In Green Shade Town, Tivian North Suburb, at number 17, Dorothy sat on her sofa, seriously flipping through a new secret transmission she had recently bought from Beverly, reading about the hidden secrets of this world's past.
Compared to the previous book, "City of Mountain Furnace," which had a detailed process of exploration and archaeology, the content described in the book she was currently reading, "Field Survey Record of Voodoo Forest Civilization," was much more vague and general. She didn't know if it was the translator's problem, but a large amount of the content was filled with unclear semantics and ambiguous information, containing a lot of obscure material that was simply impossible to understand. Dorothy could only with great difficulty and effort discern the written content from it.
According to the records in this secret transmission, when the Empire's colonial team conquered and developed the Southern Wu region, they discovered a large number of ancient ruins of Second Epoch Xenomorph civilizations that had once existed there. These ruins were centered around the vast Voodoo Forest in the heart of Southern Wu and were scattered across large areas of Southern Wu land. Through a series of archaeological investigations by the Empire, they confirmed that the ruins here belonged to the "Elves," a race that had once flourished in the Second Epoch.
These Elves loved nature, were close to forests, and liked to establish strongholds and cities in vibrant places. The deities they worshiped were translated as "Earth Mother," "Holy Tree Mother Goddess," "Ocean Goddess," etc. Among these, "Holy Tree Mother Goddess" was the most commonly used title by the Elves. They regarded towering ancient trees as symbols of the Goddess in the human world and worshiped them.
The Elves organized and established their faith in the deities by worshiping ancient trees. Among these worshiped ancient trees, the largest one was located in the center of the vast forest named Voodoo Forest in the Third Epoch. Legend has it that this huge oak tree reached straight into the clouds, its shade covering the sky and sun, and could be seen from the extremely distant borders of the Southern Wu land. This giant tree was called the "World Tree" and was considered the direct incarnation of the Elf Goddess in the mortal realm. The capital of the Elf civilization was built on and around the World Tree, making it the center of the entire Elf civilization.
According to the secret transmission, the World Tree was the capital of the Elf civilization, and the Elves' other cities were also built around huge ancient trees. Although these ancient trees were not as magnificent as the World Tree, they were large enough. The Elves' cities were thus built around one giant ancient tree after another, spread across the entire Southern Wu land, and even extended beyond Southern Wu. The author in the secret transmission speculated that those other giant ancient trees might be the offspring of the World Tree, propagated from its seeds.
'An Elf civilization developed around the World Tree? That's interesting... It seems there were many types of Xenomorph civilizations active in the Second Epoch. First, I saw Harpies, then Dwarves and Mermen, and now Elves... The Second Epoch was an era where various intelligent species flourished. I wonder why almost none of them can be seen now. Even because of war, it shouldn't lead to this level of extinction.
'Also, regarding the faith and worship of this Elf civilization, the so-called Holy Tree Mother Goddess they worshiped feels like a deity of the "Cup." Moreover, this ancient tree worship is very similar to the Fertility Goddess faith remaining on Xia Shu Island. There is also a huge ancient tree on Xia Shu Island, and their title for the Fertility Goddess also seems to include the name Earth Mother. Could the Fertility Goddess and the Elves' Holy Tree Mother Goddess be the same deity?
'Furthermore, speaking of huge ancient trees, there is also a large ancient tree in the Holy Mother's sacred place in Iweig Lecher Valley, within the secret realm where the Saving Large Cathedral is located. Could these ancient trees all be descendants of the Elf World Tree from the Second Epoch? The ancient tree totem seems to be a characteristic of the early "Cup" in this world. Compared to the current "Cup"'s flesh and blood worship, the early "Cup" was more inclined towards nature worship...
'And now, the Southern Wu region is also in the hands of the Fetal Garment Cult, mainly controlled by the Order of Rot. In a sense, the control area of the current "Cup" overlaps with that of the Second Epoch.'
Looking at the secret transmission in her hand, Dorothy thought and analyzed in her mind. After finishing reading the entire secret transmission, she extracted Spirituality from it. The Spirituality she ultimately obtained was 4 "Cup" and 2 "enlightenment," also seemingly because it briefly mentioned content related to the title Earth Mother. Dorothy also gained a tiny bit of meager "Stone," similar to the situation last time on Xia Shu.
The fourth secret transmission Dorothy read was very similar to the previous survey record in terms of the paper used and the handwriting. It seemed that both the original author and the translator were the same. However, this secret transmission had no cover or title. After casually glancing at it, Dorothy found that it was supplemental content to the previous "Survey Record."
