Chapter 104

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Chapter 104: Return Ruins

The teachers on the judging panel were deciding whether to award Luo Yan a ‘special driving license’.

Luo Yan was in class.

This morning was the common sense class as usual.

The person giving the lesson is Xiao Shi.

The not very old teacher held a chalk and wrote two big words on the blackboard: Return Ruins!

Luo Yan and other students all looked at the blackboard.

Then Xiao Shi smiled and said, "Return Ruins, I’m sure everyone is not unfamiliar with it."

"Return means to come back, referring to returning to the original place."

"Ruins means a place that is destroyed."

"But when these two words are combined, they mean the end and destination of things."

"As recorded in ‘Liezhi. Tang Wen’."

"To the east of Bohai Sea, millions of miles away, there is a huge canyon known as Return Ruins. It is a bottomless valley where water from all the rivers in the world flows into without increasing or decreasing."

"There is also a mention of Return Ruins in the book "Zhuangzi: Heaven and Earth"."

"Zhumang encountered a strong wind from the east when he arrived at the shore of the Eastern Sea. The wind asked, ‘Where are you going?’ He replied, ‘To the great canyon.’ The wind asked, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘Because the great canyon can hold water without ever being filled up. I want to explore it!’"

"It is easy to see from ancient descriptions."

"Return Ruins is a bottomless hole."

"All the water in the world eventually gathers in this bottomless hole."

"But the water in Return Ruins does not increase or decrease at all."

A curious student asked, "Teacher, does all the water flow to the center of the Earth?"

Xiao Shi chuckled and replied, "It’s possible, but there used to be another theory."

"Some believe that Return Ruins may be a wormhole, where the water flowing into it goes to another space."

"Of course, this belief lacks any solid evidence to support it."

He tapped on the blackboard where those two words were written.

"But what I am going to talk about today, ‘Return Ruins’, is a real place."

"Do you remember the first lesson of the school year when I told you?"

"Half a century ago, an archaeology team discovered a giant beast ‘Zero’ in the Arctic and, while digging deeper, unearthed another ‘world’?"

Li Zi nodded, "The Visualization Technique, Battle Technique, and mystical art we are practicing and learning now."

"Were all discovered in that ‘world’."

Xiao Shi eagerly said, "That ‘world’ is called ‘Return Ruins’!"

The classroom suddenly quieted down.

After a moment passed.

Li Bohang raised his hand and asked, "Teacher, was it named by experts like this?"

Xiao Shi didn’t answer but instead projected a photo onto the blackboard.

The lighting in the photo seemed dim.

Judging from the surrounding scenery, it appeared to be inside a cave.

In front of the cave, there was a stone door.

The stone door felt heavy, with two stone handles that looked like the entrance to an ancient courtyard.

Just above the double stone doors, there was a stone plaque.

On top are two words written.

These two words seem to be pictograms.

The students in the classroom did not study pictograms, so they couldn’t understand them.

Xiao Shi pointed at the photo with a teaching stick and said, "The name ‘world’ was not named by experts."

"It was originally called by this name."

"These are two pictograms."

"Return! Ruins!"

"As for this stone gate…"

"It is the gate to another world."

Next, several other photos were projected onto the blackboard.

In the photos.

There are people, there are vehicles.

Engaged in research in front of the stone gate.

However, those people and vehicles in front of the stone gate seemed so tiny.

The classroom was filled with gasps.

When looking at the first photo, without a reference, everyone subconsciously imagined this stone gate as a regular large gate.

At most, the size of a city gate.

But now, it appears that this stone gate is even taller and larger than the armored gate of Guangling City.

It seems like the mecha can go straight in.

If this door is meant for ‘humans’ to pass through.

Then, how tall should the ‘people’ who built this stone door be?

Could it be a giant of eight or nine or ten meters tall?

Young faces were filled with astonishment.

Luo Yan was no exception.

This stone door was truly impressive.

No wonder Xiao Shi said this was the gate to another world.

On the platform.

Xiao Shi continued, "Our exploration of the ‘Return Ruins’ can be compared to just the tip of the iceberg."

"Even though many countries have invested a lot of manpower and resources here."

"And every moment, countless discoveries are made, new things are being found."

"But even the most advanced equipment."

"Cannot detect it."

"How deep exactly are the Return Ruins?"

The photos on the blackboard disappeared.

A flat map appeared.

On the map, a passageway sloping downwards can be seen.

The passage is above.

Every certain distance, a horizontal line is drawn.

Those lines all have a set of numbers marked on them.

Xiao Shi pointed at the map with a teaching whip and said, "Return Ruins doesn’t go straight down, it slopes at about a 45-degree angle."

"It leads straight to the depths of the earth."

"Our equipment can currently explore to the deepest point, which is 15,000 meters below the ground."

15,000 meters!

The classroom was filled with murmurs again.

Return Ruins goes as deep as 15,000 meters, and that’s not even its limit.

But exploring the limits of existing equipment.

If you say.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

How big is the ‘Return Ruins’?

It should be as big as a planet, right?

No wonder Mr. Xiao Shi used ‘world’ to describe ‘Return Ruins’.

It is as vast as the surface world.

Xiao Shi cleared his throat twice, redirecting everyone’s attention back.

"In addition, apart from depth, the deeper you go, the wider the Return Ruins becomes."

"Right now we are around 5000 meters underground and we found a city."

"There are large areas of ancient forests that have turned into stone."

"Before this, we found countless villages."

"There are petrified forests, canyons, mountains, and lakes aplenty."

"That underground world lacks the sun, moon, stars, and sky."

"It’s not very different from the world we live on the surface."

"We have reason to believe."

"Before the time of dinosaurs."

"On this planet, an underground civilization once existed."

"A vast world lies beneath this planet’s surface!"

Ring—

The bell for the end of class rang.

Xiao Shi turned off the projector and smiled, saying, "Alright, that’s all for today’s lesson."

"Regarding ‘Return Ruins,’ it must be kept strictly confidential."

"You must not disclose this to anyone outside the academy, not even your closest ones."

"If caught violating this, severe punishment will be administered."

"That’s all for class then!"

Stepping out of the classroom.

Luo Yan felt a bit unreal.

Beneath the Arctic, there was even an entrance to another world.

Was the construction of these underground cities inspired by the ‘Return Ruins’?

Luo Yan’s thoughts were wandering.

Suddenly stopped by Wei Fenghua.

"Can I have a word?" said the Dean of Education with a somewhat serious expression.