Shrine of Knuckles's race

The Shrine of Knuckles's race<, also called the Mystic Temple is a landmark that appears in Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut. It is a large shrine deep within the jungle of the Mystic Ruins and one of the few remnants left of the once-great Knuckles Clan empire after Perfect Chaos laid it to waste. Now an abandoned ruin in the Mystic Ruins, its site has since been named the Ancient ruins.

Appearance
The shrine is pyramid-like structure consisting of four thick platforms stacked on top of one another and a staircase on each side leading up to the upper levels. The shrine features two entrances on the top level on the front and back, with the door openings in the shape of a serpent's head. Inside the shrine is an abandoned subterranean world, dubbed the Lost World, which consist of a labyrinth of passages, large water streams, secret inflamed traps, mystical machines like the Lit Panel, switches that determine the water level of rooms, moving snake-shaped panels, darken rooms with bottomless pits, and a system of light reflection-based puzzles.

At the height of the Knuckles Clan's civilization, the shrine had sculptures with murals of serpents along its staircases and red outlines adorning the outside. In the present day, the shrine is seemingly smaller (possibly having sunk partially into the ground), duller in color, and some of the serpent-mural statues have been replaced by echidna statues. One of the entrances to the shrine could also only be opened by switches incorporating the Gold and Silver Statues.

History
While unknown when it was constructed, the shrine was present at the pinnacle of theKnuckles Clan's civilization where the clan engaged in territorial wars to expand their empire under the leadership of Chief Pachacamac. Parentally a place of worship amongst the Knuckles Clan, Tikal, the daughter of Pachacamac, could often be found near the shrine, contemplating the prayer of the seven chaos given to her by her grandmother. When the Knuckles Clan was nearly wiped out by Perfect Chaos, the shrine was one of the few structures of their civilization that survived the rampage and got remodeled in remembrance of the incident, though it was abandoned as the last of the Knuckles Clan entered terminal decline on Angel Island.

4,000 years after the Chaos incident, the shrine had become a nearly forgotten place amongst the Mystic Ruins and a place of interest for many human archeologists. When Dr. Eggman unleashed Chaos, Knuckles the Echidna and Sonic the Hedgehog found and entered the shrine, but for different reasons: Knuckles was looking for the lost Master Emerald Shards inside, while Sonic was taken there by Tikal's spirit to learn more about Perfect Chaos.

Sonic X
In the anime series Sonic X, the shrine has a much less detailed and more blocky design, with a giant tree growing on top of it. It originally resided on Sonic's world of Mobius until its landmass got transported to Earth due to a large-scale Chaos Control. When Dr. Eggman let Chaos loose, Tikal took Sonic to the shrine to reveal more about Chaos' past and the threat he posed.