Maiden Galaxy

Chapter 71: Solving The Towers Mystery

Chapter 71: Solving The Towers Mystery

With just a single sword stroke, she instantly turned this Blood-marked Centipede into pieces. How could Chen Mo not be able to deduce her identity, and that faintly visible Purple Rose qi also clearly demonstrated that this woman was not an ordinary Star General. Hers was a ruler's Star Name.

The woman's eyes were a deep blue, her eyelids drooping. Owing to the desert's dusky darkness, he could not clearly discern her features. However, Chen Mo could still sense from that glance alone the power emanating from the woman. 

That purple long sword very quickly retracted. The woman sprung up, vanishing into the Western Desert, leaving only a wisp of an illusory fragrance.

Chen Mo looked at the chunks of the Blood-marked Centipede laying strewn all over the ground. Amongst the chucks, he found a red and black Demon Pellet. As the king of Hundred Leg Centipedes, it was not strange for a Demon Bug like the Blood-marked Centipede to form a Demon Pellet. This Demon Pellet was bloody and plump. Held in his hand, it had a kind of repulsive feeling.

Other warriors rushed up at this moment. They did not see that purple-clothed woman's awe-inspiring sword at all. When they saw that the Blood-marked Centipede had been disintegrated, some were shocked.

"You killed it?" Pang San was very astonished.

"No, someone else did."

They could tell at a glance. Chen Mo was merely Essence Flower Early Stage. Even if he was any stronger, he could not have possibly instantly cut the Blood-marked Centipede to pieces.

"What a guy, this swordsmanship is incredible." Luo Kui was impressed.

"If not someone from a sword sect, then a Star General?" Li Xiunian said.

"It seems many people have come to this tower today."

After the Blood-marked Centipede incident, everyone became more cautious, and their camps were pitched someplace closer so that they could watch over each other. The second day arrived just like this.

On the second day, everyone saw that the rain they were expecting still did not come. The crowd was very tired of waiting in the desert, and the mood began to grow agitated.

"Just when is this rain falling?" Chen Mo saw that warriors over there were nearly about to come to blows.

Li Xiunian lifted his head to the sky. There was not a cloud in sight, no sign of rain at all. "According to the pattern, the rain should be in the next few days."

"Will it rain early?" Chen Mo the asked.

"It won't. When teams came here before, it never rained." Luo Kui shook his head.

"Do we have to wait until after the rain for the tower to appear?" Zhongli Mo asked.

"Yes. In the past, people who saw the tower all said it was after rain." On this point, many were very certain.

"It looks like this rain has some sort of mystery." Zhongli Sanmei was pensive.

Luo Kui and the others had actually thought of this before, that this area had some kind of array, one that activated only with the rain every two years in order to manifest the tower. But no matter what kind of mystery it was, they were not strong enough to be able to call forth a storm, so they were disinclined to explore this option further.

At night fall, a crowd collected together all of a sudden.

A chariot of rolling clouds circled around above the ruins.

"That's a flight Astral Tool?"

"Ai, how good it must be to have a treasure like this."

Luo Kui's group was envious to death.

Chen Mo lifted his head, spotting the woman Manao on the Nebula Flying Chariot. As he expected, she had come for the tower. After circling around above the ruins, the chariot landed at the center of the ruins.

On the third day, rain still had yet to fall.

The warriors were growing more and more impatient, beginning to excavate as they please, hoping to dig something out of the ruins. Chen Mo wandered throughout the ruins. He was somewhat interest in those markings on the ground.

"I think we wasted time with this. This legend is completely baseless." Zhongli Sanmei walked in front of him, already showing tedium towards the Western Desert.

Chen Mo grunted, his concentration still focused on the grooves in the ground.

"What are you looking at?" Zhongli Sanmei herself stared at them for a long time, unable to discern what was so pleasing about these decorative designs.

Chen Mo looked around the ruins, "Wait for me, I thought of something."

"Don't tell me you figured out how to find the tower?" Zhongli Sanmei twitched her lips, unconvinced.

"En, but I need to confirm something first. Help me tell Luo Kui to go do some things." Chen Mo briefly explained.

"And you?"

"I'm going to borrow something from someone."

"Borrow something?"

Chen Mo smiled, turning his gaze towards the center of the ruins.

Manao was sitting atop a ruined roof. The magnificent sandy walss made this little building appear on the verge of collapse, as if it could fall apart at any moment, but the woman clearly did not mind. She was like a statue.

In her surroundings, many warriors' gazes were all shifting restlessly on her as well as the Nebula Flying Chariot beside her. However, not one person dared to take one step forward and enter Manao's danger zone.

Everyone who was not an idiot was aware that a Star Cultivator who could be in possession of a flight Astral Tool definitely had a background that was not simple.

While everyone was staring, a youth did not hesitate to enter this circle.

Manao opened her eyes. Her chilling and evil eyes seemed able to devour a person.

Chen Mo bowed towards her.

Manao nodded. In front of everyone's astonished gazes, Chen Mo bounded up to the roof and sat down crosslegged.

"I did not expect you to still be alive." Manao flatly said.

"Meaning there are times you also can make errors in judgment." Chen Mo smiled and answered.

Make errors in judgment? Manao was full of ridicule towards this praise, "So long as you have not yet scaled the tower, you will know that my judgment has never erred."

"Is that so?" Chen Mo remained noncommittal: "However, if this continues, I feel that even a year won't be enough to scale the tower."

"Hm? Do you want to say something?" Manao heard the implied meaning in his words.

