Roland quickly estimated the volume of the underground cave, the bottom was almost the size of a football field, surrounded by steep mountain walls. The path leading to this place was right in the middle of the mountain wall, and next to the entrance of the cave was a narrow stone staircase, extending all the way down.
"I guess this staircase wasn't created by you," he crouched down and put the torch close to the ground. Under the illumination of the fire, the traces of axe and knife carvings on the stone steps were very obvious, and there were also a lot of stone chips and dust accumulated in the carvings.
"Of course not, Your Highness, when we found this place, the stone steps were already here," Carter shrugged, "I guess this thing has been here for decades."
"Or hundreds of years," Anna suddenly said.
"I also think so," Lightning nodded, "Border Town has been established for less than seventy years, the stone staircase is unlikely to be related to the locals or the kingdom."
"Were there people in the Western Region hundreds of years ago?" Carter questioned, "Graycastle hadn't even been established yet."
Roland patted the Knight's shoulder, "Four hundred and fifty years ago, there was a group of people forgotten by history." Then he raised the torch, "Let's go, let's go down and take a look."
The soldiers of the First Army had already surrounded the bottom of the cave in twos and threes. He took the Knight and the witch straight to the side of the God's Stone of Retaliation. Only when standing at the foot of the stone pillar could they deeply feel the huge size of the God's Stone. When they opened their arms, they couldn't even reach a tenth of its size, and they had to look up to see its top. The highest purple God's Stone of Retaliation was nearly thirty meters tall, almost equivalent to an eight or nine story high house.
In theory, a stone that could emit light by itself was either a radioactive material or a fluorescent component, but the light of the God's Stone of Retaliation obviously had nothing to do with either. The former's light came from the ionization phenomenon of the air caused by the decay of the element itself. The shorter the half-life, the greater the brightness. According to this brightness, the soldiers who entered first would only be able to hold on for a few minutes before dying from the ionizing radiation. The latter, on the other hand, needed to be exposed to light before it could emit light. There was no light source in the depths of the ground, so it was obviously unable to support its continuous emitting of cold light.
Roland also noticed that although the God's Stone had the usual prismatic shape of a crystal, there were no crystal patterns on its surface. Instead, it was as smooth as flat glass.
"A thumb-sized God's Stone of Retaliation in the church can be sold for several Golden Dragon Coins. A God's Stone of Retaliation as big as this … can practically empty the coffers of the Four Kingdoms." Carter couldn't help but sigh.
"Sold to the nobles to kill witches?" Nightingale glared at him.
"Uh, I didn't say that," the Chief Knight subconsciously looked away.
"This is the first time I've seen a God's Stone of Retaliation in this color. Shouldn't it be white and transparent?" Lightning curiously looked at the stone pillar, "If I bring one back, will I not need to light candles at night?"
"I'd rather light a dozen candles in a stuffy room than use it for illumination," Nightingale said, crossing her arms over her chest. "For a witch, it's a cage, a shackle, an accomplice of the Church! It would be great if this damn stone didn't exist in this world. "
"Well, sister Nightingale, you won't be at night anyway …" The little girl licked her lips, picked up a stone, and looked at Roland, "Can I take one back as a trophy for my adventure?"
Roland nodded, "If you don't dislike this kind of thing."
She swung the stone in her hand, and with all her strength hit the corner of the prism, only to hear a "ding" sound, the stone was broken, but not even a scratch was left on the prism.
The Knight couldn't help but exclaim, "What's going on … aren't God's Stones of Retaliation fragile?"
"Perhaps this one's light is different," Lightning brushed off the stone chips in her hand, and took out a dagger from her waist bag. She tried to scratch the prism for a while, but even after scraping, cutting, and picking, it was still in vain.
Roland felt something was wrong, he signaled to Nightingale, "You try it."
The latter nodded, pulled out a revolver, and directly pulled the trigger on another prism. A huge roar suddenly echoed in the bottom of the cave, and the place where the God's Stone of Retaliation was hit emitted a few sparks. After the smoke dispersed, the group walked over, only to see that the bullet had only left a shallow mark on the surface of the God's Stone of Retaliation.
This meant that, in terms of strength, it had already surpassed a homogeneous steel plate.
"Even the flintlock is useless?" Carter frowned, "Then how did the Church cut it down, polish it, and sell it?"
No one could answer this question, and this was also not in line with everyone's usual impression.
At least, Roland had once used a brick to break the God's Lock of Retaliation, such as the one tied around Anna's neck, and only needed two or three hits to turn the crystal clear stone into a pile of white powder.
Anna, who had been silent all this time, suddenly opened her mouth, "Your Royal Highness, do you remember the treasure map drawn by Filin Eltek, the Light Of Dawn?"
"Treasure map?" Roland stared blankly. He vaguely remembered that on the map, there was a triangle that occupied more than half of the map, and the other three points were pointing at the Holy City of Taquila, the Stone Tower of the Concealing Forest, and the end of the North Slope Mountain … Wait, the foot of the North Slope Mountain? Suddenly, a Lightning flashed through his mind, "Could it be …"
"I think that point is not pointing at the North Slope Mine, but here," Anna slowly said, "This underground cave contains a large number of God's Stone of Retaliation."
…
After a careful search, in addition to a large pile of indestructible God's Stone, they did not find anything else of value.
Not to mention ancient books or remains, even the tools to carve the stone stairs were not left behind, which was very incredible. According to the current level of technology, if they wanted to carve a staircase on a steep stone wall, it would definitely be a huge and arduous project. Such as accidental falls, loss of tools, and so on should not be uncommon. But in addition to the stone, there was only stone, as if they had thoroughly cleaned the cave before they had evacuated.
When Roland returned to his office, he called for Scroll, and reproduced the drawing of the Dawn Knight on the Book of Illusion.
It was similar to the pattern in his memory, the southernmost point was indeed at the foot of the North Slope Mountain.
If Anna's guess was correct, is it possible that this is the map left behind by the Church when they were looking for a new vein of God's Stone of Retaliation? But why did they spend a lot of effort to carve a stone staircase that led directly to the bottom of the cave, and then abandon everything? If the Church had established a Border Church four hundred and fifty years ago, I'm afraid that today's Border Town would be completely different. According to the price of the God's Stone of Retaliation and its use, this mine didn't seem like a resource that could be casually abandoned.
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