The Cursed Twin Towers
In the distance, two towering black towers could be seen, their spires piercing the clouds.
The two sides of the road were lined with parents with children. The rich would drive a hover car while the poor would carry their children on foot. Those who were neither rich nor poor would drive carriages or hover motorcycles.
The closer they got to the twin towers, the more pedestrians there were. They all had the same goal, their eyes brimming with anticipation.
"These children are being taken away to exchange for special abilities at such a young age?" Xia Fei asked in surprise. On the way, he saw many children who were not even a year old. The oldest was only two or three years old, and many were still in swaddling clothes.
According to the rules of the Alliance, children had to wait until they were seven years old to cultivate the Astral Mantra. If they had not developed a special ability by the age of twelve, they could use the child-type gene optimization fluid that did little harm to the body, but there were not many such cases. The majority of parents would wait until their children reached adulthood before trying the drug.
This was done out of consideration for the children's health. In the Blood Candle Kingdom, children who were only a few months old were sent away to develop their special abilities, and this was done in exchange for their bodies. Even if they obtained a special ability, they would lose some of their bodily functions. In Xia Fei's view, this was no different from pulling up seedlings to help them grow.
Constantine helplessly said, "Blood Candle is a barbaric place. Many children have to earn money to support their families the moment they learn how to walk. The pressure of life is unimaginable to outsiders. Thus, the earlier they develop their special abilities, the earlier they can learn how to use them, the earlier they can earn money to buy food and daily necessities for their families. Even the children of the imperial family are required to be sent to the Cursed Tower before they are two years old."
Xia Fei nodded. In the face of pressure, there was no distinction between young and old. Even the tender shoulders had to bear the burden of life.
The ground began to sink. The two towers were located in a basin, like a crater created by a meteor.
The tower was surrounded by an alloy wall, and the material was naturally the most common Magnared alloy. Countless tents were set up outside the wall, and many parents brought their children to live in the open. A few stones made a simple stove, and the weeds and withered trees in the wilderness were used as firewood.
"Because there are many people who want to enter the Cursed Tower, it doesn't matter. The commoners who can't afford the offerings will line up here. If you're lucky, you can enter in three to five days, but if you're unlucky, you'll have to wait ten-some days or even a month or two," Constantine explained.
A special path led to the inside of the wall. Constantine and Xia Fei swaggered in amidst the salutes and gazes of countless citizens.
Getting out of the car, Xia Fei noticed that there was a long queue in front of one of the towers, while the other one was deserted. The stairs leading to the tower were covered in a thick layer of dust, and it was obvious that no one had visited it for a long time.
"You never said that there are two Cursed Towers. Why is there no one in this tower, but there's a long queue in the other tower?"
As soon as he said that, he heard excited cheers. A child who had just turned one year old threw a fireball and burned his father's hair. However, the father was not angry at all. He held the child and danced. He shouted proudly to the crowd, "This is my son! He got the Fire Arcana! "
There was no need to mention how excited he was. Many envious gazes were cast on him. As everyone watched, the father carried his son and ran out. He even bowed politely when he passed by Xia Fei and Constantine. Xia Fei realized that his son's left ear was gone, as if it had been cut off at the root as if it had been surgically removed.
Constantine smiled. "Another lucky fellow. His son has a combat-type ability and can enter the army in the future. If he's lucky, he can even become an officer, and the fate of this family will be completely changed."
Xia Fei shrugged. He had carefully studied it and realized that the people of Blood Candle truly could reach a very good level by exchanging their bodies for abilities. Blood Candle had many Star Domain rank warriors, but alas, there was not a single Legendary rank warrior in all of Blood Candle. Their rank would stop at the Star River rank, and as for the higher Eternal rank, they simply did not exist.
The Alliance would give birth to an Immortal rank expert every few years, but Blood Candle did not even have a single Legendary rank. From this, one could see that exchanging abilities allowed Blood Candle to have the highest rate of ability usage, but it also greatly reduced the number of experts they produced. One could even say that they did not have any experts at all and relied on teamwork.
"You still haven't answered my question," Xia Fei asked.
Constantine replied, "Of the two towers, one can be exchanged for abilities while the other can be exchanged for technology. You can only choose one. If you enter the ability tower, you won't be able to enter the tower of technology. In the eyes of the people of Blood Candle, ability is naturally more important, so the tower of technology hasn't been opened for many years."
"The tower of technology? You also need to exchange your body to enter it? "Xia Fei curiously asked.
"That's right. No tower has a one hundred percent chance of success. Obtaining an ability is one thing, and cultivating that ability to a certain level is another. If a child chooses the Tower of Technique and doesn't obtain any technology, it will be a disaster for the poor people of Blood Candle. The child's life will be ruined."
"After all, even the weakest ability, even if it's just one percent of the seventh brain region opened, it will make a person a little smarter, a little longer, and a little stronger. Don't underestimate this little bit of improvement. In the desolate Blood Candle, this little bit is enough to determine a person's fate, so very few people are willing to take the risk of becoming cripples to enter the tower of technology."
