Mercenaries and Adventurers

Forget it, those bats like to make nests, so let’s make nests. After Zhao Ji finishes exploring the ruins, move all the valuables out and find a place to hide them. Leave this dark and quiet ruins to these small animals.

Now that he woke up and came out, Zhao Ji returned to the tree root camp, replenished some supplies here, and returned to the inside of the ruins again. Zhao Ji planned to explore the ruins directly.

Unless something happens or something.

Holding a torch, Zhao Ji went down the stairs next to the wall one by one, and lighted the oil lamps on each small balcony to illuminate the way they came.

Walking to the place where he arrived last time, Zhao Ji lit a torch and looked at the work area where the elves used to work. It was still the same. In addition to the various stone furniture, there were only stone troughs for planting plants and ugly. big mushrooms.

Going down again, Zhao Ji still descended fifty steps and saw a new terrace.

The difference is that this terrace has added a lot of decoration compared to other terraces. The stone terrace on the ground of this terrace has abstract plant patterns that are not found on other terraces. The torch was not clearly visible, so Zhao Ji lit a new oil lamp and placed it on the ground.

Through the steady light, Zhao Ji saw that the ground of the terrace abstractly showed elves offering things to a big tree with an old man's face in the forest. The thing presented was very strange, it looked like a ball of light, and it looked like a ball of flame, because of the abstraction, Zhao Ji couldn't see what it was.

On this terrace, there are railings that other small terraces do not have, and there are metal poles like street lights standing on the edge of the fence. Zhao Ji knocked on the metal pole, and felt that the length and size of the metal pole were suitable for making a weapon. Zhao Ji looked at the top of the metal pole that was suspected to be a street lamp, and found a small crystal ball on the top, and there seemed to be something soaked in the solution in the crystal. Zhao Ji couldn't see clearly because the things were too small.

Turning around to look at the stone gate, this stone gate is also gorgeously carved, unlike other stone gates that are simply carved with stones, the stone carvings on this stone gate are also decorated with various green gemstones. The gemstones come in different shades of green, which complement the different colors of the various plants on the stone carvings.

This stone gate is also a very valuable thing, Zhao Ji can't damage the stone gate, and can't remove them, so he has to remove these inlaid gemstones later and sell them for money.

Zhao Ji moved his body, ready to open the stone gate. Just as he stretched out his hand to retreat towards the stone gate, Zhao Ji realized that something was wrong, his arm could not touch the stone gate.

Um?

Zhao Ji felt a little strange, and reached out to try to touch Shimen again. Sure enough, his hand couldn't get an inch away from the stone gate.

Is there magic? Zhao Ji lowered his body a little, and pressed his left shoulder against Shimen. As a result, his left shoulder still couldn't touch the stone gate at all.

Zhao Ji decided to try again with a weapon. He drew out his long sword and pointed the tip of the sword towards the place where the stone gate could not be reached. Advance the distance by one centimeter.

After a while, Zhao Ji found that when he tried hard to touch the stone gate, the gemstones on the stone gate would occasionally emit some shining green light. Because these faint green lights are not bright, Zhao Ji almost didn't realize the green lights on these gems under the light of torches and oil lamps.

Zhao Ji curled his lips. He felt that he had encountered a magic gate in a legend. Unless the magic power in the gemstones on the gate was exhausted, otherwise Zhao Ji would be completely incapable of destroying the stone gate without understanding and incapable of destroying it. This stone door cannot be opened.

This gave Zhao Ji a headache. He thought that the time of ten thousand years would make this ruin abandoned by the elves lose all the defenses and protections of ten thousand years ago. But who knows, the elves did not close the magic protection on the stone gate.

What is the reason?

Judging from the luxurious and different decorations outside the stone gate,

The room protected by this stone gate must be the most important place in this ruins. After all, there are no such strict protection measures in other places.

There may have been some protective measures in other rooms before, but after the elves left, they naturally disappeared. Except here.

Zhao Ji thought about it for a while, and felt that the elves had protected this place so tightly even after they left, and there were naturally secrets inside that they didn't want other creatures to discover. But they all left calmly, so it's strange that the things inside the stone gate are so tightly protected.

Zhao Ji felt that he should put away his curiosity. Since the elves don't want people to discover this place, he should not find a way to get in.

In fact, Zhao Ji still has a way to deal with this kind of magic stone gate. After all, in the various legends and stories heard in the tavern, there are more than one hero who used other methods to bypass various magic stone gates. The easiest way is to ignore the magic door and enter the closed passage through the big hole in the wall next to it. Or directly destroy the connection of the door of Might and Magic by other methods, and directly remove the entire door and put it aside. These are the methods that Zhao Ji can use now.

Zhao Ji used a notebook to transcribe the elven characters on the magic stone gate word by word, and marked them with key points. Then, he continued to explore the bottom of the ruins.

----

Zhao Ji originally thought that the next room would not reach the bottom of the ruins, but who would have imagined that after he walked another fifty steps, he would reach the bottom of the ruins.

And there is no water here either.

The water that had previously gushed from an elf's dwelling should have accumulated at the bottom of the ruins. But when Zhao Ji stepped into the bottom, he didn't find a drop of water stains. Zhao Ji felt strange, so he took out the wooden kettle from his backpack and poured a little water on the rocks on the ground.

The gray and whitish rock surface on the ground quickly absorbed some of the water that Zhao Ji had fallen on.

"Oh! It's still a water-absorbing ground, which is really advanced." Zhao Ji didn't expect that the ground at the bottom of the elves' ruins turned out to be a water-absorbing ground. He estimated that there should be some hidden drainage facilities under this layer of ground rock that can absorb water.

Unexpectedly, these drainage facilities can still be used perfectly after thousands of years. Zhao Ji felt that it was wise for elves to use all kinds of rocks for buildings. As long as rocks are not eroded by water or blown head-on by strong winds, they can be used for a very long time. This goes hand in hand with the elves' long lifespan.

Holding up the torch, Zhao Ji walked around and began to look at the bottom of the ruins.

The bottom of the ruins is a very flat rocky ground, as I said before. It is a circle as a whole, and there are three stone doors and a stone platform similar to an elevator on the curved wall.

In the middle of the bottom of the ruins, there is a circle that seems to be a place for the elves to talk and rest. There are stone furniture in a circle, and stone troughs where plants used to grow. Some of the stone troughs are filled with soil, and some are empty. Zhao Ji guessed that there might have been some aquatic plants growing in those empty places, and the plants were taken away by the elves, and the water in the stone trough dried up. On the edge of the bottom wall stands a stone statue of an elf that should be of equal height.

This stone statue is more than two meters high, with a rather heroic appearance, wearing a set of half-vegetal and half-metal armor that is very elf-style. He holds a long stone sword in front of both hands, and a stone diamond-shaped shield leans against his legs. The shield is carved with a coat of arms in the shape of a big tree by the water.

Zhao Ji didn't know who this elf warrior was, but since the stone statue was able to stand here, it should be a famous person worshiped by the elves thousands of years ago.

Zhao Ji lit an oil lamp on the stone table where the elves were resting in the middle of the bottom, and the little oil lamp barely illuminated the surrounding things. Zhao Ji raised his head and looked up at the route he came from. The curved staircase along the wall is somewhat illuminated by oil lamps on each small terrace, and the spiral staircase continues to the top of the large terrace.

With so many lights shining on, they couldn't brighten the interior of the entire ruins. Zhao Ji looked up at the dark head, because there were lights indicating the location and size, Zhao Ji could realize how huge the inside of the ruins was.

The occasional chirping of the bats made the place not so dull. Zhao Ji lay on the stone bench where the elves used to sit, looked up at the huge dark space above his head, wondering what he was thinking.

After a while, he pulled himself together, picked up the torch and began to explore the three stone gates at the bottom of the ruins, and the room behind the stone gates.

----

These three stone gates are not the magic gates before, which makes Zhao Ji heave a sigh of relief. He is afraid that the rooms at the bottom of the ruins will be sealed by the elves with magic, so he can explore the ruins this time. It's over, and all he can get is the previous ones.

To be honest, what he could find inside the ruins was not as much as what he could get from the previous silver passage and the small rooms on both sides of the passage stone gate. It seems that to the elves, every plant inside the ruins is more important than everything in the passage outside. Hey, this is really a value judgment with the characteristics of elves.

For humans, the silver in the passage and the gems on various magic appliances are the most valuable and important things, but they are not important things for elves. For elves, the plants they cultivate seem to be very important things.

It's amazing.

Zhao Ji picked a stone door at random and pushed it open.

It was still the familiar whining sound of air rushing in, so Zhao Ji ignored it and let it restore the normal air pressure inside the room first. He then pushed the other two stone doors open.

I was thinking about whether to use the bird in the cage to test whether the interior of the room at the bottom of the ruins can breathe. Only then did Zhao Ji remember that he had left the spear and the birdcage somewhere.

After thinking about it, Zhao Ji vaguely remembered that he put them all at the door of a certain stone gate, so Zhao Ji returned to the stairs and began to look for them.

He found the spear and birdcage he had left behind at the door of the room where the elves used to work. The bird in the cage was a little listless. Zhao Ji hurriedly fed some food and water for the birds to feast on.

Carefully walking down with the birdcage, Zhao Ji did not want to disturb the eating environment of the birds in the birdcage.

After the bird had eaten and drank enough, it regained its energy and chirped something to Zhao Ji. Zhao Ji guessed that it was cursing himself with various bird calls, anyway, he didn't understand it, so he didn't care about it, after all, the birds' calls were quite pleasant in this dark and dull ruins.

It makes him feel better.

After inspecting the birdcage one by one, Zhao Ji judged that the three rooms at the bottom of the ruins could breathe normally, and there was no poisonous gas that he was worried about. Of course, it was time for the elves to leave here, but all the rooms were evacuated until Zhao Ji opened them, and the inside was still in a state of high negative pressure, which showed that the elves' trick was very useful.

Among the three rooms, one is a room with many stone troughs where plants can grow. Zhao Ji didn't see what this room was for. Why did the elves plant so many plants in the room at the bottom of the ruins?

He couldn't figure it out.

The other room was very empty. Zhao Ji could tell from the rubbing marks of some heavy objects on the rocky floor that this place should have been filled with all kinds of magic equipment, but it is estimated that those magic equipment are very important and precious. Everything in this room has been removed.

The last room is unsurprisingly the entire remnant of the energy supply control room. This room is relatively empty, there is only a place in the middle where a plant should have grown, but now it is empty and only dry soil remains. On the wall of the room, there are many convex grooves where some stone balls can be placed. Why did Zhao Ji know that it was a stone ball? Because he found that there was something in one of these empty grooves.

It was a stone ball, at least Zhao Jiji thought so, and it should be the source of energy that powers the entire elven ruins.

Zhao Ji touched the stone ball carefully, he was afraid that it would be bad if the stone ball had some kind of radioactivity or some local curse. He handed the birdcage over with a spear first, and took it back to observe the birds in the cage after a while.

The birds who had eaten and drank didn't respond, they chirped.

Only then did Zhao Ji feel relieved. He leaned over to observe the stone ball carefully, and found that there were densely packed elf characters on the stone ball, and it was different from the elf characters he had seen before. These characters were also elf-style characters, but it was obvious Not the same, whether it is the difference in text symbols, or the obvious difference can be seen in the grammar of words.

Zhao Ji estimated that this was another language among the elves. After all, human beings have so many languages ​​and characters. It is a matter of course for elves with a long history to have other languages ​​and characters.

Zhao Ji carefully took the stone ball out of the groove, and he found that the stone ball was surprisingly light, as if only the outer layer was made of an unknown rock, and the inside was hollow.

There was no response from the ruins. Zhao Ji estimated that the ruins had no energy. Although the elves somehow left behind a stone ball for energy when they left here, it is obvious that the energy in this stone ball was exhausted thousands of years ago.

The reason why the stone ball is so light is probably also here. The stone ball must have been filled with something, and those things are the things that really give the ruins their functions.

The energy room of the entire ruins is unexpectedly simple. There is no gemstone or metal here. The entire room is basically composed of various rocks, and there is only a small piece of land in the center of the room.

The elves are good at manipulating plants. There should be a plant there, and the elves probably controlled the entire ruins through that plant. But everything was taken away by the elves.

Sighed, Zhao Ji didn't know what he was sighing for, so he returned outside the room with the only thing he found.

In general, there are actually not many things in this ruins that he can use. The only obvious harvest should be those elves' coins. As for other strange things, Zhao Ji didn't know what they were useful for, so he had to take them with him first.

Walking out of the ruins, when Zhao Ji saw the sky outside again, Zhao Ji found that it was already dusk.

It is estimated that it will take him at least a lot of time to take out the most and heaviest silver in the ruins. But now he still has the mission entrusted to hunt goblins. He has spent a lot of time going out this time, and it is time to return to the village.

He had to find a way to hunt down the last batch of goblins before returning to the village. He didn't want to go back empty-handed.

In general, Zhao Jiji is very satisfied with this expedition to the ruins. Although it is not easy to use so much silver, these silvers still make Zhao Ji feel that he has become the richest person in the entire kingdom.

Certainly the theoretical richest man.

As for the other gains, he was not very satisfied. The elves gave him nothing that was useful. Shouldn’t there be magic weapons and other things in the story waiting for people to pick them up in the treasure chest?

He didn't even find a treasure chest in the ruins, nor did he find any weapons lost by the elves. The elves should also use weapons. After all, he also found a stone statue of an elf at the bottom of the ruins.

Unless the elves living in the ruins are not serious warriors, this is probably what Zhao Ji thinks is the most likely.