章 237: Chapter 237: Slabs and Cat Statues (Edited)
Flying...
These three words fell on everyone's ears and exploded like a cannonball.
Yes, the sand was only three kilometers wide, and the slab was in the middle, which was 1500 meters. If you can fly, this distance is nothing. But people can't fly.
But wizards can.
Tom transformed into a phoenix, spreading his tail feathers as the crowd watched. Hermione approached him and gestured to the others to grab onto Tom's tail feathers as well.
"What the hell?" Alan couldn't help but exclaim as Tom just transformed from a human into a golden red bird before his eyes, it was so magical!
"Is this a phoenix?" Dr. Hunter showed an expression of astonishment, never thinking he would see this legendary creature with his own eyes in his entire life. Suddenly, he realized that if Tom could transform into a phoenix, could he also transform into that giant dog? So the giant dog that had saved his life in the sandstorm was Tom himself?
"Don't make a fuss, Tom can transform into many things." Hermione shook her head, tied her hair back, and placed a hand on Tom's tail feathers. The others followed suit and placed their hands on Tom's tail.
But with three people on his tail, Tom shrugged at the rest who wanted to "get on board" and glared at them: What do you think I am, a transport plane? How can I handle all of you on board, the Phoenix has its limits!
Tom left Alyosha, Sara, and Yushadu where they were and took the remaining three straight into the air. Two round trips later, Tom had them all on the slab in the middle of the sand.
As they had suspected initially, the slab was surrounded by a shallow layer of sand, with solid ground beneath it. This layer, less than thirty centimeters thick, was more like accumulated dust over time.
Tom reverted back to his original form after dropping the last person from his tail.
There were dozens of painted tiles on the raised slab. Tom counted seven horizontal rows and seven vertical columns, making a total of 49, each tile one square meter in size with a carved cat on it, with a groove in the middle of the slab, as if something was missing.
"This cat..." Hermione exclaimed as soon as she saw the figure: it was a cat she had seen before, the same cat that was drawn on the four clues they had found!
Everyone looked at the grid on the floor, lost in thought. Tom stretched his foot and lightly stepped on the grid in front of him, and with a rough scraping sound, the tile sank.
"Doctor Hunter, let's get the four clues we've collected." Observing the image of the cat on the grid, which was exactly the same as the clue, and the fact that the grid sank, Tom had a conjecture.
The Doctor followed his lead and drew a 7 x 7 square on the floor, transcribing the contents of the clue.
The four pieces of the clue, each consisting of twelve squares, were combined to form a square of forty-nine with one square missing. The clues naturally fit together according to the orientation of the cat's eyes: those with the eyes down to the left were placed in the bottom left, those with the eyes up to the right in the top right.
After assembling the clues, Dr. Hunter compared them and discovered that the notch in the slab corresponded to the square that was missing in the clue he had assembled.
"That's it!" He was excited, so the four pieces of the clue had been used here! But then he became pensive: out of these squares, should he step on the one with the white cat on a black background, or should he step on the one with the black cat on a white background?
He looked at the tile that Tom had stepped on and saw that it was slightly darker because it was shorter than the surrounding bricks and was covered in shadow, and since it happened to be the one with the white cat on a black background, Dr. Hunter ventured to assume that all the black squares on the path should be stepped on.
Now that he had an idea, he put it into practice.
Tom and he followed the clues, stepping on them one by one. By the time they stood in front of the extra square, the last black square of the clue had been stepped on. But the slab hadn't changed at all.
"Did I guess wrong?" Dr. Hunter was alarmed and was already thinking about how to restore the slab.
"I still don't know," Tom said, looking at the groove in the ground. "I think there's something here, like a statue or something." Dr. Hunter looked down, the floor tile looked a bit strange, all the other tiles had images of cats, but here was a groove that practically screamed at them to nest something in it.
"What could it be...?" Dr. Hunter instantly worried, he thought it might be a three-dimensional statue of the tile cat, he looked at the shape of the groove, it looked like a cat crouching on the ground, but where could he find it? But where was he going to find that statue?
He had decided that if he found the cat, he would continue the adventure, but if not, he would have to gather camels and leave the Sahara.
When Tom saw the groove, he let out an internal cry of "What the hell?" The only thing that came to his mind was, "Can't be, right? This isn't the slot for the statue, is it?
He immediately asked Hermione to open her backpack and retrieve the ancestral cat statue that Uncle Nubian had "loaned" him. The statue had cost Hermione a hundred thousand Egyptian pounds!
As she took out the statue, everyone's eyes widened: it was exactly the same as the cat carved on the brick!
Hermione was about to hand the statue to Tom when Alyosha stopped her.
"Is it really a good idea to put this statue? How can you be sure there's treasure or something underneath this slab? I think it could be an ancient curse or some kind of sealed monster." Alyosha scratched his cheek. "Greedy adventurers unleash ancient curses... that's what they do in movies, right?"
Hermione thought for a moment, "The information that Uncle Hunter found earlier said that the clue was the key to the city. I believe that once we decipher the pattern on the slab, we'll be able to find the legendary ancient city. As for what's inside, I can't guarantee it... but I presume the slab itself doesn't pose any danger."
Tom nodded, but his thoughts were much simpler: he felt in his gut that everything would be fine. Plus, the statue was one he had obtained at the Nubia night market, and it matched the old poem.
Alyosha thought for a moment and stepped aside.
Hermione handed the cat statue to Tom, who placed it in the groove. After a thousand years, the statue and the groove still fit together as perfectly as if they had been carved into the floor tiles.
As he placed the statue inside, the slab reacted.
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