Sword of Dawn

Going all the way from the central corridor, the team encountered more than one fork, detour, and stairs. The overall trend of the passage is to spread and descend toward the depths of the mountain. During this process, Hetty detected the flow of breath several times. It is confirmed that there should be perfect ventilation channels in places that people cannot see, which can be seen from the advanced construction technology of the ancient Gondor Empire.

And in the process, they discovered rooms or other halls more than once.

These rooms and halls are all made of stone-like materials, but after Hetty identified them, they are not stones, but some kind of man-made material that is more durable than stones; every room and hall is empty, except Apart from a few rotten shelves and some metal tools that are about to become slag, there are basically no valuable ancient relics - obviously, the imperial people in this facility back then were well organized with ample leeway Get out of here.

This is also in line with Gao Wen's judgment on "Spark Era".

But this also made Hetty quite regretful: she thought she could find some antique treasures inside, even if they were unusable, but the words "from the age of sparks in the Gondor Empire" were enough to make a piece of broken copper rot. Iron has become a sought-after treasure.

The group didn't have time to explore every fork and room in the way, so Gawain ordered to leave marks on those forks that could not be explored temporarily, so that they could explore slowly when they had time in the future. Under the guidance of the induction, he moved straight towards the direction of the magical reaction.

Chapter 0065 Ancient Facilities

Another hour passed, and the team was still advancing through the ever-extending corridors and passages.

The scale of this millennium facility has exceeded Gao Wen's imagination.

Even in the "Spark Era" when Gondor was in its heyday, the empire rarely built facilities of this scale—even if it had the functions of a military fortress and a scientific research facility at the same time, its scale greatly exceeded Gawain's expectations.It seemed that it was indeed built by hollowing out a mountain, and with more and more downward slopes and steps, Gawain even suspected that it hollowed out more than just a mountain.

The magic response was still coming in steadily, and it was still quite weak. Due to too many forks and corridors, Hetty's guidance was no longer reliable. She could only judge a general direction and use the spirit summoning technique to and other divination spells to determine which fork should be taken, but even so, the team took several detours and found many dead ends.

Although Knight Byron has been setting marks along the way, and Hetty used the magic mark to outline the waypoints, the soldiers still felt a little uneasy after advancing in an ancient ruin for so long. After noticing this uneasiness, Knight Byron came to Gawain's side: "My lord, if you continue to go deeper, you may get lost in it - everyone's sense of direction has been completely confused."

Gao Wen frowned. In fact, he had also considered the problem of getting lost, but he was more confident than everyone else—the superb memory of the satellite spirit was at work, and he had almost memorized every detail of every fork along the way. , There is even a rough map in the mind, but these abilities are not easy to say, or even if they are said, it is not easy to make everyone feel at ease.

After all, this place is really big.

It would be great if Amber was here... At least she can be thrown out to find the way, and she can run around from the Shadow Realm, and she is good at sliding doors and picking locks, so she is definitely not as easy to be trapped in the ruins as ordinary people—she is already in the plug The Seale family's ancestral grave attests to this.

This time Gao Wen was seriously considering this matter.

It's a pity that Amber is not here now, so Gao Wen could only shake his head: "Your worry is justified—then let's go for a while, make a few more marks, and then return first regardless of whether we find it or not, and come back next time."

Although the lord did not order to return immediately, Gawain's ambiguous statement still made the soldiers heave a sigh of relief, as if they had received some kind of guarantee, the team once again mustered up the courage to move on.

After going down a flight of stairs, there is another hall ahead, and there are more things in this hall than before: some huge obsidian cuboids are neatly arranged around the hall, like stone tablets placed against the wall, and under the cubes are A number of metal conduits or "tracks" extended, all of which converged in the center of the hall, where a strange hemispherical device stood.

Gawain frowned, walked to the side of the hemispherical device, and rubbed it a few times with his hand wearing an iron glove. Some of the black ash and oxides on the surface of the device were scraped off, exposing the silver-white metal underneath.

"What is this?" Hetty leaned over curiously. The facilities in this room are obviously "fixed installations" that could not be taken away. This is rare in this ruins. Those obsidian and metal connections make She had a weird intuition about magic.

