Chapter 480 - The Accursed Twin Towers
Chapter 480: The Accursed Twin Towers
In the distance, one could see two towers, pitch-black and piercing into the clouds.
Parents with their children could be seen on both sides of the road. The wealthy drove hovercars, whereas the poor hugged their children and walked. Those who were neither wealthy or poor would use horse-drawn carriages or hoverbikes.
The closer one got to the two towers, the more people there were. Their target was the same, their eyes brimming with anticipation.
“These children are being taken to exchange for abilities at such a young age?” Xia Fei asked in astonishment. Many of the children he saw were not even one year old, and the oldest could not be more than three. Most of them were still in their infancy.
According to the laws of the Alliance, a child would have to wait until they were seven to train the Startip Mantra. At twelve, if they had yet to unlock an ability, it was allowed to use gene optimization fluids for children, which would deal the least amount of damage to kids, but cases like that were rare. Most parents would wait until the children were adults to try the drugs.
This was done out of consideration for the health of the children, but in the Blood Candle Kingdom, children who were only a few months old were sent here to activate their abilities, and they did this in exchange for parts of their bodies. In obtaining an ability, they would lose a certain body’s function. In Xia Fei’s view, this was nothing more than pulling up the sprouts to try and help them grow.
Constantine helplessly said, “Blood Candle is a savage place, and many children must start making money to help their family the moment that they can walk. The pressure is so great that outsiders can’t possibly imagine it, so the earlier they can unlock an ability, the earlier they can learn how to use it and start making money for food and other basic necessities. Even the children of the royal household must be sent to the Accursed Tower before the age of two.”
Xia Fei nodded. This pressure did not care whether one was young or old. Even the tender and immature would have to bear that heavy load on their shoulders.
The terrain began to lower. The two towers were located in a basin, like a crater left by a meteor.
The towers were surrounded by an alloy wall, which was naturally made of the common Magnared Alloy. Countless tents had been set up around the walls. Many parents and their children camped out in the open. A circle of stones served as a simple furnace, with weeds and dried branches found in the wasteland serving as the fuel.
“As there are many people who want to enter the Accursed Tower, ordinary civilians without connections or money to pay for the offering will line up here. Fast is three or five days of waiting, but bad luck can mean ten-some days or even two months,” Constantine explained.
There was a special road which led beyond the walls. Constantine and Xia Fei drove in through it as countless civilians bowed and watched.
Once he got out of the car, Xia Fei discovered that, while one tower had a long line in front of it, the other tower was so deserted that there was a thick layer of dust on the steps leading in, making it clear that it had been a long time since someone went there.
“You didn’t say that there are two Accursed Towers. Why does that one tower have no one, while the other has such a long line?”
He had barely spoken when he heard excited cheers. A child, who had only just reached one year old, threw a fireball, burning away his father’s hair, but his father was not angry at all, hugging his child and dancing around as he yelled at the crowd, “This is my son! He obtained a fire ability!”
Excitement aside, the crowd looked on with envious gazes as the father rushed out with his son. As he passed Xia Fei and Constantine, he politely bowed. Xia Fei saw that the child’s left ear was gone as if surgery had been performed on it. Even the base had been cut away.
Constantine smiled. “Another lucky fellow. His son has a combat ability, so in the future, he can join the military. If he’s lucky, he can even become an officer, completely changing this family’s fate.”
Xia Fei gave a noncommittal shrug. Having done his research, he discovered that the abilities the people of Blood Candle traded with using parts of their body could reach a rather high level, and warriors of the Star Domain rank could be found throughout Blood Candle. Alas, there was not a single Legendary rank warrior in Blood Candle. Their ranks stopped cold at the Star River rank, and the even higher Eternal rank did not exist.
Every few years, an Immortal rank expert would appear in the Alliance, but Blood Candle did not even have a Legendary rank. From this, one could see that this method of obtaining abilities allowed the Blood Candle to have an extremely high percentage of ability users, it resulted in a massive decrease in the number of experts. It could even be said that they had no experts and relied purely on numbers.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” Xia Fei said.
Constantine said, “Of the two towers, one can be used to trade for abilities and the other can be used to exchange for technology. You can only pick one, so if you choose to enter the tower of ability, you can’t enter the tower of technology. In the eyes of the Blood Candle people, abilities are naturally more important, so it’s already been many years since anyone entered the tower of technology.”
“The tower of technology? Do you also have to trade a part of your body to use this tower?” Xia Fei curiously asked.
“Correct. No matter which tower you pick, the chance of getting something in return isn’t one hundred percent. Obtaining ability is one thing, and cultivating that ability is another. Choosing to enter the tower of technology and not obtaining any technology from it is a destructive blow to the poor of Blood Candle, and the child will be a cripple for the rest of their life.
“After all, even the weakest ability, even if the seventh brain region is only opened by one percent, that person will be a little smarter, live a little longer, and be a little stronger. While these may only be small improvements, this little bet is enough to decide someone’s fate in the wilds of Blood Candle. Thus, no one will risk becoming a cripple to enter the tower of technology.”
