Chapter 145: The Ancient Testing Grounds

Before long, under Byron’s guidance, Gawain arrived at the forefront of the exploration into the Dark Mountains ruins.

They had reached a section near the middle tier of the ruins—a hard-won achievement after several days of painstaking work by Byron’s team. This area connected to the upper levels via a grand staircase and featured a far more expansive space with soaring ceilings. Constructing such a vast chamber inside a mountain was no small feat; the builders must have deliberately designed this area to be so spacious for a specific purpose.

Every corridor here was taller than usual, and all the doors and rooms followed suit.

Gawain pulled out a map, using the glow from the magical crystal Heddy held to study the marked routes. Byron had meticulously charted the explored sections, revealing numerous straight corridors and rooms. Some rooms and branching paths bore special symbols indicating unknown objects or suspicious passages. Clearly, even after days of exploration, Byron’s team still hadn’t grasped the full staggering scale of this colossal ruin.

Just how insanely massive was this place?

Now, Gawain, Heddy, Amber, Byron, and a sizable group of soldiers stood before a particular room. Byron pointed to a large door and its control mechanism that had been cleared of debris. “My lord, our discovery was pure luck. This door was originally sealed shut, but over time, wear and tear created a gap, allowing airflow that we detected. The control device beside it seems broken—its recognition function is offline, so anyone can activate it.”

“Even the creations of the Gondor Empire can’t withstand a thousand years…” Gawain sighed softly. “Show me how it works.”

Byron nodded, removed his gloves, and placed his hand on the metal device. A distorted voice crackled from within: “Detection… sample tester… stable phase… access granted. Opening isolation door…”

With creaks and groans of ancient machinery, the old isolation door embedded in the wall slowly swung open.

“As long as this happens, the door will open, then close automatically within five minutes regardless of passage. Or if you tap this pillar twice in quick succession, the door will close immediately. There’s a similar device on the other side of the corridor,” Byron explained in detail.

Two soldiers stepped forward and tried it themselves. The device responded with the same voice, confirming the door’s opening.

It seemed to identify anyone touching the device as a “stable sample tester,” rendering identity verification meaningless.

But Gawain frowned. The phrase “sample tester” lingered in his mind, stirring deep thoughts.

“This thing actually talks!” Amber, intrigued, mimicked Byron and placed her hand on the metal pillar’s top, eyes sparkling. “I’ve heard elves and wizards can create talking magical constructs, but I’ve never seen one myself…”

“Detection… warning, qualification mismatch, unrecognized target, corridor closing, alarm activated.”

The cold, mechanical voice rang out, and with a loud clang, the isolation door slammed shut again, leaving Amber standing there utterly baffled. “Hey… I didn’t do anything!”

At the moment the alarm sounded, Gawain instinctively placed his hand on the hilt of the Sword of the Pioneer. Half a minute passed with no further disturbance, and he relaxed slightly. It seemed most of the facility’s functions had long since ceased, and this door operated independently—it probably didn’t trigger any real alarms.

Byron and Heddy were startled by the sudden event, drawing their weapons and taking defensive stances. Only after confirming no ancient traps had been triggered did Heddy exhale in relief, staring at the metal device in astonishment. “What’s going on? Why did Amber’s touch cause this?”

“Don’t worry about that for now,” Gawain said, pulling Amber aside. He placed his hand on the pillar again. The device’s voice returned, granting access, and the isolation door creaked open once more.

“This door’s got some nerve!” Amber bounced excitedly. “Why does it close only when I touch it? Everyone else can open it just fine!”

“I think I know what’s going on…” Gawain frowned, piecing together clues from the device’s reactions. “This verification system might not be broken after all.”

Amber looked skeptical. “Not broken? Then why can anyone open it?”

“The door’s security settings probably aren’t as strict as I first thought. Its purpose is simply to ensure that those passing through are ‘normal humans,’” Gawain explained. “Remember what Nicholas once said? This facility was used for what seemed like human experimentation. So the ‘sample tester’ likely refers to living humans, and ‘stable phase’ probably means no mutations or uncontrollable conditions. In other words, any ordinary, healthy person can pass through.”

