Sword of Dawn

"Yes... yes, my lord!" Hom didn't expect Gao Wen to remember his name, and he felt a little panicked, "You personally awarded me a... a medal!"

"You're a little fatter than before, that's good," Gawain nodded with a smile, "You discovered the ore?"

"Yes, my lord." Holm tried hard to control his nervousness. He had already been on the award platform once, and he was a little calmer than ordinary people. "The original discovery location is not far from here. I Show you..."

On an open-air rock formation not far from the camp, Gawain saw several collection points dug by the exploration team.

This kind of ore with huge potential value is "buried" in such a shallow place.

Gawain came to the collection point, and he saw that the surface of the ore was covered with a thick gray-white porous rock layer that seemed to have been weathered, and some ores with a lavender or light blue luster were "embedded" in it. It seems to be some kind of condensation nucleus.

"The surface layers are all very small pieces of ore. The further you dig down, the greater the quality and volume of the ore will be. The ore veins that are really worth mining should still need to be dug deeper," Holm explained, "This kind of The weathered rock formations with soft texture are not suitable for mining shafts - they are easy to collapse, so it should be better to open them directly into mine pits, if there are Rebecca crystals, it is not difficult to blast the rock formations."

Gawain nodded: "I saw the report you sent back. You found many things that have never been seen in the outside world, and there are signs of mutation in all animals and plants."

"Yes, my lord," Holm replied, "but this is the first time that minerals on such a large scale as here have been discovered."

Gawain let out a "hmm", and slightly raised his head to observe the surrounding terrain - 700 years ago, Gawain Cecil led an army to search for a way in the dark mountains, and at that time this place had not been affected by the demon tide. In Vin Cecil's memory, there are no such strange things here.

They all appeared after the magic tide.

Amber took out her dagger, and curiously picked out a fragment mixed with blue-purple luster from one of the excavated rocks at one of the collection points, and put it under the sun to observe: "What a strange thing, old... …Gao Wen, is this what you said, the change of natural matter under the influence of the magic tide?"

"The essence of the magic tide is a surge of extremely powerful magic power. Although this part of magic power cannot be used by mortals, it can still have a profound impact on the natural environment," Gao Wen said casually, "Believe it or not, in the ancient deep blue well There are far more magic ingredients to be found in the ruins of the siege than here."

Hu Po's eyes widened: "How reckless a person would dare to mine there!"

Gao Wen shook his head, but did not answer her question.

He looked at the ore in front of him, but his thoughts were not limited to the ore in front of him.

He once guessed that the demon tide might not have erupted just once.

The monitoring satellite left in the sky is obviously an early warning facility against the magic tide (or similar phenomena). The previous disaster in Cecil Territory also showed signs that the magic tide is about to come back, and he used to hang in the sky In the monitoring records, it has also been observed that all civilizations on the land suddenly disappear inexplicably, and the entire ecological circle reshuffles and restarts, generally starting from scratch.

In the "satellite era", his observations of the earth were incoherent due to severe "frame skipping", so many times he could not understand how those earth-shattering changes on the surface of the earth were produced-in the blink of an eye, the primitive man They created the magic cannon, and then blinked again, and they lived in the tree hole again, wearing animal skins around the bonfire and dancing in the square, the geological landforms and plant distribution in the field of vision were also turned upside down , There may be decades of destructive wars in the middle, and there may also be floods and tsunamis in seven to seven days, but for satellite elites who have a frame of one thousand years, this "quick and short" moment of disaster is really elusive.

But something must be causing this "shuffling" - if nothing else, then the only answer is the magic tide.

Magic tides can cause changes in the properties of substances in nature, and these things that have never been seen elsewhere in the dark mountains are enough to prove this.

And even if the magic tide fades, these changed things will not return to their original state, but will solidify into a new material - the ore found in the dark mountains can also prove this point.

Then if more than one demon tide has happened in the world, Gao Wen has reason to believe that most things in this world have probably been affected by the demon tide.

He produced one of the most daring conjectures ever:

Those magic materials, magic creatures, or ordinary soil and rocks that seem to have nothing to do with magic power have been gradually shaped into what they are today in the baptism of the magic tide.

