Sword of Dawn

In this way, after touching it very carefully, he found that he did not trigger the "rebound" of the stone ball.

He didn't know whether a "dragon egg" had the ability to communicate, so Gao Wen could only try to strengthen the idea of ​​communication in his mind.

At first, this was unresponsive.

But after a few seconds, he heard some buzzing voices echoing in his mind, and it wasn't an auditory hallucination.

The stone ball was whispering to himself.

Gao Wen's spirit immediately cheered up, and he almost lost the link due to his emotional turmoil, but soon he re-stabilized this fragile connection, and sent his first greeting: "Hello, I have no malicious intentions, You can call me Gawain."

And the mental fluctuations from the stone ball became more and more clear, and finally changed from a whispered voice to a clearly audible sentence. It was a metallic voice that could not distinguish between male and female: "Is it safe outside now?"

Gao Wen suppressed the excitement in his heart, and tried his best to convey his sincerity: "This place is safe, you can rest assured."

"If you don't believe me, get out."

Gao Wen: "..."

Chapter 0074 What's Glowing

To be honest, Gao Wen neither guessed the beginning nor the ending—he never imagined that he would actually establish a connection with a ball, let alone that the ball would be so underdrawn...

If it wasn't for someone watching at the scene, and he still wanted to maintain the image of a majestic ancestor, he might have cut the unlucky ball in half with a champion strike immediately—even though the pioneer sword was not in his hand, But that didn't stop him from having this idea...

Trying to regain his composure, Gao Wen resisted the urge to swear, and adjusted the ball in front of him from "a frightened cub in need of help" to "a brat who deserves to be locked up in a laboratory for research" and then patiently He said temperedly: "What's the benefit of me lying to you-the research facility that was used to imprison you has been abandoned for 1000 years. Do you know that it has been 1000 years?"

Qiu was silent for a while, as if he was thinking, and then replied resolutely: "You don't want to trick me out of my shell!"

"I'm telling you the truth, I don't believe you..."

"Don't you try to trick me out of my shell!"

A vein popped out of Gao Wen's forehead: "It's your business that you like to stay in this shell! You let my people go first!"

During the consciousness connection, the ball made a curious voice: "Your person? Who is it?"

Gao Wen was taken aback by the curious attitude of the other party who didn't seem to be fake: "You sucked three of my soldiers on your body, do you still want to deny it?!"

Qiu was silent for a longer time this time, and then was shocked: "So there are still people on these steel plates?!"

Gao Wen: "..."

"It must be that the perception in the shell has been affected!" The unlucky ball admitted its mistake without hesitation, and as its voice fell, only a rattling sound was heard, and the three soldiers immediately released the ball. It was bound and fell off from the surface of the sphere.

They looked nervous and frightened, and the first thing they did after landing was to rush to a place far away from the ball, and then threw all their armor weapons and other metal objects on the ground.

Gao Wen suddenly felt that the strange ball in front of him might be able to communicate, so he asked, "Why do you want to absorb these armors and weapons?"

Qiu replied confidently: "I can't find something to defend myself? God knows what evil tricks you crazy savages have!"

"I said that the research facilities back then are long gone. I don't know who caught you back then..."

"Don't you try to trick me out of my shell!"

Gao Wen: "..."

For the first time in his life, he lost so completely in a verbal confrontation with people, and what made this former keyboard powerhouse particularly frustrating was that he actually lost to a ball.

If this ball is really a dragon egg, he even lost to a fertilized egg...

No matter what he said next, the stone ball suspected of being a dragon egg would never respond positively again, even if it was forced to rush, it would only reply "You don't want to trick me out of my shell", which even made Gawain suspicious of this ball Will the essence be a damn repeater.

And whatever its nature, communication cannot continue.

Gawain took his hand away from the surface of the sphere with a gloomy and strange expression, and at the same time ended his magic perception. He raised his head and saw Amber and Pittman looking at him curiously.

