Chapter 625 — Protective Archaeology and Destructive Archaeology

"It seems the direction of exploring the Chiyou Ruins is about to change."

After entering the Chiyou Ruins this time, Shi Jin no longer had his mind set on any Iron-Eating Beast epoch evolution method, nor on any cultivation system from a previous epoch.

None of that mattered anymore. Now he cared only about one thing—why did Yinglong and the others know him?

"Eleven, we're not fighting Yinglong. Later, I'll take you to the Overlord Domain to fight a real transcendence-god!"

The Overlord Domain—the name of the cosmic overlords' territory, of the same nature as the Cosmic Sea, the Pollution Lands, the Zerg Mother Nest, and the Colossal Beast Empire.

"It was just an obsessive phantom to begin with. Even defeating it probably wouldn't help train you much—it's not a necessary battle. It's nothing like Susu and the Abyssal Transcendence-God, who are irreconcilable as fire and water, with every reason to win."

"Chirp—" Eleven protested that Shi Jin was talking nonsense; being able to fight a dragon made it plenty happy, but... it listened to Shi Ying.

"If we help Chiyou resolve his obsession, maybe the ruins will disperse completely. On the other hand, if Chiyou's obsession can't be resolved, then the ruins will definitely persist forever."

"That way, there'll be more chances to enter the dream ruins and explore the mystery of my past-life transmigration." Shi Zhuo Wei sank into thought.

Brother Chiyou, since you know me, then bear your resentment a little longer.

You've already been unwilling to accept it for billions of years; a few more years won't hurt.

Next, after eating some tonics, Shi Jin went all out and immediately prepared for a second entry into the dream.

This time, Shi Jin once again possessed Chiyou's body.

The Yellow Emperor and Yinglong still came according to script.

But this time, Shi Jin was in no hurry to fight. Instead, he stood suspended in midair and looked at the Yellow Emperor and Yinglong.

"Yinglong, do you know Shi Jin?" he asked directly.

Yinglong was also taken aback—he hadn't expected Chiyou, on the verge of death, to ask about someone else.

"You know that scourge too?" Yinglong said. "Whoever you know, you won't escape death this time!!!"

Scourge!

Shi Jin cried—that was right, it was him!

But Shi You had barely been moved for long when this obsessive world seemed to develop some kind of BUG.

It collapsed with a thunderous crash.

Once again, it drained Shi Jin enormously—even more than last time—and he woke up.

"Eee." Ginseng Baby handed over a root tendril for Shi Jin to hold in his mouth.

"Why, why, why." Shi Jin got up, utterly unconvinced. Why was it that Sister Xiong Qi could explore the Iron-Eating Beast's evolutionary forms in the ruins without issue, and explore the cultivation methods of the previous epoch without issue too?

Yet he only wanted to know who he was, and it had to be this hard.

"Ten more roots," Shi Jin said, and under Ginseng Baby's astonished expression, he gulped down the tonics.

Not long after, Shi Jin entered the ruins once more.

Before Yinglong could attack, Shi Jin grabbed something he could carve words into, hoping to use a "long-distance communication" method—sending a message by carrier pigeon, so to speak—to ask who Shi Jin was.

However, this time too, a change occurred.

Shi You had just written down his own name when the ruins, shortly after, collapsed once more.

This time, the backlash Shi Jin suffered was even more severe—he even coughed up blood as his body aged, and bear in mind that after reaching the eleventh heaven, even with stat points and deduction, he had never been this wretched.

"Maybe we should try again another day... The seal that Senior Kongdi just reinforced is about to crack open again."

Chi Tong helped the prone Shi Jin up, like caring for a father gravely ill, and said worriedly.

The difference was that she had grown used to Shi Jin's weakness and aging.

Still, even accustomed to his frailty, he absolutely could not explore within a short time. Another attempt, and there would be real danger.

"Ginseng Baby, medicine!" Chi Tong called, and Ginseng Baby immediately brought over the Heavenly Emperor Cauldron, carrying a pot of brewed medicinal soup.

This was its newly researched formula; the effect should be better.

"No good." At this moment, Shi Jin's head was splitting with pain.

Around him, Eleven, Chongchong, Susu, and the others all watched eagerly, at a loss for how to help their beastmaster.

"The way I see it, there's no need to rush."

Just when everyone was at their wit's end, Lin suddenly appeared. Space ripples flickered, and a mini star battleship descended.

From the mini battleship, a projection of a ship-girl was cast.

"Lin? You've finally finished refining it." Shi Li said. "Huh, your eyes..."

"Mm." Lin said. "I refined the Lucky Star into contact lenses."

Chi Tong, Susu, and the others: ???

This is a weapon too???

"Uh." Shi Jin looked carefully into Lin's eyes. What had once been ordinary eyes had turned into something like a starry sky, with a single golden star drifting inside.

"This way it's easier to see the shifts in fortune... but that's not the point."

"Master, you've run into trouble, haven't you."

Shi Jin: "What do you make of it?"

Leaning against Chi Tong while noisily gulping down his medicinal broth, he passed on the details of what he had been through to Lin.

After a brief silence of thought, Lin said, "My suggestion is that you keep improving your archaeology skill, Master."

"Improve my archaeology skill?"

Lin said, "Generally speaking, beastmasters take up archaeology in order to obtain rarer resources, stronger skills, and more formidable legacies from ancient ruins. To reach that end, it hardly matters if the ruins are damaged... there's profit in it, after all."

Shi Jin felt Lin was taking a jab at him. Times change, do they?

"But in the universe there are also many ordinary planets without any transcendent power, and there, archaeology is usually 'preservation-style archaeology'—protecting ancient ruins so as to draw information from them more fully and reconstruct history."

Shi Jin nodded. He knew about that: on Earth, where there was no transcendent power and no transcendent treasures buried in the ruins, archaeology teams worked exactly that way.

"In my view, preservation-style archaeology is far harder than destruction-style archaeology," Lin said. "Just as the rules of creation are harder to master than the rules of annihilation."

"A baby can smash a vase, but creating a vase demands a certain level of craft, or a mature industrial system."

As Lin finished, Chongchong turned to look at Chi Tong with swaggering arrogance.

Chi Tong: ?

"I understand what you mean. You mean my destruction-style archaeology is already maxed out, pushed to the limit of my current level, while my preservation-style archaeology is nothing to speak of."

"And what's needed to explore the Chiyou obsession ruins is preservation-style archaeology. The reason we came away with nothing is that those two words, 'Shi Jin,' act like a keyword that triggers destruction in an obsession ruin."

"But if I mastered some preservation-style archaeological technique, then it's possible that even while conversing normally with those obsession phantoms inside the ruins, the ruins wouldn't collapse."

"Exactly!" Lin said. "So my suggestion is this: next, have Lady Blue Star reinforce this ruin once more, while you, Master, work on raising your skill first. As for the ruin—come back and explore it later."

Shi Jin had a headache.

"As expected of Lin."

"If only I'd asked Senior Goddess Wa for a bit more back then. She even helped a Cosmos Overlord crack ruins—her archaeological attainments must be extremely high."

Emperor Shi was a dead end. Last time Shi Jin had told Zijian that Emperor Shi had no interest in archaeology—that had actually been the truth.