The lost ancient city was filled with a desolate, lonely atmosphere. The only sounds were the wind occasionally sweeping past their ears and the footsteps of the others nearby. Hao Ren and his group continued exploring cautiously along the ancient streets buried beneath sand and dust.
The Data Terminal floated at the very front of the group, the scanning beams projected from its surface constantly sweeping over every suspicious object nearby, as well as anything that might still contain secrets from the ancient city's history. The collapsed statues and scattered stone slabs were the most valuable finds. On some of the stone slabs and fragments of clay tablets, the Data Terminal discovered the cuneiform writing Heiserana had mentioned.
Unfortunately, most of the writing had been almost completely worn away by wind and sand. Usually, no more than three to five symbols could be identified on a single object. Since they could not even be connected into words or sentences, even the Data Terminal's translation system had difficulty processing them.
"These symbols really do look like the cuneiform once commonly used on the Mesopotamian plains." Vivian studied the written patterns the Data Terminal had collected so far. They floated in front of her. "The writing on the clay tablets is standard cuneiform, while the writing on the stone slabs is some variant modified to make carving easier. But converting between the two scripts isn't difficult..."
Hao Ren looked at the ancient writing curiously. "Can you translate it?"
"No." Vivian shook her head. "Although the forms are indeed cuneiform, they don't belong to the same system as the cuneiform humans unearthed in modern times. And I don't have any method of interpreting them in my memories."
"Bat, you really don't remember this city?" Lily still couldn't let the matter go. "This might