Life Dungeon Game

He asked softly.

“It’s been too long,” the old patriarch shook his head. “The history of that time has been lost in legends. All we know is that the environment here was very good back then, and there were no powerful beasts, so our ancestors settled here.”

"Upon arriving here, our ancestors apparently encountered a plague... or something else..."

The old patriarch turned his gaze to the next mural. The content of this mural was also very simple: a huge circle was drawn in the sky, which seemed to represent the sun, and below were dead people, row after row of dead people lying down.

He Ao's gaze was focused on the top of the mural, where the edge of a small lake was still painted. The lake's surface was represented by dense dots, and in the depths of the lake, the water surface was not flat, but rather a long, protruding shape was deliberately painted.

"Look over there, doesn't it look like a person lying down?"

He Ao pointed to the protruding shape and asked softly.

“It does look somewhat like it,” the old chieftain said slowly. “I used to suspect that it was a person floating in the lake, but judging from the proportions, the lake in this painting is in the distance, and the shape and size of the person in the foreground are about the same. In other words, if the person who painted the mural did not use exaggeration, that ‘person’ is actually taller than the mountain peak.”

He took a deep breath. "Unfortunately, the history of that time has been lost, and we don't know what it was."

He glanced at Heo, and finding that Heo had no new questions, he looked at the third mural. "After that 'plague,' the people seemed to have become stronger. They continued to live nearby, but people still died unexpectedly."

The third mural is simple in content. It is still located on the shore of a lake. A person is holding up a huge stone, seemingly showing off his strength. Some people are watching him, and one or two people are silently falling in the crowd.

Not far away, several figures, their bodies tangled in a mess of loose threads, were struggling to climb toward the lake, seemingly wanting to drink water.

He Ao did not ask any questions about this mural, but instead looked at the next one.

"Our people lived and multiplied here for an unknown period of time. Suddenly one day, a huge earthquake struck the ground," the old chieftain said slowly, looking at the fourth and fifth murals. "Our ancestors fled their original habitat and moved to the vicinity."

The fourth mural depicts a small figure holding a wild beast, dancing excitedly by the lake, seemingly performing a ceremony. Around the figure is a sky painted as a dark cloud, mountains collapsing into the lake, and the earth cracked open.

The little people's ritual seemed to be interrupted, and they had to flee in panic.

This seems to depict a scene of some kind of sacrificial ceremony, during which a major earthquake occurred.

The fifth mural then disappears from the lake scene, replaced by a landscape of scattered rocks, with tiny figures crossing the land as if they were migrating.

He Ao's gaze moved to the sixth mural, which depicted a mountain foot where tiny people seemed to have found a place to live again, setting up camp on the flat ground.

His gaze continued downwards, stopping in front of the seventh mural.

In this mural, a small figure holding a stick looks in terror at the rocks in front of him, and a spring seems to be flowing out from the crevices of the rocks.

He seemed to have accidentally opened the spring.

Interestingly, the spring water depicted here is not shown as ripples, but as a series of small circles.

"That is the Fountain of Youth."

The old clan chief's aged voice rang in He Ao's ears.

There will be more later

Chapter 447 The 'History' of the Fountain of Youth (Two chapters, 10,000 words, please subscribe)

"According to oral tradition, the Fountain of Youth originated from the unconscious digging of a quarryman building a house. The spring water gushed out from the ground, forming a lively spring."

The old patriarch continued to the next mural, which was the most detailed mural to date, depicting a wide variety of animals with numerous lines: birds in the sky, beasts on the ground, and people running around.

They raced wildly across the scene, all with the same goal—the spring that was specially marked.

Can the Fountain of Youth truly grant eternal youth?

He Ao gazed at the mural and asked softly.

“In our generations of legends, drinking from the Fountain of Youth truly grants immortality,” the old chieftain said in a hoarse voice, his gaze shifting to the next mural. “The first quarryman to drink from the Fountain of Youth attained immortality.”

In that mural, the little figure holding a stick who first dug out the Fountain of Youth stands behind it, and the painter who painted the mural drew a smiling face on his face.

Before him lay countless lives locked in battle, humans and beasts locked in a chaotic struggle, their corpses carpeting the forest.

The mural depicts flowing blood in the form of water flow symbols. This blood gathers into rivers that flow into the Fountain of Youth, mingling with the small circles that symbolize the Fountain of Youth.

It seems that the quarryman who first drank from the Fountain of Youth was the one who started the killing.

He Ao's gaze fell on the ninth mural.

In this mural, the quarryman still stands behind the Fountain of Youth, but the vast, lush forest in front of him has turned into a barren desert.

Several tiny figures lay like dogs on the edge of the Fountain of Youth, drinking its water. Behind them were clusters of camps.

He Ao stared at the drawing of the quarryman and noticed that the artist had added some very fine dotted lines to the original body structure of the quarryman, which were almost invisible unless you looked closely.

These dotted lines are arranged densely together, almost covering the bodies of the quarrymen.

He Ao's gaze moved downwards, and he noticed that the little figures who were lying down drinking water also had such dotted lines on their bodies, but far fewer than the quarrymen.

What do these dotted lines mean?

