According to the decree of the city-state, nine out of ten sacred stones mined by each household in Duke Town must be handed over to the city-state, leaving one for themselves, but the decree also stipulates that each registered miner must pay at least one sacred stone every quarter in the spring, summer, autumn and winter seasons, which is the basic tax.

The adults in the town love to drink, including the women in the prime of life, whether it is mining ore or forging iron embryos, it is extremely heavy physical labor, and legend has it that wine is a magical thing, with some mysterious power. It does seem to be able to relax the mind and relieve physical fatigue, but drinking too much is not a benefit, and Amun's father was a heavy drinker, especially indulging in expensive and fragrant wines, and his hands have been shaking more and more in recent years.

In addition to wine, the inhabitants of Duk Town love a variety of delicious meats, but most of the meat has to be brought from other places, except for the few sheep raised nearby and the occasional game caught in the mountains. Amon's father's money was immediately exchanged for enjoyment, and the divine stone of this season's tax has never been paid.

Mayor Dusty, who is in charge of the collection and taxation of Duk Town, is usually very kind, and generally does not push the miners too much for the occasional arrears, after all, mining the Divine Stone requires not only diligence and skill, but also luck. Even if you are in arrears for a while, it is not impossible to make up for it when you are lucky, and it is because of this that Mayor Dasty has been supported by the residents of the town for a long time, and he has lived a very comfortable life.

However, three days ago, the mayor of the town ordered that all those who owed the Divine Stone must be handed over within three days. All the families in the town were replenished in three days, and everyone basically had the balance of the previous years in case of emergency, except for Amun's family. The mayor's order may have something to do with the honorable Lord Eju who had come to the town three days ago, but Amon didn't know what was going on, and it wasn't his turn to ask a child like him.

When the caravan first came to the town, Amun's father exchanged the last stone in his hand for fine wine, and when the mayor gave the order, he realized that his tax task for the season was not completed, so he went to the old madman of the town Nietzsche to borrow it, but only borrowed a mined core. The old madman assures Amun's father that there must be a divine stone in it.

There may not always be a divine stone in the mine core, but the god stone must only appear in this kind of mine core, and my father's hand trembled and he couldn't control the mine hammer, so he called the fourteen-year-old Amon to try it.

It has been a rule since ancient times in Duke Town, after a man reaches the age of sixteen, he is presiding over a prayer ceremony in the temple of the goddess Muyun, and after receiving the blessing of the gods, he is qualified to learn the unique craftsman skills that have been passed down from generation to generation. Those who do not have this qualification can only do some auxiliary work, such as finding and mining the core in the mountains, cutting wood and burning charcoal to provide fuel for the furnace, etc.

In the past two years, Amon's father felt that his physical strength was getting faster and faster, and his hands were trembling more and more, and he waited for that day to be afraid that it would be too late for Amon to take over his mining hammer, so he privately taught his son the local miner skills in advance. Amon had mastered it after two years of training, much to his father's surprise. Generally speaking, the teenagers of Duketown want to master the control of this unique power, and they will learn from sixteen years old, and they will probably not be able to become a teacher until they are twenty years old, and it is impossible to use it so proficiently.

The father was surprised, but Amon was even more surprised, not because of how quickly he learned. Didn't the priests and priests say that only through the blessing and permission of the patron saint could they learn the unique skills that had been passed down from generation to generation in Duketown? How did he not go through that solemn and sacred ritual and awaken the legendary sleeping power? He asked the old madman Nietzsche without asking his father, and the old madman scoffed at this and replied with disdain, but also told him to pay attention to secrecy and not to talk nonsense.

When Amon swung the sledgehammer and smashed it into the core, his father's expression was very nervous, and his hands were shaking involuntarily, but Amon's expression was very focused and calm. The father thought he was doing this for the first time, but he didn't know that Amon had done the same thing many times in the old madman's house. It wasn't just his father who taught Amon in private, but also the old madman in the town, who often watched Amon help him with his work while drinking.

The sledgehammer struck on the core, controlling more than just power, and at the moment of contact, a penetrating shockwave was emitted into the incomparably hard core, and there was a long-lasting echo of shock in the room. Then I saw that countless fine cracks appeared on the surface of the core, which was harder than pig iron, and the cracks continued to staggered and extended to become dense, and the core gradually changed from black to gray-white, dull and dull.

When the crack extends to the extreme, the core of the mine will naturally open or disperse, like falling fine sand, and if you are lucky, a divine stone will appear in the center of the gray sand grain.

The Divine Stone is not something that can be taken out by brute force alone, it is very strong and difficult to destroy with ordinary strength, but it is very fragile when it is still in the core, and it will turn into powder along with the core if you are not careful.

