"Is there any way for us to obtain these texts now?" Qingmu was very persistent about the dark spots, feeling that the information hidden within them was crucial.
Mrs. Larry shook her head and said, "We know nothing about the construction techniques used for this altar; it's technology from a time before civilization." She then looked at Situ, "Perhaps Mr. Stone could think of a solution from a physics perspective."
Situ walked up the stone steps until he had circled the altar completely before saying, "I'm afraid it will be very difficult, unless we can find the distribution pattern of these stones in the air, or know the principle that makes them float, and calculate where they should hover based on the shape and mass of each stone. But this is even more difficult than expanding dimensions in the spiritual world, because we have no grasp of the physical laws of this space at all."
Qingmu looked up at the sky. It seemed that only when a strange phenomenon appeared in the sky would he be able to see the true face of those words. But there were no more Itza People left. If a crisis occurred, without the guidance of the natives, whether he could escape was a question.
Su Huilan said, "Let's ignore that for now and go check out the center point."
Qingmu pointed to the drum-shaped stone in the center of the altar and told the Crow to fly over and wait. Then, everyone quickly found the place by following the sound of the Crow.
Mrs. Larry squatted down and examined the area carefully, then said, "There are marks on the ground; this is the spot. We need to move this big rock."
"I'll do it."
Petru rolled up his sleeves and started pushing the stone. But the stone was very heavy, and he couldn't budge it no matter how hard he tried. Ivan, Qingmu, and Situ joined in, and Crow even stood on top of the stone shouting "Go for it!" But the stone seemed to be rooted to the ground and remained motionless.
"There must be some trick to it! The Itza People wouldn't put an immovable stone here," Mrs. Larry said.
Alice suddenly had a whimsical thought, "Could it be related to the Sacred Staff?"
Qingmu's heart skipped a beat. He and Situ looked at Duwa at the same time, because this was the Altar of Wind, and the Soul of Wind was in Duwa's hands. Duwa already understood and raised the Soul of Wind in his hand.
The air currents in the altar space suddenly began to swirl, and a gale swept up from the flat ground, howling through the crevices and openings of the stones. The wind blew against the stone in gusts, slowly turning into a small, visible tornado that circled around it.
The tornado gradually grew larger, engulfing the entire rock in its winds, and its upward-facing gusts opened up, covering the entire altar.
Crow cawed and emerged from the wind, hopping with a whoosh onto Qingmu's head. It flapped its wings against its chest and cried out:
"That scared the crow to death!"
Seeing that Qingmu remained unmoved, it tapped Qingmu's head with its paw again, "Hey, wood, I almost got swept up into the sky! There's a space over there where birds can disappear!"
Qingmu ignored him, and no one paid attention to the Crow's appearance. Even Hanran stared wide-eyed at the stone in the wind.
The Crow grumbled in dissatisfaction, "You fat cat!"
The stone slowly lifted off the ground and spun steadily in the center of the tornado, like a meteorite floating in the Kuiper Belt.
Su Huilan was trying to determine whether this was a hallucination or reality. If it was merely the influence of the Soul of Wind's power on a person's mind and the picture, then the stone hadn't actually moved, making it meaningless. If the stone had moved, then there were two possibilities: one was that the Soul of Wind's power could affect not only the mind but also matter; otherwise, everything seen before the wind arose was merely a matter of the spiritual world.
She went to look at Qingmu and Situ and saw that they also had confused expressions on their faces, so she knew that her guess was correct.
The stone floated to a certain position in the air and then stopped moving.
The wind was still blowing, but there was no sand or dust, so it didn't obstruct people's vision. A familiar pattern appeared on the ground where the stone had originally been—a triangle with two connected vertices.
The symbol was carved into the ground, and some material was inlaid in the engravings, making it look like jade with a luster. Only the dot in the middle was black, as black as a hole.
Duwa stepped into the wind, holding the Soul of Wind in his hand. If the wind stopped at that moment, the floating boulder above would crash down, a sight that sent shivers down one's spine.
She slowly squatted down and stroked the symbol on the ground with her hand. The lines of the symbol faintly glowed white, especially the vertical line in the middle, as if some kind of radiance flowed within it.
Her finger stopped at the apex where the two triangles met, as if she were thinking about something. Then she picked up the scepter in her hand, gestured with it, and inserted one end of the scepter into the hole.
The Soul of Wind wasn't a perfectly regular cylinder, but it fit the hole perfectly, as if it was meant to grow there.
The moment it pierced through the air, the tornado that had been raging above the altar suddenly stopped.
The world was silent, the air seemed to freeze, and people unconsciously held their breath, as if time itself had stopped.
After an unknown amount of time, the Soul of Wind trembled violently. Then, the symbols on the ground shone brightly, and some dazzling, flowing light, like mercury, slowly flowed from one triangle along the central vertical line to another.
One by one, the stones on the ground floated up, just like when the giant moon descended upon the Sangqi Tribe. They hovered in the air, blocking the sunlight and casting huge shadows. Sunlight filtered through the cracks in the stones, casting many bright spots on the ground. These bright spots shimmered and changed, like the enchanting light and shadow on a stage.
Once all the stones had left the ground and found their respective positions in the air, the spots of light on the ground stabilized.
Mrs. Larry exclaimed excitedly, "That's it! That's it! The ground is a projection, but the space formed by these stones in the sky is the real three-dimensional text, a three-dimensional code carrying a wealth of information. Use your minds, just like in your dream last time, and you'll be able to understand it!"
Qingmu knew what it was when he saw the spots of light on the ground. When he looked up and saw the floating stone array and the sunlight shimmering between the stones, his mind exploded like the Big Bang. Then he saw countless stars and huge nebulae.
The information I saw during the dimensional expansion in my dream reappeared. Many of the dark spots had been filled in, but many areas remained completely black.
What puzzled Qingmu was that they had already obtained the 3D codes for four altars, leaving only the Altar of Ice of the Chayak Tribe. However, judging from the image, the remaining dark spots still covered more than one-fifth of the area, and there were many double images and blurry areas in the starry sky, as if an old canvas had been patched up.
Could there be a sixth altar? Or did they make a mistake when they expanded the dimensions of the text in their dream?
However, this did not affect the reading of information. Qingmu saw the scene of Gaia's birth once again, saw her extending the tentacles of her consciousness to every corner of the Milky Way, saw the growth of the Gendaya Civilization, saw the destruction of the Gendaya Civilization and the scene of the Itza People destroying the Mental Power Field.
The information he saw this time was much more complete than the last, but Qingmu still didn't know where the Itza People came from, or where their god, who was an enemy of Gaia, came from.
The radiance within the symbols on the ground continues to flow, from one triangle to another.
Ivan suddenly exclaimed, "Look, what's this?"