According to the inscriptions on the stone tablet, the village had a history spanning six to seven hundred years. The reason the village was named after an angel was because of the legend that the surrounding area had once exhibited some kind of miracle, believed to be connected to the Archangel Michael.
"I see, I must have misunderstood before." After reading the engraved content on the stone tablet, Liang En suddenly realized.
When he had arrived at the ruins of this village, he instinctively believed that the third word "至圣之所" he had found in the book referred to the church in the village.
In reality, this judgment wasn't entirely wrong, as in an ordinary village, the only thing that could be associated with the divine was likely the church.
However, if this village had a connection to miracles, then "至圣之所" naturally wouldn't refer to the small church in the village but to the place where the miracle had occurred years ago.
With this new clue confirmed, Liang En glanced at the sun setting in the west, gathered his tools from before and carried them on his back. He then walked along the path by the edge of the village.
Though twilight was approaching, considering that the destination was just a few hundred meters away, he decided to press on rather than return to the city.
As not only the village but the entire region lay abandoned, shortly after leaving the village, the path that had been faintly recognizable had disappeared, leaving only knee-high grass.
Fortunately, there were no dangerous snakes, insects, or wild beasts on the island of Ireland. Plus, Liang En had thought ahead and dressed appropriately for outdoor activity, so the situation didn't trouble him much.
Twenty minutes later, after multiple wrong turns that almost led him to his destination, only to find a steep cliff of three to four meters in front of him, forcing him to backtrack, he finally arrived at the intended location.
It was a small hill that appeared to be about five or six stories high. The surroundings were flat, with scattered bushes here and there.
At the top of the hill stood a weathered stone cross, approximately the height of a person. It looked extremely worn, and even both horizontal arms had detached from the cross and fallen to the side.
The hilltop was quiet. Apart from occasional bird songs and the rustling of the wind through the surrounding grass, the only sound was Liang En's heavy breathing from his recent strenuous activity.
After a cursory glance around the cross, he didn't find any other landmarks. Just a few stones, about the size of car tires, scattered nearby.
Perhaps due to the prayers or pilgrimages of people who had lived around the area before, Liang En found some cross symbols engraved on those stones.
However, aside from that, there were no traces of human activity around.
"Now, only the last cipher '12' remains uncracked." Seating himself on a stone, Liang En looked at the weathered cross that had become a stone pillar, deep in thought.
Since the information from that book had led him to this place, it surely wasn't just for the sake of puzzling him.
With the three pieces of information before all pointing to a certain location, the "12" shouldn't be an exception. It must indicate the specific location of what he was looking for through some means.
At this moment, the sun began its gradual descent towards the horizon. Because of the direct sunlight on his face, Liang En turned his face to avoid the sun's glare. In doing so, he happened to notice the shadow cast by the cross beside him.
"Shadow—right, the shadow!" This shadow instantly triggered a realization in Liang En. If he treated this weathered cross as a sundial pointer, then the "12" likely referred to the position of the cross's shadow at noon.
With this in mind, he approached to examine the point where the cross had broken. As suspected, he found that the cross's arms had been deliberately broken off by someone, not naturally fallen.
Judging from the condition of the break, this damage had occurred over a century ago. Considering the religious influence of that era, deliberately damaging the cross was clearly a highly unusual circumstance.
The intentionally damaged cross indirectly confirmed that something extraordinary indeed existed at this location. So, Liang En took out his probe and began to explore northward along the cross.
Because this was the Northern Hemisphere, the shadow at 12 o'clock would certainly be to the north of those objects, meaning the area he needed to search wasn't large.
Soon enough, his probing tool struck something hard, about one and a half meters away from the bottom of the cross. Realizing that this object was only about half a meter above the ground, Liang En immediately fetched a shovel and began to dig.
Fortunately, the soil on this small hilltop was soft, making the excavation relatively easy. In no time, he had cleared the soil, revealing a square stone slab measuring about 1 meter on each side.
"Finally found it." Seeing the stone slab, Liang En put down his shovel and took out his camera from his pocket. He captured the dug-out hole and the stone slab beneath it with his camera. Ever since the increase in value of the pistol he had sold due to the photos, he had consciously been documenting the process of his excavations for potential future use.
The stone slab bore an unfamiliar emblem to Liang En, which should belong to Jacques de Brian. In that era, French people with "de" in their middle names were generally nobles, so having their own emblem wasn't unusual.
With effort, he lifted the stone slab, revealing a dark box directly in front of him. The box was placed in a small pit about the same size as the stone slab, intentionally filled with fine sand.
The box itself wasn't particularly large; it seemed to be a square box about 50 centimeters in length. After clearing away the sand around it, Liang En realized that the box was quite thin, probably about as thick as an adult's palm.
"Huh?!" After completely freeing the box, he attempted to lift it. The box's weight far exceeded his expectations, nearly straining his unprepared back.
After steadying himself for a few seconds, Liang En made preparations and attempted once more to move the box. He found that he could only drag it, as it was too heavy to lift.
However, during the process of moving the box, he gradually sensed that its weight likely exceeded 100 kg.
"So heavy, could it be gold?" Dense materials like this were rare in the world, so Liang En immediately guessed what might be inside the box.
Realizing that the contents of the box most likely wouldn't have oxidized, and acknowledging that he alone couldn't possibly carry the box down the hill, Liang En began to dismantle the box.
First, he scraped off the outer layer of tar with his carried knife, revealing the box itself with iron plating underneath. Then he wedged the flattened end of a pry bar into a gap in the box and levered with force.
"Clang!" The slightly decayed lid of the box was instantly pried to the side, and the contents of the box shone brightly in the lingering sunset.
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