Chapter 52: History of the Dam
Despite the amount of shock that Xuan Yueji received, his main mission at the moment was to have a conversation with the priests. So even though he fell from the branch he was standing on currently, he still got back to his feet and started toward the circle again. Of course, he was still filled with many questions for Lu Lianhua, but he had already gone silent again.
Not only that, Lu Lianhua already excused himself with, "I need to go check on Xiao Xian."
This gave Xuan Yueji no choice but to ignore what Lu Lianhua just previously said despite the disturbance in his heart. Honestly, how could he not remember his own past? He was one of the oldest members in their system and he even prided himself in that.
Ignoring the chaos though, Xuan Yueji sped up. Upon reaching the circle where all the bamboo lighted up like gold due to the shine of the sun, he saw the five priests that he wanted to talk with. All of them wore light blue robes and each of them held a string of beads in their hands as they chanted who-knows-what for what reason.
Looking around, Xuan Yueji also saw that there was a never before seen statue. It was an old and worn looking statue, but it held regalness and aloofness despite the years that seem to wear it down. Another thing that he noticed was that the statue seemed to be made from a rare material unlike something normal humans could get their hands on.
Lastly, as Xuan Yueji stared at the priests praying and chanting in front of the statue with their lit incense sticks, he started to see a similarity in the statue. He could not understand why the statue looked familiar to him, but he felt as though he had seen it before.
Of course, he ignored the feeling as he scoffed to himself, 'How could I have possibly seen this before? I've never been here before."
With a calm voice, Xuan Yueji called out, "Hey."
It took a while before the priests stopped praying under the falling leaves and one of them addressed with a deeply peaceful voice, "Sire, what can I do for you?"
Seeing each of them holding different colored beads, Xuan Yueji formed an idea in his head, but did not speak about it. He was still a new person to the current area, so he did not like to presume things in case they were wrong. Anyhow, he felt that he was unlikely wrong, but since what he was thinking of was not important to the current issue, he would not speak about it to the priests.
"Priest Qi, I would like to know details about the dam here," Xuan Yueji said.
Turning to another priest, the one Xuan Yueji called Priest Qi asked, "Old Wu, what do you think?"
Before the one called Old Wy could answer Priest Qi's question, another priest had already responded with, "Tell the young man. He will do no harm."
"As you say then, Old Luo," Priest Qi replied.
Turning back to Xuan Yueji, Priest Qi explained in detail, "The dam was built centuries ago when the river was flooded by the Fenkang River. At the time, the Fenkang River was also flooded so even if a dam was built, no positive outcome would have happened like expected. However, just before buying the materials to build the dam, our ancestors told the city that they would handle it. Every piece of the dam was built with not the strength of men, but the power of the priests. By changing the dam or disturbing it, there will be heavy repercussions."
Staring at the old man, Xuan Yueji asked with suspicion, "I have a feeling that the reason why you do not allow them to go near the dam is because you have no knowledge of how the priests at the time built it, right?"
One of the priests wanted to speak up for them, but Priest Qi had already replied, "I hate to admit it, but yes."
"Old Qi," one of them said with a heavy tone.
Shaking his head, Priest Qi said, "We do not dare to tell the common citizens. We are afraid they will cause more havoc should they know that we do not understand the method of which the ancestors used."
"You have no way to find out?" Xuan Yueji asked with a lift of his brow. "Are they not your ancestors?"
With a deep sigh of tiredness, Priest Qi said, "Right after constructing the dam, the ancestors announced that the method of which they used should be absolved to never be known again."
"You have no idea why they did that?" Xuan Yueji asked although knowing the answer.
Sighing again, Priest Qi explained, "The ancestors burned all the magic scrolls leaving behind only a few."
"Just because they burnt everything, it does not mean it has disappeared forever. There are always copies made in the world," Xuan Yueji commented after hearing his excuse.
Giving Xuan Yueji a deep stare in the eyes, Old Wu said, "Sire, it is our greatest wish to repair the dam, however we have no idea how to fix it. Also, please think about the measure of which this spell is."
"Measure?" Xuan Yueji questioned with a frown.
Xuan Yueji knew of magic and such, but he was not introduced or familiar with the spells of priests and such. Besides, the majority of priests in the continent were mere fakes that had no idea of anything and walked around with the name to just scam people of money. If it were not for that, priests would not have such bad reputations even if they were legitimate.
Even if he had Bai Shuixian who was a priestess, her training was much different from priests of the normal world. Zhong Chen was not a common priest. Priests did not practice cultivation of immortality, martial arts, physical strength, or any of such.
Instead, they practiced the cultivation of spirituality, always trying to maintain at peace with the nature of the world while being able to manipulate the five elements to help humans. The things that Zhong Chen knew were much stranger, different, and harder to learn than what priests should be taught. In fact, some of them could be outright considered demon magic in the common world.
Since Xuan Yueji was a military man, Old Wu expected his question so he answered, "The spell that our ancestors used was not merely to just build a dam and contain the water from the flooded Fenkang River. It also lowered the sea levels and created dams in the Fenkang River and at the intersecting points of the ocean and the river. The spell did not affect just the city but also the entire southern part of the empire."
Placing his hand on his chin in deep thought, Xuan Yueji asked, "I suppose when it was built, it did not break once a year?"
A little shocked that Xuan Yueji knew this, Priest Qi answered, "Yes. How did you know?"
"Shuzhu told me," Xuan Yueji said. "Tell me, how did it become like this and when?"
Hearing that question, Priest Qi stared at the priest holding a set of blue strings and said with a sigh, "Old Jia… tell the young sire."
With his name called, Old Jia stepped up and detailed, "A few decades ago, a young lady with beautiful silver hair and eyes visited the city. For some reason, when she came, the elements of the world followed her. Plants grew everywhere she walked. Fire burned every building she entered. Earth followed her footsteps. Gold could be seen dropping as she passed by and rain was always nearby if she was also nearby."
After Old Jia paused, the very last priest that had not spoken a single word yet continued for Old Jia, "When she went near the dam, the elements that followed her damaged the integrity of the spell. At the time, we had tried to stop her from going anywhere near the forest because that was closest to the dam, but we failed. Tragically at that…"
"Do you know why she wanted to go to the forest?" Xuan Yueji asked upon hearing the female's features.
"That… we do not know," Old Luo said.
Staring at the statue behind the five priests, Xuan Yueji asked, "Is this her?"
Surprised once again, Priest Qi answered, "Yes."
"Why do you have a statue of her?" Xuan Yueji asked, trying to come to a conclusion with everything he had received.
Sighing, Old Luo said, "We did not place the statue here. It was a man who wore dark black clothing that placed it here. He specifically announced on the day that he came here that as long as she remained unconscious, the city would receive retribution."
"Retribution?" Xuan Yueji repeated the word with a frown on his face.
"We can not tell you more. We have no more information that we can tell you," the priest that spoke only one sentence told him.
Understanding that they truly did not have any valuable information to tell him and that there would be no progress made if he tried to inquire more, Xuan Yueji left the circle and the bamboo forest.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Supremely_Innocent
Supremely_Innocent I plan to change my schedule. Since I translate for a group also, I plan to keep my weekends for purely translating. In contrast, I will post 2 chapter a day for the weekdays considering the fact that I also have many owed chapters. This new schedule will be executed starting next week.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone