Chapter 00276: Have You Eaten
# Have You Eaten?
Chapter 276
Novel: AFK Game: Portal to Another World
Chapter 276: Have You Eaten?
To the locals, the human race had practically become the stuff of legends, much like the chupacabra, the Mothman, or the Slender Man—things people had heard of but no one had ever seen.
According to the legends, the Demon God created the plane they now lived on, including every blade of grass, every tree, the mountains, and the rivers.
Afterwards, He created the Demon Race in His own image.
Although this plane was created by the Demon God, the deity was too powerful to directly enter the mortal world.
It was like building an exquisite sandbox.
It was fine to look at it from the outside, but walking into it would shatter the very sandbox you had worked so hard to build.
Therefore, the Demon God selected seven demons to be his apostles, allowing them to rule the mortal world in his stead.
After that, various other races arrived through natural teleportation portals from the ancient era, gradually evolving into a society where multiple races coexisted.
In those days, there were humans who believed in the Demon God, and demons who believed in human deities.
It was an enlightened and open era.
But later, the legends began to grow vague.
For some unknown reason, humans disappeared from society, sealed away by the Demon God on the other side of the Final Great Chasm.
The Demon God also fell into a deep slumber, never to appear again.
The Demon God's slumber brought about earth-shaking changes.
There was even some evidence to suggest that the demons of the Mythic Era all had horns, whereas many demons now do not.
This was because the Demon God's slumber caused the characteristics of the Demon Race to gradually fade.
He was the guardian deity of the entire race; without Him, it was only natural for problems to arise for the demons.
The history of the Mythic Era had clearly been deliberately buried and covered up.
Even the matter of the seven apostles suddenly stealing the Ring of the Demon King for some unknown reason was something the City of Academics later discovered in records unearthed from ruins; it was not part of the widely circulated legends.
The sight of a human statue was indeed enough to prove that the history here could be traced back to the Mythic Era.
But Audel was very concerned.
The location of the first Ring of the Demon King, the Ring of Sight, was also a human ruin.
After hearing the full account, Audel had even made a special trip to investigate the site herself.
Once could be a coincidence, but for the place where the Ring of the Demon King might be this time to still be a human ruin was very strange.
In the Mythic Era, what exactly was the relationship between humans and the Demon God?
Why would the Ring of the Demon King, stolen by the seven apostles, be placed in a ruin built by humans?
And what role did humans play in this whole affair?
"Professor?"
Seeing Audel lowering her head in deep thought, Nimia poked her shoulder.
"What are you thinking about?"
"It's nothing. Let's keep moving. Ahead of us is a true ruin from the Mythic Era. There might be magic from that time, so everyone be extra careful."
History was not Audel's area of expertise, but she could understand why many scholars in the City of Academics were obsessed with it.
This feeling of unearthing the truth of history was truly addictive.
The group passed through the doorway, stepping on deformed stone slabs and using magic and torches for light, cautiously trying to traverse a corridor that was possibly thousands of years old.
The load-bearing pillars in the corridor were already clearly twisted and deformed; it wouldn't be surprising if they collapsed at any moment.
The walls might have originally had some patterns, or even murals recording history, but for some unknown purpose, the paintings had been artificially destroyed.
Now, only a series of illogical, messy lines could be seen.
It was silent here, without any sound, not even the slightest flow of air.
Time itself seemed to be frozen, preserving the things from thousands of years ago.
This corridor was very long, but for adventurers, discovering no traps or mechanisms was already a good thing.
As Audel walked, she casually cast detection spells, her mind seemingly elsewhere, appearing somewhat distracted.
This continued until Nimia, who was scouting ahead, returned and said to the others in a low voice:
"There's a room up ahead. I didn't find any monsters. It looks like a place for work, an office."
"There's actually an office?"
What was this ruin used for back then?
Thinking about it carefully, the sealing place of the Ring of Sight was a small human town from the Mythic Era, not a site specially constructed for sealing.
Perhaps this place was the same as last time.
The group passed through the corridor and soon found the office Nimia had mentioned.
This room had once been meticulously decorated.
Even today, traces of life could still be seen, such as the marks of a pottery cup and a writing tablet on the stone table.
Something like a painting once hung on the wall, but it had completely rotted away due to its age, leaving only a faint, uneven trace.
Next to what looked like a file cabinet on one side, there was a stone stool.
One could imagine that the person who worked here back then was obviously not tall and couldn't reach the top of the file cabinet without a step.
What the three adventurers were most concerned about was, of course, whether there were any monsters or traps, and secondly, if there was any treasure.
As for Audel, her main concern was whether there were any traces of magic.
She used her detection magic again.
As the spell was cast, she saw a fine layer of magical light illuminate the area behind the desk.
Walking closer, she saw a magic formation carved into the floor behind the desk.
"What kind of magic is this?"
"I don't know, but it's clearly magic from the Mythic Era, without a doubt."
The magic of that era was very different from today's—not stronger, but weaker.
After all, mages hadn't been idle.
The times were progressing, and ancient magic was certainly not as impressive as modern magic.
Audel squatted down, her finger tracing the edge of the formation, carefully identifying the runes on it.
These runes were still clearly visible.
It was possible that it had retained its power until recently, but now it was surely just a simple pattern.
"All of you, step back a little."
Signaling the others to retreat, Audel took out several potions from her magic bag.
Following a specific sequence, she poured the potions into the grooves on the ground.
As the last bottle was emptied, the magic formation lit up with a blue light from the inside out.
Audel herself also took two steps back.
The group watched the activated formation with some nervousness.
About two or three seconds later, the blue magical light converged before their eyes.
It wasn't intense, but it seemed to be slowly taking shape.
Finally, they saw a figure holding a magic staff and wearing a robe floating above the formation.
This was a man with black hair and black eyes, looking to be in his early thirties.
His body was a translucent, phantom-like image, but unlike a ghost, his body was projected and assembled from magical light, just like a 3D projection.
Audel recognized it at a glance as a magic simulacrum, a magical image with a certain level of intelligence capable of handling simple tasks.
Usually, when mages ran a shop but were too lazy to be present, they would place a magic simulacrum of themselves behind the counter.
Such things were no longer rare in the modern era, but they would have been extremely uncommon in the Mythic Era.
But the group immediately noticed another fact.
On the head of this magic simulacrum, there were no horns.
And in the Mythic Era, a race that looked similar to the Demon Race, but without horns...
This was a human magic simulacrum!
"Ladies and gentlemen."
The magic simulacrum had a certain degree of intelligence.
It glanced at the four of them, and with a smiling face, it said:
"Have you eaten?"
"..."