“Then why can’t I?” Amber’s eyes widened. “I’m perfectly normal!”

Gawain gave her a once-over. “Are you a normal human? Forget normal—are you even human?”

Amber’s pointed ears twitched. “…Okay, fair point.”

The others nodded thoughtfully, accepting Gawain’s explanation. Yet he himself was left with lingering doubts.

Was it really that simple? Was this door only designed to keep runaway test subjects contained? Could there be other filtering mechanisms?

For some reason, the door’s cold, mechanical voice stirred a faint but unmistakable sense of aversion and resistance within him. He searched his memories but found no clear source for this negative feeling.

Regardless of what lay beyond the door, he had to go in.

After confirming Amber’s inability to use the verification device wouldn’t trigger any alarms if she followed behind others, Gawain led the team through the open door.

They passed down a corridor built from an unknown metal. Rows of metal pillars lined the sides, reminding Gawain of sterilization or anti-static devices. At the corridor’s end stood another open isolation door, beyond which lay a circular hall.

The hall was constructed from artificial materials. Though the white paint on the walls was dusty and peeling, it still evoked the brightness and spaciousness the room must have once possessed. Around the perimeter, numerous ancient magical devices were arranged along the walls, connected by pipes or metal columns. These conduits all converged at the center of the hall, where a dozen or so strange objects stood.

Each rested on a metal base topped with a transparent, tube-like structure resembling a biological incubation chamber. Heavy lids adorned with intricate runes and magic circles sealed the tops—though all the runes had long since gone dark.

The scene, caught somewhere between fantasy and science fiction, momentarily dazed Gawain. But memories of Gondor’s glorious past quickly eased his sense of dissonance.

Looking at the orderly array of devices, Gawain could almost picture the chambers once filled with biological solvents, each containing a test subject. Around them, imperial mages busied themselves, recording data and occasionally stimulating the samples with spells, treating these test subjects—who were of their own kind—with a cold, inhuman detachment.

Human experimentation was not uncommon in the Gondor Empire’s heyday, nor was it rare in today’s Ansar Kingdom.

“It’s incredible…” Heddy gazed at the mysterious ancient magical devices with a hint of awe. “Such complex rune combinations… such precise assembly… such uniform components… How did they manage this?!”

“These runes were powered by the endless energy of the Deep Blue Well, poured into experimental data without restraint. And these parts…” Gawain sighed softly, eyeing the devices that already bore the marks of industrial design. “They required thousands of skilled craftsmen, over twenty foundational workshops, a complete set of complex production processes, thousands of standard parameters, and the entire empire’s technological infrastructure.”

Heddy was momentarily lost in thought. “…We really lost such advanced technology? Couldn’t preserve any of it back then?”

Gawain shook his head. “The first generation of Ansar pioneers tried desperately to recreate these things in their lifetimes, but the data we salvaged was barely enough to restore half. The industrial chain was broken. A group of semi-illiterate refugees from the frontier struggled for ten years just to understand the blueprints, let alone rebuild a single link. And at the time, no one could afford to devote themselves fully to research—the first generation had to spend ninety percent of their energy on production just to keep starvation from outpacing births…”

He shook his head again. “But more importantly, we lost the Deep Blue Well. The immense, pure energy it provided drastically lowered the operational requirements of many magical devices. The same devices placed in other magical environments might not function at all. The simplest ones are one thing, but the more complex and advanced the device, the more completely it fails without the Deep Blue Well.”

Amber, listening, suddenly seemed to understand. “So that’s why you value universality and adaptability so much?”

“Magic industrialization powered by the Deep Blue Well isn’t true industrialization,” Gawain said casually, uttering words the others probably didn’t fully grasp. Then he smiled and looked around. “But enough talk—let’s see what surprises this ancient testing ground still holds for us.”

His gaze swept over the thousand-year-old incubation chambers, control consoles, magical bases, and sensors, finally settling on a nearby wall. His eyes narrowed.

There, written in large characters in the ancient human lingua franca, was a single line:

Humanity shall endure—
Even in defiance of the gods.

(End of chapter)