Read Hero of Hearts Chapter 7485
Chapter 7485 An Eye-Opening Experience
The moment this question crossed Charlie’s mind, he already had the answer in his heart.
Although he did not know exactly when the Dharma-Ending Age began, based on Master Meng’s experience, the Dharma-Ending Age had already arrived when he attained enlightenment.
Therefore, the cultivators who built this underground city must have lived before, or even long before, the Linde era of the Tang Dynasty.
If so, the history of this square pagoda must be older than the Big Wild Goose Pagoda.
Based on what he saw during his spiritual journey through Chang’an, the Great Wild Goose Pagoda was built by Xuanzang and many other monks for the Tang Dynasty. So why were they built in the shape of a square pagoda like the previous ones? Was it a replica, or perhaps a matter of faith?
If this square pagoda was a kind of totem of cultivators before the Dharma-Lattering Age, then the motivation of cultivators in the Dharma-Lattering Age to build the identical Great Wild Goose Pagoda in Chang’an City is understandable.
When the Dharma-Ending Age arrives, the final group of cultivators before the Dharma-Ending Age will split into at least two sects. One sect will choose to cultivate diligently during the Dharma-Ending Age, while the other will migrate to the Antarctic continent, viewing it as the final gateway to spiritual ascension.
Or perhaps, only the highest-ranking cultivators from the final group were entitled to come here for the final battle, while the rest were essentially abandoned.
Although they were abandoned by the last group of cultivators attempting to ascend to higher realms, they did not give up. They continued to cultivate diligently in the world of the Dharma-Ending Age, and even showed concern for all living beings. This is why they worked together to build the Great Wild Goose Pagoda and forge the Four Directions Treasure Banner, a powerful feng shui artifact that could influence the fate of a nation.
Charlie jumped down from the cave entrance and landed gently on the square plaza below, which was a hundred feet wide. Looking up at the square pagoda, he felt that the building was solemn and majestic.
When Charlie reached the bottom of the square, he discovered that the space here was much more than just a square. Hidden around the square was an underground city with a ceiling height of about five zhang (about 10 meters) and a depth of at least three kilometers, covering nearly ten square kilometers in circumference. Various ancient houses and buildings stood in the city, and the layout was very orderly. There were four main roads leading to the square, and the Four-Sided Pagoda was the central core area of the entire square.
What Charlie didn’t understand was that this underground city was completely suspended in the rock layers, and no visible structures were in contact with the surface. Considering the geological and physical characteristics, building such a massive underground city wasn’t impossible, but it would require a comprehensive and extremely robust support system.
Just like the underground parking garages of large shopping malls, there must be numerous load-bearing columns to prevent the roof from collapsing. Furthermore, this kind of basement is not a building. The roof of the building is made of cast-in-place reinforced concrete slabs, which have strong integrity and stability and will not break, collapse, or fall. But here, everything is rock. Normally, without support, the rock would gradually break and collapse. But here, without any support or protection, the rock can be firmly supported without any damage. This is truly remarkable.
Charlie guessed that even cultivators couldn’t defy the laws of physics, so there must be some kind of formation here that acted as support and restraint.
An underground city covering nearly ten square kilometers would require at least 100,000 load-bearing pillars by modern engineering standards, and its lifespan would likely be only a few decades. However, this place could replace those 100,000 load-bearing pillars with solar panels and operate stably for thousands of years. The energy output from these solar panels would undoubtedly be enormous.
Charlie was very surprised and subconsciously wanted to explore this underground city, so he chose the main road and stepped forward.
As you step out of the square and into the ancient streets, everything around you feels like a meticulously crafted modern film and television set. Everything is sleek, beautiful, and even looks brand new, as if it had just been built.
Apart from that, there is absolutely no trace of anyone ever living here.
Charlie also cautiously tried to push open one of the courtyard gates. It was unlocked, and there was no lock at all. There wasn’t even a simple bolt.
