Roland quickly calculated the volume of the underground cave, which was roughly the size of a football field at the bottom, surrounded by steep cliffs. The connecting path ran right through the center of the cliff, and a narrow stone staircase beside the entrance led downward.
"I suspect you didn't carve these steps yourselves." He crouched down and brought the torch close to the ground. The firelight revealed the clearly visible axe and knife marks on the stone steps, with layers of stone debris and dust still clinging to the carvings.
"Of course not, Your Highness. When we found this place, the stone steps were already there," Carter shrugged. "I reckon this thing's been around for decades." "Or maybe centuries," Anna suddenly chimed in.
"I concur," Lightning nodded. "Border Town has existed for merely seventy years. The stone steps are unlikely to be connected to the locals or the kingdom." "Was there anyone in the western frontier centuries ago?" Carter challenged. "Graycastle hadn't even been established yet." Roland patted Knight's shoulder. "Four hundred and fifty years ago, there were people forgotten by history." He then raised a torch. "Let's go down and explore." The First Army soldiers had already begun surrounding the cave's base in small groups. Leading Knight and the Witch straight to the God's Stone, Roland emphasized that its colossal size could only be fully grasped standing at its base. With arms outstretched, one could barely see a tenth of its height. The tallest purple God's Stone stood nearly thirty meters tall, equivalent to an eight-or nine-story building.
Theoretically, stones capable of self-illumination either contain radioactive materials or fluorescent components. However, the glow of the God's Stone clearly defies both explanations. The former's luminosity originates from air ionization caused by elemental decay, where shorter half-lives result in greater brightness. By this standard, the soldiers who entered first would have perished within minutes due to ionizing radiation. The latter, however, requires external light to emit its glow. With no light sources in the deep underground, it's impossible for this stone to sustain continuous cold light emission.
Roland also noted that while the God stone exhibits the typical prismatic shape of crystals, its surface lacks crystalline patterns and instead shines as smooth as flat glass.
"A single thumb-sized God's Stone in the church could fetch several golden dragons. One this big... it could drain the treasuries of all four kingdoms," Carter sighed.
"Are you selling Noble to torture the Witch?" Nightingale glared at him fiercely.
"Uh, I didn't say that," Chief Knight said, instinctively averted his gaze.
"This is the first time I've seen God's Stone of Punishment in this color. Shouldn 't it be white and transparent?" Lightning asked curiously, examining the stone pillar. "If I take one back, won't I need candles at night?" "I'd rather light a dozen candles in a stuffy room than use this stone for illumination," Nightingale said, hands on her chest. "To witches, it's a prison, shackles, and an accomplice to the Church! If only this damned stone didn't exist." "Well, Sister Nightingale, you're not reading anyway tonight..." The little girl licked her lips, picked up a stone, and looked at Roland. "Can I take one back as an expedition trophy?" Roland nodded. "If you don't mind this kind of thing." She swung the stone in her hand and struck the prism's corner with force. A crisp "ding" echoed as the stone shattered, leaving no trace of damage on the prism.
Knight couldn't help but gasp, "What's going on... aren't God's punishment stones always fragile?" "Maybe this one glows differently," he mused. Lightning brushed off the stone fragments in his hand, then pulled a dagger from his waistband. He frantically worked around the prism, using every tool at his disposal—scraping, cutting, slicing—but in the end, all his efforts proved futile.
Roland sensed something was amiss. He gestured to the Nightingale, "Try this." The Nightingale nodded, drew his revolver, and pulled the trigger on the prism. A deafening roar echoed through the cave, and sparks erupted from the God's Stone where it had struck. When the smoke cleared, the group approached and found only a faint mark on the stone's surface.
This means that, in terms of intensity alone, it has already surpassed homogeneous steel plates.
"Firearms aren't even functional?" Carter frowned. "Then how did the Church cut them off, polish them, and sell them?" No one could answer that question, and it didn't match their usual impression of the matter.
At least Roland once smashed God's Locks with bricks—like the one binding Anna's neck, which could shatter the crystal-clear stone into a white powder in just two or three strikes.
Anna, who had been silent all along, suddenly spoke up. "Your Highness, do you remember the 'Treasure Map' drawn by Fuxiao Chen Guang Feilin Hilt?" "Treasure Map?" Roland froze. He vaguely recalled a triangle occupying most of the map, its three vertices pointing to Tachila Holy City, the Stone Tower of the Hidden Forest, and the northern foothills... Wait, the northern foothills? A thought flashed through his mind. "Could it be..." "I think that point doesn't point to the northern mine, but rather here—" Anna said slowly. "This underground cave, rich in God's Punishment Stones."
After a thorough search, the cave yielded nothing of value except a massive pile of unbreakable God stones.
It's utterly baffling that not even tools for carving stone steps were left behind—not to mention ancient texts or human remains. With today's technology, carving a staircase into sheer rock faces would be an enormous undertaking. Accidents like falls or lost tools would likely have occurred frequently. Yet the site was completely covered in stone, as if the cave had been thoroughly cleaned before evacuation.
After returning to the office, Roland summoned Shuruan and recreated Knight's dawn blueprint in the "Book of Transformation".
The southernmost point, resembling the pattern in my memory, is indeed at the foot of the northern slope.
If Anna's guess is correct, could this be the map left by the Church while searching for the new God's Stone vein? But why would they abandon everything after painstakingly carving a stone staircase to the cave's depths? Had the Church established a border church 450 years ago, today's Border Town would likely look entirely different. Given the price and purpose of God's Stone, this mine is hardly a resource to be discarded so easily.
Now the sacred city of Tachila is a forbidden zone inaccessible to the world. Perhaps these answers can only be revealed upon reaching the stone tower... or may never be known.