The scorching sun poured down like molten gold, scorching the desolate desert mercilessly.
The heat wave distorted the horizon, and the air was filled with the suffocating smell of dry dust. In this restricted area of life, two figures were trekking hard - to be precise, one person was trekking hard, while the other seemed to be walking in his back garden.
Mas Hughes felt like his throat was filled with a handful of red-hot sand, and every breath was a torture. His military boots were filled with gravel, and his consciousness was teetering on the edge of dehydration.
On the other hand, Ian·Alvin·Bones, who was walking in front of him, was wearing a black windbreaker that looked extremely abnormal in this temperature. But not only did he not shed a drop of sweat, he even maintained a constant breathing rate.
"Go on."
Ian didn't even look back and threw a Crystal bottle back.
Hughes caught it in a hurry. He didn't even have time to ask what it was. He pulled out the cork and poured it into his mouth.
The moment the liquid hit the taste buds, it didn't have the expected feeling of refreshing water.
"God..." Hughes suddenly stopped and looked ahead with dull eyes, "I... I seem to taste the taste of 'color'?"
The feeling was extremely strange, as if the sense of taste and the visual nerves were confused. Every time a mouthful of liquid slid down the throat, brilliant colors exploded in front of the eyes.
"Doesn't it taste good?" Ian turned around and observed Hughes's physiological reaction with great interest, "Which color do you like best?"
"Green... no, blue. Or is it a mixture of the two?" Hughes shook his head, and the dying thirst disappeared instantly, replaced by energy that filled his body, "What on earth is this?"
"A recovery potion formulated based on the principle of sensory synaesthesia. Personally, I think the green one is a bit too bitter, like chewing raw cactus. The red one is the best." Ian commented calmly.
Hughes, who had regained his energy, immediately revealed his true nature. He took out a carefully sealed photo from his arms and put it in front of Ian:
"Speaking of red, don't you think my Elicia is the cutest when she wears a red skirt? And my wife, she..."
"You've shown me five times in the past three hours." Ian interrupted him expressionlessly.
"So what? I think you are Envy!" Hughes pushed up his glasses with a proud look on his face, "Admit it, a bachelor like you who only studies academics cannot understand the happiness of having a lovely daughter and a gentle wife. This is the biggest lack in your life."
Ian's eyebrows twitched slightly.
In this world, he is indeed alone. But in his Arcane Empire, the size of his "family" is far beyond the imagination of this glasses uncle.
"I'm just focusing on my career for the time being." Ian retorted lightly.
"Excuses, all excuses." Hughes snorted.
Ian stopped and sighed. He decided to end this topic in the simplest and most brutal way.
He took out a magically developed photo from his personal space and handed it to Hughes.
"See clearly. Although you only have one lovely wife, I have five. And each of them is talented and beautiful."
Hughes's mouth slowly opened wide enough to stuff an egg. In the photo, the black-haired young man was surrounded by five women with different temperaments and beautiful looks. That picture was simply a nuclear attack on singles.
"Hmph... scumbag." Hughes held it in for a long time, then gritted his teeth and squeezed out two words, "Shameless behavior of running a harem."
"Oh? Why do I smell a sour smell?" Ian took back the photo and smiled jokingly, "It really smells bad Envy."
Hughes, who was critically hit, decided to shut up for the time being. But he soon discovered that the effect of that bottle of potion was far more than just quenching his thirst. At this time, he felt that his body was filled with some kind of high-energy fuel. Walking in this desert was like walking on flat ground, and even the feeling of hunger was blocked.
This made him more curious about the identity of Ian, but based on the "defeat" just now, he chose to remain silent.
A few days later.
The end of the horizon is finally no longer the monotonous yellow sand, and a majestic and desolate ruins gradually reveal themselves.
The ruins and broken walls look particularly tragic under the erosion of wind and sand, and the huge stone pillars stand like the skeletons of Giant, which vaguely shows the former glory of this place.
"Where is this?" Hughes asked, shocked by the sight in front of him.
"Xerxes."
Ian's voice became deeper, "That ancient kingdom was completely wiped off the map overnight."
"This is the legendary one..." Hughes took a breath.
"That's right, the only one." Ian stepped into the ruins, "We are here to study."
"Study?"
"Looking for the lost wisdom in archeology. But before that..." Ian stopped and cast his gaze at the shadow of a relatively complete broken wall, "We need to deal with a little trouble. Come out, I know you are there."
rustle.
After a slight noise, a group of ragged people walked out of the shadows. They had brown skin and a pair of iconic red eyes.
"Ishvalans?" Hughes subconsciously touched the gun on his waist.
"Amestrians, get out of here! You are not welcome here!" the leading young man, Ishval, shouted sternly, with the flames of hatred burning in his eyes.
Hughes's hand froze, and he lowered his head silently. As a witness of that annihilation war, his hands were stained with too much Ishvalans's blood. He could not argue with this kind of hatred.
Just when the atmosphere was tense, Ian's cold voice sounded:
"First of all, I am Cretans. Don't blame me for the atrocities in that country."
