booktalesy Chapter 4246 The Ascension Ritual
Chapter 4246 The Ascension Ritual
Chapter 4246 The Ascension Ritual
After helping Ingres complete the "map recognition" test, the rabbit girl turned and stepped into the second oil painting.
The painting depicts a pool filled with an unknown liquid.
As her figure blended into the painting, her footsteps landed precisely on the edge of the pool.
She looked around and found herself in a closed cave. The surroundings were empty and desolate, with no living creatures in sight, not even a single blade of grass.
The entire cave was pitch black, with only the pool of water in front of them emitting a faint blue glow, serving as the sole source of light.
She knew that many oceans in the Panplanet contained bioluminescent algae, including some species that emitted blue light. However, the light of those algae always flickered, like fireflies in the dark, with a faint, pulsating quality.
But the light in the pool before us was completely different. It wasn't a sporadic flicker against a black background; the entire pool was translucent with light, as if the water itself was formed from condensed light.
Before even stepping into the oil painting studio, she had a vague sense of unease about the pool, feeling as if it were some kind of radioactive sewage.
Experiencing it firsthand now makes this feeling even clearer.
She could clearly sense a faint but continuous energy radiation, and the source of the radiation was this pool of water that shimmered with blue light.
"If nothing unexpected happens, the riddle in this painting should be the pool."
Her intuition told her that the strangest pool in the entire cave must be the mystery. But just to be on the safe side, she still walked around the cave once.
After confirming that nothing was amiss, they returned to the vicinity of the glowing pool.
Although the pool's light intensity is not strong, because it is "self-luminous," looking at it still gives a feeling of dizziness in the pupils.
The rabbit girl stared at it for a long time, but apart from rubbing her eyes a few times, she couldn't see anything else.
"Could the riddle involve going underwater?"
The rabbit girl hesitated for a moment, then used her magical hand to touch the glowing pool.
The moment I touched it, a new notification popped up in the text box.
"The villagers discovered the pool in the cave. At first, they thought it was a miracle and came to worship. But a few days later, all the villagers who had been to the cave fell ill, and those who approached or even touched the pool died one after another."
"Therefore, the villagers regarded this place as a den of demons and sealed it off."
"The mystery of this pool was only solved when a wizard arrived..."
Rabbit Girl: "...Is that all? Is that all?"
Isn't this the background of the story?
But it didn't say that there was any mystery in the pool.
Just as the rabbit girl was in a daze, Angel's voice suddenly came to her ears.
"The mystery lies underwater."
The rabbit girl paused for a second, then suddenly realized: "Angel? Have you gotten through over there?"
Angel: "It's over. I'm in the outer hall now, preparing to rest for a while before the second test."
After giving a brief explanation, Angell steered the conversation back to the rabbit girl's current situation: "I just took a look from God's perspective, and if I'm not mistaken, the mystery on your side is underwater."
The rabbit girl asked疑惑地问道, "What's underwater?"
Angell: "There's a formation..."
Angell looked down into the water.
The bottom of the pool is actually only about two or three meters below the surface, but because the energy in the water is so abundant, the water keeps shimmering and you can't see the bottom at all.
Once you dive underwater, you can actually see the "anomalies" at the bottom.
However, to those unfamiliar with formations, this anomaly would only appear as a large number of... energy gems.
Yes, there are at least hundreds of energy gems underwater.
Various colors, various attributes.
Gems with almost all elemental attributes, such as ice, fire, wind, and lightning, can be found.
"So many energy gems underwater? Could it be that the glowing pool is also due to the abundance of energy?" The rabbit girl seemed to have discovered a key point.
But she quickly rejected that answer.
"That's not right. If the glow is due to abundant energy, it means the energy gems here are very active. How could active energy gems of various attributes be gathered in one place at the same time?"
Generally speaking, energy gems are mostly inert; only when they are activated will their energy expression change from lazy to active and release energy outward.
As long as the energy of a gemstone is inert, it is acceptable to put gemstones of different properties together.
