magician in town

Chapter 674 Ancestral Gift (64)

“I know,” Roach said numbly. “Let me try.”

"What can you do?" Mahjong suddenly tensed up, staring intently at Roach.

“I have an idea,” Roach said briefly. His expression didn’t suggest he had any ideas; it was more like he had already made a final decision.

"What are you thinking!" Mahjong stood up, his face filled with panic. He rushed forward, as if trying to grab Roach. But Roach was no longer the child he had first met; in a short time, he had swelled up like a pumpkin injected with drugs, and no one could lift him up like a child anymore. "Even I, a healing mage, can't save him, what can you do? You are a..."

The term "mind mage" is now like a hot-tongued curse; people can't even utter it. Almost every mind mage who reaches a dead end will conjure up evil magic.

Roach was completely oblivious to what he was thinking. "If you can't save him, then only the Primordial Mage can."

"What did you say?"

“There’s no time to say anything, let’s take a gamble. Mahjong, take me and Du Zhengyi back to the hall with the spaceship and the primitive sacrificial ceremony,” Luo Qi said. He squatted down and grabbed Du Zhengyi’s wrist with trembling hands, too nervous to feel a pulse. He then placed his hand on Du Zhengyi’s neck to check for a carotid artery, and this time finally felt a faint pulse, confirming that he was still alive.

"No way!" Mahjong replied warily.

Roach looked up in surprise, his gaze piercing through Mahjong's glasses and into his eyes. Mahjong's unconcealed thoughts were laid bare by the out-of-control Roach, his chaotic musings—a mixture of suspicion and wariness towards Roach—disrupted. There was a surface-level distrust of the unreliable Roach, and a deep-seated wariness of the mind-manipulation mage. All his trust in Roach was tied to Du Zhengyi; that trust existed because of Du Zhengyi's presence and guarantee, and now, with Du Zhengyi's departure, it rapidly diminished.

Mahjong paused, not reprimanding Roach for overstepping his bounds. He understood the mind-control mage, and still held basic trust in Roach's character. He also suppressed the embarrassment of having his thoughts discovered, and ultimately didn't stand with Roach. "No matter what you've discovered, you can't rashly activate the Primordial Mage's magic. The dangers of those spells are unpredictable. It's not only dangerous for this world, but also unfair to Du Zhengyi. You might be pushing him into a situation worse than death."

This is the ethics and morality of the magical world, and also the wisdom gained from countless hardships and dangers. He will not ignore these risks.

“Besides, he can’t withstand teleportation anymore. He’s on his last breath. Torturing him will only cause him more pain,” Mahjong said painfully, completely rejecting Roach’s offer.

Luo Qi was still squatting on the ground, one hand still gripping Du Zhengyi's wrist, the other hand supporting him behind the neck. His dark eyes stared intently at the mahjong tiles, those unfathomable eyes carrying a strange irony and an undeniable provocation. "Goodbye!"

"Varied……"

Before Mahjong could finish his question, Luo Qi vanished before his eyes with Du Zhengyi. Mahjong sluggishly considered that the slight cracking sound and the turbulent air indicated he had indeed teleported with Du Zhengyi, and that he had gone mad. Guan Xinyue was alone in the cabin piled high with her ancestors' ritual artifacts. This was, of course, a spaceship, and it was exactly like the one she'd seen on the cover of some science fiction novel, standing upright in its base.

Her mind was a jumbled mess as she stood before a bronze tripod, staring blankly at the familiar patterns. The last time she'd seen a bronze tripod like this was at the National Museum. Her grandfather had taken her and her sister there for a whole day; they'd looked at artifacts, bought souvenirs, and even ate some of them. Those wonderful days now felt like a hundred years ago.

She slowly reached out and stroked the patterns on the bronze ding, but her basic cultural heritage awareness reminded her that this was inappropriate, and she quickly withdrew her hand. These patterns were somewhat different from those she had seen before. But that didn't necessarily mean anything. The bronze patterns in the National Museum of China were different from those in Sanxingdui, and also different from those in the Hunan Provincial Museum. What was abnormal about our ancestors making several bronze artifacts that were essentially the same but different in style?

What was unusual was that she knew Roach and his men had found a corpse here. The enormous bronze coffin occupied the central position of the cabin, and psychologically, she always felt that the coffin was like a square black hole absorbing light, making the room dim by some unknown force.

While in the museum, she was proud of the brilliance of her civilization, but now she wished she had no blood relation to this tribe. She could understand the hardships and romance of prehistoric civilizations, but she couldn't accept that her ancestors were kneeling before the sorcerer's ancestors like idiots, and even leaving their coffins in someone else's spaceship.

But then again, what exactly was this ancestral mage? She really wanted to curse, preferably using the rich, rustic language of the old woman at the village intelligence hub who was known for her sharp tongue.

That traitor Roach must have discovered something long ago.

But he wouldn't tell her anything; he only clung to his brother, eagerly telling him everything he discovered, like a country bumpkin. He was as silly as a stray dog! After all, they were in the same group. Even by mage standards, Roach was indeed unorthodox, but he was still a mage. It's just a pity his brother was a mage, and mages are generally illiterate; he couldn't understand his discoveries at all. No mage could comprehend that their ancestors were a group of aliens who arrived on Earth in a spaceship, bringing a bunch of abducted animals, then abducting even more animals, setting up a biological laboratory, and ultimately causing their own demise.

Oh, the mage doesn't understand this plot, but Guan Xinyue understands it all too well. Luo Qi isn't just a half-human for nothing, he must know it very well too.

Who knows who their ancestors were? Maybe they were some marginal scientists ostracized by their mainstream society, hiding in a remote part of the Milky Way, deceiving some poor Homo sapiens who had just differentiated from the hairy creatures!
Guan Xinyue looked at the bronze coffin with pity. The fool lying inside must really think he had encountered a group of gods.

The cabin was quiet. The sorcerers should all be on this spaceship, but the excellent soundproofing prevented her from hearing their voices. Only she was there, along with her ancestor who had been tricked. Her heart was filled with complex and unsettling emotions. The human lying here must have been an extremely intelligent being. To create so many bronze artifacts required accumulating immense wealth, not to mention successfully reaching this place and burying himself in the land of faith. To get here, the grandsons of those progenitor sorcerers had suffered countless deaths and injuries.

Perhaps it was the anxiety of waiting that drove her mad, but she couldn't resist the urge to climb onto the coffin and take a peek. Being with a corpse is terrifying, but sometimes the more fearful you are, the more you can't help but want to look.

She glanced at the hatch; no one approached. Without further hesitation, she looked past the bronze and jade offerings and identified several points of leverage on the roughly two-meter-high bronze coffin. Her fingers, which had been plucking the strings, gripped the cold bronze decorations. Her slender body felt lighter than ever before, and she silently sat down on the upper edge of the bronze coffin.

Inside the bronze coffin lay a skeleton, ancient jade pendants and turquoise beads scattered among its bones. She couldn't fathom his reason for choosing this place, but he had indeed found peace; he had lain here quietly for at least several thousand years, undisturbed before their arrival.

She looked down at the skeleton, trying to discern more details, when the necklace around her neck suddenly trembled. Startled, she lost her balance and plummeted into the coffin.