73: Whispers of the Temple of the Sun

The cold, mechanical voice in his mind acted like a morning bell or an evening drum, instantly dispelling all of Lin Feng's fatigue and exhaustion.

He abruptly stood up from the ground, as if the man who had just collapsed from exhaustion wasn't him.

[Main Quest: Find the Lost El Dorado (Progress 20%)]

[Arrived at key area: Sun God Temple]

[Please search carefully for the path leading to El Dorado]

Sun God Temple... So, this place is called the Sun God Temple.

Lin Feng's gaze changed.

It was the look of a hungry wolf seeing fresh meat, or an addict seeing a life-saving dose! It was filled with fanaticism, obsession, and a reckless desire for exploration.

"Bro... Brother Feng?" Wang Dalong was startled by his sudden change, even forgetting to cry. "Are... are you okay?"

Lin Feng didn't answer; his gaze was already firmly glued to those ancient stone walls.

This temple wasn't as towering as the pyramids he had imagined; it was quite "short," with only one level, but its footprint was enormous. The entire structure was built from unpolished black boulders, its style rugged and majestic, carrying the primitive and magnificent sense of power unique to a barbaric era.

The tall stone pillars and thick walls were densely covered with reliefs and a type of hieroglyphic script Lin Feng had never seen before.

"My god... this... what the hell is..." Wang Dalong also noticed the reliefs. He struggled to crawl up, moved closer, and instinctively pulled out his camera to take photos.

"Don't take photos!" Lin Feng barked in a low voice.

Wang Dalong's hand shook as he looked at him, confused.

"The camera's flash could cause irreversible damage to these pigments and carvings that are thousands or even tens of thousands of years old." Lin Feng's voice was raspy, yet carried an unquestionable professional authority.

He reached out, his fingertips brushing over the cold stone carvings as gently as if he were touching a lover's skin.

Then, he began to "read" them aloud, word by word, in a low voice.

"When... the sky... burned... the giant snake (referring to a spacecraft)... fell... the earth... wailed..."

His pronunciation was extremely strange, with short and complex syllables, sounding like some ancient incantation.

Wang Dalong was completely dumbfounded.

His mouth hung open wide enough to fit an egg, and his eyes were bulging as if he had seen a ghost.

"Brother Feng... what... what are you reciting? You actually recognize this stuff?!"

Who could understand this! Wasn't this damn Mayan script? It was the kind of heavenly script rumored to be "only understandable by gods"! Linguists and historians around the world had studied it for centuries and could only decipher a small fraction!

How could you, a twenty-three-year-old history vlogger, read it as fluently as your own family tree?!

Lin Feng acted as if he hadn't heard him, completely immersed in his own world.

Thanks to the system reward [Proficiency in Minor Languages], these Mayan Hieroglyphs, which appeared like gibberish to the outside world, were as clear to him as documents written in Simplified Chinese!

This was the first time in human history!

The first time someone could completely and fluently interpret this genuine information from the distant past!

He walked along, stroking the walls while chanting in a low voice.

Those reliefs and scripts connected together were not prayers for worshipping gods, but an... epic! A history of a civilization's origin and migration recorded in stone!

"...The blood of ancestors flows in a strange land... The light of gold protects the weak subjects... Deep within the earth's core, the final home is built, gazing at... the shattered homeland..."

Lin Feng's footsteps finally stopped in front of a massive altar.

On the back wall of the altar were nine large and exquisite Golden Murals, each depicting a grand scene.

But in the very center, there was an empty, rectangular groove.

There should have been a relief there as well.

Lin Feng's pupils constricted sharply.

He instantly remembered the Golden Mural that had been stolen!

The size, the shape... they matched perfectly!

So, that mural originally belonged here! It was the core piece of this epic relief set!

Lin Feng's breathing became rapid as he turned his gaze back to the nine murals. His brain worked at an unprecedented speed, frantically piecing together, reorganizing, and deducing all the information fragments he had deciphered!

A shocking truth that overturned thousands of years of human historical perception gradually took shape in his mind—

The ancestors of the Maya people were not original inhabitants of Earth!

They came from a planet called "Tzolkin"! Their home planet was about to be destroyed by a supernova explosion, so before the disaster struck, the Mayan ancestors took the "Giant Snake" (interstellar spacecraft) and fled hastily to Earth!

However, Earth's environment was lethal to them.

The gravity, air, and microorganisms here were completely different from their home planet. Large numbers of Mayan pioneers died because they couldn't adapt to the environment, much like humans being suddenly exposed on an alien planet.

To preserve the spark of civilization, they concentrated their last remaining technological power to build a massive "Quarantine Zone" deep underground, completely isolated from the surface environment, allowing their tribesmen to slowly adapt and evolve inside.

During this process, they accidentally discovered that "gold," this metal on Earth, could effectively suppress a cosmic bacterium that specifically targeted their genes.

Thus, during the long period of isolation, they began to frantically collect gold—not for wealth, but for "treatment," to "survive"!

As time passed, their home planet "Tzolkin," far across the star-sea, finally exploded, forming today's asteroid belt in the solar system. Their connection with their homeland was completely severed.

The massive blow and the long isolation caused many Mayans to have mental breakdowns and choose suicide. Those who survived also experienced a rapid regression in civilization due to technological gaps and lack of resources.

Gradually, the descendants of the maya forgot why the "Quarantine Zone" was built, only remembering the legends of their ancestors—that it was a secluded holy land built with gold and giant stones.

Thus, the "Quarantine Zone" gained a new name.

A name that would drive countless later explorers into a frenzy—

El Dorado!

Lin Feng sucked in a breath of cold air, goosebumps breaking out all over his body.

He looked at the reliefs on the wall, then thought of the totem poles he had seen in the indigenous village and the natives who called themselves "Guardians"... Everything was connected!

Those natives weren't enemies of El Dorado at all; they were "jailers"! They were the outer guards of El Dorado! What they guarded wasn't gold, but this secret! They prevented outsiders from entering, and perhaps also prevented... the people inside from coming out!

And the method to enter "El Dorado"... Lin Feng's gaze locked onto one of the reliefs.

It was carved with countless complex lines, like an intricate maze map.

That wasn't a maze at all!

That was a flow chart of the underground water system!

However, without the core map, even knowing the entrance was useless.

Just as Lin Feng was feeling anxious, his gaze swept across the altar and landed behind it.

There was a massive, bottomless circular pool. The pool water was as black as ink, without a single ripple, like a giant obsidian stone embedded in the earth.

Lin Feng's heart skipped a beat.

He recalled a record on the mural: [Generations of kings all cast gold into the Sacred Pool to sacrifice to the spirits of the ancestors...]

So that's how it is!

This wasn't some sacrifice at all! This was replenishing the strategic reserves of El Dorado (the Quarantine Zone)!

And this deep pool... was the entrance! A submerged entrance!

"Brother Feng, Brother Feng! Listen quickly!"

Just then, Wang Dalong's panicked voice interrupted Lin Feng's thoughts.

He pointed outside the temple, his face pale.

"Outside... there's a sound outside!"

Lin Feng listened intently, and his expression instantly darkened.

Outside the temple, in the jungle that had just regained its peace, movement was heard again.

First, there were several suppressed, non-human roars of pain, followed immediately by the violent bellows and crashing sounds of that prehistoric Emperor Crocodile!

Finally, the sharp whistling sounds of "swish swish" and the dull "bang! bang!" of gunfire intertwined!

Those mysterious people had arrived... they had caught up!

And they were clashing with that Emperor Crocodile!