Volume 5: Bottomless Sinkhole Chapter 258: Solving the Mystery
"Perhaps, talent is the key clue..." Ke Lan muttered to himself.
"Humans? The key clue?" The hound couldn't help but mutter, "How could humans be the key clue to the secret room built by the Alpha civilization? They don't even know what kind of creatures humans are, so how could they put the clue on humans?"
"But the mental attacks in the ruins are effective against humans, aren't they?" Ke Lan said, "I have an idea. I think we can give it a try..."
Hearing Ke Lan say this, Hound immediately asked, "What do you think?"
…
When exploring these stone chambers just now, Ke Lan had already marked the nine chambers with serial numbers using a highlighter: the three chambers on the left half of the "艹" prefix, that is, on the west edge, are "No. 1", "No. 2" and "No. 3", the three chambers on the middle connecting axis correspond to "No. 4, No. 5, No. 6", and the three chambers on the east edge are "No. 7, No. 8, No. 9".
Ke Lan's idea was to move Cao Feng, Ivan and Asano Akira to three stone chambers that were not part of the connecting axis, put them on the stone platform, and see if any changes would occur.
They directly selected the stone chamber No. 1, 2 and 3 on the nearby side and carried the three people onto the stone platform one by one.
"Nothing happened, did it?" The Hound said disappointedly when he saw Asano Akira lying on the stone platform in Stone Chamber No. 3, "It seems like it was a waste of effort..."
"No... I think it's because we are missing a key factor..." Ke Lan shook her head.
"The key factor? What factor?"
"They have all been injected with dream date preparations and neutralizers. They are now in a dreamless sleep and are no different from other people..." Ke Lan said.
"You mean... it has to be someone who is having a nightmare?"
"You haven't forgotten the 'control variable method' that we learned during primary compulsory education, have you? 'Nightmare' is obviously a crucial experimental variable..."
"I know... But, what are you going to do to make them return to their original state? Perform another mental attack?"
"When I was in contact with those crazy hunters at Nottingham General Hospital, I found that Alpha language would have a strong stimulation on them. Perhaps we can try this method." Ke Lan took a look at the stock in the medical box. Including the three Dream Date preparations that he had obtained from the director of Nottingham Hospital, there were a total of eight in stock, which was more than enough for the aftermath.
Ke Lan walked to the side of Asano Akira, leaned close to his ear, and recited a few words of the prayer on the stone tablet in Alpha civilization - suddenly, Asano Akira's face changed in his sleep, and his fingers subconsciously formed a knife-holding hand shape, shaking continuously.
Fortunately, in order to prevent Asano Akira from suddenly attacking and hurting others while unconscious, Ke Lan had taken away his sword in advance and tied up his hands and feet with a safety belt.
Among these three people, Asano Akira is the strongest. The stronger he is, the more dangerous it is if he loses his mind... To be honest, this attempt is extremely risky, but Ke Lan has no choice but to do it.
There is no better choice than this.
"Old dog, keep an eye on Asano Akira. If anything happens, call me." After Ke Lan finished speaking, he walked towards the other two stone chambers and used the same method to make Ivan and Cao Feng fall into a nightmare again.
Just as the last step was completed, the floor beneath his feet suddenly trembled! Along with the sound of rocks rubbing against each other, the stone chambers actually began to move. Ke Lan ignored the shock in his heart and quickly activated the ability to stop time. Taking advantage of this brief gap, he forcibly recorded the trajectory of the movement of these stone chambers.
Not long after, the nine stone chambers returned to peace and quiet, and the dust settled, as if nothing had happened - the joints between the stone chambers and between the stone chambers and the rock layers were tightly fitted, and they did not look like they had been moved at all. The layout of the nine stone chambers was still the shape of the Chinese character "艹"... The only change was that the stone chamber where Asano Akira and the other two were located was moved to the middle connecting axis!
The original stone chambers numbered "one, two, and three" were swapped with chambers numbered "four, five, and six"!
"This is really... really fucking weird!" There was a slight tremor in the hound's voice. "Ke Lan, did you see it clearly just now? I just felt dizzy, and by the time I reacted, it was all over... Damn it, I didn't even see how these stone chambers moved!"
"I didn't see it either... The design of the mechanism is very clever. When these stone chambers move, the outer rock layers will also move with them. They will promptly block the gaps that appear during the movement, so that the people in the stone chambers can't see anything outside at all." Ke Lan said, "But I forced myself to remember the trajectory of the stone chamber's movement."
The trajectory of the stone chamber's movement is not purely flat, and recording it requires a strong sense of space and perspective (PS The perspective here does not refer to the special ability of vision to penetrate obstacles, but a theoretical term in the field of painting). Fortunately, Ke Lan has the ability to stop time. Even if he cannot see the exact movement trajectory at first glance, he can keep pressing the "pause button" to conduct more detailed observation and analysis, thereby obtaining a dynamic three-dimensional image.
"The trajectory of the stone chamber's movement just happens to form a few characters in the Alpha language..." Ke Lan recalled this dynamic three-dimensional image. He simplified and folded the trajectories, and then re-outlined them with lines on a two-dimensional plane. "From different angles, the characters are different, but there is a rule between these characters. I can connect these strings according to this rule..."
"Then what do these strings mean when connected together?" The Hound stared and asked anxiously.
"…There is only half a sentence, and the meaning is unclear. You have to find the second half to connect it to understand the meaning of these characters." When Ke Lan said this, he suddenly raised his head and looked to the other side of the stone chamber.
"Seven, eight, nine! Since the strange changes of one, two, and three form half a sentence, then if we carry Asano Akira and the other three to the stone platforms of number seven, eight, and nine, won't we be able to get the second half of the sentence?"
Ke Lan and the hound moved the three people to three other stone chambers. This time, the stone chambers moved again, but their movement tracks became very strange - "These lines... can't form any complete characters... These power outages and turning points are all wrong..." Ke Lan looked at the images he drew on his notebook and couldn't help but fall into confusion...
How could this happen?
