The clay tablet with a weak psionic reaction was placed on the coffee table in the middle of the living room. Half of the family had gathered around it, curiously looking at the unattractive object. Kitsune, who had brought the clay tablet home, acted as though it had nothing to do with her. She had just been ordered to take a shower, and the fur on her tail was not easy to dry. She looked like a drowned rat.
"It's confirmed to be a psionic reaction, and there are very few psionic crystal fragments in the clay tablet."
Sandora used her fingernails to scrape off a few fragments from the clay tablet. Her eyes glowed with a golden light as she entered high-speed analysis mode. Under Sandora's scanning, the ancient object that had been buried for thousands of years began to reveal some of its secrets. "I reckon that there should be more psionic residue at the excavation site. The crystal fragments may not have been intentionally added by the ancients. Psionic crystals are extremely strong, and primitive humans could not have mastered the method of grinding them. Also, grinding psionic crystals is a suicidal act."
To be honest, if it was a few years ago, the appearance of such a clay tablet might have caused our family to move for a while. But now, the Empire had expanded, and the things we had to pay attention to had become more complicated. Things like the discovery of the ruins of the Empire on Earth, or the fight between the natives in some part of the universe, were no longer 'incidents'. Usually, we would just send a few agents or a small team out to settle the matter. There was no need for a group of Schilling leaders to take action on such trivial matters. But this time, we were all gathered around a black lump of mud, and there was only one reason.
When Xiaoxue saw the clay tablet, she jumped almost two meters high. She said that this thing would reveal a huge secret …
I felt that the naughty child was overreacting, but she was still a prophet. This clay tablet was definitely not as simple as it looked. But what was written on it?
Although Sandora was knowledgeable and had studied the history of Earth out of curiosity, she had never really studied such matters. The tadpole-like cuneiform before us was like a book from the heavens.
"Do you know Shallow Shallow?" I poked Qian Qian's arm. No matter what, she's an archaeologist. Uncle Xu has been studying human ancestral graves all day long. He said that he knew ten ancient languages that had gone extinct on Earth. Perhaps Qian Qian also knows …
"Is that even possible?" Shallow Shallow rolled her eyes at me. "Do you think that cuneiform is a Chinese dictionary? There aren't many people in the world who can recognize this thing. My dad was bragging when he said that he knew ten ancient languages … "
"... Then let's find an expert who knows how to read cuneiform. Let's make love without boundaries …"
"What are you looking at here?! Let This King go in and take a look! " Just as I was trying to think of a way to hire an ancient philologist to translate this clay tablet, a girl's high-pitched voice suddenly sounded from outside the circle of people. I was momentarily stunned, and then I saw a blonde head struggling to squeeze through the gap between Shallow Shallow and her older sister to appear in front of me. It was that silly, smelly, flat-chested, and arrogant … Shimmering Girl. Oh right, I'm used to calling her nanny now.
The moment I saw this flat-chested shorty, I was a little stunned. It wasn't because of anything else, but because this girl had been inconspicuous at home for a long time. Ever since she became Little Bubble's nanny, Shimmering Girl realized that she couldn't resist fate. Thus, she decided to reduce her presence to show that she wasn't defeated by fate. In fact, she was too lazy to fight against fate. Every day, all she did was follow Little Bubble around to provide toys. Other than that, she didn't meddle in anything at home. You guys know that we are a noisy family. The whole big house has no lack of people jumping around. In such a big environment, if you don't make a sound, you won't have any sense of existence. Not to mention, Shimmering Girl is determined to make herself invisible (mainly because she can't afford to lose face?). If she didn't jump out today, I might have completely forgotten that there was such a troublesome girl at home …
After sighing at the existence of this airport, I suddenly thought of something: cuneiform, Sumerian culture, Mesopotamia, laborers who don't pay …
"Jill, do you recognize these characters?" I waved at Shimmering Girl and called her over. I pointed at the cuneiform characters that looked like dried tadpoles on the clay board.
If I remember correctly, Sister Jill's real body is the king of Uruk City in another world, and Uruk City is an important part of the ancient Mesopotamia civilization in the Mesopotamia. Alright, I know that we went to a strange world with a strange history, and Sister Jill is also a strange ancient heroic spirit. But overall, the surface world of that world is 90% similar to the Earth here. The two can be considered as parallel universes. Now, I really hope that the era where Sister Jill lived also used the same cuneiform characters as our Sumerian people. That way, we don't have to tie up archaeologists …
"You have a request for this queen?" Sister Jill's eyes suddenly lit up. She keenly noticed that the time for her to resist fate might have arrived. "Then, respectfully let this queen …"
"Pickled vegetables and pancakes for two weeks, or get the same amount of pocket money as Little Bubble in the future. Choose." I looked at the nanny who was taking advantage of me expressionlessly. She was already spoiled at home. Although she was occasionally bullied, in the Empire, her status as the "Princess's Best Friend" was already half a relative of the Emperor. But her bad temper wasn't satisfied at all. You can't spoil her at this time.
