Kyle quickly read through the tablets.
With the speed of his improved mind, it wouldn't have been that difficult to decipher the language, but the fact that everything was literally explained with pictures made it even easier.
While reading through the make-shift picture book, Kyle was reminded of Samson and his picture books.
After Kyle got through the tablets explaining the writing, he came to the interesting ones.
'Huh, crazy,' he thought. 'So, this city was actually constructed on the surface. Apparently, it used to be a mining city.'
'The Corruption? That's new,' Kyle thought as he kept reading.
'One day, a mountain exploded, and the Corruption spread across the world. Anything it touched turned into more of itself.'
'Everyone was panicked, and the entire world was on the brink of collapse. Only a couple of cities managed to withstand the Corruption by burning a lot of Earth Ether.'
'This city was one of these cities. It had a bunch of valuable Earth Ether materials.'
'But that also wouldn't last for long. So, they created a half-spherical barrier around the city and simply… dug the floor out from beneath them. The city dropped one inch at a time until it was inside a crater. After that, they simply closed the ceiling with more Earth Ether.'
'Turns out, you don't need teleportation to move a city underground. Gravity's doing the work for you.'
'The Corruption. It came after a mountain exploded and spread across the world. It corrupts everything that isn't Earth Ether,' Kyle thought as he blinked in surprise.
'Are they talking about Skysand? It sure sounds like Skysand.'
'I mean, Skysand comes from the Dividing Ridge.'
'Nowadays, we use Ether Springs to keep the Skysand at bay, but these people probably didn't even know what Ether Springs were. I can see how the sudden appearance of Skysand without Ether Springs would be quite problematic.'
'Huh, they actually also had Knights and Sorcerers back then,' Kyle thought. 'Seems like the city is not thaaaat old.'
'It's definitely older than the Skysand Kingdom, but not millions of years older or whatever. Probably just a couple thousand years.'
As the tablets talked more and more about the terrifying danger that was Skysand, Kyle grew amused.
'Yeah, Skysand does that,' he thought several times.
Skysand was only really dangerous if one traveled through the peninsula or if one was an idiot and ran into one of the channels.
Otherwise, it was harmless. Not many people died to Skysand.
"Pleeeeassee," Kyle read out a passage with a dramatic voice. "Stop the Calamity!"
Kyle put his hand to his head in a dramatic gesture. "Otherwise, the entire world will be destroyed!"
He snickered a bit as he kept reading.
'Oh?' he thought as he saw something new.
'The Hearth?' he thought.
Right now, Kyle was reading about the Hearth, which was a force that was just as powerful as the Calamity but not nearly as aggressive.
'It's a cold flame, and the Calamity does not dare approach,' Kyle read.
'Brah, that's just Winterfire.'
'I guess people from back then were at the mercy of Winterfire and Skysand.'
After talking about Winterfire, the tablets talked about something else that could stop the Calamity.
'The Undercurrents?' Kyle thought with a raised brow. 'If you dig deep enough into the ground, the earth and metals stop?'
'Wait a second, if I keep digging, there's some kind of funny liquid that moves at incredible speeds and is like super dense and massive?'
'I mean, if you dig enough, you should find a bunch of magma, but this says nothing of heat. Magma is supposed to be hot. You would think they would mention the heat.'
'But no, just very fast and heavy. Says nothing about heat.'
'Speaking of, I'm pretty deep underground, and it's not even that hot. Shouldn't it be hotter?'
Kyle scratched the side of his head. 'Super fast and super heavy currents.'
At that moment, Kyle thought of something.
'Skysand is sand that flies through the sky and corrodes stuff. Sand belongs to the Earth Element, but Skysand is kind of just Earth in the sky. It's like an attribute of it has been turned into the opposite.'
'Winterfire is cold fire. It's burning like fire and super intense, but instead of giving off heat, it's absorbing heat. Same thing.'
'So, the Undercurrents. They move super fast, but they are also super heavy and massive.'
'Wind?' Kyle thought. 'Sounds like the wind version of Skysand or Winterfire.'
Kyle raised a brow. 'Do the powerful people know of that? They should, right?'
'But I've never heard of it.'
'You know, I don't like these ominous and magical words. Just give them names that make sense.'
'Skysand is sand in the sky.'
'Winterfire is fire that makes cold.'
'And heavy wind deep underground should be… Deepwind!'
'Yep, I'm calling it Deepwind from now on.'
'So, there's also Deepwind, huh? I just gotta dig deep enough.'
Kyle looked around the city. 'Shouldn't be too difficult. I can already deal with Mid Metal Elementals without big issues.'
'In fact, I can probably also fight Late Metal Elementals.'
'With a bit of luck, I could maybe even fight a Peak Metal Elemental. I mean, I got a bunch of new abilities after my breakthrough, and my power increased by much more.'
'That's interesting.'
Kyle thought of something.
'If King Skysand can combine sand with Skysand, he can probably become even more powerful.'
'King Winterfire is probably a fire guy that knows a bit about Winterfire.'
'I'm a metal, fire, and wind kinda guy. If I manage to learn everything about fire, I could look at Winterfire to increase the power of my fire. The same thing is true for my wind and Deepwind.'
'As for metal, I probably just need Rank S Materials. Not sure if there's an anti-metal thing. It's probably just more metal.'
'Deepwind, metal, and Winterfire.'
'Heavy, cold, and fast.'
'Sounds like a comet.'
Then, Kyle shook his head.
'Why am I already thinking about that? I'm not even a proper meteorite yet!'
Kyle threw the tablets back into the chest.
'Thanks for the exposition.'
'Anyway, gotta see if I can make better Methods with my new and improved mind.'
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