Chapter 65 Ancient Facilities

Another hour passed, and the line was still advancing through the ever-extending corridors and passages.

The scale of this millennium facility has exceeded Gawain's imagination.

Even in the "Spark Age" when Gondor was prosperous, the Empire seldom built a facility of this scale—even if it served as a military fortress and a scientific research facility at the same time, its scale far exceeded Gawain's expectations. It seemed that it was indeed built by hollowing out a hill, and with more and more ramps and steps going down, Gawain even suspected that it was not just a hill that was hollowed out.

The magic reaction was still coming in steadily, and it was still quite weak. Due to too many forks and corridors, Heidi's guidance was unreliable. She could only judge a general direction and use the spirit call technique. They used divination spells like this to determine which fork in the road to take, but even so, the team took several detours and found a lot of dead ends.

Although the Byron Knights had been marking the way, and Hetty had used magic markers to outline the waypoints, the soldiers were still slightly uneasy after advancing through an ancient ruin for so long. Knight Byron came to Gawain: "Sir, if you continue to go deeper, you may get lost in it - everyone's sense of direction is completely confused."

Gawain frowned. In fact, he also thought about getting lost, but he was more confident than everyone else-Satellite's superb memory was at work, he wrote down almost every detail of every fork along the way. , There is even a rough map in my mind, but these abilities are not easy to say, or even if they are said, they are not very reassuring.

After all, this place is really big.

If only Amber was here... At least she can be thrown out to explore the way, and she can run around from the shadow world, and she is good at slipping doors and picking locks, she is definitely not as easy to be trapped in the ruins as ordinary people - she is already plugging The Sear family's ancestral tomb attests to this.

This time, Gawain was seriously considering this matter.

It’s a pity that Amber is not here now, so Gawain can only shake his head: “Your concern is justified—then let’s go a little further, make a few more marks, and then return first, and come back next time, no matter if you find it or not.”

Although the lord did not order to return immediately, Gawain's ambiguous statement made the soldiers relieved, as if they had received some kind of assurance, the team once again gathered up their courage to move on.

After a flight of stairs down, there is another hall in front of it. There are more things in this hall than before: some huge obsidian cuboids are neatly arranged around the hall, like stone tablets placed against the wall, and below the cubes are There are many metallic conduits or "tracks" extending out, all of which 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 a few times. Some of the black ash and oxides on the surface of the device were scraped off, 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. This is rare in this ruins. Those obsidian and metal connectors make She had a weird intuition about magic.

"Magic Focusing Array—although I'd love to call it Magic Capacitor," Gawain said of knowledge that no one knows in this day and age, mixing in some more inexplicable words, "These obsidians are connected to the magic power in the facility. Well, this hemisphere can focus powerful energy, create a short-lived but extremely high-intensity flow of energy, and then pass through this main conduit-"

Gawain pointed to a thick conduit extending from the hemispherical device and eventually buried in the wall.

"...to channel energy where it is needed."

Heidi's eyes widened slightly,

As a mage, seeing this ancient magical device from thousands of years ago made her excited: "Focus the powerful energy? So this is a weapon?"

"No, it's an auxiliary energy source for research facilities, usually used to provide instant 'ignition' for devices that consume a lot of energy, such as rainbow lenses or something," Gawain shrugged. "In Gondor's time, magic power could Not only for fighting - although this is indeed one of its important functions, magic can do many, many things at the same time. In fact, in my opinion, what mages should really do is to use their knowledge and magic in this kind of research.”

"Research..." Heidi muttered in disbelief.

She is no stranger to the word research. Mages have always been synonymous with researchers. They study the mysteries of magic and analyze the rules of runes. They are most proud of their work, but no matter what kind of research it is, the ultimate goal will come down to how A mage who can improve his spellcasting ability but cannot improve his own spellcasting ability will be regarded as a poor researcher.

Hetty instinctively felt that the "research" Gawain was talking about might not be the same as the research that he was familiar with.

This old ancestor always seems to be accustomed to looking at a very far and wide angle. He always mentions "universality" and "mass production", while the mages specialize in themselves and even deliberately isolate each other. Research seems to be running counter to his line of thinking.