The magic tide is a "world-shaping phenomenon" that will continue to occur and still has no signs of stopping today.

Chapter 0205 A door?

The long years of being a monitoring satellite in the sky did not change the essence of Gao Wen's personality, but it brought him a special perspective to see everything in the world-when necessary, he can approach the world with an attitude almost like a bystander. Analyze the changes in this world, and summarize some possible laws from the changes that lasted thousands or tens of thousands of years. That said, it's hard to sum up.

It is precisely because he has seen the ups and downs of civilization on the surface many times that Gao Wen can speculate that the magic wave happened more than once - even if he did not capture any of them, it is enough to guess what happened in the middle from the front and rear surveillance screens.

In Gao Wen's other speculation, he believed that the scale of the demon tide should be uncertain.

A large-scale demonic tide may lead to the reshaping of the civilization of the entire planet, while a small-scale demonic tide-the disaster of the destruction of Gondor 700 years ago may be just a "small demonic tide".

Although it destroyed the most powerful Gondor Empire in human history, its scope was only in the central part of the continent. Among other things, the Silver Empire of the elves and the Dwarf Kingdom in the west were not affected at all.

Or... 700 years ago that wasn't an official magic tide at all, but just some kind of "prelude"?

Various guesses and associations involuntarily emerged in Gao Wen's mind, many of which were actually made up by himself out of thin air, and Amber, who was next to him, watched Gao Wen's silence for a long time, and finally couldn't help poking Poke his arm: "Hey, what are you thinking?"

"Just thought of one thing," Gawain woke up, and asked casually, "You said, if one day all the resources familiar to human beings on the earth changed, such as the properties of various magic materials, what would happen? what happened?"

Amber froze for a moment: "Why do you think so fast..."

Gao Wen tapped Amber's head: "Just tell me what will happen."

"Then everyone must be in a mess," Amber replied casually, "especially mages, they probably won't be able to find spell-casting materials at once, and many spell materials have to be summarized..."

After hearing Amber's answer, Gao Wen sighed softly after a long silence: "Mortal civilization is really fragile... isn't it."

Amber's ears trembled: "You speak really strangely."

Gawain stood up and turned to look at Home and other members of the exploration team who were waiting by the side. These people did not dare to disturb the lord when he was thinking. At this time, they saw Gawain get up, and they moved slightly closer. .

"This kind of ore needs a name," Gawain nodded slightly to Home, "I named it the Home Stone."

"My... my lord?" Hom, who was a serf not long ago, was startled when he heard Gawain's words, and he repeated with wide eyes in disbelief, "Hom's rough stone? This... I I don't fit my status! How can I have this honor..."

"In exploring unknown areas, discoverers are always great, so there is no need to shirk," Gao Wen waved his hand, "In the future, we may discover more valuable things in this land, and naming them after the discoverers will be a kind of Simple and easy to do—and very motivating for the explorer."

"Yes...thank you!" Holm straightened up abruptly. It was the first time that his waist, which had been slumped ahead of time due to heavy labor, straightened again in so many years, which even made his spine make a crisp sound. Even his whole back hurt, but he still tried to straighten his body, "I...I..."

This commoner, who was barely able to read and write, couldn't find the right words to describe his mood, and Gao Wen didn't care about this, he just waved his hand: "Everyone in the exploration team If you have merit, I will ask Hetty to record it for you and convert it into a reward according to the contribution act."

Then he looked towards the direction of the mountain path - just now he saw a combat soldier running over, and the opponent stood still on the mountain path, waiting for him.

"What's the matter?" Gao Wen came to the soldiers and asked.

"My lord, I brought the report from the ruins," the soldier stood up straight and saluted to report, "Knight Byron found a strange magic device and a hall full of runes in the lower area of ​​the ruins, I hope you can go there yourself take a look."

A new area has been discovered deep in the ruins? !

Gao Wen frowned, and immediately waved to Amber: "Come with me."

The two walked up the mountain path under the leadership of the soldiers. After a rather long journey, they finally reached the deepest part of the ancient facility.