Amber just watched the three soldiers being liberated shortly after Gawain made contact with the ball, and then Gawain's face turned green and pale and entered the fugue mode, which made the half-elf lady think for a while that this The 700-year-old rice dumpling is about to die again due to excessive use of magic power, causing her power to go out of control. In the past few minutes, she has been fighting with heaven and man. They picked everything up and ran away... As a result, before the inner struggle was over, Gao Wen "resurrected".

And looks very angry.

This made the guilty (unmistakable) Amber break out in a cold sweat immediately, and she even lowered her voice by an octave: "You... are you okay? I just saw your complexion change so fast, I thought you were going to blow yourself up..."

"I have established a communication with this ball," Gao Wen said with a bit of gritted teeth, so that he didn't even notice Amber's abnormal attitude, "This thing...is actually sane!"

"Sane?!" The one who was most surprised was not Amber, but the druid Pittman next to him. The little old man jumped to the side of the ball almost at once, but he hesitated and didn't dare to put his hand on it—it's okay for the legendary knight to touch it. What if he, a druid whose highest level is no more than the third level, succeeds in killing him, "A dragon egg can be sane?! That is to say... the dragon can think when it is still an egg? This is simply It is... the most incredible thing, a mystery that no scholar or druid in this world has ever discovered!"

"No, I'm not sure it's a dragon's egg." Gao Wen hurriedly corrected beside him. He still can't believe that such a routine thing will happen to him, but his correction has no effect: Pittman has fallen into inexplicable excitement, and has already started planning to write a book about this new discovery and sell it to the Shenglong Principality in the north.

If he really dared to sell such non-existent "research results" to those fanatics who worship dragons, Gawain might have to hire a new druid, but fortunately, Pittman didn't have the money to print the book , and no money to travel across the entire Ansu and northern mountains to the Principality of Shenglong to do sales.

Since the stone ball has refused to accept any contact, Gao Wen had no choice but to continue throwing this thing here, but in order to prevent this "dragon egg" that can manipulate metal and affect the flow of magic power to a certain extent from doing anything wrong, he The original "containment measures" were changed: all metal objects within tens of meters inside and outside the tent were removed; obsidian boards were placed around the sphere to block the magic power; the sphere was tied layer by layer with strong ropes, and thick Stakes secured it to the ground; told Stone Ball he was going to buy some oranges...

No one understood the last step.

While arranging all this, Gao Wen also told Hetty who had been waiting outside the whole process of communicating with the ball.

Surprisingly, Hetty, who has always been mature, steady and practical, also suspected that the ball was a dragon egg.

Is this way of thinking so popular in this different world?

"This 'dragon egg' was probably stolen by the magisters of the ancient Gondor Empire." After listening to Gawain's description, Hetty said his deduction, "I heard that the dragon did indeed live on the mainland thousands of years ago. It has appeared on the Internet, and the Dragon Principality has recorded it-although those guys who fanatically worship dragons have always seemed to be gods and gods on topics related to dragons, but when and where dragons appeared in the world, they are indeed the most A reliable recorder. This time point is consistent with the construction period of the ruins.

"And according to the attitude of the 'dragon egg' towards humans, the magisters of the Gondor Empire obviously adopted unscrupulous means in the process of obtaining this egg—and they were not very friendly in the process of treating the dragon egg afterwards. "

"That's right, it's all thrown on the experimental table. How friendly can it be?" Gawain pouted, "I suspect it has been in a dormant state since then, probably because of what the magisters of the Gondor Empire used. The method suppressed its activity, because the 'egg' has no memory of the passage of thousands of years. And we took it out of the ruins... I am afraid that it broke the ban left by the magister 1000 years ago."

"What are you going to do with it?" Hetty asked cautiously, "If it's really a dragon egg...we can't do anything with it lightly. According to legend, dragons are a race that can hold vengeance, and they are very cruel to their eggs. Pay special attention, the magisters of Gondor 1000 years ago may not be afraid of the dragon's revenge, but we are different today. And in the eyes of those dragons, I am afraid there is no difference between us and humans 1000 years ago."

