He stared at the pitch-black cave entrance.
Roger couldn't help frowning.
The sudden voice made him somewhat wary.
Before determining whether the other party was friend or foe, what if he rashly crawled into the cave and got trapped by some mechanism? An idea suddenly struck him, and he shouted toward the entrance:
"The entrance is too narrow."
"I can't crawl through!"
His words formed an endless echo in the cave.
Only after a long while did a voice call back, "Oh."
After that, faint tremors came from inside the cave.
Roger looked over curiously.
Before long, a robot covered in rust awkwardly crawled out of the cave.
To be honest, Roger had never seen such a "fat" robot.
Its limbs were extremely short, while its torso was plump around the center. Calling it a ball wouldn't have been an exaggeration.
The robot's skin had long since been weathered by time.
All that remained was an endless spread of pits and dents.
It struggled terribly as it crawled out of the cave, looking exactly like an old man in his twilight years.
Seeing it like this,
Roger unexpectedly felt a trace of guilt.
"Huh?"
"Is the guest actually fatter than A Ba?"
The robot swayed as it stood up from the ground. As it sized Roger up, its voice was filled with confusion.
Suddenly,
its left foot shattered with a puff, scattering into silver flakes.
The robot fell flat on the spot, and its right foot became useless as well.
"How rude of me... I seem to have embarrassed the guest."
Its voice was indescribably dejected.
But before long, it had become optimistic again. "On the bright side, the guest can push me inside once we're ready. That'll save us quite a bit of trouble."
Roger was silent for a while.
The robot's voice and reactions reminded him of a childhood playmate from his previous life.
He walked over and gently helped it up.
"Are you all right?"
"All right? Of course I'm all right! A Ba is a construct. How could anything happen to me?" (Note 1)
"Oh my, how rude of me! I actually forgot to introduce myself."
The robot said solemnly, "My name is A Ba. I am the Lecturing Elder of the Clear Spring Sect."
As he said this, he scratched his head in a remarkably humanlike manner, a desolate note entering his voice.
"Though I may also be... the last member of the Clear Spring Sect in this world."
Roger nodded slightly.
For some reason, this construct gave him an exceptionally familiar feeling.
"I haven't had the chance to ask your name, sir?"
A Ba looked at Roger.
His eyes were tiny, flickering with a faint reddish glow.
"Roger."
This time, Roger decided to answer honestly.
"Mr. Roger, why don't we try again and see if we can crawl through?"
A Ba's spirits seemed to rise.
"Master Qu Feng once said that making a guest stand outside while speaking to him is terribly rude."
Roger was infected by his enthusiasm and laughed as well. "All right."
He pushed A Ba into the cave.
Although the cave was low, Roger only needed to bend over to pass through.
He hadn't pushed A Ba very far before he saw a faint light ahead.
Before long,
the terrain suddenly opened up.
The cold rocks overhead became a distant, unreachable night sky, while the cramped cavern was replaced by a vast stretch of land.
In that instant, Roger felt as if he had been transported to a wilderness on a nighttime plain.
Looking out,
he could clearly see ruined temples, collapsed houses, abandoned fields, and paths and roads buried beneath windblown sand!
This didn't look like the Underground City at all! Roger stared at the night sky for a long time, confirming that the twinkling stars weren't underground gemstones.
"Mr. Roger must be very curious, right?"
A Ba said, "Unfortunately, I can't explain this phenomenon either."
"I remember that, long ago, the sky above the Clear Spring Sect was covered by the Mountain Protection Array. Back then, if you stood here, you might see magnificent sunsets and waterfalls."
"At some point, it turned into this boundless starry sky."
"It took me a long time to realize that the dojo had already sunk underground."
"This way, this way..."
Roger continued pushing A Ba forward.
The roads on both sides were filled with ruins badly eroded by the wind.
As they passed a relatively well-preserved courtyard, Roger even saw a swing covered in dust.
