The carvings were so alike that for a second, Zhihao wondered if he had entered the same cave as before.
He was excited and his excitement could not be concealed.
Zhihao, "System, How many treasures are there?"
[Answering player's question: There are a total of six treasure beasts]
Kaoru looked at Zhihao, curiously waiting for whatever he had suddenly thought up of.
Zhihao was not a petty person who would keep the information to himself but in order to state something, he'd first have to make sure that his theories had, somewhat a solid base.
"System, How many secret caves are there in this region?"
[Answering player's question: There are six caves placed all over the region.]
When Kaoru heard the answer, he too, seemed to have connected certain things together, "Are the caves somehow related to the treasures?"
Zhihao nodded, "I think so. There are six treasures and six caves. Each treasure leads to a certain cave. RoRo led us to its cave and with our help regained its former body and ran away. But the other beasts didn't move from that cave. At first, I assumed it was because their soul wasn't near but now that I think about it, those statues might have been just stones."
Kaoru could no longer keep up with whatever Zhihao was saying and he couldn't be blamed. Wasn't he part of the unfortunate people who couldn't enter the last cave? So how could he know what this was about, after all, he had not seen those treasure beast statues that Zhihao had spoke of.
Zhihao, having sensed that whatever he said—was going over the guy's head, sighed, "There are six beasts and six caves. Inside each cave, there are six statues hidden. One out of those six is the real body of a treasure beast and the rest five are stones."
Kaoru, "Okay, I got that."
Zhihao, "What I'm about to say next is nothing more than my guesses so I could be wrong. I think the six caves are like the groundwork of the seal."
"What makes you say that?" Kaoru inquired.
"Think about it. This land was burnt down and created anew but that was caused by the united prayers of the animals, so what role do the treasure beasts play in that? Absolutely nothing! We were told that the treasure beasts were the ones who sacrificed their bodies for this land, but the timing of that happening was never specified. If I'm guessing right, the two are not connected to each other."
Kaoru nodded, only understanding bits and pieces of it but whatever it was, it was better than understanding nothing at all.
Zhihao continued, "The chronology should be something like this: the land was burnt down and recreated by the prayers of the animals; the animals became mystical beasts. After 6000 years of peace, something happened and nearly destroyed the land, in which case, six beasts came forward to sacrifice their bodies and beg the sun goddess to save them. The goddess listened to them once again and put a barrier on top of the region, protecting it from outside danger."
Kaoru bobbed his head, "I get it. So the six beasts lay as the groundwork for the barrier?"
Zhihao, "Yeah! Their bodies are placed in the six caves that are located randomly all over the region."
"So if we free one of the bodies from a cave, the seal gets broken piece by piece?"
"Yeah, that's what I'm guessing. It's more like there are six seals holding up that one powerful barrier and if we want to break that, we'll first have to break the small ones first. Since we have already freed RoRo, there remains only five more seals, five more creatures, and five more caves."
Kaoru, "And we have already found another cave so we have four more to look for."
Zhihao rubbed his head in worry, "I hope the others have found such caves as well."
Kaoru, "We can hope for the best."
Although this entire thing was nothing more than a theory, the solid base behind it was strong and hard to deny. The chances of this theory becoming true were shockingly high.
But the biggest worry for Zhihao wasn't the fact that the theory was true or not, it was how to go about it further?
They were inside the cave but how were they supposed to unseal this immortal turtle's mortal body.
When RoRo was unsealed from that cave, it was purely due to Li Ling's help; he had with him an item that was immensely helpful but right now, Zhihao had no such item and Li Ling was not near, so how were they supposed to break the seal?
Kaoru, "Should we contact the others?"
Zhihao's eyes twitched, it wasn't that he was against the idea of sharing the newfound discovery, however, if they were to contact the other squad members, wouldn't his aunt and BBtrash also come back to annoy him? He simply could not accept that. He'd rather suck it up and find a way to break the seal himself
And that was exactly what he did, "Let's not trouble them with this. This one should be easy to break."
At least he hoped it would be easy to break.
The duo moved further inside the cave and once again the water current grew strong, pulling them into another cave. The scene was the same. There was a wide cave identical to the previous one with stones on the side and a pool of water in the middle, they jumped inside the water and the situation repeated itself.
Zhihao and Kaoru stopped, they were being tricked; this was not getting them anywhere.
They were stuck in a loop.
Zhihao had marked a cross on a stone to check if this place just looked alike or was it really the same place? The next time he entered the cave, he found the carvings he had previously made.
They were stuck somehow, going back to the same spot all over again.
Zhihao looked around the cave.