Xia Fei nodded. Cultivating an ability was not simple. The majority of people in the Alliance had an ability and had their seventh brain region opened, though there were differences in the degree to which it was opened. For someone to completely open their seventh brain region like Xia Fei was definitely a miracle. The majority of people obtained abilities that were dispensable, and they would never be able to reach a certain level in their entire lives. If abilities were that easy to cultivate, the Alliance would have long since been filled with ability warriors.
"Your repair skills are quite good. You must have obtained them from the tower of technology, correct?" Xia Fei asked.
Constantine replied, "Correct. Although very few people enter the tower, it's not like there aren't any. There was once a family that sent their child in, and he ended up becoming an expert in repair. My skills came from a book that he wrote before he died. Alas, my royal father doesn't like things outside of combat, and I ended up getting a good scolding from him for studying this book."
As the two spoke, they walked toward the tower where abilities were exchanged. Based on Xia Fei's estimates, this tower was more than two thousand meters tall and looked very majestic.
As they walked along the perimeter of the tower, Xia Fei noticed something strange. This tower was not made of the Magnared Alloy commonly seen in Blood Candle, but the even more precious Kro Alloy. Back then, Celestial Moon had been made of this Kro Alloy. It had the ability to strengthen thought transmissions and was most suited to mental type ability users. Such a massive tower would require an astonishing amount of Kro Alloy, but Xia Fei had never heard of Blood Candle producing this alloy in large quantities.
There were many lines on the tower, and these complex designs would make one dizzy. Xia Fei had no idea what they were trying to convey, but they were definitely not designs commonly seen in Blood Candle. This was a desolate place, and the people of Blood Candle liked nothing more than horses and cheetahs. Xia Fei had never seen such abstract lines in the imperial city.
"Who built these two towers?" Xia Fei asked with a frown.
Constantine replied, "No one can answer this question. It's said that the two Accursed Towers appeared overnight, and it was only later that people began to realize the wonders of the towers. In the era before the two towers, the prisoners exiled by the Alliance had an extremely high death rate, and cannibalism was not uncommon. However, after the two towers appeared, ordinary people began to obtain abilities, so more people began to live in this barren place. In the end, it gradually developed into a country independent of the Alliance. From this point of view, the two towers are the true saviors of Blood Candle."
After climbing the thirteen steps, Xia Fei and Constantine entered the interior of the ability tower. There were no stairs or elevators leading to the second floor. The empty hall had ninety-nine egg-shaped containers. The people placed their children in them, and then the egg-shaped containers would automatically close, and the cries of the children would disappear.
The people anxiously waited. Xia Fei found this interesting, so he lit a cigarette and began to chat with the waiting parents. From their conversations, he learned that these people had come from distant planets. They had traveled a long and arduous journey with the last of their family's savings to come here so that their children could obtain a decent ability, so that they could fill their stomachs and not be bullied by others.
The Blood Candle Kingdom was made up of three habitable planets, and the cost of each interstellar voyage was not small for these poor people. Thus, some villages would have their village chiefs bring all the newborns in one go to reduce expenses.
Children who obtained special abilities would be brought back to the village to be carefully nurtured, while those who did not would be directly abandoned in the wilderness. After all, bringing a child back would also cost money. Not far from here, there was a centralized dumping ground for babies. Packs of jackals and wolves gathered there, waiting for their lunch.
Constantine shook his head, somewhat ashamed. "It's a bad habit. You've seen the darkest side of the Blood Candle Kingdom."
As a much more civilized Earthling, Xia Fei naturally could not bear to abandon the children and the elderly, but he also understood that the law of the jungle had always been an unchanging law of the universe. Humans would do many unimaginable things for the sake of survival.
A few moments later, the egg-shaped containers were opened one by one. The children were either missing arms or eyes. Some people in the hall cheered, while others mourned.
Walking out, Xia Fei examined the two-thousand-meter-tall tower. "Why does this tower only have the first floor? What's beyond it?"
Constantine shook his head. "The Accursed Tower is sacred. It's said that many curious people once tried to go up and take a look, but none of them returned. They either fell to their deaths or disappeared into thin air. Since then, no one has dared to try to climb the tower."
The two of them walked toward another tower. Xia Fei suddenly felt that someone was staring at him from above. It seemed that there was someone on the tower!
"There's an intermittent energy fluctuation on the tower. Every time the children are sent up, the energy fluctuation will increase," Phantom said to Xia Fei.
Xia Fei nodded. "I can also feel someone staring at me from the tower."
Phantom was startled. "That can't be. There's not even a window on the tower. Who's watching you?"
Xia Fei chuckled. "It doesn't matter who it is. We'll know once we take a look tonight."
"This is the Accursed Tower! You'll be cursed! "Phantom hastily tried to dissuade him.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
