Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 674 Will I see a church in the mountains?

Because of Yieta's words, everyone rushed to the open-air balcony on the top floor and looked down at this alien shelter hidden in the barrier of three mountains.

Looking down from above, it is obvious that the Three Mountains Boundary is a circular area, surrounded by long ridges, lush forests and winding rivers, forming a natural dividing line with the outside world. The terrain here is complex, with high mountains and dense forests. Even without the camouflage of the etheric curtain, it is difficult for outsiders to climb over the ridges and pass through the forest to find this hidden secret place.

Only by descending from the sky like Yunjingkong Island can you get a full glimpse of its appearance.

Even at night, the Three Mountains were exceptionally bright. This brightness did not come from the stars in the night sky, nor from artificial light sources, but from some rose-like plants that grew in large numbers here. They emitted irregular halos from their stamens, illuminating the surrounding space. A single flower might be only as bright as a firefly, but the halos of thousands and tens of thousands of flowers blended together to form a nebula in the valley, making the night here not so deep and silent.

Moreover, the light is soft and not glaring, so it does not give people an abrupt feeling. The tide formed by the light gathering will also rhythmically spread out circles of visible ripples with the breathing of the flowers, caressing the buildings and forests, as if covering the valley in a beautiful curtain of light, gorgeous and dreamy.

"Ah!" Metien opened his eyes wide subconsciously when he saw this scene, and exclaimed: "It's Star Rose. I've seen it in books. It's a very rare alchemical and potion material. I didn't expect there are so many here!"

Influenced by those medicine books, when others were still marveling at the beauty and dreaminess of the scene, the first thing that came to her mind was the content mentioned in the books. Perhaps this can indirectly reflect that the little girl is gradually growing into a qualified pharmacist.

These flowers, called star roses, bloom on vines as thick as a baby's arm. These vines should have grown wildly by nature, so they can bloom so vigorously and unrestrainedly. However, a skilled gardener cleverly integrated them into man-made buildings: on the cross-shaped main road that runs through the entire Sanshan area, a white stone pillar is erected at intervals, and the stone pillars are connected by tree stump fences. As a result, the vines blooming with star roses are entwined on the fences, growing lushly, and naturally climbing up the white stone pillars. The flowers blooming in the high places form a halo, forming a natural decorative street lamp, illuminating all the darkness within the street.

In addition, the walls and roofs of the buildings extending on both sides of the street are also covered with star rose vines, making them look like fairy tale elves' cottages, full of natural wildness.

It can be seen that the founder of the Three Mountains Realm must be an excellent planner. When designing the shelter, he took transportation and convenience into consideration. Therefore, although the types of buildings are different, the heights are different, and even the styles are different: there are traditional houses built with wooden boards, stone bricks and mud embryos that can also be seen in the human world, as well as tree houses and rattan houses built on high places and connected to each other by sky bridges and suspension bridges. There are even some more unique buildings: bird nests built in the tree canopy, beehives hanging on branches, and caves dug at the roots of trees. Different aliens have different living habits. Human planners only need to consider human living habits, while planners of the shelter have to consider all the complex situations and try to build them into a unified whole. Despite this, the passage of the shelter is still very smooth. The main roads and small streets on the ground are connected in series, and the sky bridges and suspension bridges in the sky are stacked and connected. There is also a circular low wall on the outermost periphery as a partition between the forest and the shelter. It seems complicated, but in fact the veins are clear. At a glance, it is not only not complicated, but also pleasing to the eye.

Among these buildings of various types and unique shapes, the most eye-catching and the first thing that everyone who enters the Three Mountains will notice is probably the large building located at the intersection of the cross-shaped main road.

It is hard to imagine seeing such a magnificent building in the deep mountains. It should appear in the most prosperous parish of Lunwitin, the City of Ten Thousand Cities, or in Saint Keran, the capital of the Theocracy of Depesion. The main body of the building is a distinctive Gothic cathedral built of white stone. The pointed vault is majestic and the space extends inward and upward, supplemented by bright marble corridors, towering cross spires, golden relief murals and stained glass windows that almost occupy an entire front wall, with contrasting colors and smart and upward lines, reflecting its solemnity, magnificence and sacredness; on both sides of the church there are walkways composed of inclined flying buttresses, leading to the atrium square paved with stone bricks and painted with floor decorations, forming a guarding momentum; in addition, a large number of decorative buildings such as arc arches, relief columns, niches with holy images, and winding arch corridors are used, which are extremely exquisite, smart and gorgeous, adding an extremely strong and inviolable religious atmosphere to it, making everyone who faces it for the first time feel their own insignificance in the urge to worship, thereby contrasting the worship and awe of God, and this is exactly the intention of the builders.

What is even more valuable is that the proportions of this cathedral, which is gorgeous and elegant in shape and solemn and sacred in temperament, are obviously reduced. Therefore, even the highest spire is no more than 30 meters high, and the height of the dome of the main hall is barely 50 meters. This may be due to the consideration of saving building area, or it may be because they don’t want to build it too grand, so as not to waste manpower and financial resources and easily attract unnecessary attention. Only by enlarging the church in front of us to twice or three times its original proportion in our minds can we restore the state that the designer envisioned for it in the drawings, the height that makes people look up, the magnificence that makes people lose their minds, and the sense of depth that makes people almost suffocate.

But then again, the fact that the church can still perfectly reflect the magnificent, sacred, classical and elegant temperament that it naturally possessed at the beginning of its design, even at a miniature scale, is not this the result of the architect's profound skills? If it is placed in the history of human architecture, perhaps he is a genius who can share the honor with the great masters such as Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and Brunelleschi?

"That is the Evangelical Convent, a cathedral built by Lord Pancras after he borrowed and imitated the structure of the original building." Everyone was a little distracted and forgot to speak for a moment, and Shesta's voice sounded in their ears at the right time: "As for the original building that he used as a reference, it still stands in the Seven Stars District of the capital, Lunwitting. It is called St. Annville Cross Church."

"Of course, St. Annville's Cross Church also has its prototype, and its prototype is not only famous in architectural history, but also in religious history. It is known as the oldest church building in human history. It is the Holy Place of the Spiritual Prayer Society—"

"The Gospel of All Saints, Great Hermitage."

　Give me some meow
　　
　
(End of this chapter)