He Ao wasn't one to keep his questions to himself, so he pointed to the dotted line and asked softly.

“I don’t know,” the old patriarch shook his head. “Perhaps it is some kind of way to show strength. In legends, the quarrymen are extremely powerful, capable of moving mountains and filling seas. They are the most powerful life forms in the area.”

"Are all the living things around here dead?"

Looking at the bare drawing, He Ao casually asked.

"That period of history seems to have been deliberately erased; we haven't left any useful information. That era was truly terrifying,"

He paused for a moment, then said, “My great-grandfather once told me that in the era when the quarrymen ruled, normal people were considered crazy, so all normal people had to pretend to be ‘normal.’ Some people, after pretending for a while, actually became ‘normal.’”

Is it a change in groupthink?

"Did your great-grandfather survive from the era of quarry workers?"

He Ao suddenly asked casually.

“He lived to be two hundred and nineteen,” the old clan chief said hoarsely. “His story was also told to him by his grandfather.”

He steered his wheelchair forward to the tenth mural. “According to our current estimates, the quarryman ruled this area for about 400 years, from 1,300 to 900 years ago.”

Nine hundred years ago, it was less than a hundred years since the establishment of Dawn City.

He Ao looked at the tenth mural. The mural depicted a simple scene: dark clouds filled the sky, and a beam of light pierced through them. In the light stood a tall figure, and a quarryman holding a long stick lay at his feet.

Those with dotted lines attached to their bodies, the quarrymen's henchmen, also fell all around.

The surrounding camps had mostly collapsed, and at the bottom were small figures who had fled.

The Fountain of Youth, located at the center of the image, was also covered by collapsed rubble.

"In the final days of the Quarryman's rule, his sphere of influence had expanded to hundreds of kilometers to the north and south. He was so powerful that he seemed invincible, like a god. At this time, a man who called himself a wizard appeared and defeated the Quarryman at the height of his power."

The old clan chief slowly recounted, "After the quarrymen died, our surviving ancestors fled their original place and migrated north."

He looked at the tenth mural. The way the 'wizard' appeared reminded He of a word.

'Angel'.

Moreover, this 'wizard' seems to be a good person; at least, he is rational.

If the legends of the Andavi family are true, then the quarrymen, who dominate an area spanning hundreds of kilometers, are at least among the strongest of the B-level angels, if not A-level ones.

The fact that the 'wizard' could easily defeat him and didn't care about the Fountain of Youth suggests that he is likely already an A-rank 'angel'.

Does this mean that around nine hundred years ago, the humans in the alternate world had already figured out a way to maintain their sanity and become angels?

After the last instance, Heo already knew that "wizard" was not a specific title for any one person, but rather a self-designation for a group of people who pursued truth during the Cataclysmic Era.

Has this 'wizard' already obtained a portion of the 'truth' and entered the ranks of angels?

Moreover, this place is so close to Dawn City.

The commander of the Dawn City Defense Army seems to be an angel. Could there be a connection between the two?

Unfortunately, all that remains of the history at that time are fragmentary legends from the Andavi family, and Heo cannot be certain whether it was truly an angel.

He turned his gaze to the eleventh mural, which was very simple: the Andavi family had left their original settlement and moved to a new area.

This place is deserted, surrounded by barren Gobi desert where no animals roam and no birds fly. It should not be far from the core area originally ruled by the quarrymen.

However, the painters who created the murals added tiny sprouts among the rocks, seemingly suggesting that everything is reviving.

Previously, the surrounding Gobi Desert was an abnormal phenomenon caused by the rule of quarrymen, but now nature is returning to its original state.

However, the quarrymen did something truly extreme, even tearing up the turf.

Why did he make the surrounding area look like such a desolate place?

He Ao turned his head and glanced at the quarryman's mural again.

Then he walked toward the twelfth mural, in which the surroundings had been restored to a vibrant state. At the center of the mural was a simplified version of a camp, with a circular building in the center, which was very similar to the camp where He Ao was now.

It appears that the Andavi family has recovered from the war.

"Can we still find the place where the Fountain of Youth was originally located?"

He Ao gazed at the mural and asked softly.

"it's here."

The old clan chief raised his hand and pointed to a corner of the mural.

In that corner, a magnificent city stands faintly.

Limen Store.

······

We've come full circle and are back to where we started.

Is there a relatively certain location?

He Ao looked at the old clan chief.

The construction of fortified cities inevitably involves a series of tasks such as moving mountains and filling lakes.

The original terrain depicted in the murals has likely disappeared.

In this situation, searching for a buried fountain of youth is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

“We don’t know the exact location of the Fountain of Youth,” the old chieftain shook his head, “but we have preserved the map of our original migration route, which may be of some help to you.”

After saying that, he opened a small box hanging under the left armrest of the wheelchair, took out a mini tablet computer, swiped a few times, and then opened a high-definition picture to show He Ao.

“These are scanned images,” the old patriarch explained. “However, the images themselves weren’t particularly clear. These high-resolution scans are usable, but they are secrets of our clan. Only members of the clan with higher status and the patriarch can see them, so you can’t be allowed to copy them and take them away.”