Chapter 1 Listening to Tirian's Account

Listening to Tirian's account, Duncan fell into a brief period of contemplation. After half a minute, he raised his head, and said thoughtfully, "So, in order to satisfy her own desire for exploration, she initiated a 'Submersion Project,' and the essence of this project isn't really about exploring some kind of subspace, but just... literally 'diving into deep water'?"

Speaking of this, he paused, feeling that there was something strange about it. "But if that's all it was, how could this project be related to the *Shifting Tides*? The subspace the *Shifting Tides* went to and the deep sea that the Frost Queen wanted to explore are two completely different concepts. Those rebels shouldn't be so confused that they can't even tell the difference..."

Tirian did not answer directly, but suddenly posed a question: "Don't you find it strange? If it's just diving into the water to explore the sea conditions deep within the city-state, what's so 'forbidden' about that? The city-state's port builders and offshore fishermen often dive into the water for work, and it's common to dive a dozen or even dozens of meters in safe waters. Why did the Frost Queen's 'Submersion Project' become forbidden?"

Duncan's expression gradually turned serious. "...How deep did you dive?"

"Very, very deep. I don't know how deep the Queen ultimately dived, because I'm not a scholar myself, but rather participated in some peripheral assistance as a naval commander. And in the second half of the project, I was no longer directly involved in the operation, but to my knowledge, before the project started to become... 'wrong,' their manned submersible had reached a depth of at most one thousand meters, and they were constantly breaking that record."

One thousand meters underwater...

Duncan quickly sorted through his knowledge in his mind—on Earth, that seemingly insignificant number hadn't even reached the maximum diving depth of many advanced military submarines, and most military submarines only had a diving depth of four or five hundred meters. As for those "extreme deep-sea diving records" of several thousand or even nearly ten thousand meters, they were basically completed by special deep-sea submersibles over a long period of time, with extremely high requirements for equipment, and often only with unmanned equipment.

And the Frost Queen's manned submersible hadn't even touched the "one thousand meter" threshold back then. Given the industrial level of that world half a century later, even with the assistance of some supernatural powers, this was still an amazing achievement.

And behind this amazing number... obviously came some even more "amazing" things.

Tirian mentioned earlier that the project gradually became "wrong" in the later stages. Duncan didn't ignore this word.

Duncan voiced his doubts, but Tirian just shook his head. "We also had doubts about this, but we couldn't figure it out in the end. And compared to what happened later... the question of 'how the city-state floats on the sea' became unimportant."

The massive city sits on this "pancake."

"Of course, up to this point, this was all within our expectations—exploring the unknown requires facing challenges to one's will. Those scholars who explore the spirit realm and the distant seas often encounter this kind of trouble, so we continued, just strengthening the explorers' mental defenses according to the most meticulous standards."

"Submersible No. 8 suddenly sent out an urgent signal to ascend, and then emptied its ballast tanks and rushed upwards like crazy. The explorers inside seemed completely unconcerned that this rapid ascent would cost them their lives. And after rushing to the surface, this explorer went mad. The hatch opened, and he roared and screamed in the sunlight, seemingly desperately trying to describe something terrible to us, and after a lot of incomprehensible, chaotic words, he said the only clear sentence:"

"What happened later?" Duncan couldn't help but become curious. "What happened later? What did they see in the deep sea?"

Frost frowned tightly. I hadn't spoken, but was slowly outlining the entire structure in my mind according to Tirian's description—

Structure: floating in seawater.

"Of course, compared to the radius of the city-state itself, this 'pillar,' which is at least four hundred meters long, is actually still very long in proportion. Rather than a pillar, it's more like a regular disc-shaped bottom/"

Base, supporting an island.

"Yes, at least Duncan's situation is not the case," Tirian nodded. "Is there a problem?" But when he imagined this model, a huge question arose in Duncan's mind—

"...Apart from Duncan's Submersion Project, the recorded conventional diving depth of humans, or rather, 'individual water depths,' is one hundred and seventy meters, and is limited to the coastal range—our project also started at this depth, and was going smoothly until eight hundred meters."

