Life Game In Other World
Chapter 445: That is the Fountain of Youth

Chapter 445: Chapter 445: That is the Fountain of Youth

The torrential rain in the sky gradually ceased, and the bright sunshine pierced through the clouds, landing just in front of He Ao.

The tightly closed camp gates were slowly opened, and Ennie pushed out the Elderly chieftain’s wheelchair, appearing in He Ao’s field of vision.

"Dad!"

Upon seeing He Ao’s somewhat pale cheeks, she wanted to rush over to catch her father, but was stopped by the Elderly reaching out a hand.

He Ao took step by step while carrying Kaja’s corpse on his back, slowly crossing the camp’s gate.

The little boy followed behind him.

Creak—

Accompanied by the crisp sound, huge hinges dragged the camp’s gate, gradually closing the open door bit by bit.

When the gate finally shut, He Ao’s body could no longer hold up; he stumbled step by step, falling face down toward the ground.

The surrounding Andavi clan members raced to catch his body, removing Kaja’s corpse from his back, and at the same time, another group pinned down the small boy who had been following He Ao to the ground.

"Don’t hurt him."

He Ao raised his hand with difficulty, uttering slowly.

"Dad!"

Ennie also rushed up at this time, grabbing his bloodstained hand.

The little girl’s round eyes brimmed with clear tears.

"It’s okay, it’s okay," He Ao said with difficulty, cracking a faint smile, "Don’t cry, I’m just a bit tired."

He Ao felt his consciousness growing dim, he closed his eyes and retracted the remnants of his spirit, allowing himself to stay between clarity and faintness.

He Ao felt he was lifted onto a stretcher, and then was carried onto a vehicle.

"Dad! It’s fine; we’ll be at the hospital soon."

Throughout the whole process, Ennie held tightly onto her father’s hand, not even letting go when boarding the vehicle.

He Ao could only squeeze his daughter’s hand faintly, letting her feel his strength.

The vehicle sped along and soon came to a stop, He Ao felt he was lifted onto something.

"Your father is fine; he’s just a little overworked. We’ll bring him to the operating room immediately for resuscitation."

The Elderly’s voice echoed in He Ao’s ear; he seemed to be reassuring Ennie.

······

He Ao was clearly aware that the Elderly hadn’t come with him in the ambulance.

What kind of transportation was the Elderly using? Its speed was a bit fast, almost synchronized with the ambulance.

Under the Elderly’s persuasion, Ennie slowly released He Ao’s hand.

Then, He Ao felt his stretcher being pushed into a certain area.

The surrounding air gradually cooled down.

After passing through a certain door, the space around turned into complete silence.

He Ao lay quietly in this silence, the air around him very cold, but within the chill, there was a trace of a warm qi.

This warmth seeped through He Ao’s skin into his body, slowly repairing the damage caused by his excessive use of Transcendent powers.

The feeling was incredibly comfortable, like floating on a cloud; He Ao felt his muscles tense and then relax, his body involuntarily wanting to groan.

But he resisted the sensation and just lay calmly on the stretcher.

From the ears came the gentle sound of closing doors; it seemed the people who had brought him in had left.

The surroundings were so quiet, He Ao sank into a half-dream, half-awake slumber.

In the dream, he seemed to have fallen into some warm liquid, his body flowing with the liquid like a dancing leaf.

······

He didn’t know how much time had passed, but the sound of the door opening again rang out.

He Ao slowly opened his eyes from the deep sleep.

The first thing he saw was the silver metal ceiling; he propped himself up with difficulty and looked around. It seemed to be a completely metal-cast silver square space.

This space had no windows, only an open door that seemed to connect to a corridor.

An Elderly man with a face full of wrinkles and age spots was passing through the door in a wheelchair.

The Elderly looked at the awakened He Ao and pressed a button beside the door, causing the silver metal doors to slowly close.

He Ao sat up from the stretcher; he looked towards the center of the metal space, where there stood a silver ’metal tree’, about waist-thick.