He must maintain this personality to facilitate subsequent layout.
"Secondly, this ruin is about to undergo huge changes. If you can seize this opportunity, perhaps this will be an opportunity for your wandering nation to rise again."
"Rise?" The young man was still full of hostility, but an older Ishvalans behind him held his shoulders.
The elder looked at Ian, a glimmer of hope flashed in his cloudy eyes. "Sir, can you please explain in detail?"
"Want to know? Then follow me."
Ian didn't talk nonsense and walked straight to the central square of the ruins. Hughes and the group of Ishvalans followed after hesitating for a moment.
Standing in the center of the square, Ian stopped.
[Gate of Truth·Projection]
There was no light from Transmutation Circle, and the shadow of a simple yet oppressive door appeared behind him. Then, Ian waved his arm, and the long wand inlaid with Philosopher's Stone slid into his palm.
He pointed the tip of the wand at Void, and Philosopher's Stone emitted a dark red shimmer.
"Echo of Time."
An obscure Dragon Language curse came out of his mouth.
A gray beam of light rose into the sky and hit the Gate of Truth projection behind it. In an instant, a huge Law of Time wave spread like ripples, instantly covering the desert several kilometers in radius.
The next scene completely shattered the world view of Hughes and Ishvalans.
Buzz--
The surrounding space seemed to have been pressed back.
The originally collapsed stone pillars stood up again in a burst of distorted light and shadow, the streets buried by the wind and sand were cleared, and the dilapidated houses restored their appearance hundreds of years ago.
What's even more shocking is that human figures began to appear on the streets.
Those were the residents of Xerxes hundreds of years ago. They wore ancient costumes, walked, talked, and hawked on the streets. The entire dead ruins "came alive" at this moment.
"Is this... blasphemous power?"
Ishvalans fell to his knees in horror and began to pray to their god Ishvala.
"Oh God! Have we traveled through time? Back to 400 years ago?" Hughes's eyes widened and he reached out to touch a passerby passing by, but found that his palm directly penetrated the other person's body.
"Of course not."
Ian looked at the ghosts all over the city and explained calmly:
"This is 'Temporal Imprint'. You can understand it as a holographic video. Everything that has happened in history will leave traces in the long river of time. What I did was to extract this trace and replay it at this coordinate."
This isn't really time travel.
An extremely strict <Time Management Act> was established at the Arcane Empire and Ian. In order to prevent anyone from using Time-Turner to create paradoxes or carry out assassinations, he even set up a special force named "Time Aurors" to monitor the fluctuations of the timeline day and night.
The magic in front of you only refers to "archives" rather than modifying "history".
"So, these are not real? They are just phantoms of the past?" Hughes seemed to understand.
"Yes. But knowledge is real."
Ian turned around and looked at those Ishvalans:
"Although you can't touch them, you can see and listen. Xerxes was once an extremely developed civilization of Alchemy. You can learn their construction technology, irrigation system, desert planting methods, and even lost crafts here."
"For those of you who have nothing, knowledge is the capital of survival."
After saying that, Ian waved his magic wand.
A glowing magic map floated in the air, marking the functional divisions of different areas in the city - the Library, Artisan District, Farming District, and Alchemy Research Institute.
"Go ahead. How much you can learn depends on your own destiny."
Ishvalans looked at each other, and finally the elder bowed deeply to Ian, and led the tribe towards the phantom areas that displayed survival skills.
"What about me?" Hughes pointed at himself.
"You go over there." Ian pointed to the administrative district, "Go and learn their governance philosophy, military deployment, and social management system. As an intelligence officer, these will be useful to you."
After arranging everyone, Ian walked alone to Royal Alchemy Research Institute in the center of the city.
He used the accelerated perspective of magic to quickly read the alchemical history of this ancient civilization. Like a ghost observer, he shuttled around the ancient alchemists, flipping through their notes and observing their experiments.
Finally, he came to that fateful node.
In a dark laboratory, he saw the slave, the man later known as von Hohenheim, and the black mass that had just been born in the flask.
"Dwarf in the Flask".
That was the source of all subsequent turmoil, "Father."
Ian stared at the flask quietly, watching the black substance squirming on the glass wall, inducing the young Hohenheim with the wisdom that did not belong to this dimension.
"Sure enough..."
Ian squinted his eyes, blue light appeared in his pupils Blink.
"The reason why this guy has such profound knowledge of Alchemy since he was born is because its essence comes from part of 'Eye of God'."
That is, the fragment that exists in Gate of Truth.
"The question now is, is this 'Eye of God' an independent dimensional entity, or is it just a side projection of 'Truth'?"
Ian fell into deep thought.
If he can analyze this mechanism, maybe he can make Morgana also connect to the so-called "Eye of God".
Imagine, if Tower Spirit, which has super computing power, is connected to the database containing the universe Truth... what kind of evolution will it be?
"But I have to wait until I get back to my home court."
Ian suppressed the greed and impulse in his heart. Here, the risk is too high to carry out such an action under the nose of Truth.
He took a deep look at that Dwarf in the Flask, turned around and disappeared into the phantom of time.