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"I heard that there was an Akabane River here during the Edo period."
Akabane River? Beidou had a vague impression of this name, but he couldn't remember where he had heard it.
"Akabane River, does it have anything to do with the actions of the Yawa people this time?"
"I remember seeing the legend of Kappa before. After they came to Japan from China, they became monsters that could be seen everywhere in the rivers and caused a lot of trouble. Finally, the Lord of Kato Castle asked the monkey god to subdue them, and then they became messengers of the water palace and were worshipped. The shrine was set up on the Akabane Riverbank in Edo, which is now Akabane in Tokyo."
But that shrine disappeared a long time ago.
"You mean, the shrine on the Akabane Riverbank is here?"
Kappa is a monster, and although it is worshipped, it is more because of the villagers' fear. It became a god because of fear, and after the incense stopped, it is indeed right to say that it is a "haunted house".
Ling also walked across the grass and came to the place where the "swimming pool" was originally, which was also the place where the super beast was born. She couldn't feel it before yesterday, but now she vaguely felt something like a "door".
Of course, it is not a door in the human sense, but a hub between the layered spaces.
She activated the Medal of Nexus and stretched out her hand toward somewhere in the air.
There was nothing there at first, and it was still empty after Lingye reached out her hand, but Beidou keenly noticed that something seemed to have changed.
"Would you like to come in and take a look?" Lingye asked. She glanced at Beidou and took a step forward. Just one step, and then the whole person disappeared in front of Beidou.
Beidou was stunned for a moment, then realized something. Since it was Lingye who made the invitation, there should be nothing to be afraid of. Beidou stretched out his hand in the direction where Lingye disappeared, and it didn't feel like he was touching anything, but after his hand stretched beyond a certain limit, it also disappeared before his eyes.
There is a fault in space, connecting to the unknown.
Beidou took a breath, then without hesitation, continued to move forward, and disappeared into the space.
Chapter 136 Secret Realm
Beidou closed his eyes, held his breath and walked forward.
This is a normal reaction for ordinary people facing unknown things. Knowing that there is an invisible wall in front of them, they will instinctively close their eyes. If they are facing an enemy, of course they need to keep their eyes open and be alert at all times, but since Gaia is leading him, Beidou naturally let down his guard.
However, he did not feel any obstruction, nor did he feel like he had passed through anything. It was just like he was taking a few steps forward normally. The ground under his feet was still soft, and he did not touch or hear anything.
No, he heard the sound of flowing water. After yesterday's battle, the swimming pool that Chao Beast pretended to be had disappeared. There was only a wasteland here, and there was no river nearby. Where did the water come from?
Beidou opened his eyes and was surprised to see a river in front of him. Looking around, whether it was the other side of the river or behind him, there was only forest everywhere, with no end in sight and no human habitation.
"This should be the Akabane River."
Ling also spoke.
Beidou then realized that Ling, who had just disappeared, was standing not far from him. The two stood by the river, with green grass and gurgling water. Taking a deep breath, he could feel the freshness. Beidou, who had lived in Tokyo for a long time, had not felt this natural and simple atmosphere for a long time.
"The Akabane River? Where is the Akabane River?"
There is still an Akabane River in Tokyo, which is one of the few rivers that flows directly into the sea without passing through the Sumida River. There are residential houses on both sides of the river, so it is obviously not here. There is an Akabane River with the same name in Kihoku Town in Mie Prefecture, but it is also not there.
"Didn't Brother Beidou guess it?"
Ling did not answer but asked back. But this is the fact, Beidou did guess it, but this guess is a little hard to believe.
"Is this the Akabane River in Edo?"
Edo is also the name of Tokyo, but it was a name at least a hundred years ago, and can be traced back to the 12th century. The Akabane River in the Edo period has long been diverted over the years, and now this river no longer exists on maps or in reality.
He just took one step forward, and then took a few hundred years forward?
This is a wide river, with a bank span of 20 to 30 meters, which is wide enough for boats to pass easily. The water is clean, not polluted at all. It is not deep, and the gravel on the riverbed is clearly visible, and it feels like you can wade through it.
However, the river water is too clear, so visual judgment often leads to errors in depth. It may appear to be only up to the thigh, but when you step down you cannot see the bottom, which may be three or four meters deep, enough to drown a reckless person who is not good at swimming.
There are small fish swimming in the pond, and if you look closely you can see krill.
This is a landscape that has disappeared in the long river of history and exists only in the memories of our ancestors who have long passed away.
“Is this an illusion?”
