Chapter 1060: On Elements

Gawain thought to himself: any normal person, upon seeing some supersonic object slam into someone’s head, would hardly respond with a casual “Are you okay?” Even if the one getting hit was a sea witch who could come back to life after death, that kind of reaction would be unusual. Yet Rebecca managed to say exactly that—and what was even more remarkable was that everyone present found it perfectly normal. That was impressive, to say the least…

“Not everyone’s head is as tough as yours,” Gawain sighed, noticing the awkward atmosphere and trying to smooth things over. “That runaway acceleration device basically knocked Tyr back into the room and revived him…”

“Ah!” Rebecca finally caught on and hurriedly apologized to Tyr. “Sorry, this is all our fault…”

“It’s fine,” Tyr waved her off. “Honestly, I barely even realized what happened. But, on the other hand, this thing you made is pretty dangerous. If it had hit somewhere else, the trouble would’ve been a lot worse…”

“Yes, dangerous,” Gawain said seriously, looking at Rebecca. Although Tyr had said it was okay, seeing the mess around them made it clear this was a serious incident. “Even though no one was seriously hurt this time, this is still a major experimental accident. Proper procedures must be followed. After the cleanup, you need to compile a full report on responsibility and the accident itself, and promptly address any hidden risks in the related processes.”

Rebecca shrank back slightly but nodded as she listened. When Gawain finished, she cautiously said, “Understood, Your Majesty…”

Gawain exhaled. He knew that while this girl could be careless at times, she wouldn’t mess up when it really mattered. After giving instructions on handling the accident, he turned his attention back to the experiment itself—

Despite the serious mishap, there was no denying that Rebecca and her team had created something astonishing after all their hard work.

They had broken through the missile speed limit—a problem that had long plagued countless scholars. But if it was just breaking the missile speed limit, why had it caused such massive destruction on site?

Gawain’s first thought went to the acceleration device that had flown off: the key clues had to be on that device.

“Have you found the acceleration device yet?” Gawain asked Rebecca. “It should have landed somewhere near the Whitewater River.”

“We’ve already sent people to search,” Rebecca replied quickly. “We’ve also notified the patrol teams near the river and the security posts across the bank. Before you arrived, we got a report that a deep crater, likely caused by a high-speed impact, was found on the riverbank. By now, they should have—”

Before she could finish, a young lab assistant came running over at full speed, shouting excitedly, “Your Highness! Your Highness! They found the acceleration device! It’s being brought here now!”

Rebecca didn’t celebrate immediately. Instead, she asked anxiously, “What about the site? How’s the impact crater and the surrounding surface? Has anything been disturbed? And why did they just bring it back without waiting…?”

“Well,” the young assistant said, calming down from his excitement and looking a bit embarrassed, “the device was found by a dike patrol team on the north bank. The incident happened suddenly, and since the patrol is mostly volunteers, they don’t really understand the technical details… By the time they were notified to hand it over, they had already dug it out. But the people who went to retrieve it reported that the damage at the site wasn’t severe. The patrol was careful during excavation and didn’t recklessly clear the surface.”

“…Alright,” Rebecca sighed. “That’s good news, at least. Anyway, remind them to protect the site. I’ll come take a look myself later. And the patrol was just trying to help—no blame. We’ll thank them properly later…”

As she spoke, she muttered to herself, “Looks like we need to spread some knowledge about this. At least the patrols and sheriffs should know to protect the scene when they find suspicious objects, report immediately to superiors, and avoid digging or moving things recklessly…”

Listening to Rebecca’s muttering, Gawain couldn’t help but smile, then shook his head. “Anyway, it’s good they found the device… Let’s clean up this place roughly first. It’ll take some time to transport the device from the Whitewater River. Meanwhile, find a suitable intact room and get the analysis equipment ready—the acceleration device caused such massive damage, and even left a strange mark in the air that hasn’t disappeared yet. It must hold a lot of clues.”

…

The people at Test Site One didn’t have to wait long. Soon, a mage-tech research institute vehicle rolled up along the main road to the lab—though the rubble beside the lab was only half cleared. Security personnel and several technicians carefully unloaded the acceleration device, which was tightly wrapped in wooden crates and soft cloth, and immediately took it to a side building on the lab’s south side. There, Rebecca and her technical team had hastily prepared a room for analysis and testing.

The large room was brightly lit, with fresh, clean air flowing in from the ventilation system on the side wall. Gawain stood by the long lab bench with Tyr and Amber, watching as two young, strong assistant researchers carefully opened the wooden crate on the floor and transferred its contents onto the table.

Dozens of eyes instantly focused on the object’s surface.

It was a piece of metal, badly burned and eroded beyond recognition. It was roughly cylindrical, less than a meter long, and pitch black. It might once have been smooth and polished, but now its surface was pockmarked and resembled porous volcanic rock.

Gawain immediately noticed the pits and holes that looked as if something had etched them out. After a brief look, his brow furrowed: at first glance, these marks seemed like typical burn damage from high heat, which would be expected after such an experiment. But then he realized… at twice the missile speed limit, and in such a short time, this metal shouldn’t have been so severely burned.

Sure enough, as he pondered this, an elderly scholar nearby muttered in confusion, “This doesn’t make sense… how did it get burned like this…?”

Hearing the scholar’s doubt, Gawain turned to Rebecca. “How much heat and impact is the acceleration device supposed to withstand?”

