Chapter 113: Arrtefacts and machinery (1/2)
”Just what the hell does that mean?” Layn asked himself while watching how the corpse of the monster started to float upwards before dissapearing in the darkness of the deep water. The light of this entire structure could keep it visible only for so far, yet it was long enough for the waters to suddenly fill with previously hidden monsters.
All at once, a swarm of seaborn creatures threw themselves at the corpse, quickly turning it into their meal. By the time it dissapeared from Layn's eyes, it consisted of no more but few spare chunks of meat hanging to the chewed-up bones.
”Did they fry its core or something?” Inspired by the sight, Layn attempted to uncover the secret of this wonder. At the same time, a doubt appeared in his head. 'If that's how this entire facility works, then shutting it down could result in a natural disaster, couldn't it?' the archmage pondered, trying to figure out how big of an impact this seemingly infinite factory of fresh meat would impact the flora and fauna of the massive lake.
Unable to find the answers just by standing besides the window, Layn turned around. When he first came here, he traced the production from the first step to the last one, hoping to understand what it was all aimed for. But now, it was time to do things in reverse.
'There needs to be some sort of certal powering system, that I can say for sure,' Layn thought. Moving back to the begining of the stone-creation process, Layn had to spend quite a while to figure out the connections between machines and other elements of the structure before he finally found where the main compartment was.
”What the hell,” Layn muttered when he finally found out a way to push a small hatch open. Because what was inside the small room he entered, was way beyond anything he could imagine.
”Blackstone, heavenly arc, and is that… No fucking way,” Layn could only recognise specific artefacts amongst an entire sea of different items. Yet, just the few that he could recognise were already valuable enough to push the entire modern nation into war for it.
”Should I dismantle this machinery or not?” Layn asked himself in a low voice, watching how every single precious element of set in front of him operated in a perfect harmony with other elements.
Just the single blackstone would be enough for Layn to never worry about lack of magical energy again. Given how it was the prime material one would use when playing around the fussion magic, he could easily turn it into the source of power for him, Irea and all the future disciples he would take.
'But what will happen if I destroy it?' Layn reached forward, only for the hesitation to stop his hand right before he could touch the stone.
For a moment, Layn didn't dare to touch the complicated machinery or any of the precious artefacts embeeded in it.
”Wait, what am I even hesitating for?” Layn suddenly asked himself, killing all his doubts from before. ”It's not like it will be here in the future, so what does it matter if it falls apart a bit earlier than it shoudl?” Layn asked as he shook his head. Then, without any further reservation, he reached for the artefacts…
Only to stop his hand again.
”No, I can't be too hasty,” Layn told himself, trying to mute the worry about the Irea while at it. ”It won't do any good if I start some kind of disasterous chain reaction,” he muttered, trying to figure out the way in which the entire machinery worked.
From the looks of things, the blackstone wasn't even the source of power for the entire structure, but a measly pacifying agent. Just like one would use it in magical reactor, the surges of wild magic from the heavenly arc infused itself into the blackstone, bringing its reactivity all the way to the lower limit of what it could sustain.
Choked by the insufficient amount of energy entering it, the blackstone could only output stable energy at a pretty low rate when compared to what it actually could when used properly. In other words, rather than making use of its reactivity to create magic energy, the unknown constructor of this structure used it as a stabilizing agent, as a way to turn wild fluxes of mana into a stable stream of it.
”It seems taking the black stone could easily lead to the entire mechanism colapsing on itself,” Layn muttered under his nose as he continued to inspect the innerworkings of the mechanism.
The stable energy from the blackstone moved through the crystal circuts towards another artefact that Layn didn't recognise. 'I can't even tell what its doing… or wait,' Layn was unable to figure out just what was happening inside the artefact or what was the idea behind its work, but he was still capable of comparing the inputted stream of magic with the one that was outputed by it.
And there was a single, tiny difference between the two.
When the magic was entering the cubic-shaped container, it was thin. But when it was moving out of the item, it appeared to be condensed to the point where the crystal circuit could barely hold it in!
Yet, it wasn't even the most intriquing point.