Max Level Return—I'll Protect That Fragile One

Upon hearing this, Huo Jing beamed with joy.

She bowed towards Xu Xingguang and immediately changed her address, saying, "So the lady is the one recognized as Madam by our Lord Captain. Huo Jing pays her respects to Madam."

Xu Xingguang felt a bit uneasy but did not deny the title.

"Song Chi," Huo Wen’an called out, "come with us."

Song Chi nodded and followed them with Huo Jing to the ancestral hall.

Huo Jing had some understanding of Song Chi’s identity.

Being of the same generation as Song Chi, Huo Jing didn’t need to use honorifics with him.

She said to Song Chi, "Last time, your parents also came with the Old Helmsman. At that time, you were still in their womb."

Song Chi, being not very eloquent, didn’t know how to respond, so he just nodded without speaking.

The Huo Family Village was indeed very large; it took a full thirty minutes to walk from the Pilot Mansion to the ancestral hall.

Unexpectedly, the Huo Family ancestral hall wasn’t a small shrine but a seven-story tower!

On the outside, it didn’t say ’Huo Family Ancestral Hall’, but ’Sacrificial Tower’.

A very strange name.

"Sacrificial Tower..." Xu Xingguang muttered the words, feeling a sudden heaviness in her heart.

Huo Wen’an looked up at the top of the tower and asked Huo Jing, "What kind of person, after passing away, is qualified to be enshrined inside?"

Huo Jing replied, "Only those who have made outstanding contributions for the country, for the people, or for the Huo Family are qualified to be enshrined within the Sacrificial Tower."

Song Chi curiously asked, "How many tablets are there in the tower?"

Huo Jing said, "I’ve never counted, there are too many. In one of the national defense battles alone, more than two hundred tablets were enshrined at once."

Shaking her head, Huo Jing sighed, "This tower has 7 levels, we only have the keys to the lower six. The key to the seventh level has been lost. As for who is enshrined at the top, no one knows."

"Last time, the Old Helmsman and his group tried to open the door to the seventh level but failed."

Huo Wen’an furrowed his brow, somewhat surprised, "How could the key be lost?"

Huo Jing didn’t know either. She said, "Our Huo Family has lived on this land for generations, and this Sacrificial Tower has always been here. My father once told me that he, along with elders of the clan, went through all of the Huo Family’s historical documents but found no records related to the key for the seventh level."

"Perhaps, there isn’t a key for the seventh level at all."

Xu Xingguang pointed out, "If the seventh level has a door, then there must be a key."

But Huo Jing shook her head and said, "The seventh level doesn’t have a door; it’s sealed shut. There’s just a keyhole on the wall. I think it might be some kind of secret mechanical door."

Huo Jing couldn’t explain it clearly. She took out the keys to the Sacrificial Tower from a cloth bag she carried with her.

Opening the heavy tower door, a dense aura of killing intent wafted out from inside.

Xu Xingguang sensed the powerful aura and felt a sense of reverence. She said, "This tower, influenced by the ancestors of the Huo Family over generations, has condensed a righteous and awe-inspiring killing aura. It is fierce but not evil."

Such a force, Xu Xingguang had only experienced in the Otherworld.

And in a tower that could condense such energy, there must be a figure enshrined within who had performed great deeds for the world!

She had a bold guess about the identity of the individual enshrined on the seventh level.

Huo Wen’an stood in the center of the first floor of the Sacrificial Tower, looking upwards, discovering that apart from the first floor, the other levels were nearly full.

It was evident that the origins of the Huo Family extended far beyond just three hundred years.

In the middle of the first floor hall stood a large incense burner.

Huo Jing stepped forward, took some incense sticks, and handed them to Huo Wen’an, Xu Xingguang, and Song Chi.

The three of them lit the incense, paid respects to the ancestors, and placed the incense in the burner.

Gazing at the incense burner with its smoke curling upward, Huo Wen’an suddenly turned and walked toward the stairway, saying, "Let’s go to the 7th floor."

Huo Jing was a bit surprised and said, "Lord Captain, my old bones can’t manage to climb that high, so I won’t be going with you."

"You just wait for us here."

After climbing six or seven levels in one go, Huo Wen’an was a bit short of breath. Leaning against the tower wall, he held Xu Xingguang’s hand and asked with concern, "Are you feeling unwell?"

Xu Xingguang pouted, "I’m not a porcelain doll."

Song Chi understood and could only pretend not to hear.

Huo Wen’an gave a nod towards Song Chi, "Dear nephew, go ahead and check the situation up there."

Though taken aback by being called ’dear nephew’, Song Chi reluctantly went to check the door of the 7th level.

Upon reaching the 7th floor, Song Chi was stopped by a carved wooden wall.

"Boss, the 7th floor is enclosed, there’s no door."

Xu Xingguang pulled along Huo Wen’an to the 7th-floor corridor. Staring at the intricately carved wooden wall in front of them, she exclaimed, "It’s a sealed enclosure."

"What’s a sealed enclosure?" Neither Song Chi nor Huo Wen’an understood what this was.

"Theoretically, a sealed enclosure is a mechanism locked from the inside that can’t be opened. Generally, such a lock is only used in one type of place," Xu Xingguang pursed her lips and softly uttered three words: "Emperor’s Tomb."

Song Chi gaped, staring at the ornate wooden wall, feeling astonished. "This space isn’t large. What level of emperor would be buried here?"

Xu Xingguang stated four words: "Emperor of a fallen dynasty."

Song Chi frowned, silent.

Huo Wen’an also suspected whose tomb it was inside and asked Xu Xingguang, "Can the sealed enclosure be opened?"

Xu Xingguang said nothing.

Gazing at the wall before her, she finally understood why the Reincarnation Mirror had sent her to the Otherworld to work on infrastructure.

A sealed enclosure, for the civilization of the Mortal World, is an unsolvable mystery. But in the Otherworld, where she grew from a humble carpenter into a master builder, she became familiar with mechanisms of all difficulty levels.

In that Otherworld, she even built an emperor’s tomb for the king she served.

By rights, she should have accompanied him to the grave.

But that king was benevolent, granting Xu Xingguang a cup of fake poison and giving her the chance to open the mechanism, allowing her to live on incognito.

"I can open it," Xu Xingguang said, "There’s only one way to open a sealed enclosure."

She explained, "It could be an artifact, a phrase, or anything." The emperor she served had her design a sealed enclosure that could be opened with an artifact.

That artifact was a section of his finger bone.

Only when the nation was in peril could his descendants use his finger bone to unlock his tomb.

Xu Xingguang approached the wall, touching the small keyhole, she said, "This keyhole is fake; no key can open it."

After carefully examining the whole wall, she concluded: "It’s a sound-activated sealed enclosure."

She said, "Inside the wall is a tone plate. When we say the correct passphrase, it triggers the tone plate to activate, unlocking the enclosure switch from within."

Song Chi felt a headache coming. "To open a sealed enclosure with a phrase is harder than finding a needle in a haystack."

"I don’t know either." Xu Xingguang wasn’t the designer of this particular sealed enclosure and had no way of guessing the passphrase.

Huo Wen’an, however, felt a bit of a headache.

Unconsciously rubbing his head, chaotic images surged in his mind, and he blurted out: "Emperor, the forerunner and protector. One who abandons the people is a tortoise. Since I am king, I must share the hardships with my people!"

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