Those substances that glowed slightly in the dark eliminated 70% to 80% of Gawain's drowsiness. He ignored the gray-black stuff that would get all over him and directly picked it up in the big basket.
Soon, some fragments that were obviously different from the surrounding materials were dug out.
The light "embedded" inside them is brighter, more concentrated, and more stable.
From the outside, these things are still dark solid objects, but within the loose structure there are many crystals with a diameter of no more than one millimeter, which look like crude crystals. These crystals are The source of light. Gawain crushed a piece of hardened material and carefully picked out a few crystals. He found that they were still glowing, and became even brighter after losing the influence of surrounding impurities.
Some kind of intuition allowed him to activate his ability to perceive magic, and some constant, shimmering mist appeared in his field of vision: these crystals indeed contained a certain amount of magic.
Gawain pinched a crystal and slowly applied force with his fingers. The crystal finally broke into pieces: it was very hard, almost the same as stone, but it was harder than magicians used to process staffs and store them. The natural crystal of magic is more fragile, and when it is crushed, its light disappears.
The magic power completely escaped from it.
So what is this?
Gawain frowned deeply. He wanted to take this thing to Hetty immediately for consultation, but the latter was probably asleep by now. The unexpected situation tonight must have made her very tired. Coupled with the fact that she had to worry about camp construction during the day, it was not easy for her to get a good night's sleep.
So Gawain had no choice but to suppress his thoughts and prepare to go to Hetty early tomorrow morning.
There was finally no more disturbance in the second half of the night, and the camp was surrounded by darkness and silence, as if the legendary kingdom of Lady Night had arrived...
Early the next morning, Gawain led He followed the tiny crystals that glowed in the dark to Hetty's tent, and learned that Hetty had gotten up earlier and went to the laboratory, so he ran to Hetty's magic laboratory.
This "Magic Laboratory" is located in the southeast corner of the camp, close to the Dark Mountains. It is currently the only one in the entire camp that is built with stone and wood as the main materials, and covers a large area. A large house, even without extra decorations, can be said to be a "mansion" here. This is not because Hetty wants to be particularistic, but the magic laboratory does have environmental requirements. 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 depicting the magic circle. .
Magicians are very practical creatures.
But to outsiders, this solid and majestic building is full of mystery. Amber has always suspected that Hetty's job inside is to stir up demons like an old witch. Medicine and poison, but I just didn’t dare to go in and confirm.Down - Afraid 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 There are three parts. One part is engraved with a magic circle and is filled with various magic materials. The other part is filled with various bottles and alchemy tools, while the third part has only one set of devices, that is A crystal resonator bought at a high price from Tanzanian town.
This is a device specially used to study various types of crystals and to inscribe magic arrays inside the crystals. It is an outstanding creation of the magicians in this world. Its precision and beautiful appearance are similar to Gawain's. The crude and primitive tools seen in civilian society of this era were completely different. It has a core pedestal on which three natural magic crystals of different sizes are fixed with brass mechanisms. Around this core pedestal are placed several independent circular artificial crystal pieces with adjustable angles. Behind each crystal piece, there is also a gray-white vertical plate for imaging.
This can be said to be the most expensive gadget in the entire laboratory. Hetty is very careful when using it. Even Rebecca, who is also a mage (although she only knows fireball), My niece is not allowed to touch her.
It seems that Amber will really be beaten if she really dares to sneak in...
Gawain saw Hetty placing a lavender crystal in the center of the crystal resonator. Through the stimulation of the three surrounding magic crystals, the target crystal will resonate, and this resonance will produce "ripples" that can be detected in the ubiquitous magic environment. Through the artificial crystal flakes around the resonator, this resonance This kind of ripple forms a picture that can be observed by the naked eye and is projected on those gray-white vertical boards.
Clear rune structures can be seen on two of the vertical boards, and on the draft paper in the corner of the table is a sketch drawn by Hetty based on the projected structure.
It seems that she is studying the ancient military crystals brought out from the mountain treasure house.
Hetty seemed a little surprised by Gawain's sudden visit, because usually Gawain would go back to check the progress of the project at this time, or draw a bunch of drawings in his tent: "Ancestor? You "Why are you here?"
"There are some things I want you to see," Gawain said as he poured out the hardened objects inlaid with fine crystal particles from the lambskin bag he carried. Looking at Hetty's "workbench", "Are you studying the magic circles in those ancient crystals?"
