Another hour passed, and the team was still moving forward in the extending corridors and passages.
The scale of this thousand-year facility has exceeded Gawain's imagination.
Even in the "Age of Spark" when Gondor was in its heyday, the empire rarely built facilities of this scale - even if it had the functions of both a military fortress and a scientific research facility, its scale was far beyond the exceeded Gawain's expectations. It seemed that it was indeed built by hollowing out a hill, and with more and more downward slopes and steps, Gawain even suspected that it was hollowing out more than just a hill.
The magic reaction is still coming steadily, and it is still quite weak. Due to encountering too many forks and corridors, Hetty's guidance is no longer reliable. She can only judge a rough direction, and used divination spells such as spiritual summoning to determine which fork in the road to take, but even so, the team still took several detours and found many dead ends.
Although the Byron Knights had been setting marks along the way, and Hetty used magic markers to outline the road signs, advancing in an ancient ruins for so long still made the soldiers a little uneasy. After noticing this uneasiness, Knight Byron came to Gawain: "Sir, if you continue to go deeper, you may get lost inside - everyone's sense of direction has been completely confused."
Gawain frowned. He frowned. In fact, he had also considered the problem of getting lost, but he was more confident than everyone else - the satellite spirit's superb memory came into play. He almost remembered every detail of every fork in the road, and in his mind There is even a rough map sketched out, but these abilities are not easy to explain, or even if they are explained, it is not easy for everyone to feel at ease.
After all, this place is too big.
It would be great if Amber was here...at least she can be thrown out to explore the way. Moreover, she can run around from the Shadow Realm and is good at sliding doors and picking locks. She is definitely not as likely to be trapped in the ruins as ordinary people. - She had proven this in Cecil's ancestral grave.
This time Gawain is considering this matter very seriously.
Unfortunately, Amber is not here now, so Gawain can only shake his head: "Your concerns are reasonable - then let's walk a little longer, make a few more marks, and then no matter whether we find anything or not, first Go back and come back next time."
Although the lord did not order an immediate return, Gawain's ambiguous statement still made the soldiers relax, as if they had received some kind of guarantee, and the team once again plucked up their courage. keep going.
After going down a flight of stairs, there is another hall ahead. There are more things in this hall than before: some huge obsidian cuboids are neatly arranged around the hall, like a tower placed against the wall. There is a stone monument, and many metal conduits or "tracks" extend from under the cube. They all converge in the center of the hall, where there is a strange hemispherical device.
Gawain frowned, came to the hemispherical device, and rubbed it with his iron-gloved hand.After a few strokes, some of the black ash and oxide on the surface of the device was scraped away, revealing the silver-white metal underneath.
"What is this?" Hetty came over curiously. The facilities in this room were obviously "fixed installations" that could not be taken away, which is rare in this ruins. Those obsidian and metal connections gave her a weird intuition related to magic.
"Magic energy focusing array - although I really want to call it a magic capacitor," Gawain said about knowledge that no one knows in this era, and mixed in some more incomprehensible words, "these Obsidian is connected to the magic well in the facility, and this hemisphere can focus powerful energy to create a short-lasting but extremely high-intensity energy flow, which then passes through this main conduit——"
高Vin pointed to a thick conduit that extended from the hemispherical device and ended up buried in the wall.
"...transport energy to where it is needed."
Hetty's eyes widened slightly. As a mage, seeing this ancient magic device from thousands of years ago made him She couldn't help but get excited: "Focusing powerful energy? So this is a weapon?"
"No, this is an auxiliary energy source for research facilities, usually used to provide energy to those who consume energy. Huge equipment provides instant 'ignition', such as rainbow lenses or something," Gawain shrugged. "In the era of Gondor, magic was not only used for fighting - although this is indeed one of its important functions, magic is also used for fighting. There are many things that can be done. In fact, in my opinion, what mages should really do is to use their knowledge and magic for this kind of research."
"Research..." Hetty. He muttered in disbelief.
She is no stranger to the word research. Mages have always been synonymous with researchers. Studying the mysteries of magic and analyzing the rules of runes are their proudest jobs, but no matter what kind of research, The ultimate goal will all come down to how to improve spellcasting ability, and mages who cannot improve their spellcasting ability will be regarded as poor researchers.
Hetty instinctively felt that the "research" Gawain was talking about was probably not the same thing as the research she was familiar with.