"They all died here." "The underwater is very, very dark. The sunlight from the surface cannot penetrate such a thick body of water, and even the high-power lights carried by the submersible can only illuminate a small area. In order to explore the 'appearance' below the city-state island, and also to avoid some individual 'creatures' in the far sea area as much as possible, such as the Children of the Deep Sea, we let the submersible dive along the coast and move along the near-sea area of the island. I still remember the scene described by the explorers when they came up..."

"The entire structure is floating in seawater."

The people of the Deep Sea Era "lived" in city-states. Duncan's initial impression of those isolated islands at sea was that they were crowded and small, but in reality, as fully functional and self-sufficient places of residence, these city-states were destined to have a certain "size foundation." Although there are also some large islands, the "basic radius" of most large cities that can be named reaches ten or even tens of kilometers. As the largest city-state in the Frigid Sea, its scale would not be smaller than this number.

Perhaps because he had answered many questions, and was not yet accustomed to this kind of communication, Tirian did not take long this time, but fell into reminiscence, and slowly opened his mouth in reminiscence:

Duncan shook his head. "...No problem, continue."

"You said the island below is like a beautiful and smooth pillar, covered with thick calcareous deposits, and some strange creatures live in the depressions of the deposits, and other than the 'pillar,' there is nothing around, only a piece of darkness."

"The 'pillar' under the city-state is actually only four hundred and seventy meters 'long,' and below that, there is nothing."

"Subsequently, they built the eighth submersible—due to technical limitations, the improvement of that submersible was far smaller than the seventh one. It had to dive carefully to challenge the record of Submersible No. 7, and in the slow descent of one meter after another, they discovered one thing."

"The problem occurred when challenging one thousand meters from eight hundred and forty meters."

Tirian sorted out his thoughts and continued his previous recollection: "This is the scene seen at a depth of about eight hundred meters, which is also the maximum depth of the first submersible. After realizing that this depth was far from enough to explore the deep sea, the Frost Queen ordered the scholars to build the second submersible. This submersible was very successful. It dived four hundred meters deeper into the water in one breath, and through the half-meter-thick high-strength glass, the explorers saw... still a pillar, a straight pillar."

Surely every city-state is like that, they are all "floating objects" without foundations, so how are they so stable? Surely, if the "stability" of the city-state itself is because of its large scale, but the relative position between city-states is also so stable, how can that be explained?

Tirian stopped and looked into Duncan's eyes. "Now you know why I said just now that it's more like a round base than a pillar, right?"

"Is the island below a pillar?" Duncan couldn't help but interrupt Tirian. "Not a gradually expanding support structure, but a pillar?"

"Later... Submersible No. 8 continued to challenge the extreme depth. We spent nearly two years pushing this record from four hundred and seventy meters to four hundred and seventy meters. As you can imagine, during this descent, the submersible gradually moved away from the 'base' of the city-state—remember what I said at the beginning? In order to avoid problems in the far sea area, we let the submersible descend in the 'near-sea danger zone' near the coast. Throughout this process, the submersible was actually close to the city-state and the underwater 'structure' of the city-state, but as the descent continued, the explorers moved away from this 'base,' and things went wrong."

He looked at Tirian, his eyes becoming deep: "I want to know the specifics of the entire exploration plan—tell me as much as you participated in."

Corresponding to this huge underwater structure, is its underwater "base" which is "only" four hundred and seventy meters deep—the explorers initially saw the underwater part of the city-state plunging straight into the deep sea at a depth of eight hundred meters, and intuitively imagined that it was a pillar that went straight to the "seabed," but in reality, in terms of proportion, the shape of this "pillar" is more like a thin disc.

Are every city-state like this?

"Auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations, feeling inexplicable lights in the sea water, feeling someone knocking on the hull inside, and even feeling someone turning the handle of the gate inside. The further down, the more serious similar situations became. Even specially trained explorers with strong wills began to feel enormous pressure during each descent, and the protective effect of the holy oil, sacred books, and scriptures they carried with them became less and less obvious."

The boundless sea is turbulent, but these "floating islands" have never changed their position. Why?