Jill was stunned for a while. She pursed her lips and obediently picked up the clay board. But soon, her dissatisfaction was attracted by the nostalgic thing in front of her. She sighed softly, "Hometown, and the memories of this queen when she was alive … This is really distressing."
I was silent for a while, but I still went forward to pat her hair. Although I would occasionally bully this unlucky nanny, she was now a member of this family. Hearing her sigh about her hometown and the things that happened when she was alive, I still felt a little …
"Just looking at this thing reminds me of the days when I could read and write." Jill wiped away her tears of bitterness. "You don't know how troublesome it is to write on this thing. If possible, I really don't want to see this thing ever again …"
I was speechless. So, my feelings just now were all for naught?
"How is it? How is it?" Shallow Shallow jumped forward impatiently. "What is written on it?"
"Wait a minute, I haven't straightened it out yet." Niang Shinning waved her hand impatiently. "This isn't quite the same as the words in my hometown. It seems like the grammar is a little distorted, and many of the characters … seem to be of an even older style. But don't worry, as long as there's time, I can slowly translate it. Right now, I can understand the first sentence. It's saying that this clay tablet records a story from afar, and it seems to be related to myths. Also, here — "
As Ji Shanshan spoke, she pointed at a few symbols at the corner of the clay tablet. The place was already damaged, and some words might be missing, but she could still make out some things. "There's a limit to the number of words that a clay tablet can hold, so many long books are made up of many clay tablets. At the end of each 'page', the 'page number' will be marked, as well as the total number of tablets in the entire set. However, there's something missing here. I can only tell that the entire set of clay tablets should be made up of seven parts, but I can't tell which part this is. "
It seemed that asking Ji Shanshan to translate this was the right choice. These clay tablets looked like heavenly books in our eyes, but Ji Shanshan could actually tell the page number!
However, I was a little worried about one thing: the entire set of clay tablets was made up of seven 'pages'. Only God knows if the remaining six tablets were still around. This thing looked even more fragile than Liliana's bottom line, and it had been buried underground for thousands of years. It was already a miracle that one of them was still intact. Nowadays, most of the clay tablets that were excavated by archaeologists all over the world were incomplete. This was because these tablets could be destroyed if they weren't careful.
The worst thing was that water seeped through the ground … According to the fox's description, she dug this thing out of a cave, and she didn't see any other clay tablets nearby. Could the other parts have already been destroyed?
"This Queen also doesn't know what's going on," Ji Shanshan frowned as she studied the words on the clay tablet. She didn't raise her head in response to my concern. "Books are precious — in this Queen's era, even these clay tablets were treated as treasures of the palace. Because very few nobles and scribes knew these words, and writing a 'book' was extremely time-consuming and laborious, every clay tablet would be stored in a clay book box. The book box itself was moisture-proof and very sturdy. Like this … fox, are you sure … "
Ji Shanshan's words had just begun when the fox girl rudely interrupted her, "I'm not a fox, I'm a fox immortal!"
I was speechless. In fact, when the rest of the family called the nine-tailed girl a fox, the latter had already given up on retorting. Only when Ji Shanshan called her that would she rebut on the spot. As expected, this stupid fox could only be arrogant in front of an unlucky nanny.
However, Ji Shanshan wasn't someone with a good temper. It was fine if she was bullied by others, but if she was bullied by a nine-tailed husky, how could she survive? Thus, she turned a blind eye to the fox girl's stern voice, "Fox, are you sure this clay tablet was left loose?"
"Of course," the fox's ears twitched. She felt a little depressed that she couldn't even control a nanny. "My memory is super strong, and I can still remember the situation in the cave. This lump of mud was placed flat on the ground, and there was nothing around it. There wasn't even a clay book box like you mentioned. And the cave looked very small, it didn't look like it could hide anything … "
"It shouldn't be," Ji Shanshan raised her head and said firmly, "This clay tablet recorded the story of a God. It also recorded the names of the priests and elders, and there were symbols of stars and rivers. These contents had a very serious meaning in that era. The person responsible for recording them should be a royal family or a priest. Also, this clay tablet should have been properly preserved in a gorgeous place. It shouldn't have been left loose in a cave like the one you mentioned. Also, there's one more thing that I'm very concerned about: I don't know the God recorded on it. When I was alive, I traveled to many places. The entire world … uh, I mean the entire Mesopotamia, there wasn't a God named 'Xin'. The replacement of the gods in that era was of great significance. Although This King does not have a good impression of gods, he definitely knows about such matters. According to the local customs shown on this clay tablet, the time it was written is not much different from the time period in This King's memories. Where did this god named 'Xin' come from? "
"You forgot one thing," I reminded Ji Shanshan. "You came from another world … Although there's also a Uruk city, the two worlds might have deviated. Maybe there was a God named 'Xin' in the Mesopotamia?"