However, once in an energetic state, gems of different properties are very likely to produce energy reactions, and may even undergo dramatic changes and explosions.
Therefore, in the rabbit girl's view, since the various attributes of the underwater gems can coexist harmoniously, it means that their abilities are inert.
Since it is inert, it cannot release energy outwards, so the glowing of the pool is definitely not caused by an abundance of energy.
However, Angell then spoke up: "No, the glowing pool is indeed due to abundant energy."
"???" The rabbit girl looked puzzled.
Angell continued, "The gems underwater are all in a state of active energy."
"??!" The rabbit girl's expression was one of shock.
Are all the underwater energy gems active? Then why does this pool look so calm?
Although there is some kind of energy radiation in the air, the feeling is not strong. At most, it will have some adverse effects on ordinary people... For example, it would be a great threat to the villagers in the fairyland prompt, but for the rabbit girl, this amount of radiation is really not worth mentioning.
She suddenly realized: "Could it be the formation you just mentioned?"
Angel nodded: "That's right, the reason they can coexist peacefully is because there is an underwater formation. This formation is very similar to the one that trapped the trolls outside; both are a combination of magical energy arrays and rituals."
"I don't quite understand the ritual, it seems to be combined with the terrain... but the ritual is not important in the formation, the focus is still the magic energy array."
According to Angor's observation, this magic array divides the underwater energy gems into nine areas according to their attributes, with the sizes of the gems varying.
When the gems of each attribute release active energy, the magic array guides this energy to flow along its inherent circuits, allowing the energy of different attributes to form a special "traction cycle" within the array.
For example, as soon as the scorching energy of the fire attribute overflows, it is gently enveloped by the water attribute energy in the adjacent area. The two intertwine at the nodes of the formation, instead of colliding with each other, they mesh like gears. They seem to be incompatible, but they drive the gears to turn, promote each other, and continue to cycle.
Furthermore, the flowing power of the wind element connects with the violent current of the lightning element, preventing the lightning from exploding recklessly and instead forming a stable energy band along the trajectory of the wind.
Even the most conflicting energies of ice and fire, guided by the formation, spiraled forward, neutralizing their extreme temperature differences into gentle energy waves.
Simply put, this magic array does not suppress the activity of the gems, but rather incorporates all active energy into a precise dynamic balance system.
The various elemental energies restrain and nourish each other, maintaining their own active state without causing drastic changes due to attribute conflicts. They can also improve the quality of the gemstone itself by using the "pressure" of other elemental energies.
This is the effect of the magic energy array.
Restraint, balance, nourishment, and sublimation.
It is precisely because all the gems are releasing energy that this pool remains full of energy and emits bright light.
Upon hearing this, the rabbit girl seemed to understand something: "According to you, isn't this a concept similar to perpetual motion?"
Angel shook his head: "It's not a perpetual motion machine either. Once the quality of the gemstones reaches its peak, this formation will gradually stop... unless someone comes to replace the gemstones regularly."
"You can think of it as a special magic array that is artificially set up to improve the quality of gems."
The bunny girl probably understood.
But now a problem has arisen...
"I took the Fire Emblem Gem from the first painting, so I should also take a fire-attribute gem from this painting?"
"Yes."
"Can I just go and get it?" The rabbit girl asked this question, already knowing the answer.
“No,” Angel replied decisively. “If you take out even one of the energy gems, regardless of its properties, it will disrupt the dynamic balance underwater.”
"Once the dynamic balance is broken, it will cause problems with the energy circuits of all the underwater energy gems, which will then trigger a violent energy conflict... leading to an explosion."
The bunny girl gave a "I knew it" look.
Although she didn't understand magic arrays very well, she was quite knowledgeable about energy balance. The main reason she asked the question was out of wishful thinking.
"Therefore, the riddle of this painting is, 'How can one take away a fire-attribute gem without disrupting the dynamic balance?'"
Angell: "More accurately, it should be expressed as, 'How can we create a new dynamic balance in order to remove the fire-attribute gem?'"
The rabbit girl was taken aback: "To build a new balance?"
