71: Chapter 71 The Key

On the night he defeated Cang Ming, Shen Ye returned to the student dormitory, took a cold shower, changed into clean clothes, and then sat by the window and opened the encrypted file sent by Teacher Cang Yue.

File EW-071.

It was a core collection from the deep database of Eternal University, with extremely high access requirements; Teacher Cang Yue had applied in the name of the Tactical Research Group for a long time before it was approved.

Shen Ye read it carefully from beginning to end.

The file recorded the alliance between the Twilight Civilization and the founding families of the four top universities: before the Twilight Civilization vanished, it had divided the key to the sanctuary into four parts, entrusting them to the four most trusted ally families at the time; these four families later participated in the founding of the four top universities respectively.

The four keys were each a twilight crystal, kept by the founding families of the four universities at the top of their respective "Founding Tower," and could only be activated by resonating with twilight energy at a specific frequency.

An ancient star map was attached to the end of the file, marking the approximate locations of the four Founding Tower structures, with the coordinates of the Ancient Archives on the top floor of the deep blue Wanxiang Giant Tower being the clearest—because the founding family of Wanxiang University still kept that twilight crystal to this day, though no one had been able to activate it for thousands of years.

Shen Ye stared at the star map for a long time.

Wanxiang, Cangqiong, Yongheng, and Shenyu; the four towers were located at the four cardinal directions of Lake Heart Island, and he could see them every day when he walked along the lakeside path.

Especially the Wanxiang Giant Tower—the Ancient Archives were on the very top floor of the tower, and Lin Tianyin said that once he reached the core layer, she could help him apply for borrowing privileges.

And now, he was already in the top sixteen.

He sent a message to Lin Tianyin: "File EW-071 is in hand. The twilight crystal of Wanxiang University is in the Ancient Archives on the top floor of the deep blue Wanxiang Giant Tower, and it needs to be activated by resonance with twilight energy at a specific frequency. Can you use your Eye of Law to analyze the specific frequency?"

Lin Tianyin replied in seconds with two words: "Coordinates."

Shen Ye sent the star map coordinates over.

A few minutes later, Lin Tianyin replied: "Located. The Eye of Law will start working tonight, and I will give you the frequency data tomorrow morning. Also, Jiang Yue asked me to tell you—see you at the Ancient Archives tomorrow morning, she has found new clues for decryption."

Shen Ye replied "Okay," turned off his communicator, leaned back in his chair, and let out a long sigh.

Four keys, and finally, the clear whereabouts of the first one had been found.

Early the next morning, Shen Ye first went to the Wanxiang University Law Analysis Laboratory.

Lin Tianyin's laboratory was underground in the main tower, the four walls embedded with law-reinforced sensory vines, and in the center floated a huge Eye of Law—the core manifestation of her divine kingdom attribute, a pale golden eyeball condensed from pure analytical laws.

At this moment, the eyeball was projecting a holographic image of the entire law structure of the Wanxiang Giant Tower; from the tower base to the top, thousands of layers of law patterns were slowly rotating like flowing water.

Among them, there was a small space in the core area of the Ancient Archives at the top of the tower marked with a red circle, the inside of which was covered with extremely dense residual patterns of twilight energy.

Lin Tianyin stood in front of the hologram and tapped the red circle area with her fingertip, enlarging one of the extremely subtle law patterns.

"Yesterday, I performed resonance tests using the twilight energy samples collected previously, spanning from the lowest to the highest frequencies, and the resonance frequency of the Wanxiang University twilight crystal is within one of those bands. We just need to have Chen and Ye simultaneously infuse Holy Light and Abyss energy at this resonance frequency on the altar base of the Twilight Altar; once the energy accumulates to the activation threshold, the twilight crystal in the Ancient Archives will resonate and manifest at this specific frequency."

She marked the specific activation threshold and resonance waveform on the hologram, "I have already encrypted and sent the frequency data to Chen and Ye, and they are currently debugging the resonance frequency at the Twilight Altar. Once the activation threshold is reached, the alarm system at Wanxiang University will be triggered first, at which point you will need to verify it on the spot with your legal identity—this is the only compliant way. You will need to go and activate the Founding Tower of the other three universities yourself, as the twilight energy frequency of each tower is different."

