"So, please don't mind. But our funding is limited and we could only afford this kind of simple portal." standing before a small and slightly dusty round platform, Professor Atkinson told Jianmen: "The place has strange force fields around it, and it took us a lot of effort to make this portal work. It might feel a little uneasy, but just hold on and you should be good."
"It's okay. You can go first and I'll follow, save you some energy and money." Jianmen nodded.
"You're sure? That's really dangerous." Dolores asked with a frown: "The force field is quite powerful and dangerous, if you're not careful you can get injured."
"What special materials did you use to build this portal? " Jianmen asked.
"We used quite a lot of Ethereal Crystals, Jade from the Nixta River, and lava rocks from beneath the Kano Volcano for stabilization. " Professor Atkinson answered: "You're sure? I can give you a piece of Jade from the Nixta River, so that you can at least be kicked back to here if you're not able to locate the landing spot."
"Thanks." Jianmen did not refuse, as it would appear too cocky if he did.
"Okay. I'll go first, Professor, Mr. Yu." Dolores nodded and stepped onto the small round platform.
The platform lit up in blue light, Dolores' body gradually became transparent and in under half a minute she disappeared, and after about five seconds, the light from the platform dimmed.
"Okay, you wanna go first? So I can at least guide you if you find it too difficult." Professor Atkinson asked Jianmen.
"No worries, let me follow you. " Jianmen smiled.
When Professor Atkinson's body started getting transparent, Jianmen also started creating his own portal where he stood, following the traces of energy from the travel of Dolores and Professor Atkinson.
The feeling of being "squeezed" and "pushed" came from the portal, the force field around the landing spot was indeed strong and bizarre, and it could even seep through the portal itself and apply its forces on Jianmen himself.
"Okay. Interesting." Jianmen nodded and pushed harder on his portal, in less than half a minute, his portal with orange and golden edges appeared right in front of him, stable and connected right to a place beside the landing spot.
Dolores and Professor Atkinson were both surprised when Jianmen created and went through his own portal, just by following the traces of energy they left behind.
"Now, let's get down to business." Jianmen rubbed his hands and looked around with a satisfied smile on his face: "So this is your new excavation site? For the limited funding you guys have, this is quite a nice discovery."
Jianmen was being sincere - they were standing in the ruins of what looked like a huge ancient city, there were broken pillars the width of a dozen men standing side by side; tall, spacious and collapsed buildings with ridiculously thick walls; and from where they were standing, they could see a dried up fountain with a square footage of the size of the entire Grant Academy.
"Something tells me this is a land of giants." Jianmen joked: "What have you found?"
"We have found a lot of things, but sadly, nothing the academy deemed worthy of increased funding." Professor Atkinson shook his head: "When we first came to this place, we found some bones of huge size, we figured they might be animals kept by the original inhabitants, because they were all concentrated in certain areas, and those areas didn't look like tombs or burial grounds. But we didn't find any bodies left by the original inhabitants. So we theorized that they probably moved away from this place due to some disasters."
"But if that is the case, you'd still have burial grounds of some sort, right?" Jianmen asked.
"Yes. Which is why we think that this might be the central place of either worship or commerce for the inhabitants, and their residential area was out there." Dolores pointed at the direction behind her: "But the outer areas are all sealed off by the surrounding energy storm. I know what you're thinking - how did we find this place, for this answer you can look up."
Jianmen looked up, and he saw that the area of sky right above was bright and clear, but the further areas around were all dark, grim and filled with all kinds of visible streams of energy turbulence flowing and clashing with each other. It looked like the only way for anyone to safely land on this place without a portal was to head straight from above.
"This is a small, distant hidden planet, somewhat buried inside of a floating realm, location wise it's actually not that far from Earth." seeing that Jianmen figured everything out, Professor Atkison continued to explain: "The academy found this realm and claimed it, there are a couple of other excavation teams exploring this realm, and I was outcompeted and landed here - dangerous, but could be of high potential. It's just that we're short on both funds and helping hands."
Professor Atkinson sighed, Dolores did not say anything, she did not stop reading the screen of a tablet in her hands. Jianmen looked around and took a few seconds to feel the vibrations and energy fields around him, then he turned to Professor Atkinson: "Okay, let's go. I don't imagine this is where you do your excavation?"
"Please come with us." Professor Atkinson nodded and headed for the giant dried up fountain. Jianmen followed him, all the while constantly checking out the broken buildings and pillars on both sides of the way.
"These pillars and buildings were some kind of stone that we've never seen outside of this place. We've analyzed the content, and found that they were close to a mixture of quartz and marble, they're sturdy enough to hold the weight, and conductive enough for magic to flow through." Dolores stayed behind and beside Jianmen to explain the discoveries they've had so far: "When we first got here, there was some strange residual energy lingering on the surface. But when we started the excavation, it became very hard to detect, it was as if the presence on the lower level sucked it dry."
"The presence on the lower level?"
"Yes. Right here." Professor Atkinson went onto a broken altar at the other side of the giant fountain, then he pressed his hand on one of the stone tablets still standing and mostly intact from the damages that left the entire place in ruin.
A hidden gate opened from the middle from underneath the altar revealing a flight of stairs leading to underground. Each stair was around three times the height of normal stairs in the human world - which constituted another proof that this was once a place for giant intelligent creatures.