Chapter 387: Chapter 365: Lost City Poseidya and Idealism
The "Life Tree" that has grown in the Spirit Realm serves as the beacon set by the Extraordinary for their first entry into the Spirit Realm. The first landing spot is often the place where they resonate most strongly with the Spirit Realm, carrying extraordinary significance.
This "beacon" enables them to find their way back here during future explorations, no matter how far they wander based on the sensation between the two.
In other words, this has now become Aiven’s base camp for future Spirit Realm explorations!
It can also provide Aiven with multifaceted support, including positioning, protection, concealment, rest... This is another hidden benefit of the School Wizard.
At this moment, the ringed Spirit Realm Sun in the cerulean sky is flickering with a silver radiance, seemingly devoid of the bright feeling found in the Material World even during broad daylight.
Yet the huge tree beacon behind seemingly absorbs nourishment from this peculiar sunlight, gently swaying as it disperses the spiritual power it continually absorbs, creating a small world beneath the tree crown more suited for human survival.
Every breath Aiven takes now seems to make him feel the growth of his spiritual radiance.
"Whew—"
It was only at this moment that he could finally breathe a slight sigh of relief.
Based on the information from both the Inheritance Secret Scroll and Milan, Aiven understood that there is no absolutely safe place in the Spirit Realm. Even just after completing the descent, one might face a sudden attack.
Especially since the time flow in the "Spirit Realm" is thirty-six times that of the Material World. A bottle of "Spirit Communication Potion" with a one-hour duration allows Aiven to stay in the Spirit Realm for a day and a half.
During this period, unless relying on the "beacon" or other treasures, one cannot leave on their own.
If danger arises, unless escaping immediately, one can only rely on one’s own power and the established "shelter".
With temporary safety secured, Aiven could finally pay attention to his current appearance.
Without the fixed form of physical bodies, he appeared merely as a mass with a continuously beating bronze mechanical flesh gemstone heart at its core, vaguely resembling a humanoid figure of white, luminous quality, with only a pair of eyes glowing with emerald light largely unchanged.
The transparent and pure color represented his normal mental state, untainted and free from extreme emotions.
He appeared clearly taller and stronger than a normal person, estimated to have reached 2.54 meters.
His "soul armor" also showed significant changes.
A brown stone slightly emitting yellow light hung around his neck, a turquoise short magic robe reaching down to his calves draped over him, with a steel half-body armor with black spikes covering his upper body.
A wand no different in appearance from a sword staff dangled at his waist alongside a handful of green glowing seeds; his feet were adorned with dark green boots.
Aside from the seemingly unchanged sword staff, everything from the Material World had undergone significant changes here.
This is because it’s a spiritual world more bizarre and fantastical than the dream realm!
Other than a few rare treasures, materials from the two worlds cannot directly exchange; however, materials with spirituality can appear in the Spirit Realm in conceptual symbols, projections, and greatly differ from their appearance in the Material World.
Humans are the same; Wizards and a few other professions with the ability to explore the Spirit Realm display their most "authentic" selves in this world.
Amorphous blobs of light, rudimentary mechanical forms, filthy creatures teeming with tentacles... Anything is possible.
All external manifestations emanate from a certain intrinsic trait they possess, the more prominent the trait, the stronger the outer expression.
Closer resemblance to the Material World here generally indicates stronger power; a Tier 3 Upper-Rank Wizard barely differs from his external appearance.
Thus, for outsiders, the more distorted the appearance, the weaker the strength. Conversely, the more unremarkable the appearance, the more powerful the individual truly is!
Beginners like Aiven, newly entering the Spirit Realm, appear like a simple luminous entity drawn by basic lines, not as well-defined as his soul armor might be.
Of course, there are treasures capable of concealing one’s traits to avoid being blatantly exposed, but such treasures, at least for now, are beyond Aiven’s reach.
Having a self-made magic robe of pine needles to cover oneself is already quite good.
Thus far, the start is fairly average.
There is neither tricky danger encountered nor did he suddenly appear inside a treasure trove upon arrival. Said plainly, any gain necessitates personal exploration.
Moreover, with the beacon right here, it’s imperative to quickly assess the surroundings to check for any threats.
If there’s a Spirit Realm monster nest nearby, that would be unfortunate.
Fortunately, Aiven came prepared.
Snap—
With a finger made from a barely distinguishable luminous mass, a snap was made.
Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish!...
A large flock of seagulls glistening with translucent white light flew out from beneath Aiven’s magic robe, quickly transforming into a vast blur of light and shadows, swiftly covering the skies above these city ruins.
[Witchcraft: White Bird!]