Shen Ye nodded after looking at the hologram.

"Jiang Yue is still waiting for me at the Ancient Archives. Let's go together."

The two crossed the stone bridge of Lake Heart Island and passed by a large grove of old ginkgo trees.

Jiang Yue was sitting in the corner workstation of the Ancient Civilization Zone, her desk as usual spread with rubbings, ancient character comparison tables, and rubbings of fragments from the Sea of Thousand Realms Mist.

Seeing the two enter, she did not exchange pleasantries, but simply pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and picked up a fragment from the table.

"The Twilight script on this batch of fragments from the Sea of Thousand Realms Mist—I was stuck halfway through deciphering them before—the grammatical structure on the fragments is highly similar to the sacrificial texts of the Void Race royal family, but the semantics of the core vocabulary never matched. It wasn't until last night that I re-compared them with the original manuscript of the Void Race sacrificial texts."

She placed the fragment under the law magnifying glass and adjusted the focal length, "The few symbols that appeared repeatedly on the fragments—I had previously interpreted them according to conventional grammar as 'Awakening' and 'Descending,' but the original meaning of these two symbols in the Void Race sacrificial texts is not active voice, but passive voice. It is not 'Awakening,' but 'Being Awakened.' It is not 'Descending,' but 'Being Brought Back.'"

She opened a notebook with frayed edges and pointed to a line of deciphered text to show Shen Ye.

The phrase "Light and Darkness Return to Origin" on the stele, she had previously always translated as "Light and Darkness Return to the Original."

But after re-interpreting it according to the passive voice, it should be— "Light and Darkness are Brought Back to the Origin."

"The prophecy of the Twilight Civilization never realizes itself automatically. It has been waiting for someone to actively bring Light and Darkness back to the origin. This is why no one has been able to activate the four keys for thousands of years—everyone is waiting for the prophecy to fulfill itself, but the prophecy requires someone to execute it."

She looked up, her eyes behind the lenses bloodshot from fatigue, "You are that person."

Shen Ye was silent for a while.

He remembered the words of Second Lieutenant Meng Yan from the Sea of Thousand Realms Mist in the cafeteria: "What it is waiting for is someone to keep walking forward along this path."

He remembered Yan Shan saying to a young body refiner in the Body Refining Cave, "Stones cannot walk, but people can."

He took the fragment and silently recited the re-deciphered line of Twilight script a few times.

"Four keys, after they are all activated, can the location of the sanctuary entrance be pinpointed?"

Jiang Yue flipped out another encrypted file from the table; it was the tactical intelligence sent by Gu Qinghan last night.

She superimposed and compared the coordinates of the law disturbance zone in the Sea of Thousand Realms Mist marked on the ancient star map with the high-precision terrain scan data collected by Gu Qinghan during observations at the border.

The star-shaped mark was exactly to the southeast of the star-shaped mark in the center of that charcoal map, and the distance was not far—the direction Gu Yan took back then was correct; he had likely already found the periphery of the sanctuary, but without the four keys in hand, he could not enter.

Jiang Yue drew a circle on the map.

"The entrance is in the depths of that law disturbance zone in the core area of the Sea of Thousand Realms Mist. When the Ash King invaded the Sea of Thousand Realms Mist back then, its target was likely this very sanctuary itself. But it did not have twilight energy, so it could not enter."

Shen Ye looked at the star map.

The four Founding Towers were located at the four cardinal directions of Lake Heart Island, and the star-shaped mark was deep in the Sea of Thousand Realms Mist; starting from Wanxiang University, one could estimate the schedule based on the speed of a military airship.

There was not much time left.

After the National Competition ended, regardless of the ranking, he had to set off immediately.

He put away the star map.

"The Sea of Thousand Realms Mist, I will go. However, before setting off, I need to listen to someone's thoughts first."

Jiang Yue did not ask any more questions.

She lowered her head and carefully put the fragment back into the spiritual silk bag, her gaze sweeping over the fine calluses and old ink stains on her hands worn down by the ancient character comparison tables, and then she continued to bury her head in organizing the deciphered data.

The National Competition had not yet ended, but Shen Ye was very clear in his heart that the clues for all four keys had surfaced.

He needed to find the most suitable person to help him figure out how to play this move.