A Place to Return To
The space behind the door was larger than he could see from the outside. After the Dragon Shadow's shadow unfolded inside the door, the light spread and covered the entire space, revealing a long, narrow main hall. The ceiling was higher than the entrance, like a large space dug deep into the seabed. The air was dry, and the temperature was slightly higher than the upper level, as if it were kept within a certain range by stable geothermal heat.
The main hall's floor was paved with the same smooth, seamless stone as the dragon's base, as if cast from a single piece. At regular intervals along the walls on either side were shallow, vertical grooves, their width matching the grooves Long Tian had seen in the long corridor. He stood in the center of the main hall for a while, the Dragon Shadow's shadow spreading along the walls, illuminating the length of the hall segment by segment. At the end, the wall narrowed to the same end face as the entrance, with a long, horizontally placed stone platform embedded in its center. The platform, made of the same material as the main hall's floor, was about two arm's lengths long, one arm's width wide, and knee-high. Its surface was flat, without carvings or markings, like a platform placed there awaiting use.
Long Tian walked to the stone platform, squatted down, and placed his palm on its surface. The aura of the Origin Return Pearl spread along the surface of the stone, evenly covering the entire surface. The surface of the stone began to show a fine texture segment by segment along the area covered by his palm. The texture was evenly arranged, as if it had been regularly carved with some kind of fine tool, and converged into a circular mark in the center area. The edge of the mark was surrounded by a ring of teeth, and the outline was consistent with all the marked discs that Long Tian had seen before.
He withdrew his hand, stood up, and took a step back. The texture on the surface of the stone platform did not disappear after the aura was withdrawn; it gradually faded after a few breaths, returning to its original uniform base color. Yu Jin walked over from behind to his side, squatted down to look at the fading texture, reached out and felt the texture of the stone platform at the edge, and when he withdrew his hand, there was nothing sticking to his fingertips.
Long Tian walked around the main hall. The shallow grooves on the walls revealed further details under the light—each groove's inner wall had a fine line matching the pattern on the base of the Dragon Bone Marker Disc. He stopped by the north wall of the main hall and saw a vertical groove, identical in width and depth to the shallow grooves in the long wall chamber. The bottom of the groove was not covered by a layer, directly exposing the underlying dark gray stone. He crouched down, took the thin piece from his pouch, and smoothly pushed it into the groove, letting it fall to the bottom without any movement.
After the thin sheet fell into the groove, a continuous change began to appear on the floor of the main hall—starting from the entrance, the color of the stone on the floor gradually deepened, like a slowly injected dye layer advancing along the surface, moving at a uniform and steady speed, stopping after covering the entire floor of the main hall. At the same moment, the texture on the surface of the stone platform lit up again, spreading from the edges to the center. After the circular mark in the central area lit up to a certain brightness, a continuous layer of light began to appear in the air around the stone platform, like a transparent film rising from the surface of the stone platform and covering the entire area where the stone platform was located. The thickness of the light layer was uniform, similar to the shape of the diaphragm of the air chamber of the keel base.
Long Tian stood before the layer of light, not daring to step across rashly. He crouched down and observed the edge of the light layer for a moment, then reached out to sense the changes in the surrounding air and temperature near the surface. Only after confirming that its state was stable did he step across the edge of the light layer and walk towards the stone platform. The light layer did not react as he passed through, like a barrier pre-programmed to automatically allow passage. He stopped in front of the stone platform, looking down at the texture and central mark on its surface, which maintained a uniform brightness in the continued stillness.
He stretched out his hand and placed his palm on the circular mark in the center of the stone platform. The pulse of the Origin Return Pearl circled the edge of the mark, and the energy flowed smoothly between the teeth. During the flow, it synchronized with the Imperial Seal that had already been integrated into his body. After the synchronization was completed, the gently sloping transition layer inside the Origin Return Pearl began to slowly adjust its slope along its surface. The new core also completed a continuous acceleration of its pulse during the synchronization.
As the breath traveled along the tooth-like patterns on the stone platform, the textures began to light up segment by segment, starting from the center and spreading towards the edges of the platform. After the entire surface was fully illuminated, the stone platform slowly began to sink downwards along its axis at a uniform speed, like a precisely balanced device being guided into a predetermined fixed position. Once the stone platform was fully in place, its top surface was level with the ground, and the spot where the stone platform had been placed became a plane at the same height as the ground. A new mark appeared in the center of the plane—a circular groove about two feet in diameter, with smooth edges, without any tooth-like patterns or engravings, as if it had been reserved to support an object of a fixed size.
Long Tian stood at the edge of the groove, guiding the aura of the Origin Return Pearl into its interior. The aura circled the edge of the groove once before stopping, as if it had completed its connection and was awaiting the final trigger. He withdrew the aura, squatted down at the edge of the groove, placed his palm against the bottom, and confirmed its size and depth once more. Then, he guided the now completely fused Imperial Seal along the path from the pearl's center to his palm, allowing the light layer to continuously fill the groove. After filling it layer by layer, a continuous light began to emanate from the bottom of the groove, its color more uniform than any before. It covered the entire bottom of the groove and continued upwards, stopping at the edge. The pillar of light did not dissipate after rising; it maintained its position in continuous suspension, like a marker maintaining its brightness in a fixed space, waiting for the moment to be read after completing its necessary step.