Satisfied at the reactions of his friends and kaijin, Zhen Liu prepared his plate of at for grilling.
However, before he could truly tuck in to this feast of at, Antonio and Olstenna had settled their seats alongside his own. Judging from the expressions on their faces, they had sothing they wanted to share with him that was going to be...mildly perturbing.
'Oh no...'
Before addressing the duo, he made sure to grill himself so pieces of at.
"Alright, what got you two looking like you've seen ghosts?"
"That is...not an inaccurate question," Antonio said. "We did find sothing weird nearby that will probably be of interest to you."
"At least, we think it will be of interest given everything that's been happening as of late and the fact that you seem to collect treasured aether flas like an Ignarii," Olstenna added.
"That...is not wrong..."
Zhen Liu, despite being from Stampeding Bison and being of Roaring Tide descent, had an unusual amount of luck when it ca to fire-based aether treasures. Then again, his formula had just absorbed various aether types and quality due to [Cipactli's Feast], so there was a chance that he could start housing other types of natural aether treasures.
He just needed to find them.
"Okay, proclivity for fire aside, you still haven't gotten to the main point of your words," Zhen Liu noticed as he grabbed his finely grilled piece of sliced ribeye off the grill. "What's near us that got you all acting like nervous children?"
"We found a weird-looking temple that appears to be active," Antonio answered.
Zhen Liu paused for a mont as soon as he heard Antonio's words. And that's because he wanted to savor the flavor of the piece of BBQ he just ate.
Once he had swallowed the piece of at, Zhen Liu asked the question that he knew would snowball into a big fucking ss.
"What the fuck do you an by active?"
...
"Ah...I see."
Zhen Liu followed Olstenna and Antonio to what he thought was a strange-looking hill, not wanting to disturb his friends and family while they were eating. It wasn't until he got closer that he realized that it wasn't a hill but a buried temple of so kind.
A temple that was radiating warmth despite being mostly buried and looking like it had been abandoned for several centuries at minimum.
Not only that, but Zhen Liu recognized that the architecture was definitely not of this world. Well, at the very least, it definitely didn't blend in with Dozing Salamander-style architecture.
Dozing Salamander reminded Zhen Liu of a mash-up of soarican and South Asian-style buildings and culture; this temple looked more like sothing from Central Asia. As such, Zhen Liu imdiately started thinking the structure was sowhat related to the Strangeblood living situation from awhile back.
"Before I explore the site any further, can either of you tell if you recognize where or when this temple may have co from?" Zhen Liu asked.
At this point, Zhen Liu and the two Dozing Salamander natives were standing a good twenty feet from where the main entrance of the temple would be if it weren't buried under several layers of soil and stone.
The two of them didn't outright shake their heads in refusal, but they did hesitantly shrug their shoulders.
"What kind of response is that?"
"Okay, neither of us are really historians, but we have been told a lot of stories like this in the past," Antonio answered. "We call them teor structures."
"teor, what now?"
"Sotis when the sky is just right, teors fall to the continent," Olstenna began to explain. "These teors are usually chunks of stone, rare minerals, or reduced to dust. However, so warriors report that when they investigate the crash site of these teors, they sotis find strange structures in the crater instead. Now that I think about it, that weird tal structure at the Mines of Malevolence was a teor structure too."
"Hey, you think the other continents have to deal with these things too?" Antonio
"Huh..."
Doorways and structures connected to other worlds, the existence of Otherlanders, and now he had a proper na to give to not only that apartnt building back in Roaring Tide but also any other instances of this particular situation he could co across in the future.
More and more, Zhen Liu (Thomas Lee) began to realize that his transmigration into another person's body was not a unique situation on Valresta. However, that just made him more curious as to why it was such a common phenonon.
'Is it because of cultivation? Is this all because of so ancient Aether Deity from who knows how long ago? ' Zhen Liu asked himself before shaking his head. 'Ugh, forget it. Right now, there's an abandoned temple that is literally calling to … wait a minute what the fuck?'
While Zhen Liu was considering the implications of this mont, he finally realized that a strange humming sound was coming from the buried temple, which gave him the sa vibe as a siren song or the unusual song that a certain ice-wielding princess heard after she began learning more about her magical ancestry.
'Hold up…'
Once he heard the sound, he quickly made sure whether it was sothing only he was hearing or whether or not Olstenna and Antonio could hear it as well. That, or maybe he was losing his mind.
"Do you guys hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"Okay…"
…
'Logos, Pathos. You guys are usually in my head. Is that humming sound sothing I should actually be hearing or not?'
'...what makes you think I'm going to actively pursue this?'
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