"It's really big inside..." Looking at the tall corridors around and the dim magic spar lamps on both sides of the corridor, Amber couldn't help but sigh, "It takes so long to walk in a straight road..."

"This is the result of Knight Byron having already cleared the way." Gawain nodded. He noticed that the magic spar lamps in the corridors on both sides were newly installed. Considering the cost issue and the output power of the portable honeycomb magic net unit, The distance between those magic spars is very far, so the overall lighting in the corridor is very dim. However, compared with the original completely dark environment of the ruins, the restored corridor is still much stronger than before.

In that rotunda, Gawain saw the middle-aged knight whom he had not seen for many days.

The many days of exploring the ruins did not make this Mr. Knight look haggard and tired. His condition was even surprisingly good. It seemed that he had rediscovered the feeling he had when he was a mercenary in the process. Byron's face looked bright, As soon as he saw Gao Wen, he greeted him: "My lord, you should read this! I bet these two sets of words at the door are describing the function of this room - but we haven't figured out what it means after studying for a long time .”

Gawain looked in the direction of Byron's finger, and saw that on both sides of the door inside the entrance of the rotunda, there was indeed a metal plate without any signs of rust, and neat ancient characters were engraved on the metal plate with a technology similar to laser etching. .

"The one on the left is to pay attention to safety and beware of accidents, and the one on the right is to lock the door when people leave the scene—what's wrong?"

Byron: "..."

On the spot, Gao Wen saw the faces of the soldiers behind Byron blushing. If it weren't for the suppression of military discipline, they would probably have the heart to roll on the ground.

"In the future, don't bother studying things that aren't your specialty," Gawain sighed, and patted the shoulder of the middle-aged fried dough stick knight. "Even Hetty can't fully understand these ancient characters. Why are you joining in the fun?"

Byron broke out in a cold sweat. He turned around in embarrassment, and pointed to the center of the circular hall: "...Your Excellency, what you said is true, you should take a look at this..."

Gawain looked towards the center of the hall - in fact, he had already noticed that wonderful thing with overwhelming presence from the moment he entered the door.

It was a ring set vertically on the ground, and about one-third of the structure was buried deep underground.The inner diameter of the ring is about four meters, and densely packed magic lines and symbol marks can be seen on the ring. Rare metals and magic crystals are inlaid on the magic nodes everywhere, which shows that it should be some kind of Power-hungry device.

On the ground around the ring, you can see the same complex and huge magic symbol system, as well as several metal devices fixed on the ground and connected to the magic lines on the surface, which look like consoles.

"This is... some kind of door?" Gawain touched his chin. The shape of the ring reminded him of something similar to a portal, but he doubted the judgment of the "portal"—even if In the heyday of the Gondor Empire, long-distance teleportation spells were still a theoretical product. This world does not have such a convenient space teleportation magic. If there were mature teleportation gates in the Gondor Starfire era 1000 years ago, it is impossible to have no pass down.

It is more likely to be a kind of "Magic Gate" for small-scale space transformation, used to link different spaces located at the same coordinates. This technology was quite mature in the Gondor era.

"At first we suspected that this thing was a stone, but in fact it is some kind of metal, but no one knows its material," Byron Knight continued to report, "In addition, we also found several blocked objects on this floor. There are some ingots of the same material as the rings stacked in those rooms. It seems that the people here planned to build more rings or expand it—but then they evacuated, and the work was put on hold .”

"Unknown metal material..." Gao Wen said to himself, "If it's not an ancient alloy, then it can only be caused by the magic tide to change their properties. If the reason is the latter, then it will be very troublesome to research. .”

Knight Byron didn't hear clearly: "My lord, what did you say?"

"No, it's nothing," Gawain waved his hand, and at the same time, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Amber had sauntered to the side of the ring at some point, and was poking the purple spot on the surface of the ring with her precious little dagger. Black crystal, he suddenly called out, "Hey! What are you doing! This thing can't..."

"Don't worry, I won't steal it!" Amber immediately glared at Gao Wen, and loudly dismissed the suspicion of her occupational disease, "I just feel that the power fluctuations left by this crystal are a little...familiar."

"Are you familiar with it?" Gawain was taken aback, "Have you seen this kind of crystal before?"

