Chapter 452: Flood Dragon

Song Xue was so focused on the research that she forgot about seeing Auric’s reaction.

Auric looked at both of them with a nonchalant expression before saying, "Isn’t that rather obvious? A higher concentration will flow toward a lower concentration? There are three—!"

He paused for a moment before taking a step back. "Oh! I mean... Oh wow! That’s mind-blowing."

"Three?" Song Xue was taken aback.

His acting was so bad this time that even Mathias didn’t know what Auric was actually aiming for.

"Three? Do you mean there are three different fire elements?" Li Si’s eyes lit up.

"What? How? How do you know that?" Song Xue gasped, but she suddenly fell silent. Auric had revealed the answer earlier. His senses were so extraordinary that he could see through even the barrier that had been a mystery all this time.

"How many water elements used to be in this place? How about the plant elements?" Li Si asked Auric excitedly, grabbing his shoulders.

Mathias immediately stood between them and pushed Li Si back. While glancing at Auric, Mathias coughed, signaling him not to give any information for free.

"Please take a look at this research. Do you find anything weird?" Li Si grabbed the laptop on the side and showed a graphic.

Auric simply pointed to the side. "Well, shouldn’t we continue with the tour?"

"..." Li Si and Song Xue believed that Auric actually knew more than this. Was it simply an observation?

While walking, Mathias couldn’t help but say, "Please refrain from saying anything."

Auric paused for a moment. "No. The concept itself is logical and simple. It’s not exactly that big of a secret. How does a barrier enter your body? It’s simply because it has a higher density.

"For example, there are three water elements. Their ratings are 2.3, 3.8, and 4.3. The barrier is simply the fusion of those three elements to create a single water element, perhaps with a 3.6 rating. However, because it consists of three water elements, the density of that element is significantly higher.

"How did it fuse? What was the barrier actually? What about the multiple elements? Well, that’s just a topic for another time." Auric shrugged.

"..." Mathias was a bit speechless. He was also wondering how much Auric knew about it.

Li Si and Song Xue, who were walking in the front, overheard Auric’s explanation. Li Si was completely speechless, considering that this kind of result came from years of research.

Song Xue, on the other hand, was curious about the knowledge Auric possessed. It reinforced the belief in her mind that Auric already knew what kind of research they were conducting here, and there was no need for him to be here. He shouldn’t be here and blurt out his own secret.

In other words, Auric truly came here because he was merely curious, but after finding out it was something he already knew, he wasn’t as excited anymore.

"Miss Song, what is going on with our guest this time? Are you bringing us a young researcher? Maybe someone old but looking extremely young?"

"No. Auric Elfe is 17 years old."

"Seriously? Is he going to work with us?"

"He’s just visiting this country, not that I know about the reason. He’s been visiting all kinds of places."

"..."

Song Xue and Li Si just looked at each other. Li Si felt like the research here would leap by fifty years if Auric helped them. Song Xue felt like kidnapping Auric so that he would never leave this country again.

In the end, they reached the second place. It was a wooden tower that had been built after the collapse.

"This is the place where we observe the change in the village." Li Si introduced the tower as they climbed to the top.

With an elevated point of view, he could see the entire village at one glance. It was truly breathtaking. It was a shame that a village like this no longer existed.

At the same time, he was able to see the flow of energy in the entire area.

There was one thing that bothered him. Normally, the barrier kept everything in place, which trapped the energy coming from below. That was how ruins were operated.

Now that the barrier was gone, the energy wasn’t trapped. It continued to leak out of the ground and merged with the surrounding energy.

It was an understandable process. Even after the ruins collapsed, the process continued.

After all, the temple was supposed to trap the energy, not exactly force the energy to come out.

However, the energy coming out of the ground had become significantly weaker. Without any protections, the area would gradually turn back into normal land.

That raised another question in his mind.

If it was going to turn back into a normal land, how in the world did the energy become dense in the first place?