There was clearly nothing in it, however, Zhihao felt like it was oddly familiar, looking exactly like the main cave hall where the statues were found in.
Zhihao looked up in an instant, the roof wall of the cave was closed, but Zhihao would not let it be so for too long.
With an order given, Shuang launched forward at the roof, making Kaoru yell out in worry, "Why are you trying to kill us?"
Zhihao avoided answering the question and a few seconds later, the roof of the cave was broken into a clean circle, this was not entirely caused by Shuang, it was, in fact, a hole that had been already there; it was just well hidden behind that moss-like creatures. When Shuang aimed for the roof, the creatures moved away and the hole was visible.
[Congratulations on developing the side story! +50 T-points gained]
This hole in the roof was perfectly aligned in order to let moonlight pass through and fall on the pool surface.
Zhihao stood by the side and along with Kaoru observed the situation.
When the light was filtered through and fell on the pool, the water inside the pool started flowing out. This was a sign of something emerging from deep inside the pool.
The water splashed the two players standing on the side and kept on rising. With another minute passing by, something came out of the water, it was a circular stone table that looked much alike the stone plate they had seen previously.
As Zhihao remembered it, the reason the plate emerged last time was because of Li Ling's ring but that was not the current case, this time it had actually risen when it sensed the moonlight.
Zhihao had a thought; maybe he had read into it too much. What if the reason the stone plate rose the first time was not directly related to the ring, what if it was because of the light reflected off of the ring? Maybe the seal needed moonlight to come undone and maybe that moonlight needed to fall on something particular, maybe an area where normally the light would not fall on.
Like some sort of trigger, a spot where the light needs to fall naturally in order to break the seal?
If that had been the case, it could explain a lot and their mission now would become a lot easier.
But to test if that theory was true or not was beyond Zhihao's capabilities.
Zhihao looked at the stone plate as it opened up six holes on the edges and under the plate were stone statues of those six treasure beasts—on top of which, the light fell perfectly. This time Zhihao noticed that as the stone melted away, what lay under it was not a body of an animal, it was just an apparition of one, at least that was the case for the five treasure beast, except for the last one, which was the statue of a large turtle, when the stone melted off the statue, what was left under it was the body of the beast.
Zhihao found it thrilling how he had guessed it right. There were probably six caves for all six treasures and those were the seals that held up the barrier that protected this land in a time loop.
Kaoru looked at the giant statues and was rendered speechless. This was the first time he had seen such a sight. The confusion did not come as a shock.
Zhihao, "When the soul enters back in the body, we can catch the treasures and complete the mission but I'm going to have to tell you not to catch it right now."
Kaoru nodded, "I won't catch it right now. I feel like there is something more to it that we don't know."
Zhihao smiled, "Let's first set all the treasure beasts free and see what happens."
When the body was completely unfrozen, Zhihao saw a dark shadow emerge from the water and enter the body, The body of the turtle came to life and started moving.
When the turtle saw the two intruders who have set it free, the turtle bowed and ran away.
Kaoru, "..."
At least, this one showed gratitude.
Zhihao chuckled, "I was right."
"About what?"
"We can't catch the beasts yet. The last time RoRo ran away, I had this feeling that it was going somewhere in particular just like this turtle."
Kaoru, "So you are saying, they have somewhere important to go?"
Zhhiao nodded, "I can't be sure but I think they are assembling."
"What do you mean assembling?"
Zhihao looked ahead, "The beasts are eager to get their bodies back but the first thing they do when they get back their body is running off to a certain place. If so, would it not be safe for us to assume that this place was the reason they wanted to get their bodies back?"
Kaoru thought about it for a few minutes, it made sense but in the end it was still just that; an assumption so what could be said?
Zhihao, "If they all want to assemble somewhere in particular—I bet there is something up with it."
Kaoru, "And if we find the place where they are running off to, we can catch them all at once."
Zhihao nodded, "Exactly!"
"But what if you are wrong and they are just running away?" Kaoru asked
"...."
Kaoru, "Don't worry about it, if they are really just running away from us, I won't hold you accountable."
Zhihao was amused by the response, "Are you sure about that?"
Kaoru might not, but BBtrash and loudbitchnextdoor were surely going to push the blame onto Zhihao.
Kaoru smiled in turn, "It's my choice to believe you."
By this time, the turtle had run away and was nowhere in sight. With no more turtle inside the cave, the two-player also did not waste their time here and soon left the cave.
Somewhere else in the forest was another cave that was found by Li Ling and Zhou XinYi and another seal was broken.
With a total number of three seals broken, only three others were left.
How could breaking another three be considered difficult for them?