"According to the pattern, these past few days without rain mean that there won't possibly be rainfall occurring. I'm afraid there won't be a tower." Chen Mo said.

"Is this the only thing you wanted to say to me?" Manao's tone was very uninterested.

"I have some other thoughts about the tower's manifestation. I want to borrow your flying chariot." Chen Mo was straightforward.

His words finally piqued slight interest in this Western Regions woman. Manao, somewhat bemused, said: "Can it be you are able to solve this legendary Western Desert Tower?"

"I simply have other thoughts, doesn't mean I solved it. If you're willing to lend me the flying chariot, I can test it. It's better than sitting here wasting time."

Manao pondered. If he could actually solve the Western Desert Tower, then lending him the flying chariot was completely no loss to her. "Get on." Manao stood onto the flying chariot.

Chen Mo walked over. Manao grabbed the handrails, and the Nebula Flying Chariot immediately soared into the clouds, shocking all of the surrounding warriors.

The entirety of the ruins very quickly entered Chen Mo's sight. From such high altitude, all of the ruins were a sight even more expansive yet also even more devastated.

"What are looking at? If you tricked me, I will throw you off." Manao coldly said. Never had a man held the qualifications to ride the same chariot as her.

Chen Mo did not mind her, his gaze sweeping over the desert, very quickly finding Luo Kui and the rest.

Per his request, Luo Kui's group was in the middle of cleaning up the patterns on the ground.

"A bit higher." Chen Mo still did not have a very clear view.

Manao was not too fond of having someone order her around, but she could only ignore it for the sake of the Western Desert Tower. The Nebula Flying Chariot ascended even more, and Chen Mo saw in greater detail.

Then, under Chen Mo's direction, the Nebula Flying Chariot lowered its altitude, landing in this enormous circle of ruins.

"Just what are you looking for?" Manao impatiently asked.

"Do you see that pattern on the ground?" Chen Mo said.

Following the direction Chen Mo pointed at, Manao noticed those practically eroded decorative designs. However, these designs were not completely intact. They seemed to be decorations for these ruins, nothing of particular note.

"I feel that this place is definitely hiding the clues to the tower."

"Meaning?" Manao did not understand.

As a casting master, he needed to have very high understanding of arrays and the like because some weapons required the engraving of layers of arrays to bolster the effects of the weapon. Chen Mo had once seen the markings on the ground in the Book Of Casting's spirit imbuement chapter. This was an ancient array from the Foreign Star Field.

However, the Book Of Casting did not elaborate on this array, merely giving some rough records. Still, the more Chen Mo looked, the more he felt that this array might be the crux behind the tower's appearance.

Manao very quickly understood his meaning.

"You're saying that this array conceals the tower. It will appear as long as we can activate it? But what does that have to do with rain?"

"It may be that rainwater filling the array's grooves is the activation mechanism." Chen Mo surmised. All arrays had an activation medium. Making the association with the pattern after rainfall, perhaps it was not because of the rain that the tower appeared, but rather that the rain washing away the dust and filling the array's grooves allowed the tower to manifest.

Manao's eyes glinted, feeling that Chen Mo's guess was very logical.

Chen Mo's thinking very quickly spread through the warriors in the ruins.

"That brat said he's solved the tower? We need only fill the markings on the ground with water?" Pang San was astonished.

"En, yes. He even climbed aboard that Nebula Flying Chariot. He isn't a simple one."

"We're wasting time waiting anyways, let's give it a try." Pang San glanced at the Nebula Flying Chariot that was in the sky, gritting his teeth as he steeled his resolve.

In one corner of the ruins, that purple-clothed woman also heard Chen Mo's conjecture. Seeing the flight Astral Tool in the sky, the woman clenched her fist, a trace of killing intent appearing in her blue eyes.

All the warriors began to clean the markings on the ground as best as they could. After several hours, the designs buried under the sand gradually came to light. As Chen Mo said, these apparently unremarkable decorations encircled the entire ruins and were distributed very regularly.

Then, everyone poured all of the water they brought into grooves.

Seeing the water they had so little left of completely pour away made everyone a bit agonized.

"Brat, if what you said doesn't work, we definitely won't forgive you for wasting so much of our water." Pang San roared, seizing the opportunity to shift all blame onto Chen Mo's head. It was obvious that if these exhausted warriors were even the slightest bit dissatisfied, they would vent out all of their fury from this desert.

Manao grinned: "You've become quite the scapegoat."

Chen Mo did not care about the these warriors' anger at all. His line of sight was wholly focused on the changes on the ground. 

The clear water gathered endlessly through the grooves. Everyone stared intently at the changes.

When the final line of water gathered in the center of the ruins' designs, all of the grooves were immediately filled. An extremely fleeting and intricate river pattern appeared over the desert.

Upon seeing this design, Manao's expression sunk into a kind of remote reminiscence. The woman mumbled an ancient incantation that Chen Mo could not understand.

When Chen Mo saw her like this, he knew there was some sort of trick.

Indeed.

After a moment, the pattern on the ground glowed brightly, and all of the water suddenly soared into the sky, becoming a mist. The arid desert ground was enshrouded in moisture, obscuring everyone's vision. 

"Hey, what's the meaning of this?"

"This was a trap?!"

The warriors shouted in the mist.

But these clamoring voices vanished in an instant. In the mist, an enormous tower floated in the sky, slowly coming into everyone's view.

"The tower!"

Chen Mo exclaimed in amazement.