This manuscript-like supplementary content continued to record information about the archaeology of the Southern Wu Elf civilization. However, this time, the Empire's archaeological team split into two groups. One continued to investigate the scope from the heartland of Southern Wu, the center of the Elf civilization, which was the location of the World Tree according to Elf records. The other group went to the edge of the Southern Wu's dense forest, the boundary of the Elf civilization, near the vast grasslands of Eastern Wu. The reason they went there was that they had discovered countless abandoned transport vehicles and sunken ships in the Elves' roads and canals.
The number of these vehicles, filled with various already decayed materials, was astonishingly large, and almost all were moving in one direction. Therefore, the Empire's archaeological team at the time believed that there might be a large city of the Elf civilization in that direction, so they decided to send a part of the team to explore there. This manuscript was written by the part of the archaeological team that had split off.
However, when this archaeological team reached their destination, what they found was not the ruins of a large-scale Elf city, but a tragic battlefield. They discovered quite a few abnormally destroyed Elf city ruins and significant war fortifications.
According to the analysis of those Empire archaeological teams, the ruins of these Elf settlements were almost all destroyed by war. The Elves of the Second Epoch seemed to have engaged in fierce warfare with some enemy here, and the massive amount of materials transported on the roads and canals was in fact military logistics supplies, which is why they were so large. By analyzing the remaining Elf defense lines, the Empire's archaeological team found that the enemies the Elves were defending against almost all came from the vast grasslands of Eastern Wu. Within the broken defense lines, they found many giant claw marks, which seemed to have been left by some incredibly large beast.
Within some clearly captured cities and defense lines, the Empire's archaeological team also found many totem-style murals. These murals depicted various monsters slaughtering and devouring Elves. These monsters all had characteristics of half-human, half-beast, some were half-human, half-lion, some were half-human, half-tiger, some were half-human, half-wolf, or half-human, half-crocodile... These beast-men seemed to be the objects of the Elves' war. They inscribed the murals on the noble temples of the Elf cities, seemingly proclaiming their victory to the people who came later.
For a period afterward, this Empire archaeological team wanted to continue their in-depth exploration, but what they did not expect was that just as they were about to delve deeper into the grasslands to investigate who the Elves' enemies were, the Empire's officials who arrived subsequently strictly prohibited their exploration activities. Their previous archaeological data was handed over to the team of Fertility Goddess Church clergy who had arrived with the Empire's officials.
The Empire archaeological team that wrote this secret transmission manuscript heard that this Fertility Goddess Church team would continue the investigation of this area on their behalf and that they had to return immediately. This situation greatly displeased the author who wrote this secret transmission. Dorothy could see the emotions he was venting between the lines.
'War... Like the dwarves, are the elves also engaged in some kind of war? Unlike the dwarves who face unknown enemies from underground, the elves' enemies come from the grasslands. Looking at this, the opponents also seem to exist in the form of beasts...'
'Is this related to Treading the Path of the Beast? Did Treading the Path of the Beast appear in the Second Epoch? Did the Gluttonous Wolf exist at that time? Did the Holy Tree Mother, whom the elves believe in, not control all the branch paths of the """Cup"""? What is her relationship with the Fertility Goddess of the Third Epoch and the Cup Mother of the current Fourth Epoch? Are they different beings who successively inherited the same divine position? Or...'
Looking at the content of this secret transmission in front of her, Dorothy furrowed her brows slightly and thought to herself. As of now, although she had grasped a lot of information about the inheritance of the power of the """Cup""" in this world, she still couldn't fully depict the entire story of the """Cup""" from beginning to end.
The Elven Goddess of the Second Epoch, the Fertility Goddess of the Third Epoch, the Cup Mother of the Fourth Epoch, and the Holy Mother of the Church, along with a series of miscellaneous subordinate gods of the """Cup""", these beings all seemed to be related to each other but remained unclear, which made Dorothy, who wanted to know the truth, feel somewhat annoyed.
Shaking her head, Dorothy no longer paid much attention to the relationships between the gods of the """Cup""", and instead extracted the Spirituality from the secret transmission in her hand. Dorothy obtained 4 cup and 2 enlightenment Spirituality from it.
After finishing reading this secret transmission in her hand, Dorothy put it aside. Then she picked up the fifth, and also the last, secret transmission on the coffee table. This secret transmission had a black cover and looked slightly more intact overall compared to the previous ones, but it was also relatively thin in terms of thickness.
Dorothy picked up this secret transmission, and not long after, she saw the title on it, which was called "The Other Side of the Yin Sea". It was also a translation of a secret transmission from the Third Epoch.