Beidou thought that this was the only explanation. Did the Yabo people create an illusion in some way? But he felt that this might not be the case.
This place may have nothing to do with the Yabo people.
"You can call it an illusion, after all, this place no longer exists in our world, so it's not wrong to describe it as an 'illusion'. But in fact, it's more accurate to say, according to what Gaia told me, it should be a 'secret realm'. Brother Beidou should have heard of the torii gate in front of the shrine. Once you cross the torii gate, you will leave the mortal world and enter the secret realm of the gods."
"Yes, I have heard of that, but isn't that superstition?"
Shintoism invented this to consolidate its beliefs and deepen worshippers' reverence for the gods.
"It's superstition. But humans are very peculiar creatures, with unpredictable emotions and desires. In particular, the faith of all living beings and the spiritual power of all living beings are combined to form a layer between reality and illusion. This is the secret realm."
——This is what Gaia told Reiya, and she repeated it to him.
So this is where the gods once lived.
This also includes evil spirits and monsters. They existed in the past, but they no longer exist. They are somewhere between reality and illusion. As long as humans no longer believe in them, they will disappear, and even the traces of their existence will be erased.
Looking at this small river, I don’t know where its upstream source is, nor where its downstream leads to.
This is the Edo Akabane River mentioned in unofficial history and folk tales. Legend has it that after the Kappa were suppressed, these monsters were enshrined as the shrine of the Water Palace Messenger.
In the past, when rural folks believed in gods and truly believed that Kappa existed, this mysterious place became real due to the belief of all living beings, and it was connected to the real world, creating countless strange stories.
But today, with the prosperity of science, superstition has long been dispelled, and Kappa has become a character in literary stories. No one believes in their existence anymore. This secret place has lost its faith and gradually withered. Now only this area of several hundred meters in radius remains.
"Only a few hundred meters?" Beidou couldn't believe it. After all, one could see far away with the naked eye.
"It's really only a few hundred meters, a small space of about 10,000 square meters. Beyond that, space doesn't exist."
"If I go forward, will I hit an invisible wall?"
"Not really. But if you keep going forward for a few hundred meters, you will find yourself back where you were. The same goes for altitude. If you transform into Ace and fly upward, no matter how long you fly, you will still stay at an altitude of about 300 meters."
Because the space itself is only this big, it is just a bubble attached to the main world.
These data were all told to Lingye by Gaia. As the will of the planet, this 'secret realm' formed by the wishes of all the creatures on Earth in the past is fundamentally a part of its body.
Beidou immediately understood after this explanation. The space here is only a few hundred meters in radius and three hundred meters in height. All the concepts of time and space are curled up in such a small area.
In fact, the universe is the same, but it is countless times larger. The overall space is limited, but it has no edge. If you go deep into the universe in one direction, after crossing tens of billions or hundreds of billions of light years, you will return to the earth. Because the universe is only this big, all space and time are the concepts of the universe itself that was born from the initial Big Bang, curled up within this range.
Therefore, there are no boundaries, nor are there any spatial concepts such as "inside and outside".
Wanting to step out of this universe is just like entering and exiting this secret realm, it is a leap of dimension, not space.
The Kingdom of Light itself is such a hub where multiple universes converge, so Ace easily understood it.
Looking out over the endless forest, only a few hundred meters of it actually exists today. I believe that in a few decades or even hundreds of years, even the last traces will disappear.
It's not just here, maybe it's the same in Takamagahara too? Gods may have really existed in the past, born from people's faith, and collapsed with the collapse of faith.
"So, the Yawa people got the Kappa genes here?"
Perhaps when the Yabo people discovered this place, they left behind the bodies of Kappa or other traces, which allowed them to extract genetic information and create the super beast. Then it is probably clear what the Yabo people's so-called "interesting" experiment is.
"The Yabo people want to study the 'secret realm'? Indeed, this is also similar to space technology, and is somewhat similar to the Yabo people's extra-dimensional technology, but it should be a different direction."
Beidou picked up a thin piece of stone and cut it into the water. The stone jumped five or six times before sinking into the water. Everything was so real.
Yes, this place is real. At least for this space itself, it really exists.
"Wow, that's amazing!" Ling also applauded. Splashing water was a skill she had always wanted to learn but had never mastered.
The material side and the spiritual side, one is to grope downstream of the long river of time and explore the mysteries of science, the other is to trace back upstream and pursue the once lost faith, but the final destination may be the same.
