anchor points for summoning the moon realm monsters.
After smashing the statue, he briefly checked the skull temple behind it.
Check this just in case. This skull temple is essentially a magic furnace that uses the souls of the dead as fuel. Its main function is to provide fuel for large-scale rituals.
Sure enough, there were no clues there either.
Then the only things left are those areas where the miners dug into the rock face, which might be the real body of the ritual.
William walked to the rock wall and stroked the traces of the excavation with his fingers. As he expected, the miners who were controlled before had carved out some regular patterns along the veins of the source silver.
Source silver is a metal catalyst that has a strong affinity for magic. Even the raw ore that has not been mined and refined has the property of sealing in magic.
William pressed his hands on the vein and used the entire vein as a medium to release a [Illumination Spell].
A pale silver light lit up along the veins of source silver on the rock wall, and an unfinished complex picture gradually coiled around the hall.
It was a pattern of a dragon and a snake biting each other's tails and constantly devouring each other.
"What's this?"
Colt circled the glowing pattern, as if he couldn't believe that they had carved it out.
William was also stunned when he saw the pattern. After a long while, he said solemnly.
"The King's Ritual, I see..."
In the background setting of the game, except for the rituals used to communicate with the Moon Realm, all other ritual magic is essentially a means of influencing the present by imitating the myths and legends of the past to create resonance.
The Wang Kou ritual is a typical example. This ritual was originally based on the famous mythological story of Wang Kou's transformation in the primitive beliefs of the Black Water Swamp area.
This story is close to a fable: the god who ruled the world was very cruel, and all living things suffered under his rule. The souls of the dead were so numerous that they almost overwhelmed the entire underworld. The god of death in the underworld was dissatisfied with the cruel rule of the god-king and raised an army as a rebel to launch a rebellion.
After the God of Death killed the God King after going through various trials, he was crowned as the new God King and imprisoned the soul of the old God King in the underworld, making him the new God of Death.
Later, the new God-King became intoxicated with power and gradually became cruel, while the imprisoned new God of Death gradually became wise because of the company of souls. As a result, the positions of the king and the rebels were exchanged, and a new cycle began.
The snake representing the god of death and the dragon representing the king of gods devoured each other and turned into each other. This is how people in the Blackwater Swamp area understood the concept of reincarnation in ancient times.
The so-called Wang Kou Ritual is to reproduce the key points in the story through imitation, and to hold the ceremony with various tedious preparations and a huge amount of magic power as fuel. If it succeeds in resonating with the previous myths and legends, one can also obtain the corresponding power and authority in the myth.
"What is the Wang Kou Ritual?"
Colt asked from the side.
"In simple terms, it is a ritual that allows one to step into the divine realm in one step."
After giving the perfunctory answer, William thought of a key question.
In Thorn City, where could Duke Simon find a king of higher status than him so that he could overthrow him as a rebel?
…………
In the elevator, the miners who had refused the employment offer from the mysterious magic caster fell into a delicate silence.
After a while, one of them seemed to finally be unable to bear it anymore and he spoke.
"I say, how about we go down and look for that person now? Is it too late?"
"Are you crazy? Follow him. Do you think a magic caster can protect you? This is Thorn City, Duke Simon's Thorn City. No matter how strong he is, how many can he defeat?"
Another person immediately retorted.
"But the Duke has imposed upon us..."
"Then let me ask you, are you dead? Is anyone dead here?"
"But if that magic caster hadn't killed the monster and stopped it from parasitizing us, maybe in the future..."
"That's just his own way of saying it."
The man interrupted him and continued.
"And you also said it was just 'maybe', right? But if we go with the man who ruined the Duke's business and dig up that fortress, we will 'definitely' die. Do you understand?"
Several miners nodded when they heard his words. Duke Simon's authority in Thorn City was absolute, and no one would question that.
"So when we meet the Duke's people later, how are we going to tell them what happened next?"
One person asked.
"Just like we discussed before, we will tell the truth about everything that happened before we were knocked unconscious. As for what happened afterwards, we will say that we don't remember anything after we woke up."
The miner who spoke earlier replied.
"The more you talk, the more mistakes you'll make. Just say you don't remember anything and they won't be able to verify it."
Everyone nodded secretly.
About five minutes later, they followed the guidance of the magic crystal mining lamp and walked out of the Silver Stream Mine Cave, and waiting for them outside was a dark mass of Thorn Black Guards.
Seeing them coming out, the two rows of black-armored guards in the front drew out their swords with a clang.
All the miners raised their hands and stopped.
After seeing who was leading the team, everyone couldn't help but gasp.
Vincent von Bergmann.
The chief battle wizard of the palace who is known as the number one person under the legend .
It is said that he had challenged three inner circle members of the Platinum Circle to a wizard duel in succession, and defeated the three long-established battle wizards one by one in the duel. Afterwards, he used lightning to carve incurable burn marks on each of their faces as a humiliation.
He was therefore given the title of "Scorched Sage".
For a moment everyone was stunned.
They never thought that what happened in the mine was so serious that it alarmed this adult to come and deal with it.