Almost no one has seen the real body of the dragon, but there is no shortage of descriptions about the dragon. About their temperament, classification, preferences, and even recipes, there are countless professional books on this continent. One part is the account of folk dragon experts from all over the world, and the other part comes from the Holy Dragon Principality in the north. The latter is an iceland nobleman who claims to be a descendant of dragon blood. ancestors," and Hetty chose to believe the most dangerous part of it.

Gao Wen rubbed his chin: "That's right... Let's put it there for a few days, don't let anyone disturb it, let it believe that no one has come to it for experiments, and then I will find a way to build trust."

After saying this, he yawned uncontrollably, and the sleepiness caused by being woken up in the middle of the night and the exhaustion caused by his high concentration suddenly overwhelmed him: "Yawn... let's do this for today, Everyone is tired after tossing around in the middle of the night, except for those who are on duty at night, everyone else should go back and rest."

The gathered people dispersed one after another, and Amber also yawned and disappeared from everyone's sight with a shadow step. Gawain finally looked back at the "dragon egg tent" that was stared at by the soldiers from afar, shook his head, and turned to walk towards himself camp tent.

After entering the camp, he sat on the bed but didn't fall asleep immediately, but habitually focused, and called out the "magic imagery map" looking down from the sky in his mind.

After confirming that the energy distribution on the magic imaging map did not fluctuate too much, there was no high-energy reaction nearby, especially near the "Dragon Egg", and there was no new alarm from the satellite, he was slightly relieved and prepared to sleep.

But at the moment before lying down, the corner of his eye suddenly caught some faint light in the dark tent.

Gao Wen rubbed his eyes and confirmed that it was not a hallucination, and that the faint light came from the big basket beside the desk.

Those are waste products from Rebecca's "burning cement" process, some hardened substances with no visible effect.

Gao Wen leaned over curiously, and saw a little shimmer of light shining in the hardened material.

The light is faint, but like stars.

Chapter 0075 Unexpected Results and Unexpected...

Those substances that glowed slightly in the dark immediately cleared Gawain's drowsiness by [-]% to [-]%. He didn't care that these gray-black things would stain his whole body, so he directly picked them up in the big basket.

Soon, some fragments that were clearly different from the surrounding substances were turned out.

The light "inlaid" within them is a little brighter, more concentrated, and more stable.

From the appearance, these things are still black and hardened, but in the loose structure, there are many crystals with a diameter of no more than one millimeter, which are like rough crystals. These crystals are the source of light.Gawain crushed a hardened object, carefully picked out a few crystals from it, and found that they were still glowing, and became brighter after losing the influence of surrounding impurities.

Some kind of intuition made him activate his magic power perception ability, and some constant, faintly glowing clusters of mist appeared in his vision: these crystals really contained a certain amount of magic power.

Gawain held a crystal, and slowly exerted force with his fingers. The crystal finally shattered: it was very hard, almost like a stone, but it was weaker than the natural crystals used by magicians to process staffs and store magic power. , and while being crushed, its light also disappeared.

The magic power dissipated completely from it.

So what the hell is this?

Gao Wen frowned deeply. He really wanted to bring this thing to Heidi for consultation immediately, but the latter might have already fallen asleep at this time. The unexpected situation tonight must have made her very tired, plus she had to worry about it during the day It's not easy for her to sleep well for the construction of the camp.

So Gawain had no choice but to forcefully suppress his own thoughts, and prepared to go to Heidi early tomorrow morning.

In the second half of the night, there was no more disturbance, and the camp was surrounded by darkness and silence, as if the legendary Lady Ye’s kingdom had come...

Early the next morning, Gawain went to Heidi's tent with those fine crystals that would glow in the dark, and learned that Hedi had already gotten up earlier to go to the laboratory, so he ran to Heidi again. Hetty's Magic Lab.

