Having unraveled the doubt in his mind, Angel dismissed the map illusion, turning his attention back to the mural.
The mysterious aura he previously sensed emanated from the mural. Could it be that there was some hidden secret within it?
Excitement crept into Angel’s mood.
The initial mural of the Black Fire Monkey concealed the entry door to the Tide World. This led Angel to be very interested in murals left by Feng, although the ones he encountered later within the Wild Stone Plains and the Baya Desert were merely murals with no anomalies, much to his disappointment, once making him think only the Black Fire Monkey mural held any secrets.
Today, he had finally stumbled upon a second mural that seemed to have a peculiarity.
This made Angel’s long-calmed emotions become eagerly impatient again.
From the naked eye, this mural appeared ordinary, so Angel began to observe from the perspective of energy.
He cautiously extended his spirit tentacle, exploring the mural bit by bit.
After ten minutes, Angel finally located a special point. Whether it was Feng’s intention or his twisted sense of humor, the point was located at the nostril of the gentle wind Uranus...
As with the mural of the black fire monkey, the elemental energy brushed over the nostril without any abnormal sensation; only spiritual power and magic power detected the difference.
It seems Feng intentionally set this up so that elemental creatures would not discover it.
Upon careful investigation, Angel discovered that this special point was also a small passage.
Where it leads to is unknown due to the shielding Feng has set up for now.
But it was from this channel that the mysterious aura Angel sensed earlier emanated.
Angel looked at the nostril of the mural, slightly dazed. When he first entered the Tidal World, Feng had left a message on the gate: "Ah, favored latecomer, want to find my treasure? I have already placed it there~"
Could it be that the treasure Feng left is hidden in this passage? A half-step mystic work?
Filled with doubt, Angel constructed a shapeshifting technique within his mind space. As the shapeshifting model was activated, his body gradually shrank until it reached the size that could fit into the passage, and then he stopped.
At this moment, in Angel’s perspective, the nostril of the gentle wind Uranus, which didn’t appear large normally, suddenly became a dark square.
With a subtle psychological discomfort and a mad rant about Feng, Angel arrived at the special point.
With a light leap, he entered the passage behind the special point.
The passage was initially very small, but as Angel moved forward, it gradually became wider. Furthermore, the mysterious aura grew more intense.
Walking through the dark passage, Angel stayed vigilant while silently speculating——
What is at the end of the passage? A treasure room? Or perhaps another passage leading to the Wizards’ Realm?
What could be the work exuding the mysterious aura? Is it truly a half-step mystic work, or is it a genuine Mysterious Object with an inherently obscure mysterious aura?
The unknown ahead greatly stimulated Angel psychologically, and his eyes began to shine brighter, anticipating the "harvest" that awaited.
Minutes later, Angel, who encountered no trouble along the way, reached the end of the passage.
When he saw the truth of the end, Angel was stunned.
His previous guesses of a "two-world passage," "treasure room," "mysterious object"... were all absent.
At the end of the passage was a wall, etched with dense patterns.
Unlike the patterns within the black fire monkey’s passage, Angel recognized these; they were all magic patterns.
Moreover, despite the dense drafting of the magic patterns, their essence was not complex. Even without seeing all the magic patterns, Angel deduced the truth of these patterns from the last few corners.
It’s not a magical energy array but an isolated magic pattern.
The essence of the magic pattern is unknown for now, but what it ultimately achieves is providing energy to external structures.
In other words, the primary function of these magic patterns is to ensure the sustained energy flow to the Mana Hut outside, preventing its collapse.
This also addressed Angel’s earlier question, explaining how the Mana Hut has stood for thousands of years with its energy source.
It’s from here.
However, once Angel figured out the magic pattern’s effectiveness, he was engulfed in a new perplexity: if this place is the energy hub sustaining the Mana Hut for millennia, how do you explain the mysterious aura sensed earlier?
Angel, still puzzled, searched the vicinity for half a day, hoping to find some hidden door or special mechanism.
In the end, the outcome was disappointing; the area was barren, with no concealed spots. Feng left no items, only the magic patterns on the wall.
Ultimately, Angel could only focus on the magic patterns.
With no other sources for the mysterious aura, the only possibility left was that it originated from this magic pattern.
But how could a magic pattern emit a mysterious aura?
With this question, Angel sat down on the spot, conjuring tables, chairs, and pen and paper out of thin air using illusion techniques.
He planned to confront the magic patterns on this wall head-on.
With pen and paper in hand, Angel began analyzing the magic patterns on the wall. Being someone who could be considered a "master" in Enchantment Alchemy, Angel quickly located the starting point of the magic pattern.
He intended to start from the beginning, dissecting the entire magic pattern bit by bit, to see what secrets might be hidden within it.
Time passed slowly; the more Angel dissected this magic pattern, the stranger he found it.
It wasn’t that the magic pattern was too profound, but rather it was too simplistic.
It was so rudimentary that it seemed like it could have been drawn by an apprentice new to runeology.
The pattern corners, the lines, all formed a language of magic patterns. To express the language of magic patterns accurately, one must strategically arrange corners, lines, and energy.
For example, a levitation magic pattern requires numerous magic pattern horn combinations, including: interference exclusion, energy interface, atmosphere, force, stability... and many others numbering in the hundreds—to finally activate the magic pattern.
Magic pattern combinations are myriad. Each magic rune mage has unique grasps and understandings, forming their own configurations.
But no matter the combinations, the final count of pattern corners is substantial because only "sufficient conditions" could make the "effect more accurate."
But this particular magic pattern that Angel observed was different.
This difference lay in its sheer simplicity.
Using a levitation magic pattern as a comparison, other levitation magic patterns require dozens or even hundreds of magic pattern horn combinations. But according to the magic pattern here, only one condition was needed: wind.
With wind, you could indeed lift objects or people. But how do you control it, stabilize it, and achieve the desired outcome?
If blown skyward by the wind, without setting the wind’s strength, the direction, or the time and space limitations, one might get blown hundreds of meters high and then plummet. Would such a levitation magic pattern be deemed successful?
Thus, using a simple "wind" magic pattern horn to express the effect of levitation is overly simplistic, especially since the "wind" magic pattern horn also has numerous subcategories.
This manner of expressing magic patterns is the most common error among runeology apprentices.
At this moment, the magic patterns on the wall overflowed with similar errors, leading Angel to suspect that perhaps it was crafted by a novice magic pattern apprentice.