Buggy, carrying Nilek on his arm, followed Jess to the Temple of Jess.
After yesterday's great battle, Jess has already sent people to repair the temple. Now these craftsmen are riding on clouds, repairing the entrance with stones. In just one day, the shattered temple entrance is now taking shape.
Although no stones are produced on the Sky Island, houses are built using stones washed ashore from the Blue Sea. Because of this, stones, which are sparsely found in the Blue Sea, are quite precious here.
Jess led the way. "Come with me, Buggy."
When they passed the square, Cabaji stopped and stroked his chin, seemingly analyzing where his hero statue would be most suitable to be placed and what pose would make it look the coolest.
Buggy left Cabaji there, put Nilek on the ground, and rubbed his sore arm. "Doggy, we've come all this way, you're not going to run away again, are you?"
Although Nilek verbally expressed its reluctance to come to the Temple of Jess, it was merely lip service. Deep down, it still cared about the Temple of Jess's stele. Despite its long history, it rarely visited Sifa Island due to its time spent in the Central Laboratory of Garlam, and thus had little opportunity to see the stele. Now, with Buggy as a pretext, Nilek naturally wouldn't miss the chance, and followed him with its head held high. "Since you're begging me so earnestly, I'll take pity on you and reluctantly cooperate."
Buggy smiled, and then the group entered the temple together.
Buggy followed Jess to the corridor on the left side of the temple. After walking for a few minutes, Jess pressed a switch, and a mechanical door to a room slowly slid open to both sides.
"The stone tablet is inside, please come in." Jess led the way into the room.
Buggy took two steps inside, scanned the empty room, and then his gaze fell on the huge stone tablet in the center. The stone tablet, about three meters high, exuded an ancient and weathered aura. It was engraved with complicated and obscure cuneiform script, which was not the common script of this era.
Buggy couldn't help but recall the stone tablet he had seen in the East Blue before. It was similar in shape to this one, but the one in front of him looked much older. In fact, he had seen other stone tablets more than twenty years ago on Roger's ship. However, Roger possessed the ability to "hear all things" and didn't need a translator. After understanding the Ancient Script, he would sometimes reveal them to Bucky and sometimes keep them to himself. At that time, Buggy's mind was mostly focused on the treasure map and the treasure, and he didn't take Roger's words to heart at all. Now, he couldn't even remember what Roger had said back then.
"Dog..." Buggy turned to look at Nilek, "Can you read what's written here?"
Nilek stared at the inscription on the stone tablet, then walked forward step by step, examining it carefully.
Buggy held his breath and followed to the side. Although he couldn't understand the words on it, it didn't stop him from feeling the magnificent and solemn aura emanating from the stone tablet, as if time had turned back to the moment when the craftsmen carefully polished this stone tablet.
Then, Nilek read the inscription on the stone tablet haltingly.
"... Azure wings of chaos spread across the Red Line... Endless darkness erupted from the colossal shadow symbolizing the sky... devouring, destroying, a heart-stopping despair... The sky fell into darkness, and flames from hell rose from the earth... Blood transformed into a crimson garment, draped over mountains, plains, hills, and jungles... He soared into the sky, his voice vanished, the world returned to calm, and in the end, only he and I remained in history... Uranus... Uze..."
Listening to Nilek's intermittent voice for a while, and seeing that he wasn't going to continue reading, Buggy finally asked, "What... does this mean?"
"Kindness..."
Nilek pointed very seriously to a certain inscription on the stone tablet, then moved his finger to another inscription, repeating the action, "Here... and here are the inscriptions..."
Buggy asked cautiously, "What's wrong...?"
"These..." Nilek turned to Buggy, "I don't understand any of it..."
Buggy's face froze instantly. He rolled up his sleeves, grabbed Nilek's neck tightly, and roared, "If you don't understand, don't make such confident statements from the start, making me so happy! Haven't you heard that the greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment?!"
