The size, shape, arrangement, and gaps between each floating stone contain three-dimensional information, but the most crucial element is the Mental Power Field distributed among them. This is the truly extra dimension and the key to three-dimensional encoding.
All the information is contained within these subtle fluctuations in the Mental Power Field. To obtain this information, one cannot simply see it with the eyes; one must use Mental Power to touch it and reconstruct it in the subconscious, which requires extremely strong Mental Power. Furthermore, since there is only a portion of the text here, it must be pieced together with the information seen in the dream to see the complete content.
Ivan didn't know how to analyze three-dimensional codes with his mind, and he wasn't present during the last dimensional expansion in the dream, so he looked up at the floating boulders for a while, feeling nothing but awe at the magnificent sight. Therefore, he only glanced at them a few times before returning his attention to the ground.
Many thin, silvery lines appeared on the ground at some unknown time, as if the tremors of the Soul of Wind had shaken the altar floor into many cracks, which spread out like spider silk, winding and turning back and forth, or as if an artist had drawn on the ground with a fluorescent pen.
People then discovered that, besides the hourglass symbol, the ground was densely covered with many other lines. As the light from the triangular symbol flowed into another triangle, it rippled outward like a stellar storm with the tremors of the Soul of Wind, flowing along the fine engravings and turning into gleaming silver lines.
Mrs. Larry guessed that it was a totem painting from the Huracan Tribe, because she had seen tree and bird totems in the altars of the Sangqi Tribe, but she couldn't tell what was depicted in this painting.
Petru suddenly exclaimed excitedly, "This... this seems to be..."
"What?" Everyone looked at him in surprise.
He watched the silver lines on the ground intently, and only when the last silver line appeared did he take a deep breath and say firmly:
"A map! This is a map!"
What map?
"A nautical chart of the South Pacific Basin, around 150°W, 30°S," Petru said, pointing to the ground with his Soul of Fire. "Look, this is Tubuai Island, this is Rapa Island, and here... and here... these are all the legendary Ghost Island. I personally surveyed these islands in my boat; I won't forget their shapes. Their locations... are exactly as marked on that nautical chart!"
He then pointed to the hourglass marker in the middle, "This is where the triangle marker on the nautical chart is located, but on the chart, there's only one triangle, and its center line extends beyond the chart surface..."
Mrs. Larry stared in shock at the chart on the ground, muttering, "Yes, yes, that's right, Petru, you're right, it's this, it's the nautical chart drawn by Ludwig, oh my god! I..."
She suddenly choked up, as if she had remembered something.
Alice took her arm and whispered, "Madam, you should be happy about this. What Mr. Yeger has been searching for all his life is now right before your eyes!"
"Yes, you're right, I should be happy, but..." the lady said calmly, "why are they here? If these are the ruins of the Gendaya People, why are the Itza People guarding them?...
She asked many questions, but no one could answer them. They were still missing the crucial three-dimensional textual information of the fifth altar. Filling in all the information gaps might reveal the root cause of the conflict between the Itza People and the Gendaya People.
That must have been a war that spanned thousands of light-years, tens of millions of years, transcending the spiritual and the material, and transcending civilizations and races.
Humanity, still unable to leave Earth, is far too insignificant in the face of such a powerful civilization, beyond even our imagination. In our current scientific fantasies, civilization still bears the imprint of metal and machinery, while in the eyes of a more advanced civilization, spaceships and ion cannons may simply be a continuation of steampunk aesthetics.
Humanity a thousand years from now will surely laugh at the imagination of people in this era—transplanting Earth's means of transportation into the universe and thinking it's an advanced form of interstellar travel. This is not fundamentally different from the ancients' fantasy of riding winged horses into the sky.
Building multi-galaxy passages like Ramla, spanning the Milky Way's canyon arms, is what a highly advanced civilization should look like, instead of operating a metal machine, counting down to ten, pressing a red button, and entering light-speed flight mode while spewing exhaust fumes.
No sooner had Mrs. Larry finished speaking than a new change occurred on the ground.
The radiance within that triangle flowed along the central vertical line into another triangle, its light gradually fading while the radiance of the other triangle grew richer and more magnificent, like sand in an hourglass flowing from one sand cone to another.
When the last grain of sand is poured into the cone below, time runs out, and everything stops.
The world fell silent again, and even people's consciousness seemed to cease to function at that moment.
Then, a strange flash occurred in the space, like a television signal suddenly interrupted and then instantly restored. The speed at which human consciousness could transmit information was too fast to react to such a rapid flash, so it only caused a momentary daze.
Then, the Alliance symbol on the ground suddenly rotated 180 degrees, the two triangles swapped positions, and the light flowed again, from the full triangle to the empty one.
Time started again, and the Soul of Wind trembled once more, making a thumping sound.
The tornado that had just been sucked into the ground rose up again, ascending along the Soul of Wind and transforming into a giant dragon. The Wind Dou opened a huge mouth in the sky, engulfing all the floating boulders.
The boulders began to slowly rotate within the wind tunnel and converge outwards, forming a circular meteorite belt. Only the drum-shaped stone remained in the very center, facing the Soul of Wind on the ground, spinning and emitting a dazzling light.
Time flows slowly in the hourglass.
The patterns on the ground were also changing: the originally dark ground between the islands outlined by those silvery lines began to surge like the sea, and a thin mist suddenly rose from the ground, which was swirled by the wind and formed a huge cloud covering the entire bottom of the altar, like a typhoon cloud image taken by satellite.
The Soul of Wind passed through the eye of the typhoon, like a pillar standing between heaven and earth, supporting the drum-shaped boulder in the sky.
The boulder was spinning faster and faster, emitting a brighter and brighter light, as bright as a star.
Most of the surrounding stones had already gathered into a circle, with only a few still revolving around the glowing drum-shaped boulder on different tracks.
Qingmu counted them; there were exactly eight, some large and some small, reflecting different colors of light as they spun rapidly.
With eight planets and the Kuiper Belt, is this a model of the Solar System?
But through this model of the Solar System, one can see that a real Sun still hangs in the sky. This means that there are now two Sun inside the altar. Qingmu couldn't help but think of the three Sun outside the altar, but he wondered what their appearance would be like now.
The stars hang in the sky, and the wind and clouds sweep across the land.
The ground was transformed into a holographic projection, with surging waves crashing against the reefs. The island, spanning tens of square kilometers, resembled a leaf in a flood during the typhoon.
Petru suddenly pointed to a black dot below the clouds and said, "My ship!"
Qingmu looked in the direction he pointed and saw a lone boat floating on the sea. The sails on the two masts were billowing in the wind, like two cloth bags. The shape of the boat did resemble Petru's two-masted sailing ship.
At that moment, a black line appeared on the horizon, like the horizon of night slowly moving in, or like the shadow cast by dark clouds on the earth, threatening to cover the altar.
Situ suddenly shouted, "It's the Stasis Spacetime Zone! Run!"