"Magic Energy Focusing Array—Although I really want to call it a magic power capacitor," Gao Wen said about knowledge that no one knows in this day and age, and mixed some more inexplicable words, "These obsidian are connected to the magic power in the facility." Well, this hemisphere can focus powerful energy, create a short-duration but extremely high-intensity energy flow, and then pass through this main conduit—”

Gawain pointed to a thick conduit extending from the hemispherical device and finally buried in the wall.

"...delivers energy where it is needed."

Hetty's eyes widened slightly. As a mage, seeing this ancient magic device from thousands of years ago made her excited: "Focus the powerful energy? So this is a weapon?"

"No, this is an auxiliary energy source for research facilities. It is usually used to provide instant 'ignition' for equipment that consumes a lot of energy, such as iridescent lenses." Gao Wen shrugged. Not only for fighting - although this is indeed one of its important functions, but magic can also do many things at the same time. In fact, in my opinion, what mages should really do is to use their knowledge and magic in this kind of research."

"Research..." Hetty muttered in disbelief.

She is no stranger to the word research, mages have always been synonymous with researchers, delving into the mysteries of magic and analyzing the laws of runes is their most proud job, but no matter what kind of research, its ultimate goal will come down to what A mage who improves his spellcasting ability but cannot improve his own spellcasting ability will be regarded as a poor researcher.

Hetty instinctively felt that the "research" Gao Wen mentioned might not be the same thing as the research he was familiar with.

This old ancestor seems to always be used to looking at a very far and wide angle. He always mentions "universalization" and "mass production". Research seems to be running counter to his train of thought.

Hetty shook her head, and put aside those irrelevant thoughts in her mind, she heard Knight Byron asking: "Madam, is the magical reaction coming from this place?"

Hetty felt it attentively, then shook her head: "No, but it's very close."

"Write this place down," Gao Wen said, "this ancient device has been completely scrapped, so there is no need to consider repairing it - but it can extract at least half a ton of mithril and seven or eight tons of obsidian, and a lot of fine Gold and copper and purple steel."

"Wait a minute..." Heidi shuddered and stared at Gao Wen, "Ancestor... are you going to... dismantle this ancient magical device of infinite value?!"

"Otherwise?" Gawain glanced at her, "This thing requires ultra-high-purity magic power to 'ignite', and there is no corresponding magic power purification technology now. And even if there is energy, this thing has been stored here for 1000 years , the structure inside it has long been rotten, and repairing it is no easier than building one."

Hetty was stunned for a moment, with a strange expression on her face: "You may not feel it from 700 years ago, but this thing is an antique..."

Gao Wen's face shook: "This thing was also an antique before I died - but we have to start from the practical value. It has no value at all here. It can only be reborn if it is melted."

Hearing what Gawain said, Hetty realized that it was useless to say anything, so she nodded with pain all over her face.

It is said that the cub does not feel distressed when selling the land to the grandfather, but it seems that the grandfather does not feel much distressed when he sells the field himself...

The discovery of the magic power focusing device means that it is very close to the deep research facility, and considering the magic power response Hetty sensed before, the target is most likely a research device that is still in operation.

Gawain activated the knight's "Danger Perception" skill calmly, in order to guard against possible magic traps or ancient radiations here at any time.

On the way to move on, he casually asked Hetty: "By the way, I heard they address you as Madam instead of Miss or Ms.—Are you married? Where is your husband?"

He has been curious about this question for a long time, but he never found a chance to ask.

Heti froze for a moment, but it was normal for the ancestor to care about her marriage, so she replied: "I am not married, but I converted to the goddess of magic, Mirmina, when I was an adult, and gave up my inheritance rights by converting to my faith. , so as to leave the right of inheritance to Rebecca's father. According to the law of the nobility, an adult woman who renounces her right of inheritance by converting her faith is considered married, that is, dedicated to her faith. Originally, I could still retain the title of nobility and become The hereditary baroness, but the territory was difficult that year, so I sold this title...well, to a businessman..."

Gawain nodded, "Oh" to express his understanding, and at the same time, the message of Mirmina, the goddess of magic, came to mind.

Mirmina, Goddess of Magic, also known as the Goddess of Magic and the Lady of Mysteries, was believed to rule over the power of magic and was the mentor of the world's first dragon and first elf—hence the legendary She also created the dragon language magic and the existing elf magic.Unlike other gods, Mirmina is not a "god of strong faith", but more like a "god of symbols".