Amber looked at the crystals inlaid on the ring like an expert and scholar, and touched her smooth chin with her free left hand: "According to my many years of crime experience..."

Gao Wen: "...what?"

"Ahem, work experience, work experience," Amber realized herself, and quickly changed her words. Unfortunately, everyone at the scene had heard it, so she continued to say brazenly, "According to my experience, this kind of crystal should be Rare shadow-affinity crystals—the most expensive of all elemental crystals. And to be honest, the purity is also frighteningly high, such high-purity shadow crystals are now rare.”

"Shadow?" Gawain blinked. He knew the existence of elemental crystals. This special magic crystal is formed by ordinary magic crystals undergoing long-term erosion and transformation in an environment with high element concentration. Due to the scarcity of shadow environments in nature, it can It is even rarer to maintain the shadow environment for a long time and the concentration reaches the standard. Therefore, the elemental crystals prone to shadow are the most expensive and rare. Although Gawain Cecil was known as a polymath back then, his main skills were in herbalism, In terms of survival in the wilderness, territory building, and killing monsters, there is not much research on magic crystals, but Amber, as a person who dared to pry the grave of the founding father, and is shadow-friendly and insane, it is not surprising that she has seen this kind of crystal .

"Could it be related to the Shadow Realm?" Gawain asked speculatively.

Amber patted her chest: "Then I'll go in and see the situation first!"

"Wait a minute," Gawain grabbed her arm before she entered the Shadow Realm, "Take me in together."

Amber was stunned for a moment, and suddenly remembered the horrible experience of facing the flesh and blood of the gods when she entered the Shadow Realm in the relic laboratory, she broke out in a layer of cold sweat, and quickly grabbed Gawain's arm: "Then you will have to go ahead later what!"

Gawain looked at the half-elf who suddenly became cowardly, dumbfounded, and waved his hand: "Let's go."

Amber took a deep breath to calm down, and then activated her shadow-friendly talent.

The familiar trance struck again, and Gao Wen felt that the scene in front of him began to shake, but just when he vaguely saw the scene of the Shadow Realm, Amber beside him suddenly let out an "oops", and then the two of them stood together. "falling out" of the critical state.

Amber rubbed her head in a dizzy state, and it took a while to realize: "It seems... was ejected?"

Chapter 0206

After being ejected from the critical state of the Shadow Realm, Amber tried a few times in disbelief, but each time she fell back into the real world just after entering the critical state without any change.

When she tried it for the fourth time, she was really dizzy and couldn't stand it.

Gao Wen was also dazed by this situation (of course, he might have been dazed by these several critical switches), and subconsciously asked, "What's going on? Your cheating expired?"

"Cheat? What is a cheat?" Amber didn't understand what Gao Wen was saying, but she guessed from the other person's expression that it was probably not a compliment, so she curled her lips angrily, "There must be something wrong with the environment here! Wait a minute, I Take half a catty of shadow potion and come again——I don't believe that even my shadow affinity..."

"Stop, stop, stay away, calm down and analyze the situation," Gawain waved his hand to stop the half-elf's death move, "Sense the shadow environment here carefully, and then try ordinary shadow step or stealth skills. use."

Amber calmed down under Gao Wen's reminder, she took a breath, her figure gradually faded in the air.

After a few tests, she lifted her shadow state: "The normal shadow step and stealth skills are all fine, including skills like shadow mist can also be used smoothly, it seems that only when entering the shadow world will be affected... An effect like a disturbance that pops up in an instant."

"The Shadow Realm...so the problem is on the 'other side'..." Gawain looked thoughtfully at the ring device in the center of the room that seems to be the magic door, and then frowned. Take it seriously, "Isn't the Shadow Realm equivalent to some kind of reflection of the real world? You try to enter the Shadow Realm outside this room, and then come over from the 'other side' to see the situation."

"I'll give it a try!" Amber agreed, and dragged Gao Wen to the door, "Come here and protect my eyes..."

Does this guy think of himself as an eye protection barrage?It is specially used to block the face of the ancient god...

Gao Wen reluctantly followed behind Amber. After leaving the circular room for a certain distance, the two entered the Shadow Realm smoothly.

