Since Amon left, disasters in Duke Town began to appear. On the third day after Amon left the town, the first young boy who died young appeared in the town, the son of the missing warrior Ma Qi, who was only fourteen years old like Amon. In the following month, three more children died in succession. The youngest was only twelve years old, and the oldest was no more than fifteen years old. They were all boys.
Xiao Gu, the priest and doctor in the town, had nothing to do about it, because these children all died of sudden illness without exception. Afterwards, they were checked with healing magic, only to find that their blood seemed to have endured an unbearable force. Xiao Gu secretly speculated that it might be caused by them learning the miner's skills in Duke Town privately before they were adults.
The miner skills in Duke Town seem very simple, as if anyone can start, but the unknowing consumption is almost unbearable for underage children. When it accumulates to a certain level, hidden dangers will suddenly erupt, and it is too late when it happens . Aristotle once explained to Amon the spiritual source of the ancient oracle, which was indeed protecting the residents here, but Aristotle did not understand the mystery of this miner's skill.
Xiaogu and Dusty have no way to punish these townspeople. Firstly, these children are already dead, so it is meaningless to ask whether they have not obtained the permission of the patron saint; evidence. Of course, there are not only a few families who let their children learn the skills of miners privately. Everyone seems to know but no one says it.
The reason for this to happen probably starts with Amon.
Amon, who is only fourteen years old, has not only fully mastered the miner's skills passed down from generation to generation, and was able to successfully mine the sacred stones, but was also lucky to obtain so many sacred stones, including a blue sacred stone that Lord Xiaogu envied. . Since Amon can do it, why can't his own children
The boys in Duke Town have helped the adults in the family pull bellows and move ore since they were young, and they are far stronger than ordinary children of the same age outside. Amon didn't look like the most athletic of them all, he was just the son of an old alcoholic who was forced to pick up the burden ahead of time. However, people don't know that the old lunatic made Amon bathe in the strange cold spring for more than two years.
There are misfortunes and luck, of course, not all the children will die young, some of them can't learn it, and a few are lucky enough to learn the miner's skills in Duke Town ahead of time. People like this will naturally not speak out, nor will they publicly tell others that the sacred stone was mined by a child.
There is often only a thin line between simplicity, ignorance and ignorance. Many people even inexplicably look forward to it, hoping that their children can also mine special divine stones like Amon. The townspeople are still discussing in private that Amon may have mined a sacred stone called Tears of the Gods, which is extremely precious.
The lord from the king's capital once publicly announced that the miners who mined the tears of the gods will be rewarded by the kingdom, but if they dispose of it privately, they will also suffer the most severe punishment.
Except for the old lunatic, Dusty, and Xiao Gu, the contemporary residents of Duke Town have never heard of the Tears of the Gods, let alone what kind of divine stone it is. I don't know who was the first to secretly suspect that such a sacred stone can only be mined by children, otherwise so many people have mined so many sacred stones over the years, why only Amon got it
This kind of speculation gradually became a plague-like rumor in Duke Town. People talked about it in private but never said it publicly, which finally led to continuous tragedies.
According to legend, the oracle of the Goddess Mu Yun, the protector of this place, is useless, but people seem to respect the gods more on the surface, and they have unprecedented respect for the priest Xiao Gu, and they dare not raise their eyes to speak in front of him.
The old lunatic became even crazier than before, and often waved his cane in front of the Muyun Temple and shouted to himself: "This is a place despised by the gods, and will be punished by the gods... The gods are so cruel! But People here, what are you doing?"
No one paid any attention to the old lunatic's nonsense, and they all made a detour when they saw him. It's not easy for Dusty and Xiao Gu to take care of him, anyway, everyone thinks he's crazy. But the tragedy in Duke Town continued, and several boys died of sudden illness without warning.
Don't people really understand that the art of miners may not be suitable for minors? Everyone is more or less clear, but there are other children who are lucky to succeed, not just Amon, so the tragedy of others is only regarded as a kind of bad luck. Cautious people will remind children to be careful and pay attention to the body's feeling at all times without being too forced, but they have not given up the idea of letting children learn skills.
How many children in Duke Town have privately learned the art of miners as minors? The answer is all boys over the age of ten! Everyone does it, and there's no reason anyone shouldn't. This is already a half-open secret, and people just try their best not to let others seize the evidence, especially Mayor Dusty and Master Xiao Gu.
It was already very difficult to prevent the spread of this disaster. Although Duke Town was not small, it only had over two thousand residents, and its mining skills were passed down from generation to generation in a closed environment.
The hot summer is coming, and this summer is particularly sultry. Many people don't sleep in the house at night, but enjoy the cool in the yard or square, and sleep until dawn on straw mats or wooden boards. One night, people sleeping outdoors suddenly felt a little bit of coolness, opened their eyes and touched their bodies, and unexpectedly found thin raindrops floating in the air.
There are few rains in Duke Town every year, especially in summer, which is the dry season over the years. It almost never rains. Everyone cheered happily.
After dawn, the rain has not stopped, and it is gradually getting bigger and bigger. The raindrops are sprinkled on the dry land like a curtain of water. The clouds in the sky can't see the edge at a glance, covering the Black Fire Forest in the west and the Syria Desert in the south. People became more and more excited and gathered in the Mu Yun Temple to thank the gods. Cheers could be heard at any time, because the rain was so heavy that it didn't stop day and night.
Such a rain can drench the surrounding barren land and desert. After the rain clears, a sea of grass will grow in the desert, which will be suitable for grazing a lot of sheep this year. This kind of situation has happened before, but this kind of heavy rain can only be encountered here for many years, and it has always been regarded as a gift from the gods.
The gods seem to have heard the prayers of the townspeople, and the heavy rain has not stopped for three days and three nights. Some people gradually became a little uneasy, because this was something that had never happened in memory.
The ditches in the Blackfire Forest were already filled with water, and the low-lying places on the post roads were submerged. More mountain torrents flowed down from the Assyrian Plateau in the north, overflowing the Blackfire Forest and approaching Duke Town. The whole town is surrounded by muddy deserts, swampy jungles, and plateaus pouring water.
When people finally realized that something was wrong, they suddenly heard thunder rolling from the sky. Looking far away, the majestic mountains of the Syria Plateau have been shrouded in thick clouds, and flashes of lightning flashed among the dark clouds. The people here have almost never heard of thunder, and they have an indescribable fear for no reason.
No one in Duke Town cheered anymore, and everyone hid in the leaky house and prayed to the gods, hoping that the heavy rain would end soon. But the rain did not stop as people expected. After the thunder sounded, it had been raining heavily for three days and three nights, and suddenly it turned into a torrential downpour, as if a huge hole had been torn open in the sky.
…
When the thunder sounded, Ge Lie, the chief priest of the Shuya Temple and an eighth-level great magician, stood on the high city wall, looking at the direction shrouded by low-hanging dark clouds and raging lightning, muttering to himself : "Nietzsche, is this the catastrophe you predicted? Has it really come! But why are you still in Duke Town?"