It can be said that she has no formal religion and belief system, and almost all spellcasting professions are her "shallow believers", but less than one percent of mages convert to this god in the form of formal believers, which is about the same as spellcasting. It is related to the general liking of seeking mysteries and the lack of awe of God.

And among the [-]% believers, there are quite a few converts, like Hetty, purely for the purpose of proving the renunciation of inheritance or similar purposes.

Princess Veronica of the Ansu royal family converted to the God of Holy Light in a similar way, except that Her Royal Highness is not as poor as the descendants of the Cecil family, so that even the noble status has to be sold at a low price. So she can still be called a princess (or the corresponding priesthood status) today.

And Heidi was a little uneasy after finishing the answer. She was mainly worried about two things: one was whether Cecil's descendants would be ashamed to the point where they had to sell their titles of nobility to make ends meet; The first one is whether I will make my ancestors angry if I am not married at such an age, especially the second one - in case Gao Wen turns around later and says, "Why don't you get married? When do you plan to get married? Look at that How about XXX" What should I do if I urge you to marry three times in a row?

Damn, the ancestors urging marriage 700 years ago is much more stressful than parents urging marriage!

This even made Heidi less worried about whether he would be beaten if he sold his title of nobility...

As a result, Gao Wen really just asked casually, and there was no more to say.

And Heidi's cranky thoughts didn't last long, because she finally sensed that magical reaction was ahead.

Chapter 0066 Ball

Hetty finally sensed that the magical reaction was ahead, and perhaps there was only the last intersection left, and after Gawain roughly judged the close distance of the team and the terrain of the Dark Mountain here, he believed that this was already the center of the mountain. .

The Gondor expedition team probably really hollowed out a section of the mountain to build their incredible huge facility.

What on earth is here, worthy of them creating such a monster-level facility for research or guarding?

But no matter what was there, eventually they gave up on the place.

Hetty replenished energy for the magic light ball of the lighting technique, and the already dim light ball illuminated a large area around it again. Gawain saw a neat corridor made of off-white "stone slabs" in front of him. The walls on both sides of the corridor are inlaid with magic spar lamps that have lost their effectiveness, and there are some closed doors, and at the end of the front is a bronze door with eyes and triangular marks carved on it. .

The copper door was not completely closed, it opened a wide gap, Gawain activated the ability of danger perception, and did not find potential threats such as traps and poisonous gas behind the door.

But this still cannot be taken lightly. Before pushing open the door, Hetty first summoned a shimmering rune in the shape of an eye. The rune slowly floated through the crack of the door, and Hetty's eyes also floated slightly shine.

"Inside is a circular empty room, very large, with many broken long tables and shelves... Many pipes can be seen on the wall, and there is a sunken pit in the center of the room... There is a strange circle in the pit It’s spherical, and you can see a lot of iron chains and tools hanging down from the center of the ceiling.”

Hetty frowned, talking about what she saw, but suddenly she let out a low exclamation, and the magic stopped.

"What's going on?!" Gawain looked at Heidi nervously.

Hetty rubbed her eyes, her tone was very embarrassing: "I hit the wall."

Gao Wen: "...Um, is there anything that looks dangerous or looks like a trap?"

Hetty shook her head: "No, it looks like it's just a laboratory, but it's many times larger than the ones I know, and there are many incomprehensible devices. In addition, it was confirmed that the magic reaction came from the circle in the center of the room. It came out of the ball, but it was a form of energy that I had never been exposed to."

After confirming that there were no traps or out-of-control ancient magic puppets inside, Gao Wen heaved a sigh of relief. As for the strange energy form Hetty mentioned, he had to go in and study it carefully.

Two strong soldiers stepped forward and pushed the ancient dusty copper gate together with the Byron knight. The rusted and weathered hinges creaked under the vigorous push. In this silent and closed space, the door The sound of the shaft turning was extremely harsh, and it spread far, far along the corridor.

Hetty subconsciously clenched her staff tightly and looked back towards the dark corridor, as if some indescribable ancient monster in the darkness would be awakened by the sound of the bronze door opening at any time, and pounced out of the shadow—but in the end there was nothing occur.