This ancestor always seems to be accustomed to looking at a very far and wide angle. He always mentions "popularity" and "mass production", and the specialization of the mages Research on oneself and even deliberately isolated from each other seems to run counter to his train of thought.
Hetty shook her head and pushed aside the irrelevant thoughts in her mind. She heard Knight Byron asking: "Madam, does the magic reaction come from this place?"< /p>
Hetty felt it carefully and shook his head: "No, but it is very close."
"Remember this place," Gawain said, "This ancient device It has been completely scrapped and there is no need to consider repairing it - but it can dismantle at least half a ton of mithril and seven to eight tons of obsidian, as well as a lot of fine gold, copper and purple steel."
"Wait a minute. …..." Hetty suddenly became excited and stared at Gawain, "Ancestor... are you going to... dismantle this infinitely valuable ancient magic device? ! ”
“What if? Gawain glanced at her and said, "This thing requires ultra-high-purity magic power to 'ignite', and the corresponding magic power purification technology has long been gone." And even if there is energy, if this thing has been here for a thousand 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 look on his face: "You may not feel it since you came here seven hundred years ago, but this thing is an antique..."
Gawain's face trembled. : "This thing will be an antique before I die - but we have to start from the practical value. It has no value at all if it is left here. Only when it is melted can it be reborn. ”
After hearing what Gawain said, Hetty realized that it was useless to say anything, so she could only nod her head with pain in her face.
It is said that a child sells his land. I don’t feel bad, but I didn’t seem too distressed when I sold the land...
The discovery of the magic focusing device means that this place is very close to the deep research facility, and then think of He The target of the magic reaction that Ti had sensed before was most likely a still-running research device.
Gawain quietly activated the knight's "Danger Sense" skill to be on guard here at all times. There may be magic traps or ancient radiation.
As he continued to move forward, he asked Hetty casually: "By the way, I heard them calling you Madam instead of Miss or Madam. ——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.
Hetty was stunned for a moment, but it was normal for ancestors to care about their marriage, so she replied: “I was not married, but I converted to the goddess of magic Myrmina when I came of age, and gave up my inheritance rights through religious conversion so that I could leave the inheritance rights to Rebecca’s father. According to the laws of the nobility, an adult woman who renounces her inheritance rights by converting to the faith is considered married, that is, dedicated to the faith. Originally, I could keep my title of nobility and become a non-hereditary baroness, but that year the territory was in trouble, so I sold the title...well, to a businessman..."
Gawain nodded. , said "Oh" to express her understanding, and at the same time, the message of the goddess of magic Myrmina also came to mind.
The goddess of magic Myrmina, also known as the God of All Laws and the Lady of Mysteries, she. She is considered to control the power of magic, and is the mentor of the first dragon and the first elf in the world - so the legendary dragon language magic and the existing elf magic are also created by her, which is different from other gods. Yes, Myrmina is not a "strong belief god", but more like a "symbolic god"
It can be said that she has no formal religion and belief system, and almost all spellcasting professions are hers." "Light believer", but less than one percent of mages will convert to this god as a formal believer. This is probably the same as that of spell casters.It is related to the general love of exploring mysteries and lack of fear of God.
And among the one percent of believers, there are still many who, like Hetty, converted simply to prove that they gave up inheritance rights or similar purposes.
Princess Veronica of the Ansu royal family converted to the God of Holy Light in a similar way, but that princess was not as poor as the descendants of the Cecil family, so poor that she even lost her noble status. She had to be sold at a low price, so she can still be called a princess (or the corresponding priesthood status).
After Hetty finished her answer, she felt a little uneasy. She was mainly worried about two things: one was whether Cecil would disgrace his descendants and be reduced to the point where he would have to sell his title of nobility to make ends meet. The other thing is whether it will also make the ancestor angry if he is not married at such an old age, especially the second thing - what if Gawain later turns around and says, "Why aren't you married yet? What are you planning to do?" "When are you going to get married? What do you think of that XXX?" What should I do if I urge you to get married three times in a row?
Oh my god, our ancestors urged us to get married seven hundred years ago. This was much more stressful than our parents did!
This even made Hetty less worried about whether he would be beaten for selling his noble title...
In the end, Gawain just asked casually, and that was it. Below.
And Hetty's random thoughts didn't last long, because she finally sensed that magic reaction was in front of her.