Was that a natural order? However, he had never heard anything about a temple being moved from one place to another.

It might be because the temple had a very long lifespan, considering that the energy was trapped inside. At the same time, he still thought there should be at least a few cases of it.

Auric thought for a moment. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he thought about it, he couldn’t find a single connection. He had considered all his dad’s words, but everything still didn’t make any sense.

"Did you find anything else?" Song Xue asked, trying to get as much information as possible from Auric. Mathias was watching closely since it wouldn’t be a good idea to reveal information carelessly.

"Not really. I guess that one is the third place you’re talking about." Auric pointed to one building, which seemed to remain standing as if it wasn’t affected by the collapsing ruins.

It didn’t look like a temple. Instead, it looked like a house. It wasn’t even the biggest house in the area either.

However, he had mistaken its purpose because of its shape.

"According to historical records, it is a temple dedicated to a certain local god. No, it’s more accurate to say that it’s a temple worshiping the flood dragon?" Song Xue pointed forward. "The river is further in that direction, so it’s not weird for this village to worship the flood dragon since ancient times."

"Flood dragon..." Auric narrowed his eyes.

"Yes. You know, the serpentine, scaled aquatic creature. It lives in rivers, and usually summons clouds, wind, and heavy rain. Basically, it maintains the ecosystem in the arena and controls prosperity and disaster."

"I see. That’s interesting. I guess that’s one of the reasons this country created a facility even though the Dead Village has collapsed."

"You can say that." Song Xue nodded.

"Can we go there as well?" Auric asked.

"It should be no problem." Li Si became slightly energetic. At first, he was too exhausted to deal with tourists, even though the one guiding them was the young lady of the Song family.

However, once he realized Auric actually held so much knowledge in his head, he became interested in Auric and that knowledge. He was wondering how to extract all that knowledge out of Auric’s head.

After all, Auric wasn’t a part of their country. He was famous enough not to care about other things, including the job offer.

For the time being, the best course of action was to let Auric see everything and gradually probe him.

Auric didn’t show it on his face, but he was extremely interested in this temple. Just as his father said, the ruins were actually temples. The Age of Gods was real. They were actually quite similar to the current era, but the current era had just started fifty years ago, so it would still take time before gods could be born.

In addition, the flow of energy in the temple was weird. He had to take a closer look before being able to figure it out.

They hurried to the temple as Li Si introduced, "This is a temple that worships a flood dragon. When the news of this temple remaining standing even though the ruins collapsed spread, a lot of people came to worship the flood dragon.

"However, we know the reason it didn’t collapse when the elemental turbulence happened was because of the amount of energy in it. The energy had become embedded in the materials, which strengthened the temple. It had also been taken care of before the apocalypse."

"Hmm..." Auric nodded in understanding. "Witnessing a historical temple sure feels nice."

Auric looked around. He noticed that there was a surge of energy coming from the ground.

This kind of surge wasn’t the same as a simple leak caused by the natural process within the ruins. Instead, the surge contained denser energy.

Once he followed the trace of energy, he found that there was a part where the energy was actually leaking sideways. It didn’t seem like the energy leak was intended that way, so he figured out that this leak must be the result of the damage the temple had sustained during the elemental turbulence.

Still, some of that energy flowed all throughout the buildings, making them look similar to a magic item.

’This looks similar to a complex chamber within a magic item where we want the energy to flow in a certain direction. Now, this is kind of interesting. Looking at the way it flows...’

Auric looked up and noticed that the energy was ultimately flowing up into the sky.

"Hmm..." Auric was a bit curious. Normally, this kind of process wouldn’t be that visible. Thanks to the leak underground, he could see everything more clearly after singling out the elements related to the ruins.

"What’s wrong?"

Auric walked toward the gate of the temple and moved slightly right before placing his hand on the floor.

"What did you—" Song Xue was confused at first, but she soon became speechless because of what happened next.