The door was pushed open, and Gawain stepped in, and soon saw what Hetty saw: the circular hall, the damaged long tables and shelves distributed along the hall, the magic conduit on the wall, the sunken center The ground, and a large stone-looking ball lying in the hollow.

Gawain came to the sphere and roughly judged that its diameter was about 1.5 meters. Its shape was quite regular. If the rough and uneven surfaces were not counted, it was almost a standard regular sphere. Its material was like stone, but in the lighting technique Under the brilliance of the sun, it has a metallic texture.

It's a bit like a natural stone ball, but it's too round, but it can be said to be some kind of man-made magic device, but it's completely different from the creation style of the Gondor Empire-and it has neither runes nor metal connections on its surface No matter how you look at it, it doesn't look like an ancient magic device.

"The magic power reaction is indeed coming from inside," Hetty frowned, "but it's so strange, I don't even think it's quite like magic power, but a... completely different energy fluctuation. Ancestor, this is also Was it made by the ancient Gondor Empire?"

"No, it doesn't look like it." Gawain frowned, reached out and tapped on the "stone ball", which was almost as hard as a real stone, "Look at the battle here, this ball is not so much theirs. It’s better to say that it’s something they’re researching…”

"Could it be that this entire facility was built to study this ball?" Knight Byron felt incredible, "The Gondor Empire spent so much effort just to study this ball?"

Gawain thought for a while, and felt that even in the age of sparks, when magic power did not cost money, the people of Gondor would not be so distressed: "No. When this facility was dismantled, the people here took away almost all of them in an orderly manner. All the things that can be taken away - they will not leave the most important things behind. This ball should indeed be the item they are researching, but it is probably just one of the items, and it is not very important and has already decided to give up Things. Probably after researching for a while and found no progress, when I was about to dispose of it, the order to evacuate came from above, so I threw it here."

"So we have been tossing and tossing for so long to find such a thing," Knight Byron touched his chin, "my lord, how to deal with it?"

Gao Wen was also a little worried, how should such a stone ball be transported out?He stretched out his hand and pushed the surface of the sphere, muttering: "It takes up a lot of space and is heavy, no wonder the Gondorians gave it to... huh?"

When the stone ball was pushed by him, it moved in such a wobbly manner.

Gao Wen was suddenly a little embarrassed: "It's not sinking?"

The weight of this "stone ball" is beyond imagination!

Originally, Gao Wen thought that such a lump must weigh at least a ton, but he didn't expect it to move with a light push. He tried it again, and he judged that the weight of the stone ball was probably only a dozen kilograms, even if Hetty It can be easily pushed away - this can only show that it is not stone at all!

Or it's hollow inside...

Suppressing the urge to smash it open on the spot to see the flesh, Gawain made a judgment based on the scale of the research room and the remaining traces around the sphere. "Things", that is, research objects that are "harmless but have strange properties", so he made a decision: "Take this stuff out, transport it back to the camp to study and study... Wait, it's not appropriate to put it directly in the camp, it's safe For the sake of safety, put it on the newly leveled land next to the camp, send two soldiers to watch it, and set up a tent for it tomorrow."

After all, the Gondor Empire and the current era have several levels of technology generation gap. The safe and harmless research objects of the past may not be harmless today, so it is better to be a little cautious.

He was nervous when he came here, but he pushed a ball when he went back—it has to be said that the scene of pushing a ball in the team greatly eased the tension of the soldiers, but it also made Gao Wen deeply disobedient. Feeling, he always felt that the atmosphere of his first expedition to the ruins of another world was ruined by such a ball, as if you were wearing the legendary armor, carrying the best sword in the village, and accepting the title of brave bestowed by the king , and also formed four sages as teammates, ambitiously embarked on a journey to destroy the Demon King—and the Demon King turned out to be a Pai Daxing...

Back then, the people of Gondor were full of food, so why study a ball when they have nothing to do?

With Hetty's magic mark, coupled with the almost open map in Gawain's head to guide the way, the speed of everyone's return was much faster than when they came - although they were still pushing a ball, this light The inconceivable thing is not a big burden at all, when Hetty needs to walk uphill or up the steps, Hetty directly summons an evocation hand and hugs it.