“The device is forged from a mithril and secret silver alloy, with elemental enchantments on the surface,” Rebecca answered immediately, her face equally puzzled. “We designed it to endure high temperatures, so theoretically it could remain stable even submerged in lava for a long time. Normally, it can only be reforged under specific frequencies of arcane energy. Burning it like this with normal heat… it’s not impossible, but the temperature required isn’t something ordinary flames can reach. Could it be… that after exceeding the missile speed limit, the temperature the object experiences is even higher than lava…?”

No one could answer Rebecca’s question. Since the dawn of human history, no one had ever accelerated any physical object to such speeds. Beyond the missile speed limit was an unknown frontier—no one could imagine what changes or phenomena matter would undergo at that velocity. In this, Gawain, the “transcender,” and the local scholars were on equal footing.

The technicians gathered around the mangled acceleration device, while several mage-technicians began casting various spells to test its properties. After some brief observation and analysis, one technician seemed to have made a discovery and said thoughtfully, “These marks… aren’t just from heat erosion. Look here—the metal inside the gaps isn’t melted or resolidified. It looks like a neat section of the structure was cut away. And these holes—there’s no sign of melting either. It’s as if the metal… evaporated directly.”

Rebecca leaned in for a closer look, then said with some surprise, “It really does look that way!”

Listening to the experts’ discussion, Gawain, who wasn’t a complete outsider to magic, began to form a vague idea and couldn’t help but say, “So, this isn’t just heat damage. Most of these marks look more like… elemental corrosion?”

“Yes, elemental corrosion and evaporation,” an elderly scholar pointed to the pockmarked surface. “See these areas? The metal structure is only slightly deformed, which means the temperature wasn’t high enough to cause widespread melting. These missing parts aren’t burned away—they seem to have been completely corroded by elements, then evaporated from the physical world.”

“Elemental corrosion and evaporation…” Gawain rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I know about elemental evaporation. According to ancient Gondorian scholars, pure elemental matter, when stimulated, can rapidly return from the physical world to its corresponding elemental plane. During this process, it briefly opens a portal to the elemental realm and releases enormous energy… enormous energy…”

He couldn’t help but think of the shocking explosion debris beside the main lab building, and the strange lingering mark in the air.

“So that’s why the acceleration device caused such widespread destruction?” Rebecca mused. “It triggered elemental evaporation after surpassing the missile speed limit? And the mark left in the air is the trace of a briefly opened elemental rift?”

“That’s our preliminary hypothesis,” Gawain nodded. “But even if we confirm elemental evaporation occurred, we still need to understand how—why a simple alloy, when accelerated beyond the missile speed limit, triggers this phenomenon. What exactly is it interacting with at such speeds? Does everything evaporate like this when accelerated to that velocity? Would going faster or slower change the effect?”

Gawain’s rapid-fire questions came one after another, but Rebecca and the technicians were used to it—their emperor was intensely curious and approached the lab like a true researcher. Even they were fascinated by the questions he raised.

Amber stood beside Gawain but had been mentally drifting for a while. The technical jargon was like an unreadable book to her; no amount of crash studying over a year or two could fill that gap. She listened blankly and finally poked Tyr, whispering, “Do you understand any of this?”

Tyr looked at her as if it were obvious. “Of course. It’s actually pretty easy to follow. Although sea witches don’t really get your land magic system, at least in terms of elements and conventional physics, there’s a lot of overlap in our understanding.”

Amber: “…”

Gawain, standing nearby, overheard the conversation between Tyr and Amber. Suddenly, he turned to look at Miss Siren. “Speaking of elemental domains, I remember that you sirens are essentially elemental beings, right?”

“That’s right,” Tyr flicked the tip of his tail. “Strictly speaking, we could even be classified as ‘water elementals’—though, of course, we’re far more advanced than them.”

“Do you happen to know if there’s any connection between elemental steam phenomena and the speed of flying objects?” Gawain asked, curious.

“We’ve never really encountered that,” Tyr sighed, a hint of self-mockery in his voice. “All our high-speed vessels have long since stopped working. The only ones still operational are some low-efficiency transports. We once had a ship capable of navigating the stars, but nowadays… when it comes to speed, sirens aren’t any better than you.”

“I see…” Gawain said, a touch disappointed, then his gaze drifted back to the lab table.

There lay the twisted, warped acceleration device, pockmarked and battered, silently resting. The pitch-black metal cylinder seemed to hold locked-away knowledge in its stillness.

Behind the missile’s speed limits, there appeared to be even greater secrets—secrets that might remain unsolved for a long time. Yet, many technologies don’t require full understanding of every related mystery before they can be applied. Given the current stage, what practical use could Rebecca and her research team’s achievement possibly have?

…

Far to the north of the continent of Loren, deep beneath the cold, endless ocean, a faint, hazy glow drifted in the dark seabed.

Figures with serpentine tails and humanoid torsos moved swiftly and silently near the ocean floor. Floating orbs of light surrounded them, illuminating the darkness below.

As the group advanced, the water currents ahead grew turbulent. The number of fish in the area noticeably thinned. Strange, translucent, ice-like fissures appeared in the surrounding waters, causing the entire group to slow their pace.

“Lady Cassandra,” a naga wielding a trident quickened her pace to reach the siren at the front. Her hoarse voice rippled through the water. “There seem to be many elemental rifts here.”

“That’s odd… why would the Prime Material Plane have so many elemental rifts?” Cassandra frowned. “Tch, this isn’t a good sign. I don’t want to deal with primitive water elementals in such a desolate, remote place.”

She looked up toward the dark, unfathomable depths ahead.

“Speed up. Let’s cut straight through this stretch of ocean.”

(End of chapter)