The Forest

After the incident had been resolved, it was less than half and hour before the train was back on the move. Thankfully, the delay was not significant enough to warrant any major changes to their schedule. They would simply be checking into the hotel a couple hours later than expected. For this, Professor Bai heaved a sigh of relief.

Lin Yuchen also heaved a sigh of relief, since the only one who had caught him in such an easy-to-misunderstand situation was arguably one of the least liked people on the trip. If that guy ever opened his mouth, no one would listen to him, he told himself.

That evening, he wanted to drink away his stress. These past few months, he had climbed in the world at a fairly agreeable pace, and a lot had changed. But one thing that hadn't changed was his love of booze; in fact, the thought that the higher he climbs, the farther he has to fall only made the idea of spending the evening at the bar even more attractive.

He walked into the bar and ordered a pot of wine. Apparently a ton of other people had the same idea, because the cabin was quite crowded. There were no empty tables, so he had no choice but to intrude upon someone else's party. He found an empty seat at a table where a few students were having an animated conversation with some soldiers.

As he sat down, he scanned the faces of the others, but didn't recognize any of them. He also found out that their loud conversation was more of an argument.

"Come on, now," one of the students said, gesturing violently, "There was no need to kill that beast. It's an endangered species. Imagine you have been forced out of your home by a terrible war, so you travel north for thousands of miles just to get killed because you wanted to cross the railroad!"

"He's right," another said, "That's just not right. The beast wasn't hurting anyone."

"Should have just stopped the train and let it pass. No need to fire upon the thing!"

These must be the botany students, Lin Yuchen thought. He was right. Even though their specialty was plants, they apparently knew a lot about animals, too.

The first student then took out a book and opened it to a certain page. It contained a large photo of a giant centipede similar to the one they had encountered earlier, accompanied to the left by several blocks of dense text.

"You see this? It says experts estimate less than 30 individuals are still alive. And you just killed one. At this rate, the species will go extinct at man's hands. Won't that be a shame?"

Finally, one of the soldiers put down his cup and opened his mouth. "Good riddance, too. It's a terrifying monster. This world would be safer without them."

"Yeah," the other soldier chimed in, "The thing was so giant it could have killed all of us. And it was ferocious. If we hadn't shot at it first, it would have gotten busy destroying the train!"

"That's bullshit!" the botany student cried, slamming his hand to the table and causing some of Yuchen's wine to spill, "You were planning on killing it from the beginning. How did you know it was going to attack, huh?"

"How do you know it wouldn't attack? In one motion, it could have destroyed the engine. You wanna take that risk?"

"You're trigger happy. All you soldiers are. You're blood-thirsty."

"Yeah! Murderers!" Another botany student was showing off a fist.

"You really wanna fight here, bro?" the soldier's voice was calm, if slightly louder, "I've trained in martial arts since I was three. That's a fight you'd lose."

"Yeah, you cultivate weapons because you're too stupid to cultivate knowledge."

"What a little bitch," the soldier said, "We saved your skin. You ought to be thanking us."

Then he and his friend got up, nearly knocking their chairs over, and left.

The whole showdown left a taste in Professor Lin's mouth that was bitterer than the wine. Saying nothing, he drained his pot quickly and waddled back to his sleeping cabin, where he promptly passed out.

The next few days passed as quickly as a dream. Before they knew it, the train was coming to a stop at a tiny, cheap-looking station in what seemed to be an incredibly remote village. Apparently this village, surrounded by endless miles of heavy woods, was home to only a couple hundred people, most of them hunters and forestry workers.

The arrival of a team from the Imperial University was naturally the talk of the town, so as the party was walking down the central road (the only paved road there), they were met with an abundance of stares, some friendly, others unmistakably hostile. The inn was located next to a medium-sized temple, and was the only modern-looking building in the village besides the train station. Yes, it was built and owned by the Xie corporation.

"Wow, this place is drab, isn't it. You think it even has running water?" A shrill voice made itself heard.

When Lin Yuchen looked over, he wasn't surprised to see that it belonged to Xie Cai.

Qiu Shujie had the misfortune of being next to him at the time. Totally not planned.