This is a completely different technology tree. If you really want to study it, you need to start from the most basic point, even for the Yabo people, it is starting from scratch. They really won't spend too much energy, so after discovering the unevenness of this space, they just treat it as an "interesting experiment".
For the Kingdom of Light, the secret realm was created by the faith of the people, and this was also a technology that had never been touched before. If it weren't for Gaia's "opening the door", Beidou and Nan Xizi would never have found this place, not to mention the investigators of the TAC team, who "dug three feet into the ground" for a day and a night but it was just a useless effort.
"What should we do here? Will there be more 'haunted' incidents in the future?"
Those who had "disappeared" in the past probably did so for various reasons, whether it was the magnetic field or other unknown reasons, and accidentally stepped into this secret place and could not find the way back.
Although there is water in this secret place which covers only a few hundred meters, there is simply not enough food to be found - not to mention whether the fish and shrimp in the river can be caught without tools, they are not enough for adults to maintain their daily consumption.
It has been many years since the last recorded disappearance, and this area has been abandoned since then. The fate of those who have been "disappeared" must not be very good. If you look carefully, you should be able to find their relics. Maybe you can survive for a few weeks or months, but it is difficult for ordinary people to survive here for several years.
This is a place even more desolate than Robinson's desert island.
In fact, when being trapped in this strange place and unable to find any way to leave, the spirit will collapse before the body can find food to sustain life.
"There shouldn't be any more gods disappearing. In fact, I'm a little interested in this secret place. When I go back, I'll ask Grandpa Jianye to handle the process and buy this place."
Just because you are interested, you buy land without any discussion?
But considering Ling's status, it's not really strange. It's probably just like Nan Xizi buying clothes or a bag on a daily basis, right? No, Nan Xizi has to scrape together her salary to buy a bag, but Ling doesn't have to.
Although the cause has been investigated, Beidou does not intend to report it to the TAC team. After all, it is useless to know, because it is a technology that humans cannot reach. As long as it is confirmed that the hidden danger of the Yabo people has been eliminated, that is enough.
Ling also planned to buy this land, not because she had money to spend.
This secret place is of no value to humans and is just an 'interesting experiment' to the Yabo people, but Gaia can certainly make use of it.
To be more precise, this place has no meaning to Gaia itself. If Gaia wanted, she could create countless of them in a moment.
The one who is interested is Lingye himself.
After using the authority of the planet's will to slightly modify this secret realm, she could create something very interesting to her -
A few hundred meters in radius, that is, tens of thousands of square meters, and more than three hundred meters in height. Here, a portable space of nearly ten million cubic meters can be created, with sunlight, land, forests, and water sources.
Chapter 137 Secret Art: Mansion Art
Gaia's light gradually faded, and the secret realm attached to the wasteland disappeared. What appeared in Lingye's hand was a platinum pendant.
The pendant itself was a collection from Lingye's jewelry box, and she used it as a support for the secret realm. It was cast by Gaia herself, which was probably a piece of cake for Gaia, but for humans, it was a miracle that could not be pursued.
If the power of science and technology wants to accomplish similar things, it must at least be upgraded to the basic line of a fourth-level civilization, or be like the Yabo people, who are a third-level civilization but excel in extra-dimensional technology, especially space technology.
This small pendant carries a piece of heaven and earth. It is not big, but definitely not small. Such a "Zhoushan villa" can accommodate four or five people.
If you had a piece of space in your pocket, what would you use it for?
Farming, of course, is farming, this is the instinct of agricultural nations.
But Ling is not very good at farming. To be more precise, she has no idea about farming.
The only farmland she had seen was in her own manor, and in the previous world, she had lived for more than ten years and had never even seen farmland. After all, fifty years later, farmland was a rare thing, and it could probably only be seen on TV.
I still remember that my junior high school organized an autumn harvest experience. We finally found a piece of land in the suburbs of the city and planted some rice (or wheat? I couldn’t tell anyway). Someone was specially contracted to organize the activity. We lined up to try our hand at harvesting with a sickle. The experience fee was 218 yuan per person.
After all, the field contracted by the activity operator is only so big, not enough for a few people to cause trouble, so the charge is reasonable.
She didn't go that time, not because it was too expensive, but because she happened to be sick and missed the event. She felt a little regretful that she didn't get to experience the life of a farmer. After coming to this world, she saw the farmland in her own manor, which made up for the regret.
Now she has her own piece of land, maybe she can ask Mr. Ueki to plant some flowers and plants, or ask Maria to plant some vegetables and fruits. If she builds a house, it will be a portable manor.