"Cough... cough... stop it!!" Although Nilek didn't need to breathe, it had a vocalization device in its neck, and if too much force was used, it would really break it. It struggled to scratch Buggy's wound with both hands. Finally, Buggy let go of its hands, took two steps back, and looked at the other party angrily.
"This way, we have no idea what the higher-ups actually mean. Who knows if you just made this up to appease me!"
"Cough... cough..." After testing the voice-generating device and finding it wasn't broken, Nilek said somewhat aggrievedly, "My memories have always been fragmented and incomplete; much of it has been lost... but everything I said just now was exactly what's written here, absolutely not made up!"
Jess stepped in to smooth things over. "I think Nilek is probably right. It's lived for hundreds of years and knows more than anyone on the Three Gods Island, so it's unlikely to be lying."
Buggy calmed down a bit, let out a breath, and said in a gentler tone, "Okay, I was too impulsive because I was too eager to know what was written on it..."
Seeing Buggy's tone soften, Nilek's voice immediately rose, adopting a self-righteous demeanor. "I was just trying to help you, and you repay kindness with enmity! If it weren't for me, you wouldn't have been able to understand a single word on the stone tablet, you Red Nose bastard, you're such a bastard!"
"Yes, yes..." Buggy replied guiltily. The truth was indeed as Nilek said. He had never intended to understand the text on it. His purpose in coming here was to print the text on the stone tablet onto a rubbing and take it to the Blue Sea. However, Nilek's commotion caused his expectations to be too high, which led to his slight loss of control.
After calming down, Buggy began to carefully recall what Nilek had just said. He looked at the other man and said, "Dog, repeat what you could understand earlier."
Seeing Buggy's serious expression, Nilek stopped fooling around and repeated what it had just said. However, this time it didn't read the text on the stone tablet aloud, and its tone was more fluent. Perhaps it had already memorized the text into its mental database.
From Nilek's words, Buggy could only extract a few familiar words: " Red Line " and " Uranus." The former refers to the largest and most expansive land in the world, while the latter is the Uranus of Ancient Weapon. As for the rest of the sentences, since they were not consecutive, the meanings of the words interspersed in between would vary, resulting in multiple interpretations. Therefore, it was ultimately impossible to decipher what the stone tablet was actually saying.
Of course, based on the above description, it's most likely that Uranus, appeared sometime long ago, Void Century, about 800 years ago. During that time, a world-scale war took place, an unprecedented conflict that lasted a very long time and resulted in countless deaths. However, Uranus eventually disappeared, and the war ended...
What role did Uranus, play in this war? Did the inscription on the stele truly convey the meaning I suspected, or were my thoughts completely contrary to historical truth...?
Buggy didn't know either. The clues on the stone tablet were far too few. Nilek had only translated 30 to 40 percent of the text, and even that wasn't continuous. Under these circumstances, it was extremely difficult to guess what the stone tablet was trying to express.
"I want to make a rubbing of the inscription on this stone tablet and take it to the Blue Sea." Buggy turned to ask Jess for her opinion. After all, she was the owner here, and it wouldn't be appropriate for her to do things on her own.
"It seems Blue Sea has learned scholars..." Jess pondered for a moment. "I have no objection. Although this stone tablet was passed down from my ancestors, it ultimately belongs to the Blue Sea. I can understand you taking the rubbing back to the Blue Sea ... Karma, go and get the paper and ink."
"I understand, God Jess." Karma walked out of the room.
"They've become so easy to talk to..." Nilek muttered, winking. "They wouldn't even let me in before."
"I'm worried about you." Jess heard Nilek's words. "This war is more or less your fault. If it weren't for those mechanical monsters you created, so many warriors wouldn't have died in Divine Forgiveness. You've developed increasingly advanced mechanical technology, satisfying your own vanity, but in the end, it's the islanders of the Three Gods Island who suffer."