"Yes," Hetty nodded, a little apologetic on his face, "It's a pity the progress Not good."
As she spoke, she looked at the unattractive pieces in Gawain's hand: "These are..."
"Rebecca tossed them last time. It's 'waste', but I found something interesting in it," Gawain said as he rubbed the broken crystals embedded in the waste, "These things have magical reactions."
"Magic reaction?" Hetty frowned, and thenAfter careful inspection, he was suddenly surprised, "It's really there?! What is this?"
"So I want you to take a look," Gawain picked out one of the fallen crystals, " Can you tell the structure of your crystal resonator?"
Hetty never expected that Rebecca would come up with such a strange thing after all her random manipulations - she felt that Rebecca was totally Burning stones in the work shed was just a random operation, even if it was arranged by Gawain. After all, Rebecca had many imaginative ideas in the process, such as throwing grasshoppers into the kiln. Kind - She carefully picked up the crystal handed over by Gawain and put it in front of her eyes to look at it carefully.
"Isn't there a bigger one?" Hetty frowned a little troubled, "It's so small, it's hard to observe."
Gawain had no choice: "This is already the biggest one, at least as big as a grain of rice."
"Okay, I'll try my best." Hetty said as she took the ancient crystal from the center of the crystal resonator. It’s down: Its rune arrangement has been recorded and there is no need to continue testing.
Hetty then used a pair of small tweezers to carefully hold the "crystal" that was only as big as a grain of rice, placed it in the center of the resonator's pedestal, and activated the three magic crystals on the pedestal.
After a short wait, some vague lines appeared on several "screens" around the resonator: not only were they very blurry, but they were also so thin that they seemed transparent. If it weren't for Hetty The nearby magic crystal lamps were extinguished in advance, so Gawain might not be able to see them at all.
After all, the crystals used as observation objects are too small.
"This structure... is indeed a kind of artificial crystal, and it is very regular." Hetty carefully distinguished the shapes of those lines, and carefully injected the lowest level of magic into the pedestal, and With the injection of magic power, the lines on the projection gradually brightened and were dyed with a halo like a rainbow. "It can absorb external magic power and transform them into forms that exist stably inside the crystal..."< /p>
Hetty removed his magic power and observed the subsequent changes in those projections.
A few minutes passed, and the projection displayed on the vertical board did not change at all, and the resonator itself, which has the ability to accurately sense magic power, also showed no movement.
"The magic power is stored stably?!" Only then did Hetty show an even more surprised expression, "The escape rate...is so low?!"
Gawain was stunned. Staring at the pedestal in the center of the crystal resonator, on that pedestal, the "artificial crystal" the size of a rice grain is emitting white light visible to the naked eye: it seems that as the magic power is filled, its brightness is also rising.
He immediately realized why he had not noticed these things mixed in the waste when the tent was dark before: these "artificial crystals" were empty when they were first refined, and of course they had no magic power. will not emit light, and as they are placed for extended periods of time, they will begin to spontaneously absorb large amounts of light.The magical energy floating in the air was a slow self-charging process. It took two days of charging before it could finally glow slightly at night, and it was finally discovered by Gawain.
Hetty was also attracted by the strange properties of this crystal. 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 could not contain much magic power. So she soon discovered that this thing had entered a "saturated" state.
The small crystal began to release a stable milky white shimmer, and showed no signs of self-disintegration due to saturation.
"So this is an artificial crystal that can store magic power?!" Gawain looked at Hetty with surprise, feeling as if he had picked up a treasure, "Then its maximum capacity is compared with natural crystals What about the stability? I see it keeps glowing, but what about its self-depletion rate?" "Wait a minute, wait a minute, I still need to test it carefully," Hetty The excitement in her heart was no weaker than that of Gawain, but she still maintained the calmness that a mage should have. She picked up the small crystal and walked towards the analysis magic circle next to it, while casually saying, "Self-depletion." The problem shouldn't be big. Although it is glowing, the main reason is that the free magic power in the air is affected by the crystal and resonates. The magic power stored inside the crystal has not been lost much, so it should be able to preserve the magic power for a long time... "
As she said this, she placed the crystal in a grooved "dish" made of ruby, and placed the container in the center of the magic circle, preparing to try to The magic power stored in the crystal is re-extracted.
The magic circle is activated.
The crystal particles in the ruby vessel made a soft "pop" sound and then turned into pieces.