Chapter 145: Ancient Testing Ground

Soon enough, Gawain was led by Byron to the Dark Range’s ancient fortress where the front lines of the exploration were at.

This place was already close to the middle levels of the ancient fortress. It was an achievement after consecutive days of hard labor from Byron and his exploration team. The room was connected to the upper levels with large stairs; it was spacious inside and had a high ceiling. To create such a spacious room within the mountain was truly a difficult task. Since the creator chose this scale, it would mean that this area required such a large space.

Even the corridors had added height, so did the doors and rooms.

Gawain picked up a map and used the illumination from the magic crystal lifted by Heidi and checked the routes on the map. Sir Byron had done his task dutifully and completed the map of this area. Gawain could clearly see from the map that there were plenty of leveled corridors and rooms. Some of the rooms and forks were annotated with a special marking to indicate there were unknown things there or suspicious side paths. It was obvious that even after exploring for several days, Sir Byron and his group weren’t able to figure out the size of this astonishingly massive ancient fortress.

Exactly how deranged was the scale of this place?

Currently, Gawain, Heidi, Amber, Byron, and a large group of soldiers had already arrived at the special room. Byron pointed at the large door and the control mechanism that had already been cleared out. “Your Excellency, we discovered this place purely due to chance. The door was originally sealed, but there is a crack, probably due to the many years of neglect, leading to an airflow that we detected. The mechanism at the side should be already faulty. Its recognition function is already ineffective, and anyone can activate it.”

“Even the creations of the Gondor Empire aren’t able to survive through the millennium…” Gawain let out a sigh and said, “Demonstrate for me to see.”

Byron nodded and took off his glove before putting his hand on the metallic device. There was a distorted voice that came from the device: “Detecting… Specimen subject… Stable period… Access granted. Opening isolation door…”

After the creaking sounds of the machine, the ancient isolation door embedded in the wall was gradually opening.

“Just like this, and the doors will open. Afterward, it doesn’t matter if anyone enters or not, the door will automatically close after five minutes. Or you can hit this pillar twice to close the doors. There is also the same device on the other side,” Byron explained in greater detail.

Subsequently, two soldiers walked across the door, and the device made a similar sound and informed them the isolation door was already opened.

It seemed like it would go through a useless recognition process on everyone who made contact with the device and deemed them as stable specimen subjects.

But Gawain couldn’t help but frown. He was in a deep contemplation after hearing the device saying the words ‘specimen subject’.

“This thing can actually talk!” Amber developed an interest in the device and ran over to do the same thing by putting her hand on the metallic pillar. She then spoke in high spirits, “I heard that the elves and the warlocks can also create talking magical puppets, but I have never…”

“Detecting… Warning. Not qualified. Indistinguishable target. Passageway closing. Alarm activated.”

Along with the harsh and cold voice, the isolation door rapidly closed after a loud nose. Amber stood at the side of the device with a dazed expression and said, “Hey… I didn’t do anything?!”

After the so-called ‘alarm activated’, Gawain immediately placed his hands on the hilt of the Sword of Pioneers. After waiting for half a minute, he still didn’t hear any commotion; therefore, he relaxed. It seems like most of the functions in this facility have already stopped. This door is probably operating independently and wouldn’t issue any alarm.

Byron, Heidi, and others were shocked by the sudden change of events. They had all drawn their weapons as though they were about to face enemies. Heidi let out a breath of relief after they verified that no ancient traps were activated. She then looked at the metallic device with astonishment and asked, “What is going on? Why didn’t it work when Amber touched it?”

“Don’t bother about that first.” Gawain pushed Amber aside and placed his hand on the metallic pillar. “We need to check if this thing still works.”

As a result, the old door device echoed with the voice that said the detection had passed, allowing the isolation to open up once again.

“…This door is shameless!” Amber hopped up and down furiously and said, “Why is it fine when others touch it, but the doors will close when I touch it?!”

“I can roughly guess what went wrong…” Gawain frowned while he made a bold conjecture based on the responses from the door. “This recognition device probably isn’t faulty.”

Amber had a face of disbelief and asked, “It isn’t faulty? Why can anyone open it if it isn’t faulty?”

“This door’s security settings might not be as strict as I initially imagined. Its function is to ensure that only ‘normal people’ go through the door.” Gawain frowned and said, “Do you remember that Nicholas Egg mentioning something? This facility used to conduct research suspected to be for human-body experiments. When the device said ‘specimen subject’, it probably referred to living people. As for the so-called ‘stable period’… it probably checks if there are any mutations or anything that is out of control. It means to say that only normal people can pass through this door.”

“Then why can’t I enter?” Amber had wide eyes as she said, “I am rather normal!”

Gawain sized up Amber before asking, “Are you a normal human? Don’t even talk about normal. Are you human?”

Amber’s sharp ears twitched as she commented, “…Alright, it makes sense.”