It was the spirit body transformed into a White Seagull that came with Aiven, evolving from a drone to a reconnaissance satellite, making them another powerful weapon in Aiven’s hands.
Especially in the Spirit Realm, this peculiar world, these spirit creatures have a wide range of uses, far beyond just reconnaissance.
Although the "Vitalist School" is more skilled in transforming the Material World, more like a biologist, Spirit Realm exploration is a compulsory course for every wizard, and of course, there is already a whole set of corresponding witchcraft reserves, and they are definitely not weak!
"Let me see what treasures are in my territory?"
Obviously, Aiven has already considered this vast ancient city as his own possession, a bridgehead for managing this unknown world.
Soon, the dense reconnaissance network had transmitted the entire city’s situation back in detail, presented before Aiven’s eyes. The only drawback was the absence of Bess as the central processor, leaving everything unfocused, requiring Aiven to sort through the information himself.
The city is approximately 180 square kilometers, consisting of vast building complexes formed by layer upon layer of rectangular districts.
The overall structure is high in the center and low on the edges, and Aiven descended right in the middle of the city, in a large, albeit dilapidated, plaza.
The city shows clear distinctions between different living areas, retaining traces of past prosperity.
Judging from the ascending construction design, it’s easy to tell that once there were clear hierarchies, likely ruled by royalty or priests.
Currently, the seagulls haven’t discovered any large active creatures here, only some unknown black bugs moving through the gaps in various buildings.
At least on the surface, it doesn’t seem to pose a threat to him.
Apart from this, the strangest thing is.
Structures that should serve as core buildings, such as the Temple, Arena, Observatory, Military Camp, palaces carved with sun and thunder, are scattered chaotically at the lowest level of the city, faintly surrounding the whole city and blocking Aiven’s exploration paths outward.
"In the eerie Spirit Realm, common sense is indeed just toilet paper."
One of the exploration rules of the Spirit Realm is to never trust the common sense formed in the Material World.
Because the Spirit Realm is a higher dimension compared to the Material World, humans enter it in a spirit state but do not gain the ability to observe or process this higher dimension.
So everything that exists here is full of compression, displacement, and symbolism in humans’ eyes. What you see and feel may not be the true form, but possibly just an insignificant corner of a giant iceberg floating on the water.
Throughout countless years of exploration, wizards have long discovered that the more materially substantial a world is, the stricter its rules, and the more spiritually substantial a world is, the more arbitrary its rules are.
Even an environment that is bizarre enough to be incomprehensible can bring various unforeseen dangers to explorers. The conflict between "reality" and experience often leads them to make mistakes, resulting in catastrophic consequences.
And now, judging based on "common sense," those special functional buildings are most likely the areas where danger exists, and Aiven decided to personally test and assess the danger levels.
Flap——
A bird-shaped luminous body gently landed on the lowest level of the city, right at the entrance of a palace adorned with numerous decorations of suns and thunderbolts, looking like the power center of this city.
There stood a broken obsidian stele.
Bang!
A white aura spread, and the bird-shaped luminous body quickly expanded and twisted into another form of Aiven, only with a more blurred face, draped in feathers, even with seagull wings for hands.
Apparently, Aiven had already entrusted part of his consciousness into this seagull.
"Poseidya City — Sun Palace? A more accurate translation should be the Sun’s Abode. Is there really a sun hidden here?"
The characters inscribed in Spiritual Text on the stele had become very faint, with only a few large characters at the top barely recognizable.
Boom——!
However, as soon as the word "Sun’s Abode" was spoken, the bird-man embodying Aiven couldn’t help but retreat several meters in succession. This dilapidated, crumbling palace seemed really to hide a blazing sun, just standing there felt as if its incredible heat would scorch him.
With a charred smell clinging to his body, he flapped his wings and flew away, avoiding the place by dozens of meters, and only then did the burning sensation on his wings gradually recede.
"Ugh! An idealism-driven world is so damn irrational, isn’t it? I had no feelings at all before knowing what’s inside this place, but once I knew, the senses suddenly reacted.
If I truly believed from the bottom of my heart that this city was built on the sun, wouldn’t I immediately get burned to death?
In Spirit Realm exploration, wouldn’t most extraordinary people end up getting played to death just like this?"
But then again, even in the Material World, there are people who get electrocuted by unpowered wires, with symptoms identical to those after electrocution. In an idealism-driven world, this kind of situation is not surprising at all.
But there must be some operational mechanism and restrictions in place for this kind of occurrence. Otherwise, even a Crowned Wizard might meet their end here in mere moments.
Therefore, there must be some powerful artifact related to the sun in this place.
Otherwise, if one could imagine themselves to death, it would be even more exaggerated than a Great Knight laughing themselves to death!