The top of this tree joined with the room’s ceiling, sprouting some branches that penetrated the ceiling, some even passing the ceiling lights—with no leaves on the branches, just a few bald, bent metal sticks.

The bottom of the tree joined with the silver floor, and from its base spread thick aerial roots, digging into the metal ground.

The tree should be entirely made of metal, its whole body glistening with metallic luster under the ceiling lights. Yet its form was so tree-like, appearing as if it were a real tree strenuously growing, its imitation perfect.

If it were a creation of some sculptor, that artist would have achieved a skill worth recording in the annals of history.

And at the very center of the tree, a transparent container wrapped partially by the trunk and emanating a faint milky white glow stood quietly.

This container was long and cylindrical, about as thick as a fist and over forty centimeters long, filled with a milky white liquid.

And the glow seemed to emanate from the liquid inside the container.

He Ao shifted his gaze back to the Elderly next to him, who had wheeled his chair beside him, and asked softly, "What is that?"

He was inquiring about what the container held.

"The Fountain of Youth."

The Elderly replied deliberately.

"That is... the Fountain of Youth?"

Although He Ao had already anticipated it in his heart, he was still inevitably surprised.

"To be precise, that’s the water from the Fountain of Youth."

The Elderly exhaled a sigh and drove his wheelchair slowly to the front of the container.

He Ao also got up from the stretcher and walked to the front of the container.

Upon closer inspection, he found that the tube allegedly containing the water from the Fountain of Youth was not filled with clear water, but a kind of viscous liquid.

And while he gazed at this Fountain of Youth, the originally still waters began to naturally roil and boil.

Cracks quickly spread across the top of the transparent container like a web, and the water inside, as if it wanted to burst forth and engulf him.

However, He Ao remained unmoved.

Just as the boiling waters were about to shatter the transparent container, everything disappeared; the container was still intact and the milky waters of the Fountain of Youth remained tranquil.

"Your soul and will are both very strong,"

the Elder by his side remarked with emotion, "When the previous chieftain brought me here to see it, it gave me quite a start."

He Ao activated his Super Memory, scrutinizing this fountain.

Through the eyes of Super Memory, a faint Shadow covering the water came into his view.

The meaning of this Shadow was simple: it meant that the water had a soul, albeit an extremely tenuous one, but a soul nonetheless.

In a sense, this was a living being.

He Ao deactivated his Super Memory, feeling the thick, warm Qi around his body, seemingly emanating from the fountain.

He Ao then summoned his Divine Sense, watching the fountain once more.

Under the gaze of Divine Sense, this fountain was a massive confluence of energy, with pale white power spreading from it.

This energy floated in the air around him, and was likely the source of the warm Qi he felt.

However, this energy halted as it reached the edges of the metal space, blocked by the metal walls of the structure and unable to spread further.

This entire room, too, appeared to be some kind of ’container.’

"Can you tell me about its origin?"

He Ao asked, his voice calm as he looked at the Fountain of Youth before him.

He was well aware that the other party wouldn’t bring him to see such an important thing without reason.

Since he had been brought here, it was clear that there was a readiness for some kind of ’showdown.’

This was the trust he had earned through the death of Kaja and that Armored Squad.

"This story dates back at least a thousand years,"

the Elderly reflected for a moment before speaking slowly.

This year is the 757th year of the Federation, and even the most ancient Fortress City, Dawn City, only has a history of just over eight hundred years.

A thousand years ago was even before the time of the Original Federation, a time older than the Fortress Cities, back in the age of the great cataclysm.

In that era, exotic beasts roamed freely, rampaging everywhere, with humans having no clear historical or chronological records.

"Approximately one or two thousand years ago, our ancestors came to this land,"

the Elder manipulated his wheelchair to the edge of the door and pressed a hidden button.

The entire metal space suddenly shook as a series of simple yet intricate engraved murals appeared on the metal walls.

In an instant, a dense network of lines covered all four walls.