This "magic laboratory" is located in the southeast corner of the camp, near the Dark Mountains. It is currently the only house in the entire camp that is built with stone and wood as the main material and occupies a large area. It can also be said to be the "mansion" here.It's not that Hetty wants to engage in particularism, but that magic laboratories do have requirements for the environment. Many magic and alchemy experiments require a fairly quiet and stable environment. At the same time, the use of stones as walls is also for the convenience of describing the magic circle. .

A wizard is a rather practical creature.

But in the eyes of laymen, this sturdy and majestic building is full of mystery. Amber suspects that Hetty's job inside is to mix potions and poisons like an old witch, but she just doesn't know. Dare to go in and make sure—for fear of being beaten.

When Gawain arrived here, Hetty was busy among a pile of crystals—she placed her operating table in the center of the laboratory, and the unusually wide round table was divided into three parts, one part with the inscription There are various magic materials around the magic circle, one part is filled with various bottles and alchemy tools, and the third part has only one set of equipment, which is bought at a high price from Tanzan Town crystal resonator.

This is a device specially used to study various crystals and engrave magic circles inside the crystals. It is an outstanding creation of magicians in this world. Its precision and beautiful appearance are the same as Gawain's in the civilian society of this era. The rough and primitive tools I saw were very different.It has a pedestal as the core, on which three natural magic crystals of different sizes are fixed with a brass mechanism, and around this core pedestal are several independent circular artificial crystals that can adjust the angle, Behind each crystal, there is also an off-white vertical board for imaging.

This can be said to be the most expensive thing in the entire laboratory, and Hetty was careful when using it, even Rebecca, the eldest niece who was also a mage (although she only knew how to fireball) wouldn't let her touch it.

If Amber really dared to sneak in, it seemed that she would really be beaten...

Gawain saw that Hetty placed a lavender crystal in the center of the crystal resonator, stimulated by the surrounding three magic crystals, the target crystal resonated accordingly, and this kind of resonance can be found in the ubiquitous magic environment Detectable "ripples" will be produced. Through the artificial crystal sheets around the resonator, this ripple will form a picture that can be observed by the naked eye and projected on those off-white vertical plates.

A relatively clear rune structure can already be seen on two of the vertical plates, and the draft paper at the corner of the table is a sketch drawn by Hetty based on the projected structure.

It looks like she's working on those ancient military crystals brought from the mountain vault.

Hetty seemed a little surprised by Gawain's sudden visit, because Gawain usually goes back to check the progress of the project at this time, or draws a bunch of blueprints in his tent: "Ancestor? Why are you here?"

"There are some things I want you to see," Gawain said while pouring out the hardened material inlaid with fine crystal particles from the lambskin bag he carried, while looking at Hetty's "workbench". Study the magic circles inside those ancient crystals?"

"Yes," Hetty nodded, with a little apology on her face, "It's a pity that the progress is not good."

While talking, she looked at the unattractive pieces in Gao Wen's hand: "These are..."

"The 'waste' that Rebecca tossed out last time, but I found something interesting in it," Gawain said while rubbing the broken crystals embedded in the waste, "These things have magical reactions. "

"Magic reaction?" Hetty frowned, and after carefully sensing it, she was suddenly surprised, "There is really it?! What is it?"

"So I'll let you take a look." Gawain picked out one of the fallen crystals, "Can your crystal resonator see its structure?"

Hetty couldn't have imagined that Rebecca's random operation would produce such a strange thing—she thought that Rebecca's burning stones in the shed all day was a random operation, even if it was arranged by Gawain. Same, after all, Rebecca had a lot of brain-opening ideas in the process, such as throwing grasshoppers into the kiln. She carefully picked up the crystal that Gawain handed over, and carefully observed it before her eyes. voila.

"Isn't there a bigger one?" Hetty frowned a bit troubled, "It's so small, it's hard to observe."

Gao Wen couldn't help it either: "This is already the biggest piece, at least as big as a grain of rice."

"Okay, I'll try." Hetty took down the ancient crystal in the center of the crystal resonator while talking: its rune arrangement has been recorded, and there is no need to continue testing.

