King and Rebel Conversion
Just as William thought, the miners rejected his suggestion.
They were terrified and humble, but their attitude was firm.
After repeated reminders failed to change their opinion, William felt that he had done his best.
There were some things that couldn't be persuaded. Relying on force would only leave latent risks for him.
"But why are you here too?" William turned to look at the youth named Colt and asked in confusion.
The youth who had been whipped by the supervisor because he was dozing off stayed beside William. He didn't pass through the portal to the Grief Mountains, nor did he return to the surface with the remaining miners.
"My father needs someone to take care of him. He can't leave Thorn City yet," Colt replied.
"Then why don't you go up with them?"
William pointed to the path that led to the mine elevator.
"It's safer to stay by your side."
"A wise choice."
As William spoke, he walked to the statue of the three goddesses.
"But I don't have time to send you home. When the time comes, you can think of a way to bring your father out of Thorn City after you leave the mine safely."
As he spoke, he carefully examined the three goddesses' statues and confirmed that they had no other special uses other than being the initial anchor point for summoning Lunar Monsters.
After casually smashing the statue, he simply checked the skull temple behind it.
Inspecting this was just a precaution. This skull temple was essentially a magic furnace that used the souls of the dead as fuel. Its function was basically to provide fuel for large-scale rituals.
Indeed, there were no clues there.
Then, the only thing left was that the place the miners had excavated on the rock wall might be the true body of this ritual.
William walked in front of the rock wall and stroked the marks left behind by the excavation. As he had expected, the controlled miners had previously chiseled out a pattern along the Elementium Silver mine.
Elementium Silver was a metal medium with an extremely strong affinity for magic. Even raw ores that hadn't been mined and refined had the properties of sealing magic in them.
William pressed his hands on the mineral vein and used the entire mineral vein as a casting medium to cast Illumination.
A faint silver light lit up along the Elementium Silver mine's rock walls. An incomplete complicated painting gradually circled the hall.
It was a pattern of a dragon and a snake biting each other's tails and constantly devouring each other.
"What's this?"
Colt circled the glowing pattern as if he couldn't believe that they had dug up something like this.
William was stunned when he saw this pattern. After a while, he said solemnly, "King and Rebel ritual. So that's how it is…"
In the game's lore, other than the ritual used to communicate with the Moon Realm, all the other ceremonial magic was essentially a method to influence the present by imitating the myths and legends of the past.
The King and Rebel ritual was a typical example. This ritual was first taken from a famous myth in the primitive beliefs of the Blackwater Swamp—King and Rebel Conversion.
This story was close to a fable: The God King of Heaven and Earth was very cruel. Under His rule, people were plunged into misery and suffering, and the souls of the dead were so many that they almost filled the entire Underworld. Death of the Underworld rose up as a rebel because he was dissatisfied with the God King's tyranny.
After Death killed the God King through various trials, he was crowned as the new God King and imprisoned the soul of the old God King in the Underworld, making Him the new Death.
Later on, the new God King became intoxicated by power and gradually became tyrannous. As for the imprisoned new Death, he gradually became virtuous because of the companionship of the souls. Therefore, the king and the rebel swapped positions and thus, a new cycle ensued.
The snake that represented Death and the dragon that represented the God King devoured each other and turned into each other. This was what the people of the Blackwater Swamp in ancient times understood about reincarnation.
The so-called King and Rebel ritual was to recreate the key nodes in this story through imitation. Coupled with all kinds of cumbersome preparations and a huge amount of magic power as fuel, if one successfully resonated with the previous myths and legends, one could obtain the corresponding power and authority in the myths.
"What's the King and Rebel ritual?" Colt asked.
"To put it simply, a ritual that allows one to step into the Divine Realm."
After giving a response, William thought of a key question.
In Thorn City, where was Duke Simon going to find a king with a higher status than him to be overthrown with him as a rebel?
…
On the elevator, the miners who had rejected the mysterious magic chanter fell into a subtle silence.
After a while, one of them finally couldn't take it anymore and spoke.
"I say, why don't we go down and find that person now?"
"Are you mad? Do you think a magic chanter can protect you if you leave with him? This is Thorn City, Duke Simon's Thorn City. No matter how strong he is, how many can he defeat?" another person immediately retorted.
"But the duke cast something on us…"
"Then let me ask you, are you dead? Is anyone here dead?"
"But if the magic chanter hadn't killed that monster and made them stop parasitizing us, perhaps in the future…"
"That's just what he said."
The person interrupted him and continued, "Moreover, you said that it's only 'perhaps,' right? But if we leave with the person who ruined the duke's plans and excavate that fortress, we will definitely die. Do you understand?"
A few miners nodded when they heard his words. Duke Simon's authority in Thorn City was absolute, and no one doubted it.
"Then, when we encounter the duke's men later, what should we say about what happened below?" someone asked.
"Just as we discussed previously, we tell the truth about what happened before we fainted. As for what happened after that, we said that we don't remember anything after waking up."
The miner who spoke earlier replied, "The more you say, the more mistakes you make. Say that you don't remember anything, and they can't verify it."
Everyone nodded to themselves.
About five minutes later, they followed the guidance of the magic crystal lamps and walked out of the Silverstream Mine. What awaited them outside was a black mass of Bramble Guards.
Seeing them walk out, the two front rows of Black Armored Guards drew their swords with a clang.
All the miners raised their hands and stopped.
After seeing who was leading the team, everyone couldn't help but gasp.
Vincent von Bergman.
He was the Chief Battle Mage of the palace and known as the number one person below Legendary.
It was said that he had once challenged three inner circle members of the Platinum Ring to a mage duel in a row and defeated the three famous Battle Mages one by one. Later, he even used lightning to carve incurable scorch marks on each of their faces as humiliation.
As a result, he obtained the title of Sage of Scorching Scars.
For a moment, everyone was stunned in their spots.
They never expected the matter in the mine to be so serious that it actually alarmed someone of this importance to deal with it.