"Since your father owns the place, shouldn't you be a little bit more proud of it?" she said with a cold laugh.

"Only because it means I get to sleep under the same roof as you."

She slowed down for a moment, trying to get closer to him. Then, at the last second, she stuck out her foot, causing him to trip and smash his face onto the cobblestone road. The laughter came pouring down on him like a waterfall, drenching him in shame. Professor Lin laughed, too. What a clown, he thought.

After everyone had gotten settled into their rooms, Professor Bai called for a meeting to discuss the plan.

"Since there are still several hours of daylight left today, it would be a waste of time not to go and check out the site," he said, clearing his throat, "But first, let me give everyone a quick introduction. You may have noticed that we consulted no Diviners before coming here. That is because this location and its value is already known, and is simply waiting to be uncovered. Some surface-level ruins were found by local hunters a few decades ago, but we have only just now gotten around to given them the attention they are due. They most likely are hiding several entrances to larger and more elaborate structures that extend underground (from which World, we do not yet know), and that is why we are here today..."

He went on in that vein for a while, stuttering more than normal. When he finally finished, they--the archeology students and a team of soldiers--all set off into the forest. Since the forest was such a large part of the local industry, there was already a network of narrow trails that must have gone on for miles. Due to their narrowness, the hike would prove to be very crowded, but the vigilant blanket of leaves and branches overhead, combined with an unusually pleasant breeze, made it much more comfortable than most of them had originally estimated.

The forest was quite beautiful, too. The late-afternoon sun was casting curious shadows on the grassy floor, while also painting the place with a warm, welcoming palette of colors. Ferns and shrubs grew thick and sported luscious leaves, and vines, robed in vivid greens, crept patiently up bubbly tree trunks. Once they had gotten a good ways away from the village, the whole place seemed to glow with a magical aura.

It took about forty-five minutes to reach the clearing where the ruins were said to be located. There the trees became markedly less dense, but the ground was coated in a layer of grass that came up to about one's waist. A few feet away, bruised stone pillars and mangled archways were jutting out of the ground, along with a labyrinthine collection of stone blocks of various sizes and shapes. Clearly, they had just stepped into an ancient, man-made world; even so, the entire scene was arranged with such naturalness that it did not seem at all out of place in the middle of the forest.

As the others were still filing into the clearing, Professor Lin found himself staring at one of the pillars. It looked like marble, and in its heyday it must have been nearly a perfect cylinder, though now it was chipped here and there and scuffed all over.

"Quite a sight, huh? These ancient ruins," a voice startled him.

Not knowing whether it was directed to him or someone else, Professor Lin turned around and saw Professor Kang, a closed notebook in one hand, looking directly at him.

"Yes, quite a sight."

"They are quite stylish too. Which World do you reckon produced these?"

Professor Lin turned back towards the clumps of granite as though preparing some genius answer for him. But to tell the truth, he didn't have the slightest clue. Ruins simply weren't his specialty; he had only been to a few over his short career. And never before had he really been trained to identify them.

As far as ruins go, they are incredibly rare, and most are discovered by lucky accident. The vast majority of Artifacts are simply caught in caves or other underground deposits. Less commonly, entire structures full of Artifacts survived the transmigration. Such structures are technically Artifacts as well, but the chances of them appearing so in-tact and near the surface like this are incredibly low. For that reason, each one was almost guaranteed to harbor considerable treasure.

"You tell me," was his long-awaited reply.

"Well, if you look closely at the capitals and grooves of these pillars, you will find features that were only current in the mid to late neoclassical era of the Fourth World," he explained in a very matter-of-fact tone.

"Yeah, I knew that," Lin Yuchen narrowed his eyes.

"Really?" Kang clapped twice. "Professor Bai was smart to bring you along."

Without a word more, he walked away with the gait of a king. Professor Lin wasn't planning on replying anyway.

They were all getting out the shovels to start digging, when suddenly a certain voice alerted them all to the presence of something unexpected. A crowd quickly gathered at a spot near a hilly recess which was well hidden by a couple of trees. There a circular hole about four feet in diameter opened up beside a number of stone bits.