Seeing the familiar black-and-white horizon appearing in front of his eyes, and seeing Amber's body switch into that unique form in the Shadow Realm, which looks like some kind of elemental banshee, Gawain heaved a sigh of relief: "Scare me!" Jump, I thought your plug-in really expired..."

"You speak so strangely that you can't even understand it." Amber muttered, then grabbed Gawain's arm and walked towards the circular hall in the Shadow Realm.

They stepped through the ancient door, but after stepping through the gate, all they saw was an ordinary rotunda.

There is no flesh and blood of gods, no hidden research facilities, not even redundant doors, windows and passages, there is nothing here.

Amber looked around curiously: "It's strange...it's just an ordinary hall, why is there any interference...and the interference is so funny, you just need to take a little detour to get in..."

However, Gao Wen immediately noticed the violation after scanning the surrounding environment: "No, I'm afraid we couldn't get around it."

He raised his hand and pointed to the center of the hall: "The ring device is gone, and there are remaining tear marks on the ground."

In the hall of the present world, the most eye-catching thing is the ring device in the center of the room. However, here, the three-to-four-meter-high ring has disappeared, replaced by a broken trace on the ground and a whole dug-out hole. A large piece of floorboard - there was no doubt that there was something there.

"Except for the laboratory that encountered the flesh and blood of the gods, the shadow world and the real world basically maintain a one-to-one mapping state, and based on the traces left on the ground here, it can also be judged that there should be a corresponding ring here. That's right, but it's gone now." Gao Wen frowned, and came to the excavated floor, "Look at the size here, it corresponds to the base of the ring."

"Someone went to the Shadow Realm and stole the gate on this side?" Amber thought curiously, "This method is okay..."

"No one will steal a magic door full of food," Gawain glanced at Amber, "I think some kind of force tore this place, and 'transferred' the things that should be here to other places." Place. When we enter the Shadow Realm from the rotunda of the real world, we should come to the corresponding circle, and when we enter the Shadow Realm from the corridor outside the room, we can only see this empty 'inner hall', which is a certain A dislocation mapping..."

Amber didn't know how Gao Wen thought of this, but after thinking about it, her thoughts were zero, so she followed Gao Wen's thinking: "So what is the 'disturbing' force for?"

Gawain frowned, letting his thoughts flow: "Perhaps it is to prevent unauthorized people from bypassing the 'Magic Gate' to reach a certain place...only through the correct paired 'Magic Gate' Arrive at the correct location, otherwise you will either not be able to enter the Shadow Realm, or you can only enter this empty hall, which was often used by the Gondor magisters to encrypt important treasure houses."

"That is to say, if we want to find out where the correct corresponding position is, the only way is to repair the ring in the real world?" Amber raised her eyebrows, "Then this touches my blind spot of knowledge It's..."

"It's not just your knowledge blind spot. I'm afraid no one in the territory can interpret such a complicated ancient magic device." Gawain shook his head regretfully. The circle "outside" is not a simple magic circle, but a mixture of magic. Complex magic devices including formations, ancient synthetic materials, and Gondor Might and Magic technology, things of this level may not be able to cope with the current level of spellcasters in the territory.

Amber stuck out her tongue, feeling that she was helpless in this regard, and then wandered casually in the rotunda.

She looked here and there, drawing out her small dagger from time to time to scratch at the runes on the wall or on the ground, but when she walked around to the opposite side of the hall, she stopped suddenly.

She noticed a dark crack on the curved wall here—the crack wasn't very wide, but it branched out into many cracks, and the dense cracks even covered the entire wall in sight.

Curiously, she stretched out her fingers and stroked the crack.

Gao Wen was inspecting the traces of runes left on the floor of the hall, when he suddenly heard a continuous sound of cracking from not far away, he looked up in astonishment, and what happened in front of him surprised him:

I saw that the side of the hall away from the entrance is rapidly disintegrating and collapsing. The originally seamless curved wall has been covered with large black cracks, and the solid ancient concrete is falling down piece by piece, as if there is a piece of land outside the hall. The endless abyss is devouring this building!