All of the sacred stones were exactly the same shape and size, about the size of a cat's eye, and were a perfect dodecahedron. It has thirty sides, twenty corners, and twelve faces, each of which is a standard regular pentagon. It is said that in the far northwest of the Tianshu Continent, there is a sage named Tai Ataide who once said that there are only five regular polyhedra in the world, and the regular dodecahedron is the most special of them.

It is the outline of the world outlined by God, contains the mysterious message of the fifth element, and is the source and symbol of mysterious power. The most common sacred stone is colorless and transparent, and when you hold it in your hand and look at it from different angles, it will show a variety of unpredictable pentagram shapes, which are so perfect, dazzling, and charming, and make people marvel at the magic of the Creator.

In addition to the colorless and transparent stones, Amun knew that there were four other stones, which were blue, red, black, and white, and according to a distant sage Empedocles, they symbolized the mystical messages of the four elements that make up the world: water, fire, earth, and air. Of course, these Amon were all told by the old madman, and he couldn't tell whether it was true or not, let alone whether the so-called distant sages really existed, maybe they were all made up by the old madman himself.

Regarding the sacred stones, the old madman Nietzsche also has a deviant saying, they are the crystallization of the bones after the fall of the gods, which can be called the remains of the gods. Amon couldn't believe this, and once asked the old madman - will the eternal gods also fall?

The old madman asked rhetorically -- the legendary man was created by the gods, and man will die, so who created the gods, and why couldn't they fall? In the oldest legend, the area around Duk Town is the place where the gods fell in the battle of the ancient gods.

The old madman also said that when he traveled to the mainland in his early years, he met monks from the far east and called the sacred stone a relic of the earth, but Amon did not understand what it meant. When he said this, the old madman's messy beard was stained with bright red wine juice, and his smile looked very obscene, and then he squeezed his eyes at Amon and said: "The legends of the gods in many countries on the mainland, the earth is incarnated by the bodies of ancient gods, and the divine stone is the remains of the gods, is there anything wrong?"

Amon could only regard these as drunken words of an old madman, but he did not dare to say in his heart that it was impossible, so he stopped thinking about it and continued to concentrate on his own business—this was his best habit.

Although Amon doesn't understand what the divine stone is, he knows very well the types of divine stones, the number of the four special divine stones is much less than that of ordinary divine stones, and the probability of being mined is only a few hundredths, and the specific value is not clear Amun, the special divine stones that appeared in Duke Town were all taken away by the city-state as important tribute.

But tonight, after the cores were scattered on the anvil with gray-white sand, Amon was stunned, and the heavy sledgehammer was fixed in the air. The father, who was watching from the sidelines, was also fixed there, his eyes widened, his mouth open and forgot to close it, and the hand holding the wine glass was still trembling, not realizing that the wine had spilled on his clothes.

I saw that between the gray-white fine sand, there was a divine stone lying there quietly. It turned out to be pale golden, translucent, and seemed to have a strange luster flowing mysteriously in it, as if it contained tears that had not yet dropped—what kind of divine stone was this!

When this divine stone appeared, there was a mysterious fluctuation that rippled silently around, Amon was very keenly aware of it, but the unexpected surprise made him not pay much attention to it, and his father was completely stunned. There wasn't much time, and a polite voice outside the door brought the father and son back to their senses.

"Is anyone home?—I am Fayol Judas, the scribe of Lord Rod Dick, lord of the Cape State of the Great Empire, and I have come by order of Lord Dick. As he spoke, the man who spoke had pushed open the door and walked through the room into the backyard to the door of the workshop.

Listening to his voice was very cultivated, but his demeanor was very casual, and he walked in without the permission of his master, and two heavily armed warriors stood guard outside the gate, followed by two other warriors who flanked him. When Amon came back to his senses and turned to look out the door, Fayol stepped over the threshold with one foot on his face, looking shocked and ecstatic.

Fayol was in his thirties, of medium height, with slightly brown skin, curly hair, and a very clean body in a linen robe. His lips were a little thin, his eyes were a little thin, and he always looked thoughtful, and only in the presence of distinguished adults like Rod Dick did he show an extremely focused expression. But now, all he had in his eyes was the divine stone that shimmered with a pale golden luster.

"Thank you to the great goddess Isis, thank you to the gods for their mercy, the light of the gods will always shine on Eju, and will always shelter the city-state of the headland......" In Amun's confusion, Fayol had already crossed the threshold, and knelt down on one knee with one hand on his forehead and the other on the ground. The two warriors outside the door also knelt down on one knee with Master Fayol, their swords on the ground, their breastplates clashing with a heavy sound.

"Who are you who came in like this?" Amon asked hesitantly.

Amon's father had already put down his wine glass and stood up, and asked tremblingly, "Your Excellency, what kind of divine stone is this, why have I never seen it?"