Then he slowly maneuvered his wheelchair to stop in front of the first mural

He Ao followed, surveying the murals.

"In that era, we had no means of preserving history for long, and our ancestors didn’t even know if the clan could survive for long,"

the Elderly clan leader said, stretching out his hand toward the first mural. The mural was mostly wavy lines that seemed to represent water, "So the clan members engraved the events that had happened on stone walls, and orally passed down the history that had occurred. The earlier murals were lost during migration. This mural was created when our ancestors first arrived at this land.

"It was originally in a cave that has since collapsed. Later, the clan members made rubbings from it and then carved it here."

He Ao gazed at the mural. The lines had no sense of beauty, but it used the simplest strokes to depict an event, ’A group of people arrived by a lush lake.’

The lake appeared to be exceptionally large, so large that the painting didn’t include its boundaries, as if it was boundless.

"Was there originally a lake here?"

He Ao asked softly.

"Too much time has passed," the Elderly clan leader shook his head, "All of the original history has faded into legend, and we only know that the environment here was good at that time, with no powerful exotic beasts, so our ancestors settled down here."

"After arriving here, our ancestors seemed to have encountered a plague... or something else..."

The Elderly clan leader shifted his gaze to the next mural. The content of this painting was also simple: a huge circle in the sky that seemed to represent the sun, and below it were dead bodies, rows upon rows of fallen dead.

But He Ao’s gaze was drawn to the top of the mural, where a small piece of the lake’s edge was still depicted. The lake’s surface was shown using dense dots, but in the depths of the lake, the surface was not flat, but intentionally drawn as an elongated shape protruding.

"Look there, doesn’t it look like a lying person?"

He Ao pointed at the protruding shape and asked in a gentle voice.

"Somewhat," the Elderly clan leader spoke slowly, "I previously suspected that it was a person floating in the lake, but judging by the scale, the lake in this picture is in the background, and the person-sized shape is almost as big as a person in the foreground. That means if the carver of the mural didn’t use exaggeration, that ’person’ is actually larger than a mountain."

He took a laborious breath, "Unfortunately, the original history has been lost, and we don’t know what that really was."

He glanced at He Ao and seeing no new questions from him, he looked towards the third mural, "After that ’plague,’ the clan members seemed to have grown stronger. They continued to live nearby, but people still died unexpectedly."

The content of the third mural was straightforward. It was still set along the lake’s shore: one person lifted a huge stone as though showing off his strength, surrounded by onlookers, and one or two people silently fell amongst the crowd.

In the distance, a few figures, entangled in chaotic lines, struggled towards the lake, as if desperate to drink the water.

He Ao did not ask about this mural but looked to the next one.

"The clan continued to multiply and thrive here, and after an unknown period, suddenly one day, a huge earthquake struck the ground," the Elderly clan leader said slowly, looking at the fourth and fifth murals, "Our ancestors fled their original habitat and moved nearby."

The fourth mural depicted small figures joyously dancing by the lake with wild beasts, seemingly in the midst of a ceremony. Surrounding the figures were dark clouds painted as a mass, mountains collapsing into the lake, and the cracked earth.

The figures’ ceremony seemed to be interrupted, forcing them to flee in panic.

It appeared to be depicting a scene of worship interrupted by an earthquake.

Immediately following in the fifth mural, the lake was gone, only a land full of scattered rocks remained, where the figures crossed the land, appearing to migrate.

He Ao’s gaze moved to the sixth mural. In the mural at the foot of a mountain, the figures seemed to have found a place to settle, establishing a camp on level ground.

He continued to look downward, stopping in front of the seventh mural.

In that mural, a figure holding a stick looked ahead in terror at the rocks. Between the crevices of the rocks, a spring seemed to be flowing forth.

He appeared to have accidentally uncovered this spring.

Interestingly, the depicted spring water was not in wavy lines but in tiny circles.

"That is the Fountain of Youth."

The Elderly clan leader’s aged voice rang in He Ao’s ears.