The team just returned the same way, and soon, the faint light of the exit appeared in front of them.

The soldiers outside had been waiting for a long time at this time, and even began to feel uneasy. The sound of footsteps and passwords coming from the depths of the central gate made them finally heave a sigh of relief, but the movement that came along with the footsteps made them look at each other in blank dismay. : That sounds like something is rolling on the ground...

The image of two soldiers pushing the ball appeared in front of them-in fact, one person can push it, mainly for balance.

"Take the team back." Returning to the entrance hall, Gao Wen let out a long breath, putting one hand on the stone ball, "This is the result."

The soldiers looked at each other.

The next day, the eerie orb was seen by everyone who was on the edge of the camp.

It was placed in an open space outside the camp, guarded by several heavily armed soldiers, and a circle of wooden stakes were built within a range of more than ten meters around the sphere, and connected with ropes to form a partition.

It looked so embarrassing that it flew up, the guard soldiers must have lost in a card game-people were discussing in such low voices.

Rebecca heard the news as soon as she woke up, and hurried to watch the fun. She saw her ancestor and Aunt Hetty were there, so she squeezed over and looked at the ball curiously: "Master Ancestor ...Is this what you brought out from the ruins last night?"

"I also brought out some metal samples—there are still many good things to dig out in the ruins," Gawain nodded and said, "but it's this stuff that I don't understand through research."

Rebecca circled the big ball twice curiously, and came back to ask the old ancestor: "Can you touch it?"

Gawain waved his hand: "Don't throw it with the big fireball, do whatever else you want."

Although this "stone ball" is strangely light, it is actually very strong. He has tried it. Without using extraordinary strength, it can hardly cause any damage to the ball with an ordinary sword, so it should be hit twice. no problem.

But hitting it with a big fireball isn't necessarily the case—especially with Rebecca's iron temper, she might just hold back a bathtub-sized fireball king and throw it down...

Rebecca put her ear on the surface of the sphere curiously, tapped her iron staff twice with the other hand, turned her head and yelled at Gawain, "It's not hollow!"

"Yes, it's solid, but it's incredibly light," Gawain shrugged, "Your aunt scraped off a bit of debris and found that it was a mixed substance with a high metal content. If the whole ball is made of the same substance, Then it can definitely kill people.”

"Maybe only the outer layer is a shell, and the inside is actually a very light material?" Rebecca showed a strong research interest, "Do you want to cut it open?"

Gao Wen laughed: "That's what I planned too, but I can't do it now—use various methods that don't cause damage to study first, and if you really can't find any results, then consider cutting it open. After all, Gondor back then There should be a reason why people have used so many tools to study it, but did not destroy its shell in the end."

Rebecca looked a little disappointed: "Oh..."

Gawain glanced at her with a smile: "Besides studying this ball, I have something else I want you to do—if you are free."

Rebecca's eyes lit up all of a sudden: "Ah? Is it free? I don't need to do it myself at Magic Net No. [-] for the time being. The craftsmen and apprentices are digging ditches to smelt quartz sand. I'm idle! You What do you want me to do?"

"Burning stones."

Chapter 0067 Steel Project, and the Return of Amber

Many times, Rebecca felt that she couldn't understand her ancestor's thoughts—but a strong-headed girl had the advantage of not forcing herself to understand things that she couldn't understand. It will be wrong, just follow suit.

Seeing Rebecca who happily took the order to leave, but didn't even ask why the stone was burned, Gawain couldn't help but rubbed his chin and muttered: Sure enough, everyone is born with limited talent points. At least look at the dice. A person like Rebecca is probably born with a handful of mathematics and brain holes, and the rest are all 1s...

But it doesn't matter, anyway, the blueprints and basic operation methods are given to her, just let her look at it and toss it by herself.The actual case of the Mowang No. [-] project has proved that, apart from being straightforward and low in EQ, this girl often comes up with unsatisfactory ideas, and she really has amazing talents in mathematics and fields that require creativity. The contestant should throw it out and let her do her best to die. As long as she can't die, there will usually be unexpected gains, and adding a lot of rules to her will easily limit the results.

Besides, even Gao Wen himself is not sure how many of the native methods he restored through the earth's memory will succeed...