Hetty shook her head and threw the irrelevant thoughts in her mind aside. She heard Knight Byron asking, "Ma'am, did the magic reaction come from this place?"

Heidi felt it for a while and shook his head: "No, but it's very close."

"Write down this place," Gawain said, "this ancient device has been completely scrapped, and there is no need to consider repairs - but it can remove at least half a ton of mithril, seven or eight tons of obsidian, and a lot of essence. Gold and copper and purple steel."

"Wait a minute..." Heidi shuddered and stared at Gawain, "Ancestor... Are you going to dismantle this ancient magical device of infinite value?!"

"Otherwise?" Gawain glanced at her, "This thing needs ultra-high-purity magic power to 'ignite', and now there is no corresponding magic power purification technology. And even if there is energy, this thing is put here for a thousand Years later, the structure inside it has long been rotten, and repairing it is no easier than building one."

Heidi was stunned for a while, with a strange expression on his face: "You may not have felt it since 700 years ago, but this thing is an antique..."

Gawain shook his face: "This thing was also an antique before I died - but we have to start from its practical value. It has no value at all. Only when it is melted can it be reborn."

After hearing Gawain say this, Hetty realized that it was useless to say anything, so she had to nod her head in pain.

It is said that the cub does not feel distressed when he sells his farmland, but when he sells his own farmland, he doesn't seem to feel much distressed...

The discovery of the magic focusing device meant that it was very close to the deep research facility, and thinking about the magic reaction Hetty had sensed before, the target was most likely a research device that was still in operation.

Gawain quietly activated the knight's "Danger Perception" skill to be prepared for any possible magic traps or ancient radiation here.

On the way on, he casually asked Hetty: "By the way, I heard they call you Madam and not Miss or Madam—are you married? Where's your husband?"

He has been curious about this question for a long time, but he never found a chance to ask.

Heidi was stunned for a moment, but it was normal for the ancestors to care about their marriage, and replied: "I am not married, but I converted to the goddess of magic Miermina when I was an adult, and gave up my right of inheritance in the form of faith conversion. , so that the inheritance rights can be left to Rebecca's father. According to the law of the nobility, women who give up their inheritance rights by conversion of faith and come of age are considered married, that is, dedicated to the faith. Originally, I could retain the title of nobility and become a A hereditary baroness, but the territory was difficult that year, so I sold this title... um, to a merchant..."

Gawain nodded, "Oh" to show his understanding, and at the same time the information of the goddess of magic Miermina also came to his mind.

Miermina, the goddess of magic, also known as the God of All Laws, the Lady of Mysteries, is believed to rule over the power of magic, and is the teacher of the world's first dragon and first elves - hence the legend The dragon language magic and the existing elven magic are also created by her. Unlike other gods, Miermina is not a "strong belief in a god", but more like a "symbolic god".

She can say that she has no formal religion and belief system, and almost all spellcasting professions are her "shallow believers", but only less than one percent of the mages convert to this deity in the form of formal believers, which is probably the same as spellcasting. People generally like to explore mysteries and lack the fear of God.

And many of the one percent of believers, like Hetty, converted simply to justify renunciation of inheritance or something similar.

Princess Veronica of the Ansu Royal Family converted to the God of Holy Light in a similar way, but Her Royal Highness was not as poor as the descendants of the Cecil family to the point where even the noble status had to be sold at a low price. So she can still be called a princess (or equivalent priesthood) today.

And Hetty was a little uneasy after answering her answer. She was mainly worried about two things: one was whether Cecil's humiliating descendants would make the ancestors angry if Cecil had to sell the title of aristocrat to make a living, and the other One is whether he will make the ancestors angry if he is so old and still not married, especially the second one - in case Gawain turns his head and says, "Why are you not married, when are you going to get married, look at that. What about XXX?" What should I do if I urge marriage for three consecutive times?

Mom, the ancestors urging marriage 700 years ago are much more stressful than parents urging marriage!

This even made Hetty less worried about whether he would be beaten for selling his title of nobility...

In the end, Gawain really just asked casually, oh well, he didn't write any more.

And Heidi's cranky thoughts didn't last long, because she finally sensed that the magic reaction was just ahead.