"If you were to build a university for yourself, where would you put the archives?"

Magellan stood beside the Countess, overlooking the Great Court of Quicksand, a large complex of buildings that was spectacular when the dunes receded.

There are seven minarets, a dozen different buildings, and a sizable garden, which Magellan suspects even has rockeries and excavated ponds.

"I'm not going to build a university for myself, I graduated from the Royal Academy before I entered the school," the countess knew that Magellan was not trying to say that, "the archives would not be overly conspicuous, they should be close to the water source and at the same time convenient for guarding, so they should be near there." ”

The countess pointed to a low building behind the hall of the Codex, next to the pond that Magellan had speculated, close to the center of the entire Grand Court, and several nearby buildings were not far from it.

"I feel like what we want is there. ”

"If they had chosen not the stone monument, but the other way," the countess shook her head, looking at the stone gate of the building, "that quicksand would have already ground what we wanted into powder." ”

"I will trust you at all times, ma'am, especially when it comes to luck. ”

Magellan smiled and made a "ladies first" gesture to the countess.

The countess smiled, and she put her right hand on Magellan's shoulder: "I don't want to slide down from here, and I don't want to watch you do that, come with me." ”

Helen took a step toward the void in front of her, and just as Magellan thought she was about to fall, an invisible force held her feet.

"Ah, magic. ”

Magellan saw where to settle down and took a step forward.

Then he slid off the dome with one foot in the air, stopping at the edge in a comical pose, teetering on the edge, but not falling in the end.

"I'm sorry," said the countess, walking with a ladylike step, slowly descending the steps of the void, "I forgot, you are insulated from the essence. ”

......

"It's ......"

Magellan looked at the mess in front of him and couldn't find the words to use.

"Of course," said the countess, standing beside him, stooped down to take out half of the slate from the pile of sand and blew up the dust on it, "the shelves made of wood have been eroded by quicksand for so long, and of course they will completely collapse. ”

The archives of the Grand Court were far more standardized than Magellan had thought, and all the documents archived here were inscribed on identical stone tablets, and he even suspected that the Babylonians at that time already had a literature retrieval system.

But in the face of time, everything will return to dust, but fortunately Magellan and the Countess arrived early, and the words engraved on the stone tablets have not disappeared.

However, the situation of these stone slabs is very bad now, they are piled up on the sand in a haphazard manner, and some of them are broken.

"The important thing is the slate," Magellan said, looking down at the sand covering the slate, "let's go, it will take a while, and Pico should already be waiting for us for lunch." ”

"No," the countess did not turn with Magellan, she just straightened up and raised her right hand, "it won't be too much trouble." ”

It was a bit like a glass of water poured on the table and the natural evaporation process was accelerated, and the sand on the stele was water, and Magellan didn't know what the countess had done, he just saw the sand disappear and the stone slabs piled up were revealed.

Then the slabs began to slowly rise into the air, floating and parting.

"Found it. ”

The floating slabs slowly fell, neatly stacked on top of each other, except for one slab, which continued to float and came to the countess.

Magellan stepped forward and grabbed the slate and looked down at the words on it.

"That's it, that weird writing and Babylonian writing...... What is that? magic?"

"It's time for lunch. ”

......

The Countess's translation went well, and it should be said that even the most optimistic scenario she had ever conceived was only about the same as it was now, and the amount of writing on the tablet exceeded all expectations.

Magellan is also helping, he's good at that, so the rest of the stuff is put aside for the time being.

After a few days, they finally finished sorting out the text on the slate and then began translating.

"I've seen a lot of more bizarre things than this," Magellan sighed, shaking his head as he looked at what they had finally gotten, "but it still feels incredible." ”

"Soon you won't have time to sigh," said the countess, smiling as she took the tea, "we have a lot to do. ”

She wore men's trousers and a plain white blouse, which was the countess's overalls, but she still looked elegant and beautiful, and with a rare sense of sophistication and heroism.

She and Magellan had spent a lot of time immersed in the literature, and every day was like a crazy game, entangled with words every moment from morning to night, and if Chef Pi was not there, the two of them would not even eat, drink, or sleep.

The result of all this is that they get new leads.

But that only represents a new beginning.

"The good news is that my original plan doesn't need to be changed too much," the countess paused for the time being, and the rest of the journey would be a short break, "so everything that should be prepared is basically prepared." ”

Magellan wanted to say something, he knew there would be a lot of trouble on the rest of the journey, but in the end he didn't say anything.

"What's next?"

"To the northeast, there is another temple of the goddess. ”

......

The big ship is slowly rising.

"I don't think even if the goddess Isitar were resurrected, she wouldn't have been able to do such a thing. ”

Magellan stood on the side of the ship, watching the sand dunes and the ruins of Uruk grow away, and felt a strange sense of course.

"I'm used to it, though. ”

The Countess was standing on the deck, and it was her magic.

The quicksand was gathering to the bottom of the ship, and they were holding up the behemoth and helping Magellan and them out of the abyss.

"I didn't want to do that," sighed the countess, "but this is the only way, we have to leave, this desert is too dangerous, and I don't want to see another outbreak of quicksand." ”

Magellan imagined how many magic gems would be consumed by such a terrifying magic, watched the quicksand flow upwards, and finally, before the dunes obscured his vision, took one last look at Uruk City, with its thousand quicksand waterfalls.

Finally, the big ship landed on the dunes, and the quicksand receded like the waves of the sea, falling along the edge of the abyss.

"Let's go. ”

......

The uninhabited land eventually saw Magellan off with an apocalyptic sandstorm – and when the ship arrived at the oasis, he saw darkness and thunder on the horizon.