Endless Ocean: Escape Starting from a Canoe

Chapter 171 Taking Stock of the Treasures! A Huge Harvest!

Contrary to Shi Ming's expectations, the last original monument of civilization was far more difficult to analyze than the previous ones.

But after spending two days, Shi Ming still managed to fully master it. He closed his eyes and quietly felt the originally chaotic and disordered flow of information in his mind become orderly and perfect in an instant, as if it were the most exquisite creation of civilization in history.

boom!
As the stone tablet vibrated rhythmically, Shi Ming opened his eyes.

In that instant, an uncontrollable surge of powerful spiritual energy swept across this star field. His eyes shone with the light of civilization, as if they held the sharpest blade in the world and contained the most ancient wisdom from the long river of time!

The ethereal symbols on the 12 stone tablets before him held no secrets whatsoever.

Every word and every symbol was connected to his mind and became part of his own knowledge.

Although they have no meaning in themselves.

"Five days, a full five days!"

"The analysis of these 12 stone tablets has finally been completed!"

"too difficult!"

He looked around and found that most of the stars in this space had disappeared.

These substances transformed into energy over the past few days, replenishing Shi Ming's physical and mental strength.

The 12 original civilization steles still float in space, unshakable and immovable. However, their colors seem to have dimmed considerably, like pages written with a blue fountain pen that have been turned over for a long time, with the writing becoming blurred and indistinct.

It's time to leave.

As for the means of leaving...

In the past few days, the Eye of Intelligence has been unable to provide more information about this special space, but after analyzing these 12 original steles, Shi Ming saw lines of text appear beneath the inscriptions.

This handwriting was constructed using this language.

This also gave him a chance to use the language for the first time.

This line of text was a message left by the mysterious woman who had pulled him in.

The gist is:
"You've been stuck here for so long, deciphering these stone tablets. You don't hate me, do you? Let me guess how long you've spent here? A year? Two years? Or maybe three years!"

"No matter how many years it takes, it's all worth it."

"Leaving aside long-term goals, let's take a closer look. On your Earth, there are several similar stone tablets, and the inscriptions on them are in this language."

"Once you learn this language, you will be able to analyze them, understand them, and grasp the power behind them, which will benefit you immensely."

"But no matter what, you must remember not to let a second person know that you can decipher them. After all, you don't want to be arrested and forcibly used as a human decoder, right?"

"That's all for now. I don't know when we'll see each other again."

"..."

"Oh, I almost forgot, if you silently recite the 1008 symbols on this stone tablet, you can leave this place and return to where you started."

"Consider that star lamp my gift to you!"

???

That star lamp was a trophy I found in the Scorpion King's tomb. How did it become a gift from you?

Moreover, how could it possibly take one to three years to interpret these stone tablets?
Who do you look down on?
Although Shi Ming inwardly grumbled, he roughly understood why the woman's prediction was so severely off. Perhaps his own mental strength was truly bugged to an unimaginable degree? He didn't mind these details and silently recited the text on the 12 stone tablets in his mind.

That was an extremely obscure and difficult pronunciation.
It reads in a winding, yet profound and vast manner, carrying a mysterious and strange sense of power, unlike the sounds that normal living beings could make.

"lao shai sai nal kala mana..."

As soon as the last of the 1008 characters ended, he felt as if his soul had left his body, experiencing an unimaginable sense of weightlessness, as if falling from a dream.
The process of falling involved countless distortions of time and space.
The mottled patches of color kept flowing and disappearing before my eyes.

Suddenly, a strange force enveloped him, allowing him to fall safely into another world—a world filled with seawater…

goo goo goo...

Bubbles were coming out of his mouth.

My body is feeling inexplicable pressure!
A pearl that calms the ocean waves!
Once he regained his senses, Shi Ming had returned to the Scorpion King Pyramid at the bottom of the sea. He had completely cleaved the pyramid in two; the once intact ancient structure was now half collapsed into ruins, while the other half was still barely holding on.

The ancient bronze mirror in the Scorpion King's tomb has been shattered into pieces and scattered among the ruins of the pyramid.

The coffin had long since been overturned and its whereabouts were unknown during the battle.

"Scorpion King, I'm so sorry."

"This is also a helpless move to protect oneself."

As Shi Ming prepared to leave, he remembered that he hadn't yet collected the "Marrow of Bones" outside the pyramid's burial chamber and in the Bone Hall, which could increase his stats. It was the spine of the ferocious beast "Steel-Maned Pegasus," its marrow retaining its power even after thousands of years. Consuming it could appropriately increase stamina and attack power, depending on the individual's digestion level.

Shi Ming arrived beside the enormous spine.

The spine was too large, and digging it out bit by bit would take too long. Shi Ming didn't waste any time. He stretched out his right hand and punched the huge spine with a bang. The bone shell broke open, and the spinal cord at the deepest part was still not completely weathered, remaining in an ointment-like state. When it came into contact with seawater, it flowed out thickly.

Shi Ming's right arm glowed red, eagerly absorbing its power.

"This method actually works!"

The power of the Steel-Maned Pegasus was transferred from the spinal cord into Shi Ming's body.

Stamina increased by 10 points.

Defense increased by 8 points.

[Mental strength increased by 12 points.]

"That adds up to 30 points, comparable to killing two B-level sea monsters!"

"It's this spiritual power..."

"The value of my mental strength is still immeasurable. Even that woman, who seems to have an extraordinary background, greatly underestimated it? She thought it would take me at least a year to complete the analysis of all the stone tablets?"

A deviation of one or two days in the estimate is normal, but a deviation of several hundred times...

Shi Ming did not believe that the mysterious woman would make such a mistake.

Perhaps my abnormal mental strength is related to time travel?
Is it related to the Eye of God pendant?

……

……

……

What I thought would be a routine treasure hunt turned out to be quite an ordeal.

On the way back, Shi Ming took stock of what he had gained from the Scorpion King Pyramid trip.

1. A Puppet Core and a Full Moon Pearl with an initial level of 7.

2. A piece of the secondary core of the meteorite.

3. The extinguished starlight.

4. A stone tablet that I haven't had a chance to look at yet; I don't know what it records.

"Sure enough, the bigger the storm, the more expensive the fish."

"But the most important gain is not these treasures!"

Shi Ming had a vague feeling that the value of those words far exceeded that of these treasures.

……

The Sun-Shooting Ship broke through the water.

From afar, he could sense that the Dayun was waiting at the spot where he had left, without ever shifting its position, awaiting his return.

(End of this chapter)