Has the altar changed in appearance
"What do you mean?" Xu Xin frowned.
"Literally." Ji Chaoyang's footsteps were heard from the other side of the voice. "The four stone pillars and statues on the four corners of the altar are gone. The altar table has moved to one side, and a staircase has appeared on the ground in the center of the altar!"
Stairway
"The staircase leading to the bottom of the altar?" Xu Xin asked.
"It is indeed going downwards, but..." The footsteps stopped, and Ji Chaoyang's voice became a little confused, "But this passage is a dead end. It was blocked after only a few dozen meters."
At this time, Xu Xin had already moved away from the outer hills and entered the resource area.
What surprised him was that the red mist seemed to spread only around the hills, but did not enter the resource area surrounded by the hills.
This place still looks the same as before, but when you look around, you can see hills surrounded by red fog.
"I have broken through the red fog and will be at the altar soon. Wait a moment, I will check the situation here first."
"good."
Xu Xin rode on the Silver King and rushed towards the altar in the center of the resource area without stopping. It only took him more than a minute to reach the altar.
When he saw the appearance of the altar at this time, he was still shocked even though he had heard Ji Chaoyang's description.
Just as Ji Chaoyang said, the stone pillars on the four corners of the altar and the statues on them had all disappeared, leaving only four smooth stone bricks that were completely different from the rough and uneven altar floor.
The altar in the middle seemed to be pushed aside by someone. The entire altar moved horizontally, leaving its original position empty, revealing a dark passage underneath.
It felt to him like a coffin lid sliding open, looking somewhat eerie in the dark night.
Xu Xin rode the Silver King into the altar.
"Click." The familiar sound came from underground again.
He walked to the entrance of the underground passage and looked inside.
Relying on the ability of night vision, Xu Xin could easily see everything in the passage and even see the end at a glance.
It was only about fifty or sixty meters away. Just as Ji Chaoyang said.
"Coco, is there any danger in here?" Xu Xin asked, touching Coco's head.
"Hmm." Keke shook his head to indicate no, and climbed onto Xu Xin's shoulder. He knew Xu Xin was about to enter.
Xu Xin asked Yin Wang and Mimi to guard the entrance of the passage, while he took Coco and Bat into the two-meter-wide staircase passage.
Unlike the stairs in the dungeon, the stairs under the altar were not damp at all, and were even very dry. The stairs and walls were covered with thick dust.
It was hot in the tunnel.
Although the temperature is already high and there is no wind today, making it hot and stuffy outside, the heat inside the passage is even more intense. The temperature has exceeded 40 degrees Celsius, and you might get heatstroke if you stay there for a long time.
Xu Xin wiped the sweat from his forehead and walked downstairs.
There are some patterns on the walls of the passage.
He looked at it carefully and found that these patterns were basically the same as the patterns on the stone pillars outside. At the same time, they were also somewhat similar to the blood patterns on the mutant creatures.
Xu Xin reached out and touched it, and found that the wall was also abnormally hot. This should be the culprit for the hot and dry feeling in the cave.
The altar pillars had a similar situation. When he first touched the pillars, he felt that they were abnormally hot, and during the sacrifice process, the pillars would emit astonishing heat.
In addition, the walls have the same patterns as the stone pillars. Xu Xin guessed that this passage might need sacrifices to light up the patterns, just like the stone pillars.
Coco jumped off his shoulders and ran towards the end of the passage.
"Don't run around, be careful of danger." Xu Xin reminded Coco.
"Bing!"
The bat had been flying obediently beside him. When it saw Coco get off Xu Xin's shoulder, it landed on his shoulder to rest.
The further down you go, the hotter and muggier it gets and the temperature gets higher and higher.
When he reached the end of the passage, even though he had only walked fifty or sixty meters, Xu Xin was already sweating profusely and his mouth was dry.
"Ying!" Coco turned around and called out to Xu Xin at the end of the passage. There was something on the ground next to it.
Xu Xin walked forward, saw something on the ground, narrowed his eyes, and reached out to pick it up.
Damaged Windmill (White): The windmill that once possessed extraordinary abilities has been completely damaged after being sacrificed and has become an ordinary windmill.
It was the small windmill that Xu Xin had returned to the stone statue of the little boy.
It seems that Changyin's family also came to this underground passage.
However, since it was a sacrifice that lost its powers, why did it appear here
Coco stood and looked at the paintings on the wall at the end of the passage.
"Hmm!" Coco touched the wall at the end of the passage with her little paws, then immediately retracted her hand and rubbed her two little paws together.
Standing in front of this wall, Xu Xin could clearly feel the rolling heat waves coming from this wall.
The wall in front of me is completely out of tune with the wall of the passage, as if it was a baffle inserted into the passage.
The patterns on the wall even emitted a faint glow, making the designs on the wall appear very clear in the darkness.
"Is this... a bear?"
There was a carving of an animal on the wall, standing upright with one paw raised to scratch. It was obviously a bear.