Angell said matter-of-factly, "That's for sure. The current balance is built on the existing foundation. If one thing is changed, the whole thing will be affected. Under this balance, it is absolutely impossible to take away any gems."
"If you insist on taking it away, I just said what will happen."
"Therefore, we can only make changes based on the existing foundation to create a new balance. Under the new balance, even if we lose one gem, it won't matter."
Rabbit Girl: "...Can this really be done?"
Angell replied without hesitation: "It can be done!"
"By disrupting the areas of some elemental gems, we can create a new cycle and achieve a new balance!"
"???" The rabbit girl didn't quite understand.
Angell: "The process here is a bit complicated, but you can understand it as follows: the original energy flow is to make the strong energy flow to the weak energy. Now you just need to change it so that the weak energy combines with the second strongest energy to become the strong energy, and then let it flow to the weak energy to achieve balance."
Simply put, it's a new permutation and combination.
However, this arrangement is not arbitrary; it requires consideration of energy intensity, the foundation of the magic array, and insight into the circuit's direction.
The most important thing is the foundation of the magic energy array; this is the core!
Although the rabbit girl still didn't understand Angell's meaning, she understood the essence of the question: it was still a test of her mastery of magic energy arrays.
Like the puzzle in the study, it seems to be about finding a book, but it is actually about connecting to the foundation of magic energy array.
"It seems I can only ask you to take on this test..." The rabbit girl stopped struggling and let go.
Angell: "Don't worry about it, leave it to me, but you have to get in the water first."
The rabbit girl nodded to indicate that she understood, and then leaped into the pool.
Although the water surface was highly reflective, once underwater, the rabbit girl's vision became much clearer, allowing her to clearly see the gems shimmering with various energy lights at the bottom of the water.
However, as Angell mentioned before, the underwater gems were distributed across nine zones.
Fire-attribute gems shimmered with red light, ice-attribute gems shimmered with white light... The nine different types of light were clearly distinct, each occupying a certain area underwater.
To the naked eye, the "formation" is completely invisible.
But the rabbit girl understood that this was only because she didn't understand magic arrays, so she saw things as they were; while in Angor's eyes, there were probably energy flow loops between different areas, as complex as a giant spider web.
"Now think of the underwater gem area as a 3x3 grid. The ice attribute gem area is the first palace; the fire attribute gem area is the second palace... and the abyss gem area is the ninth palace."
“You select the medium-brightness gem from the sixth house and put it in the fourth house. Then you put the brightest gem from the fourth house in the eighth house. Then you put any gem from the fifth house in the first house. After exchanging the last gem, you can take the brightest fire elemental gem from the second house. The puzzle is now solved.”
Angel's voice continued to echo in the rabbit girl's ears: "But you must remember that the order must not be messed up, and the speed must be fast, because once you start moving, it is equivalent to starting to change the energy cycle. It will be fine in a short time, but if the time is delayed by a few seconds, it may cause the elements to explode."
The rabbit girl understood the seriousness of the matter, nodded and carefully memorized it, then compared it visually to find the energy gems in different squares that matched the corresponding "brightness".
“Actually, different arrangements can allow you to take different gems,” Angell said. “But you can only take one at most.”
"The essence of this puzzle is similar to the study puzzle; both require you to choose one from different inlays... You only have one chance, and if you choose wrong, you fail completely."
Rabbit Girl: "I understand, I'm going to start."
Angell: "Hmm."
As Angell finished speaking, the rabbit girl, like an elegant fish, stretched out and arrived at the sixth palace, where wind-attribute gems were displayed.
She reached out to take it, but suddenly stopped.
"What's wrong?" Angell asked, puzzled.
The rabbit girl gently shook her head: "It's nothing. A new Wonderland notification popped up in the text bar... It's just a background story that says the gems in the pool were left here by the Cruel Scholar's followers, and a wizard passed by and became a follower of the Cruel Scholar because of greed."
"In addition, it was also mentioned that this magical energy array is called... the Ascension Ritual, a special array bestowed upon believers by the Cruel Scholar."