The others had also nodded with pensive expressions, and it seemed like Gawain’s explanation had obtained everyone’s approval. However, after Gawain finished his explanation, he went into a deep contemplation.

Was the situation really so simple? Was this door just to prevent the escape of any test subjects they lost control of? Could it have other restrictions?

It was unknown why when Gawain heard the system’s harsh and cold voice, he couldn’t help but feel an extremely faint but very realistic sensation of hatred and conflict. Gawain searched through his memory but wasn’t able to find the source of this negative emotion.

It didn’t matter what was behind this door, he had to enter.

They found out that Amber was only unable to go through the door’s detection device, but if she followed behind others, it wouldn’t activate the alarm. Gawain then led the team into the space behind the door.

They went through a corridor that was constructed with unknown metal. On the two sides of the corridor, there were rows of metallic pillars that Gawain couldn’t help but associate with sterilization devices or something to eliminate static electricity. At the end of the corridor was another opened isolation door. On the other side of the isolation door was a circular hall.

The hall was constructed with man-made materials. The white paint on the walls might already have dust and have dropped off, but everyone could still imagine this hall during the olden days when it was bright and spacious. After taking a glance in the hall, one could see a large number of pipings and metallic pillars that were arranged along the wall and connecting with ancient magical devices. These devices extended out with another kind of pipe that all gathered towards the center of the hall. There were over a dozen objects of strange shapes.

They were on metallic pedestals, and above the pedestals were transparent tube-like structures that were used to breed organisms. On the top of the tube-like structure, there was a visibly heavy lid. That lid was fully covered with runes and magic circles, but all the runes had already been extinguished.

Gawain was slightly dazzled by the scene in front of him that he wasn’t sure was magical or science fiction. However, Gawain Cecil’s memories related to the glorious era of the Gondor Empire had swiftly reduced the unwell feelings in his heart.

Looking at these neatly arranged devices, Gawain could almost imagine that these vessels were once filled with biomass solvent, and each of them would have an experimental subject submerged within it. In the surroundings of the vessels would be the empire’s Master Mages walking around busily. They would be recording all sorts of data from the specimens in the vessels and would occasionally use spells to stimulate the specimens inside. They would use a near inhuman and cold attitude to deal with those ‘test subjects’ that were of the same race as them.

Human body experiments during the Gondor Empire era weren’t considered a rare thing, and it was even more common in the Anzu Kingdom.

“It is truly unimaginable…” Heidi had an intoxicated expression while looking at those mysterious, ancient magical devices. Those neatly arranged runes and intricate metallic structures had made her extremely amazed. “Such complex rune combinations… such seamless assembly… such uniformed components… How did they do it?!”

“These runes were making use of the endless energy from the Well of Deep Blue. They had accumulated all these experimental data while disregarding consumption, and these components…” Gawain looked at the magical equipment that already resembled industrial equipment and let out a light sigh. “These types of equipment required thousands of technical craftsmen, over twenty kinds of fundamental workshops, an entire set of complicated production machines, and at least a thousand standard parameters, along with the entire empire’s technological support.”

Heidi was rather despondent as she said, “…We actually left behind such advanced technology… Were we really unable to preserve them back then?”

Gawain sighed and said, “Back then, Anzu Kingdom’s first-generation pioneers were working hard to restore these things when they were still alive. However, the data that we retrieved wasn’t enough to restore even 5% of the things. The industrial chain was severed, and a bunch of semi-literate people from the borders wasn’t able to compensate for the loss even after studying those blueprints for a decade. Furthermore, the conditions back then didn’t allow anyone to spare time for research. The first-generation pioneers had to spend 90% of their effort into production work, to ensure that the number of people starving to death wouldn’t exceed the birth rate…”

Gawain then shook his head while saying, “But as compared to this, the most important reason is because we lost the Well of Deep Blue. The Well of Deep Blue supplied a massive amount of pure energy and would reduce the huge operational requirements of countless magical equipment. If the same equipment was put into other magical environments, it might not even operate. It was fine for those fundamental and simple things, but complicated and high-grade equipment would be completely useless when situated away from the Well of Deep Blue.”

Amber listened to Gawain and was suddenly moved as she asked, “Is that why you emphasized the interchangeable and adaptable functions?”

“A magical industry using the support of the Well of Deep Blue shouldn’t be considered a true industrialization.” Gawain said something casually that no one understood. He laughed after looking at the surroundings. “Instead of talking about all these things, it is better to look through the pleasant surprises that this ancient testing ground has left for us.”

He scanned all the breeding vessels, control platforms, magic-guided pedestals, and sensors that had a history of a thousand years. He finally looked at the surface of the wall in the vicinity and couldn’t help but freeze.

There were large writings that were written in the ancient common language:

“Humankind shall last forever… Even if we defied the gods.”

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