Dragon's Origin

Chapter 730: Catching Up (Part 1)

This vast lava lake, spanning dozens of miles, wasn't entirely composed of lava. Within this area, a large expanse of somewhat irregular stone pillars was distributed, which supported the dozens of miles of lava lake cavern space.

Beneath each stalactite pillar, there was a small patch of normal limestone that hadn't melted. From Wang Sheng's perspective, these small, normal areas were clearly prepared as footholds, allowing him to 'run' along these pillars all the way to the central area of the lava lake.

Running on lava was something Wang Sheng had already practiced in the underground palace, when he was carrying Mei'er. Repeating the trick now was naturally no problem.

However, with a lava lake spanning dozens of miles, wouldn't it be too slow to cross it one pillar at a time? Moreover, the temperature here was so high, and there were so many toxic gases in the air. If Wang Sheng still used that running method, there would definitely be problems.

Of course, this couldn't stump Wang Sheng. Since Wang Sheng had long guessed that the eternal energy source must be underground lava, how could he not have prepared for it?

It was still the snowmobile, but the tracks had been slightly modified. They were still metal tracks, but they were made thicker and hollow.

Wang Sheng had filled the hollow sections of the tracks with water. These tracks would directly contact the lava, providing power to the snowmobile.

Because they were tracks, they wouldn't sink in the snow, and even less so in the lava that was as dense as rock. They could move very smoothly.

The high temperature of the lava would pass through the metal tracks, transferring heat to the water in the hollow tracks. The brief contact of the tracks with the lava wouldn't cause it to boil, but when the water temperature reached a certain level, Wang Sheng would be able to feel it.

At this time, Wang Sheng would control the Naring on his body, extract the hot water from that section of the track, and then add cold water to cool the track, keeping the track temperature from exceeding one hundred degrees, allowing it to continue forward.

The speed of the snowmobile was much more sustainable than Wang Sheng's simple running, allowing him to directly rush into the center of the lava lake without interruption. Even if he discovered something was wrong, he could rush out in time.

After resting briefly, Wang Sheng organized his equipment and drove the snowmobile into the lava lake.

It was impossible for every part of the lava lake spanning dozens of miles to be an energy source for the formation, nor was it necessarily the case that the energy source had to be in the center. Therefore, Wang Sheng could only carefully check and explore every place around the lava lake to find the energy source.

Initially, Wang Sheng would definitely observe a general overview first. The temperature here was high, and there were many toxic gases, so Wang Sheng had to use compressed air cylinders to maintain his breathing.

Under these high-temperature conditions, sensing formation fluctuations wasn't an easy task. Wang Sheng spent several hours roughly circling the lava lake, but didn't find anything special.

Most of the water he brought had already been heated, so Wang Sheng had to rush out of the lava lake, return to the dark river along the tunnel he had dug, and exchange it for a batch of cold water. At the same time, he waited for the tracks to cool down while rethinking and pondering.

The formation needed lava as an energy source, but it was also impossible to set up the formation in the lava out of thin air, without any connection to the formation above. In that case, Wang Sheng could actually exclude most of the lava area, and only check those stone pillars connected to the top, or the edge of the lava lake, which were the key to connecting to the upper area.

After re-determining his target, Wang Sheng rested briefly, ate something by the dark river outside, and then entered the lava lake again.

With a target in mind, it was much simpler to check. This time, Wang Sheng didn't even use the snowmobile anymore. Since he had to check those stone pillars anyway, Wang Sheng simply ran, checking one stone pillar after another.

This kind of close and direct contact made it easier for Wang Sheng to judge whether the stone pillar was an energy source for the formation.

However, this wasn't an easy task either. Just within sight, there were at least several thousand stone pillars, and Wang Sheng needed to judge them one by one. Most importantly, the formation spanning dozens of miles above might not be powered by a single location. Wang Sheng needed to find them all before he could decide how to deal with them.

Before long, Wang Sheng found a stone pillar that was different from the others. Within the limestone below, there was a hidden formation extending into the lava lake, and the formation was covered with a layer of limestone as camouflage. After so many years of high-temperature baking, the disguised limestone had also been melted together. If it weren't for the effect of Wang Sheng's 'Line' character formula, he probably wouldn't have been able to discover it at all.

There was also a formation inside the stone pillar. This also happened to match Wang Sheng's judgment that the stone pillar must be a channel connecting the top and bottom.

It was easy to deal with once he found one. He just needed to look for others with the same characteristics. Wang Sheng successively discovered more than a hundred stone pillars in more than a day, all of which were energy channels.

Wang Sheng quickly and accurately marked the position of each stone pillar on a beast skin. Anyway, there were so many stone pillars here. As long as he found a few stone pillars from the earliest entry point as reference objects, he could determine the relative position of each one.

After marking these discovered stone pillars one by one, Wang Sheng discovered a small secret. It seemed that the distribution of these stone pillars corresponded to the distribution of the formation in the ice layer at the bottom of the lake above. In other words, there were twenty-five sealing points at the bottom of the lake above, and there were also twenty-five corresponding distributed stone pillar groups below to provide energy.

Although Wang Sheng didn't find all the stone pillars, the concentrated distribution area and relative position of the ones he had already found fully explained these.

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After discovering this, Wang Sheng let out a long breath. Wang Sheng could completely ignore those other sealing points, and just focus on finding the area that sealed the girl in his dream.

For safety's sake, Wang Sheng spent two more days confirming the relative position of the dream girl's sealing formation. He carefully searched the relative position for two whole days, confirming that there were only one hundred and eight stone pillars in this area that were related to the formation and were all within this area. He had found all the formation-related stone pillars, and then he showed a smile.

While Wang Sheng was searching for these stone pillars, Song Yan and A'qi had led those experts along the dark river all the way. During this period, at least forty experts failed to survive several sections that required long periods of diving and remained in the dark river forever.

Whenever they reached an unflooded area, everyone had to search to confirm that this was not where Wang Sheng had passed.

"It's here!" When Song Yan and A'qi landed and saw the large pile of limestone that Wang Sheng had dug out of the tunnel, Song Yan could confirm it without A'qi's confirmation.