Mysteries: Arcana Wars

Backlund's winter snow continued to fall endlessly, and the skin heated by the alcohol melted the snow on Felix's face.

A crisp sound interrupted Felix's heavy thoughts.

"Child, the story of you and your family is amazing, but I am still a little curious, why do you make so many copper coins?"

The old woman reached out and flicked the copper coin in her hand and asked.

“A company.”

Felix piled the copper coins on his lap, counting them one by one, muttering to himself.

“As Mr. Condra had instructed, when we were ready to explore electromagnetism, it was time to start a company.

“The purpose of operating a company is to effectively safeguard our own interests, but the means of protecting ourselves are not just the obvious strategy of establishing a company, but also include trying to establish some relationships in the gray area.

“These copper coins represent some of my ideas. I want to use them as a token to establish some intelligence system.

"Of course, these are all stories for the future. My family has just gathered enough money to register the company and completed the company registration procedures. It will probably take another six months to complete all the qualification documents. We have to develop this little thing first before we can have the following stories.

"My current understanding of the gray system is still too naive. Haha, I'm not afraid of you laughing at me, ma'am. Although now is not the right time, I still want to spend some money to make some copper coins, which can be regarded as giving myself and the future some small confidence and comfort. I'm still young, right? I should act like a young person and do some useless but happy little things."

Felix shuddered as he spoke.

"Oh, ma'am, now I understand why young ladies like to buy beautiful but useless jewelry and ornaments!"

This made both of them laugh.

"I actually thought that I would solve this problem in detail after I get to this point. I used to think that those gangs and giant companies were the ones we needed to be wary of, but now it seems that those magic and extraordinary powers are our most terrible threats.

"Things are beyond our understanding..."

The aftereffects of the alcohol and complicated thoughts stirred Felix's mind, and he rubbed his temples with his fingers in a daze.

"Look, you did a good job, didn't you?"

The old woman reached out and held Felix's hand. Her palm was full of wrinkles and stripes, but still warm and full of strength.

“I’m saying that you’ve done well enough in your time and will work steadily and hard to complete the next tasks.

"Just like your ancestors, they did their best in that era and successfully preserved this knowledge and this family. To this day, each of your generations has done a good job of fulfilling their tasks.

"Each era will present you with different challenges, and each generation has its own mission. For your ancestors, their mission was to live with this knowledge as long as possible, waiting for the day when the time was right. Your mission is to lead Tesla onto the stage of history and start the glory of the Tesla family.

“As for the puzzles that arise when the road in the book comes to an end, that is not a test paper that your generation needs to solve, but a question that your descendants in the distant future need to answer.

“You don’t need to worry about problems that have not yet arrived in the future, because you actually don’t know what kind of difficulties Teslas will encounter in the future. You are just speculating about the distant and unknown future with your own cognition limited by the times.

“Who knows, maybe in the future they will discover new solutions and new understandings. The issues that are worrying you so much right now may be a piece of cake a few hundred years from now.

“Believe in those who come after you, young people, believe in time, believe in your ancestors, and believe in yourself.

"Now, all you have to do is look at your feet and hand in your own answer sheet."

Felix was a little dazed. This was the first time he had heard such comfort and opinions. Perhaps this was what experienced elders said, he thought dizzily. Perhaps these strange and huge thoughts were the product of his youth. He had placed unnecessary obstacles on his way forward, so that he would start to think about whether to give up completely.

"Thank you, ma'am, I think you are right."

He simply wiped off the thin snow that had accumulated on the stool and rubbed his face hard to make himself more awake.

"But, ma'am, I still have a little doubt sometimes.

“Why did our ancestor Mr. Condra have such a strong obsession?

"No... I'm not saying that I don't want to inherit the legacy and beliefs left by Mr. Kondra. This knowledge itself is fascinating enough, so fascinating that we spend generations exploring these mysteries, hoping that one day we can truly experience the wonderful world that Mr. Kondra saw.

“But apart from that pure intellectual enthusiasm, there must be some special obsession that supported him to cast such a heavy curse on us, the descendants, a curse called ‘Thus Said Kondra Tesla’.”

At this moment, Felix suddenly paused again, as if hesitating. After hesitating for a moment, he finally organized his words and spoke with difficulty.

"Have you ever heard of Lady Melissa and Sir Iss Moretti, the insane couple who invented the Rama steam engine?

"In our school, several people started calling themselves 'time travelers' because they submitted several papers in college claiming to have solved problems that would occur in the future. At that time, people in the school thought they were crazy and had lost their minds, but in recent years my supervisor discovered that their papers really solved the problems in the subject."

In the third century of the Sixth Epoch, how far will the era be from the Rama steam engine and its inventors? The fantasies and confessions left by the missing inventors have not yet been taken seriously by the public. People are already crazy about the Rama steam engine, but have not yet associated the word "travelers" with these two inventors. The "prophecy" itself needs a longer time to prove its reliability.

"Now I know that those magical powers and extraordinary forces that distort everything actually exist. So I wonder if there is a possibility that the 'travelers' who can see into the future actually come from the future? Did our ancestor Mr. Kondra Tesla also travel from the future?

"So, he is actually chasing after some distant world that is beyond our cognition?"

After he finished speaking, the biting cold wind made Felix shiver again. This time the cold directly triggered the alcohol in his stomach, and he turned his head and vomited.

"vomit--"

He collapsed on the chair and had a massive diarrhea, until his stomach turned upside down, and then he collapsed in exhaustion.

"...But...I also want to...see the future as seen by Mr. Condra..."

"One day, you will see it."

Felix folded his arms in a chair and babbled some meaningless syllables. The old woman reached out and patted his back, like a kind grandmother comforting her crying grandson.

After a while, the young man became quiet. He turned around to apologize to the old woman, but saw the old woman took out a notebook and a pencil from her clothes.

"I thought, since you gave me a small gift, I should leave you something..."

"Ma'am, do you always carry a notebook with you?" Felix asked.

"Ah, yes...it was my husband's habit originally, and then I became a part of it."

The old woman tore off a few sheets of white paper from her notebook, put them on the notebook and began to write something. But it seemed difficult for her to write a complete sentence, and countless strange words jumped out from different languages, crowding around her pen tip and trying to express themselves.

"As expected, I still have some difficulties... It's not easy to use things when you get old..."

Strange letters appeared and were crossed out, and the crossed-out failed sentences filled an entire sheet of paper. After wasting three sheets of paper, the old woman finally held her breath and wrote a complete sentence in the same Tesla code, signed her name, and finally handed it to the young man.

"It seems that we are really destined to be together. Please accept it. This is a gift for you. I hope it can help you in the future.

"Thank you for the copper coin, too. I like it very much."

After three groggy attempts, Felix finally touched the paper and saw Tesla's secret words written in crude handwriting on it.

“…Even if the lights are about to go out, our will will live on. Tesla’s guiding light shines alone in the long river of time…

"…Melissa…Mrs. Moretti?!"

Felix jumped up from his chair as if he had been hit by the name, but the old woman next to him had disappeared.

He lowered his head to examine the note again, only to find that the name of the inventor's wife had already been damaged by the filth on his hands.

...Wait...Didn't she disappear from this world over a hundred years ago?!

Shock, fear, annoyance, regret... a series of emotions surged into his mind like bubbles. Felix was completely sober, and he searched around again, but he couldn't find even the footprints left by the old woman.

The great inventor once again disappeared in the winter snow of Backlund.