The courtyard was about two or three hundred square meters in size, not particularly large, but it lacked any living facilities. There was no water basin for washing clothes, no stone mill for grinding grain, no pen for raising poultry, and not even a well. The courtyard was paved with smooth, clean, and simple blue bricks, and there was nothing else.
Beyond the courtyard lies a row of three rooms. The main room has no tables or chairs, but is covered with a beautifully woven rattan mat. There are several round cushions on top of the rattan mat, apparently specifically used for meditation.
What’s even more peculiar is that the two side rooms on the left and right aren’t bedrooms in the traditional sense. The left side room looks more like a secluded cultivation practice room, while the right side room contains a handmade crib and several wooden toys made by a carpenter.
Charlie suspected that almost everyone living here, except for the newborns, had reached a very advanced state of fasting. They didn’t need to eat or drink, nor did they need to use the toilet, so there wasn’t even a kitchen or toilet in the courtyard.
Another amazing thing is that all the rooms are illuminated by a spiritual light source, so even without sunlight, it feels like daytime. As long as you don’t look up at the ceiling, you’ll barely feel like you’re underground.
It is as if the entire underground city relies on the same, extremely powerful system to operate, and that system is like a power plant that supplies the city’s energy needs, continuously providing energy for the city.
What was even stranger was that there were no cultivation-related items in the room, no pills, no magical artifacts, and no visible Cultivation Techniques, which was completely different from Bolin’s speculation.
Charlie visited several separate, similar pages, but the results were the same. Instead of pills, magic tools, and cultivation techniques, he didn’t even see a box of pills.
But Charlie didn’t quite understand. He couldn’t fathom where everyone here had gone. If the cultivators who failed their tribulations or didn’t reach them died here, they couldn’t have buried all their belongings with them, could they?
Even if their descendants buried them and their belongings, what about the last group of cultivators? Surely they wouldn’t be able to take care of their own belongings anymore? But there were no personal belongings used for cultivation to be seen anywhere, making it seem as if they had left in an orderly manner rather than as if they had endured to the end.
After visiting several courtyards, Charlie sat down on a futon in a room within one of them. He practiced his mental cultivation technique to continuously refine the Qi within his body. The constant flow of Qi from the outside world broadened his mind’s horizons. Given his size, it was like having a car guarded by an inexhaustible oil field.
Cultivation in this environment would be dozens of times faster than in the outside world during the Era of Dharma Decline. Master Meng would only reach the Foundation Establishment realm after a thousand years, but if a child born here had such powerful Qi as support, plus the guidance of those great cultivators, it would probably only take about a dozen years.
In this underground city, besides the courtyards of each household, there were institutions similar to schools and government offices, and even a place called the Medicine King Hall. In the center of the Medicine King Hall’s main hall, there was not a statue of a god, but a giant alchemy furnace two zhang tall. Charlie could sense that the alchemy furnace itself was definitely a magical artifact.
This was the only magical artifact Charlie had found in the underground city so far. So, while stroking the alchemy furnace, he tried to channel his spiritual energy into it. This effort was quite extraordinary. It felt like throwing a pebble into a heavenly pond. His spiritual energy couldn’t even sense its vastness.
However, Charlie sensed that the pill furnace was an integral part of the entire Medicine King Hall, with an extremely magnificent internal formation. If he wanted to use it to refine pills, not to mention how potent the resulting pills would be, the Qi required to operate the pill furnace would probably be astronomical for someone of his cultivation level.
If the medicinal cauldron I obtained from Hong Changqing was a 2,000-watt household rice cooker, then this alchemy furnace was a smelting furnace for refining steel, which was completely beyond my ability to operate.
Charlie even felt that this alchemy furnace wasn’t a personal magical tool for the natives here, but rather a production center for providing pills for the entire underground city. Perhaps such an alchemy furnace would require dozens, or even hundreds, of top experts working together to operate it!