"Ignorant and backward!" Nilek retorted without backing down, "Only increasingly convenient tools and technology can make the people of the Sky Island happier. The technology of building houses with stone, advanced medical instruments, armor and longswords, the proper breeding of Skyfoot Chicken, plant cultivation... If it weren't for the technology I provided back then, the Sky Island would never be as prosperous as it is today. What do you, a woman, know!"
Buggy was astonished; this guy seemed to be an architect, a physician, a blacksmith, a breeder, and a botanist...
Jess said calmly, "I won't argue with you. I just hope you can reflect on yourself. The Three Gods Island Three Gods Island doesn't just belong to you; it also represents the hard work of all our ancestors."
Nilek turned his head away. "Tch, what does that have to do with me? I don't have any ancestors."
Jess stopped responding, Nilek remained silent as well. After a while, Karma brought several servants with paper. At Jess's instruction, they splashed ink on the stone tablet. Then, the servants worked together to print the text on the stone tablet onto four separate sheets of paper.
Next, the four sheets of paper were arranged in the order on the stone tablet and handed over to Buggy.
Having obtained what he wanted, Buggy exchanged a few polite words with delight, carefully put away the rubbing, and then the group walked outside.
"Oh, right..."
On the way out of the temple, Buggy suddenly remembered something, turned to Jess and asked, "I want to know, do the people on Sky Island all have an ability called Mantra?"
Jess turned her head, her gaze meeting Buggy's for a moment before she looked away. "There are indeed people on Sky Island who are born with the ability to use Mantra, but not everyone does. Those who are diligent and train hard will find it easier to master the power of Mantra, but most people remain outside the threshold of Mantra... It's not a power that can be mastered casually."
"... Who has the strongest Mantra abilities on this island?" Buggy asked.
"As for the original..." Jess hesitated for a moment before speaking, " Bag's Mantra ability far surpasses everyone else's, and currently the strongest Mantra ability on Sifa Island belongs to my chief priest. However, compared to that, the Mantra ability of the God Plap on Bailie Island is even more powerful and sophisticated. It's just that he was seriously injured in yesterday's battle with Bag and is currently still unconscious..."
Jess sighed, "I wonder if he can dodge death's scythe..."
Buggy asked, " Bailie Island... is that the Sky Island with the arena?"
Jess said, "Yes, it seems you've been there before."
"Was he seriously injured...?" Buggy murmured to himself, pondering as he walked out of the temple with the others.
After hearing Buggy's muttering, Nilek asked, "What do you want, Red Nose?"
Buggy lowered his head and asked, "Doggy, can you contact that Prap?"
"That guy has a family history of bad temper, I don't want to contact him!" Nilek quickly shook his head.
"Don't want to contact... which means you can contact them..." Buggy nodded, already having made up his mind.
As they spoke, the group arrived outside the temple. Cabaji personally took his position, measuring which spot was most suitable for placing the hero statue. He even struck a few cool poses, seemingly oblivious to everyone else. Only after seeing Buggy and the others emerge did he quickly and solemnly return to Buggy's side.
Jess spoke up, "I have some things to take care of. I'll have Karma take you back for me."
"No need to trouble yourself." After making a couple of excuses, Buggy whispered to Cabaji, "Go back now and go to Bailie Island with Kaya. Have Kaya do her best to heal the God Plap. As for how to contact Prap, just ask him." He then pointed to Nilek.
"But Captain Buggy, your injuries..." Although Cabaji didn't know what Buggy was planning, he was more concerned about Captain Buggy's health and was worried about leaving him alone here.
"My injuries are fine..." Buggy said. "We can't delay. That Prap is very important. He's seriously injured right now. The sooner we get there, the better the chance of saving him, understand?"
"I understand!" Cabaji didn't say anything more, glancing at the awkward-looking Nilek. "Let's go!"
Having overheard their conversation, Nilek stammered, "No... no... is that right..."
However, without saying a word, Cabaji picked it up and ran towards the guesthouse.