Then Hetty carefully held the "crystal" that was only the size of a grain of rice with a pair of tweezers, placed it in the center of the pedestal of the resonator, and activated the three magic crystals on the pedestal.

After a short wait, some fuzzy lines appeared on the several "screens" around the resonator: not only were they very blurry, but they were as thin as if they were transparent. If Hetty hadn't extinguished the nearby magic crystals in advance Stone lamps, I'm afraid Gao Wen couldn't see them at all.

After all, the crystal as the object of observation is too small.

"This structure...is indeed a kind of man-made crystal, and it is very regular," Hetty carefully distinguished the shape of those lines, and carefully injected the lowest level of magic power into the pedestal, and with the injection of magic power, the projection The lines on the crystal gradually brightened, and were dyed with a halo like a rainbow, "It can absorb external magic power and transform them into a form that exists stably inside the crystal..."

Hetty withdrew her magic power and observed the subsequent changes in those projections.

A few minutes passed, and the projection presented on the vertical board did not change at all, and the mechanism of the resonator itself, which has the ability to accurately sense magic power, did not move at all.

"The magic power is stored stably?!" Heidi showed a more surprised expression at this time, "The dissipation rate... is so low?!"

Gao Wen stared straight at the pedestal in the center of the crystal resonator. On that pedestal, the "artificial crystal" the size of a grain of rice was emitting a white light visible to the naked eye: it seems that as the magic power is filled, its brightness also increases. .

He immediately realized why he didn't find these things mixed in the waste when it was dark in the tent before: these "artificial crystals" were empty when they were first refined, and of course they wouldn't emit light without magic power, and then As the storage time prolongs, they begin to spontaneously absorb the free magical energy in the atmosphere. This is a slow self-recharging process. It took two days of recharging before they could finally glow slightly at night, and they were finally discovered by Gawain.

Hetty was also attracted by the strange properties of this crystal, and she continued to pour energy into the crystal with uncontrollable excitement—and a crystal that was only the size of a grain of rice certainly couldn't hold much magic power, so she soon discovered this. Stuff goes into "saturation".

The tiny crystals began to emit a steady milky shimmer that showed no sign of self-disintegration from saturation.

"So this is an artificial crystal that can store magic power?!" Gawain looked at Heidi with surprise, as if he had picked up a treasure, "Then how does its maximum capacity compare with natural crystals? What about its stability? I Seeing that it has been shining, what is its self-depletion rate?"

"Wait a minute, wait a minute, I still...I still need to seriously test and test," Heidi was no less excited than Gao Wen, but she still maintained the calmness that a mage should have. The small crystal was clipped and walked towards the analytical magic circle next to it, while casually saying, "The problem of self-depletion should not be serious. Although it is emitting light, it is mainly because the free magic power in the air is resonating due to the influence of the crystal. The magic power stored inside is not much lost, so it should be able to keep the magic power for a long time..."

While saying this, she put the crystal in a "vessel" made of ruby ​​with grooves, and placed the vessel in the center of the magic circle, preparing to try to redirect the magic power stored in the crystal come out.

The magic circle started.

The crystal particles in the ruby ​​vessel made a soft "snap" sound, and then turned into a piece of slag.

Chapter 0076 First Steps in Art

The crystal in the ruby ​​vessel shattered into pieces like this, and Gawain and Hetty stood by and looked at each other.

After being stunned for a long time, Gao Wen twitched the corner of his mouth and choked out a sentence: "This is the failure of star promotion, right?"

Hetty: "Huh?"

"Ahem, I mean, what's the situation?" Gawain quickly coughed twice to cover up his subconscious words just now, "Did you use too much force when the magic circle was extracting energy, and it turned into slag?"

There was a slight arcane brilliance in Hetty's eyes. She carefully observed the traces of magic power left in the ruby ​​dish, and the original excitement on her face gradually dimmed: "No... I'm afraid it's a birth defect of this crystal... ..."