Unlike the previous four consecutive archaeological records, the carrier of this secret transmission was poetry. The author of the poetry claimed to live in a flower homeland full of artistic atmosphere. During the process of gathering material, he collected many local fishermen's legends on the coast of his country and compiled them into this poetic secret transmission.
What these poems mainly recorded was a mysterious and unpredictable Shadow Island located on the other side of the sea. In the poems, that place was always shrouded in Shadow, never seeing the light of day, only the moon disk. There were many magical nocturnal animals and plants there, among which the most terrifying creature was a giant spider called the "Night Spider". In the poems, this kind of spider monster would gather by the sea, using silk threads to hunt fish in the sea and even fishing boats on the sea. Many explorers who rashly landed on the island would perish in the mouths of these monsters.
In the poems, the Night Spiders on Shadow Island had a species with a certain high level of intelligence and the ability to understand human language. They had a strange appearance with the upper body of a human and the lower body of a spider. Instead of devouring humans, they preferred to play with humans through seduction and deception. Once entangled by these monsters, one would be in grave danger. The only possibility of rescue was to obtain the help of another intelligent life form on the island, the "faeries".
In the poems, when fishermen sailed close to Shadow Island, various strange phenomena would suddenly appear on the ship. Many things would suddenly be missing from the ship, and some crew members would inexplicably encounter unlucky events, such as their pants suddenly falling off or suddenly falling to the ground. In the fishermen's legends, this phenomenon was the mischief of faeries. They would tease people who approached or landed on Shadow Island, and people needed to offer them tributes to avoid being teased.
In the poems, although these faeries were annoying, once the offered items met their wishes, they would in turn help people in various matters, even rescuing people from the mouths of Night Spiders. However, compared to Night Spiders, the number of faeries seemed to be scarcer, so the difficulty of encountering them would be higher.
The author of this poem from the Third Epoch was very interested in the legends he had collected and was once very enthusiastic about proving the legends were true, wanting to find the so-called Shadow Island. However, after years of effort, the author found absolutely nothing. The legendary Night Spiders or faeries seemed to not exist in his current world at all. Neither he nor other fishermen had ever seen the real thing. From ancient times to the present, these legends seemed to be just legends.
Dorothy saw in the secret transmission that the author had gone out to sea countless times to search for the rumored Shadow Island, but he never found it. On the other side of the sea in the area where the legend of Shadow Island circulated, there was not some legendary land, but one of the important components of the Empire's territory, the Province of Pritnia.
'This is... a poem compiled from gathered legends of the Third Epoch? The location of the legends recorded here... could it be on the coast of Faloro, across the sea from Prit? In other words, according to the records in this legend, is there some Shadow Island in the strait between these two countries? Or is Prit that so-called Shadow Island?'
'The era when this legend truly occurred... perhaps it wasn't in the Third Epoch, but in the Second Epoch... The content of the legend is clearly related to """Shadow""". Could it be that during the Second Epoch, Prit was occupied by the Night Spiders and faeries, two intelligent races? So Prit had already started to be related to Shadow since the Second Epoch. This so-called Night Spider race... is it related to the Spider Queen later on?'
Looking at the secret transmission in her hand, Dorothy thought seriously in her heart again. It seemed that the relationship between the Spider Queen of the Eight-Pointed Nest and Prit was closer than she had previously imagined. She didn't know if the main god of """Shadow""" was still the Mirror Moon Goddess in the Second Epoch. Unfortunately, this poetic secret transmission did not elaborate on the faith situation of Shadow Island.
After finishing her thoughts, Dorothy immediately closed the secret transmission again and extracted the Spirituality. This secret transmission gave Dorothy 5 """Shadow""" and 2 """enlightenment""" Spirituality. Based on her previous calculations, Dorothy's current Spirituality situation was as follows.
38 """Cup""", 14 """Stone""", 19 """Shadow""", 19 """Lamp""", 18 """Silent""", 56 """enlightenment""".
Among these Spirituality, Dorothy had a certain replenishment for the more commonly used """Cup""", """Stone""", and """Shadow""". These five secret transmissions cost Dorothy about 2000 pound in cash in total. The last time Dorothy returned the divinely blessed items rented from the guild after they expired, she suddenly had an additional deposit of 17000 pound. Coupled with the money Dorothy originally had and the manuscript fees she had received as an author in the past six months, her previous money was around 21000 pound. Now, after buying the books, she still had about 19000 pound left, which was quite sufficient.
After reading all the secret transmissions, Dorothy yawned, stretched deeply, then looked out the window and murmured while looking at the sky outside.
"Hmm... Everything is ready now, it's time to set off..."