Ji Shanshan made an 'oh' sound. It seemed that she also thought it was possible. Then she pointed at the clay tablet and said, "In any case, the information on this tablet isn't complete. I can only slowly translate it. If you can find a way to find the other clay tablets, it will be even better. Then, I will quickly know the origin of the God it was talking about."
I patted the head of the fox girl who was playing with her tail. "Fox, can you find that place?"
"I can!" Fox said confidently. She continued to flick her wet tail, splashing water all over the living room. Hairy fellows are really troublesome after bathing. The elder sister looked at the water stains on the ground and finally could not hold it in anymore. She took out nine hair dryers from her Dimensional Pocket and gave them to the fox. The fox suddenly realized what was going on. It rolled up one of the hair dryers with its tail and began to dry itself like a jet fighter.
"Tomorrow, bring a few Empire agents and go to that place again," I said casually. "Also, don't shake the water in the living room after bathing. Remember to use a hairdryer …"
Fox nodded in the hot whirlwind she had created. I didn't know what she had heard …
The next day, after breakfast, Fox led a dozen Empire agents and set off. These agents had been active on Earth before. They had excavated all the Schilling ruins on Earth, so they were very experienced. I estimated that the excavation team would bring back new information by the afternoon at the latest. Ji Shanshan, on the other hand, continued to study the black lump of mud. I wasn't sure if it was the psionic crystal dust mixed in the mud tablet, but the tablet looked like it was easily weathered and wasn't well-preserved. About eighty to ninety percent of the words were still legible, as if it hadn't been eroded by the underground humidity for thousands of years. However, Ji Shanshan's translation work seemed to be a little difficult. The clay tablet was indeed written in the cuneiform used by the Sumerian civilization, but the two worlds were still two different worlds. Even if the information disturbance caused the two worlds to almost completely overlap in a certain period of history, there were still many differences in the overlap. The cuneiform was different from the words in Gilmei's memory. There were errors in the grammar and individual characters. She needed to reorganize and guess for a long time before she could make a sentence flow smoothly.
I guessed that the nature of her reading the clay tablet was the same as the physics books I used to read. She could basically recognize the words, but she just couldn't understand what she was saying …
Just as I was waiting for Fox's reply, an emergency call came from the Shadow City.
The message was from Silvers. She had found "something that could stun people" in the pile of broken stones of the Fairy Li.
I immediately took Sandora and Xiaoxue to the headquarters. The reason why I brought Xiaoxue along was because I felt that this girl's prophecy ability might be useful. For the next two days, Miss Lin had to stay at home to accompany her parents. At the same time, she also had to explain why she would ask for leave from home every few days, saying that she was going to the Antarctic Circle to catch penguins (Anyway, it was all a bunch of random excuses). Thus, I could only bring my unreliable daughter, Xiaoxue, to run around. Based on experience, whenever we found something that no one knew what it was for, it would always be helpful to bring a prophet with us.
The strange stones that were unloaded from the Fairy Li's merchant ship were piled up in a small garage behind the headquarters. It seemed a little strange to build a warehouse next to the headquarters, but there was a reason for it. For a long time, we always picked up strange things when we went out. Sometimes it was research samples, sometimes it was unknown substances, and sometimes it was the captured armaments of the fallen apostles. After a long time, Tawil and Silvers simply built a large number of such temporary warehouses inside and outside the Shadow Fortress to store junk — well, treasure. The warehouse behind the headquarters was used as a temporary work station, where the stones unloaded from the Fairy Li's merchant ship were sorted and scanned on the spot. Silvers personally supervised the work here.
When we arrived, Silvers and a group of assistant technicians, as well as Tawil's projection, had been waiting for a long time. The interior of the garage had been expanded to a huge size. Numerous anti-gravity platforms were suspended on various ore samples. Silvers and her assistants were pointing at the largest of them, and various scanning equipment were placed around the stone.
"Is this the thing?"
I looked at the huge meteorite sample in front of me, but I could not see anything special about it. It was iron-gray in color, rough and bumpy, and had an irregular fusiform shape. The overall height was about five or six meters, and it looked like a small house.
I had seen far too many of these stones. The asteroid belt had no lack of such stones. They were usually rich in iron and other rich minerals in the universe. They might have ice crystals inside them, or they might have "cores" formed by heavy metals. Just from its appearance, I can't see anything about it that would make even someone as calm as Silvers' gape '.
"It's inside the meteorite." Tawil's projection pointed to the fixed data terminal next to him. On the projection in front of the terminal, I saw that there seemed to be a dense core inside the meteorite. This core was different from the surrounding rock material in color and texture. It looked like a piece of foreign material wrapped in it.
"What is this?" I raised my eyebrows curiously.
"Something from … home!" Tawil and Silvers said in unison.
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