Xia Fei nodded. Cultivating an ability was not simple. The majority of people in the Alliance had an ability and an opened seventh brain region, the only difference being the level at which it had been opened. People like Xia Fei who had completely opened their seventh brain region were essentially miracles. The majority of people had superfluous abilities, and they would go their entire lives without raising them to a very high rank. If abilities were that easy to cultivate, the Alliance would be bursting to the gills with ability users.
“Your mechanical maintenance skill is rather good. I presume that it’s obtained from the tower of technology?” Xia Fei asked.
Constantine answered, “Correct. While few people enter this tower, it’s not entirely unheard of. A family once sent their child inside, and he ended up becoming a maintenance specialist. My skills in the field came from a book he wrote before his death. Alas, my royal father dislikes things that have nothing to do with battle, and I earned a harsh scolding from him for studying that book.”
As the two spoke, they walked up to the tower of ability. Xia Fei estimated that this tower, which appeared to be very imposing, was more than two thousand meters tall.
As they walked around the tower, Xia Fei noticed a few puzzling things about it. Rather than the Magnared Alloy commonly found throughout Blood Candle, this tower was made of the even more valuable Keller Alloy, the same alloy that Celestial Moon was made from. It increased the speed at which thoughts were relayed and was perfect for psychic ability users. The amount of Keller Alloy needed to build such a massive tower had to be stupendous, but he had never heard of Blood Candle ever producing this alloy.
There were many grooves and lines on the tower, which formed complex designs that were dizzying to look at. Though he did not know what meaning they conveyed, these were definitely not designs or images common to Blood Candle. This was an uncivilized place, and its people loved horse-riding and hunting. He had not seen any such abstract designs in the royal city, either.
“Who built these two towers?” Xia Fei frowned and asked.
Constantine answered, “No one can answer this question of yours. It’s said that the two Accursed Towers simply appeared one night. Eventually, people slowly understood what’s so special about these towers. In the era before the two towers, the prisoners the Alliance had banished to this place died at a very high rate, and even cannibalism was not rare, but after these two towers appeared, ordinary people were able to obtain abilities in large numbers. Thus, more talented individuals were able to survive in this barren land and gradually establish a nation independent of the Alliance. In this aspect, the two towers can be considered the saviors of Blood Candle.”
After walking up thirteen steps, Xia Fei and Constantine entered the interior of the ability tower. There were no stairs or elevators leading up to the second floor. In the large and spacious interior were ninety-nine egg-shaped instruments. The civilians would place their children in them; after which, the eggs would automatically close, the wailing of the children ceasing.
As they anxiously waited, Xia Fei found the whole affair rather interesting, so he lit a cigarette and began casually chatting with the waiting parents. From these conversations, he learned that these people had come from another planet. They used the last of their family’s resources for the long journey so that their child could obtain a decent ability, which would help fill their bellies and deter others from bullying them anymore.
The Blood Candle Kingdom was formed from three planets, and to the poor, the fee for an interplanetary journey was not small. Thus, in some villages, the village chief would come out and make a one-time trip for all the newborns to reduce the costs.
Those children who obtained abilities would be brought back to the village to be cared for, and those who did not would be abandoned in the wilderness. After all, taking the child back would also cost money. Not far from this place was an area where infants were abandoned. Packs of jackals and wolves had gathered there to wait for their lunch.
Constantine shook his head in shame. “It’s a cruel custom. You’ve already seen the darkest side of the Blood Candle Kingdom.”
As a citizen of the relatively more civilized Earth, Xia Fei naturally could not stand the thought of abandoning the children and the old, but he also understood that the strong eating the weak was an unchangeable law of the universe. To survive, humans could do many absurd things.
A few moments later, those egg-shaped instruments opened. If the children were not missing an arm, they were missing an eye. There were both cheering parents and grieving parents in the tower.
As they walked out, Xia Fei examined this two-thousand-meter-tall tower. “Why is there only one floor? What’s on the higher floors?”
Constantine shook his head. “The Accursed Tower is sacred. In the early years, it is said that many curious people tried going up the tower to see what’s in there, but none of them returned. If they didn’t fall to their deaths, they simply disappeared. Since then, no one has ever dared to try and climb up the tower.”
As the two of them walked over to the other tower, Xia Fei suddenly felt like someone was watching him from a high place; it was as if there was someone in the tower!
“There are intermittent energy pulses coming from the tower. Whenever a child is sent into the tower, the energy pulses get stronger,” Phantom solemnly told Xia Fei.
Xia Fei nodded. “I also feel like there’s someone in the tower watching me.”
Phantom was startled. “It can’t be. This tower doesn’t have windows. Who could be watching you?”
Xia Fei smiled. “It doesn’t matter who; I’ll go tonight and find out.”
“This is the Accursed Tower! You’ll be cursed!” Phantom hastily implored.
Xia Fei stood up straight and stubbornly said, “I only believe in what my eyes can see; I don’t believe in things like gods or curses.”