The bear carved on the wall looked very strong, with extremely thick limbs. It did not look like a black bear, but rather a bit like the jungle overlord he had encountered, the majestic brown bear that looked like it weighed tons.
What does this altar have to do with the brown bear
By the way, ever since the brown bear seriously injured the Silver King and left with the wolves' prey, Xu Xin has never seen it in this jungle again, and has not even seen its red light spot on the map.
The strongest beast he had ever seen in this jungle, besides the brown bear, was probably the tiger that was poisoned by the mutant cat.
I tried to touch the wall with my hand, and sure enough, the temperature was extremely high, probably around 70 or 80 degrees.
Coco was scalded and now stays away from the wall.
"Ying!" Coco climbed onto Xu Xin's shoulders and pointed at the hot and shiny wall in front of her and screamed.
"Huh? You said there are good things behind the wall?" After cooperating for so long, Xu Xin had already heard the meaning implied in Coco's cries of different emotions.
"Oh!" Coco nodded her head vigorously.
Sure enough, there is a way behind this wall, but he doesn't know how to open the wall yet.
Taking out the spear, Xu Xin slashed the wall a few times, but failed to leave even a shallow mark on the wall.
It seems that with his current ability, it is impossible to break down this stone wall by force.
After carefully observing the surroundings, he didn't find anything else. Xu Xin, who was already dizzy from the heat, quickly took Coco and the bat out of the cave.
After coming out, he wiped the sweat from his forehead that was about to flow into his eyes and let out a long sigh of relief.
"… It's too hot in here." Xu Xin licked his cracked lips, feeling as if there was fire burning in his throat.
He immediately contacted Ji Chaoyang.
"So, did you find anything over there?"
"Just like you, an underground passage also appeared."
The two exchanged information and found that their experiences were slightly different.
The most obvious difference is that it is not very hot on Ji Chaoyang's side. Although the stone wall does emit some heat, the temperature is relatively normal, only a few degrees hotter than the ground.
As for Xu Xin, when he reached the end, the air temperature was already ridiculously high. He had been to a sauna before, and the temperature in the sauna was about 55 degrees. The end under the altar was definitely hotter than the sauna, and it was much drier. It was dry and hot, and it was simply torture.
There is another difference. On Ji Chaoyang's stone wall, there is a carving of a ferocious tiger.
"... You say, is the thing carved on that wall a sacrifice for us? By sacrificing the beast carved on the wall, we can open the wall blocking the passage." Xu Xin asked thoughtfully.
"Another possibility is that the beast carved on the wall is actually behind this wall." Ji Chaoyang also expressed his speculation, "And we have to increase the progress of the sacrifice to the 'God' to open this wall."
What Ji Chaoyang said makes sense.
Xu Xin hadn't seen that brown bear for a long time. That brown bear had absolute strength. Even an ordinary intermediate mutant beast would die if hit by it.
If there is someone in this world who can restrict its activities, then this so-called "God" is very likely to be him.
If it mutates, it will definitely be a boss-level existence. After all, even if it hasn't mutated yet, it can defeat all the intermediate mutant creatures Xu Xin has seen so far.
Obviously, the deepest wall of the passage is not the end of the passage. There must be some way to open that wall.
If you want to open the passage under the altar, you must offer a sacrifice to the altar.
When Xu Xin touched the hot wall just now, there was no prompt, so he didn't know whether his guess was correct, but he felt that the temperature in the passage might be related to the progress of the sacrifice.
As for why it was much hotter here than on Ji Chaoyang's side, it was probably because Chang Yin's family had come here to offer sacrifices, which made the sacrificial progress of the altar higher than on Ji Chaoyang's side.
It can be seen from the fact that Chang Yin's family's small windmill fell in the passage that this change in the altar would not be permanent. They came here a few days ago, but when Xu Xin came here at noon, it had returned to its original state.
… Wait, didn’t they just come here?!
No, it shouldn't be. There was a layer of dust on the ground in the passage, and there were faint footprints wherever he stepped on it. There were no other people's footprints on the ground when he came in, which meant that Changyin and the others at least had not just been here.
Xu Xin's brain was working frantically, thinking about the possibilities.
Ji Chaoyang told him that during the previous jungle hunting activities, he did not return to the tree house at night, but continued to hunt near the altar. There was no change in the altar at that time.
In other words, the abnormality at the altar tonight does not occur every night.
Xu Xin looked up at the sky.
There was no moon or wind tonight, but the sky was bright with stars. At the same time, the surrounding hills were still shrouded in red mist.
Could it be that the underground passage of the altar is only opened on moonless nights
The moon in this world is not like the one on Earth. There is a moonless night every month. He has noticed this before. Sometimes it is a new moon the day before and a full moon the next day.
After discussing it, the two agreed to wait until tomorrow to come again to confirm the changes to the altar. Once the beast returns, the sacrifice will be put on the agenda immediately.
After hanging up the call, Xu Xin let out a breath.