"O great god Isis, please forgive this ignorant voice!" Hearing the words of father and son, Fayol put down the hand on his forehead, raised his head and exclaimed exaggeratedly, and then saw Amun and his son still standing there, and shouted in displeasure: "You still kneel!"

Fayol had already knelt down, and the civilians of this foreign town were still standing there, looking as if Fayol was kneeling to them, how could it not be annoying? Amon's father's lips moved, and he didn't dare to say anything, not knowing whether he should kneel to the sacred stone on the anvil or to the noble lord in front of the door? He thought about it, and still knelt down and saluted to Fayol.

Amon gently placed the sledgehammer on the side of the anvil and replied as calmly as possible: "When mining the Divine Stone, you must stand to swing the Mine Hammer, otherwise how can you see that it is taken out intact?" After speaking, he also learned the posture of Fayol just now, and knelt down on one knee against the Divine Stone in front of him, he had realized that the Divine Stone mined today was extraordinary, and these people were coming for it.

When the father and son knelt down, Fayol had already stood up, and he could see clearly that it was the child who had mined the tears of the gods. When Fayol entered, Amun's hammer had not yet been put down. And the sloppy old drunkard next to him had his hands trembling all the time, obviously it couldn't be the person who mined the Divine Stone.

"Child, you have been blessed by the goddess Isis, and you are lucky to welcome the Tears of the Gods to earth, what is your name?" Fayol asked, looking at Amun.

Amon secretly said in his heart, it turns out that this divine stone is called the tears of the gods, it seems that the old madman said that the divine stone is the remains of the gods is not completely untouched, and at the same time replied very respectfully: "My name is Amon, and everyone here calls me Amon." ”

Amun has a full name, called Aroha Men-Jesus-Messiah-Hohua Allah Yah Montmon, but this full name was given by his father, and only his father said it when he was a child, and even Amun himself did not remember it too clearly, and the people in the town usually only called him Amun. It was too much for his father to give him such a name, and only a lineage nobleman could have such a long list of titles and write it out, representing hereditary glory.

Amon was not a slave but he was not a nobleman, he was just an ordinary commoner in the town of Duk. Giving him such a name was just a self-consolation for the illusory glory of his drunkard father, and the long list of titles was not his family lineage, which his father had arranged when he was drunk, so even Amon himself would not mention it.

Fayol looked at Amon and nodded with satisfaction, his expression became solemn and solemn, and he said solemnly: "My name is Fayol-Judas, I am from the city-state of the Cape of the Great Empire of Ejuda, which ruled the Hati Kingdom, and I am the chief secretary of the city lord Lord Dick. Lord Dick received a revelation from the great goddess Isis in a dream, and the holy woman of the temple of Isis was blessed with a tear of the gods, and this is the place where she descended. ”

After saying this, Fayol cleared his throat, looked at Amon, and found that the child did not react, perhaps he was already confused, so he coughed lightly and continued: "Amon, under the benevolent gaze of Isis, you are fortunate to welcome the Tears of the Gods, and thank you for your offering, it will belong to the patron saint of the goddess Isis, and the goddess will remember your name. ...... These are the gifts given to you by the generous Lord Rod Dick. ”

With that, Fayol took out a bag and placed it on the anvil, reached out and took the Tear of the Gods, put it in a golden box he had brought with him, and turned and walked out. Amun's father saw him do this, and his lips pursed to stop him, but he didn't dare to say anything.

By the time Amon reacted and stood up, Fayol was gone, and two warriors were following him to protect him, the hilt of his sword clattering against his armor with a cold, majestic sound.

This voice made Amon understand that it was useless to chase him out of the door, this strange divine stone that he had never seen before, had just been mined and taken away by this uninvited guest, leaving only a money bag. But the man said, "Thank you for his offering," as if Amun had voluntarily offered him the Divine Stone.

Amon was angry and unwilling, thinking that tomorrow his father would have to pay a divine stone, this strange divine stone could have completed the task, but now it was taken away. Then it occurred to him that the Divine Stone had been taken away by Lord Dick, and that if the mayor wanted to pursue it, he should go to Lord Dick, and that their family had not completed their taxes.

Many thoughts flashed through his mind for a moment, but Amon did not think of another thing at this moment—Fayol's doing so would reveal that he had learned the miner's trade in Duk Town without permission.

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Xu Gongzi's note: Thank you for the book friend "Disciples of the Three Dreams Sect" for making the schematic diagram of the dodecahedron divine stone in this chapter.

List of characters in this chapter -

Amun's father, a miner and blacksmith in Duktown, was an alcoholic.

Nietzsche: A resident of Duk Town, an old friend of Amun, nicknamed the old madman.

Fayol Judas: Clerk of Rod Dick

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