Apparently noticing where he was looking,
A Ba said gloomily, "Many people used to live here."
Roger asked softly,
"What happened afterward?"
A Ba recalled things haltingly.
"The king of Talen sent someone with a letter."
"Master Qu Feng hurried beyond the mountains, and never came back."
"My senior brothers and sisters left one after another."
"Those who didn't leave died in a single night."
"Only Little Squirrel stayed with me."
"But later, Little Squirrel died too."
"So I buried them all in the cemetery behind the mountain."
"After that..."
"I couldn't find their cemetery anymore."
Although A Ba's memories were incomplete,
Roger still extracted a great deal of useful information from them. For example, he learned that the nation where the Clear Spring Sect had once been located was called "Talen," and that Talen had maintained a close relationship with the Clear Spring Sect.
The master of the Clear Spring Sect's dojo was "Master Qu Feng," and the Fire Aversion Pearl in Roger's possession had been made by him...
For another example, the disaster had descended in a single night.
Apart from the construct A Ba and an entity called "Little Squirrel," no one else had survived.
This information struck Roger with tremendous force.
Recalling the scenes he had seen on the Immortal Leaving Wall and comparing them with the ruins before his eyes,
Roger experienced a strange, indescribable emotion for the first time. Only four words remained in his heart.
"The vicissitudes of time."
"Do you really not remember how many years have passed?"
Roger couldn't help asking.
Ever since learning of the Great Calamity, he had been extremely curious about exactly when it had occurred.
He had asked many people, but none had given him a clear figure.
The old people of Tongma Town, Cindy of Dragon Tooth Village... none of them could tell Roger anything more precise about history.
If A Ba hadn't lied, then he had existed even before the Great Calamity.
He was the person closest to the truth.
However, the construct's answer was disappointing. "I'm sorry. Forgetting the year is truly a terribly rude thing."
"But A Ba's memory modules were simply too bloated. To complete my final mission, I had no choice but to delete a great deal of unnecessary information. It left my mind in a complete mess."
"Have you seen those Memory Magic Crystals on the ground? They're all parts I replaced. They should contain quite a few memories."
"Unfortunately, my memory slots have completely worn out. If you have another construct, you can try reading those memories."
They arrived at an open area.
A Ba pointed at a mountain of glittering objects in the distance as he spoke.
Roger noticed that a batch of magic crystals had been placed separately on a stone rack, with a small piece of gray-white cloth covering them.
"Are those magic crystals your memories too?"
he asked.
"Ah, yes. These are all precious memories A Ba left behind from secretly watching his senior sisters and junior sisters bathe."
The construct said cheerfully,
"If you want to see them, feel free to take them and look through them!"
Roger was rendered speechless.
"That's not... appropriate, is it?"
But A Ba shook his head.
"They vanished into the dust of history long ago."
"Even I can no longer remember their faces or voices."
"Although peeking at someone while they're bathing is terribly rude, isn't that still better than letting them be completely forgotten? What do you think, Mr. Roger?"
Roger gave a bitter laugh, unexpectedly at a loss for words.
This Lecturing Elder of the Clear Spring Sect really was a master of twisted logic!
As if possessed,
he walked over and picked up a Memory Magic Crystal, turning it over carefully in his hand.
"I'm not a construct anyway. I can't read these memories."
That was what he told himself.
Just then,
the data panel suddenly fluctuated violently!...
"An intact Memory Magic Crystal has been detected. Read the memory?"
"Damn!"
Roger's expression instantly shifted between dark and bright.
(Note 1: Constructs are robots from fantasy worlds.
Ordinary constructs can only execute specific programs, such as "Iron Guards."
A construct infused with "Construct Intelligence Infusion" is equivalent to having a life.
If you are powerful enough and possess sufficient knowledge and materials, you can DIY all kinds of constructs yourself, such as "Pleasure Golems.") (What comes to mind when a curious newcomer sees "Pleasure Golem"?)
Before you continue