Chapter 65: Ancient Facilities

Another hour passed, and the group continued to press forward through the seemingly endless corridors and passageways.

The scale of this millennia-old facility far exceeded Gawain’s expectations.

Even during Gondor’s peak “Age of the Starfire,” the empire rarely constructed complexes of this magnitude—especially ones that combined both military fortress and research functions. Its size was well beyond what Gawain had imagined. It appeared they had hollowed out an entire mountainside to build it, and as the ramps and stairways descended deeper, Gawain began to suspect it wasn’t just one mountain they’d excavated.

The faint magical energy readings remained steady but weak. With so many branching paths and corridors, Hetty’s guidance had become unreliable. She could only estimate a general direction and relied on divination spells like spirit summoning to choose which fork to take. Even so, the group had taken several wrong turns and stumbled upon numerous dead ends.

Though Sir Byron had been marking their trail and Hetty had traced magical signs to serve as waypoints, the prolonged exploration of this ancient ruin was starting to unsettle the soldiers. Noticing their unease, Byron approached Gawain. “My lord, if we keep going deeper, we risk getting lost. Everyone’s sense of direction is completely off.”

Gawain frowned. He had considered the possibility of getting lost, but he was more confident than the others—his eidetic memory as a satellite spirit was proving invaluable. He had memorized nearly every detail of each fork along the way, and a rough mental map was forming in his mind. Still, these abilities were hard to explain, and even if he did, it wouldn’t necessarily reassure the others.

After all, this place was just too vast.

If only Amber were here… At least she could be sent ahead to scout, and since she could slip through the Shadow Realm and was skilled at sneaking and lockpicking, she wouldn’t get trapped in the ruins like ordinary people—she had already proven that in the ancestral tomb of the Cecil family.

This time, Gawain was seriously considering it.

Unfortunately, Amber was absent, so he shook his head. “Your concerns are valid. Let’s go a bit further, make a few more marks, then return—whether or not we find anything. We can come back next time.”

Though the lord hadn’t ordered an immediate retreat, Gawain’s ambiguous statement seemed to ease the soldiers’ nerves, as if they’d been given some assurance. The group steeled themselves and pressed onward once more.

After descending a flight of stairs, they entered another hall. This one contained more than before: several massive obsidian rectangular blocks were neatly arranged around the room, like stone tablets set against the walls. Beneath each block extended numerous metal conduits or “rails,” all converging toward the center of the hall, where a strange hemispherical device sat.

Gawain frowned and approached the device. Wearing iron gauntlets, he rubbed the surface a few times, scraping away some of the black-gray oxidation to reveal the silvery metal beneath.

“What is this?” Hetty asked, curiosity piqued. The fixtures in this room were clearly “fixed installations,” which were rare in this ruin. The obsidian and metal connections gave her a strange magical intuition.

“A mana focusing array—though I’d rather call it a magical capacitor,” Gawain said, invoking knowledge long lost in this era, mixed with some baffling terminology. “These obsidian blocks connect to the mana wells in the facility. The hemisphere can concentrate powerful energy, producing a brief but intense energy flow, which is then channeled through this main conduit—”

He pointed to a thick pipe extending from the hemispherical device and disappearing into the wall.

“—to wherever the energy is needed.”

Hetty’s eyes widened. As a mage, seeing such an ancient magical device from a thousand years ago stirred excitement. “It focuses powerful energy? So it’s a weapon?”

“No, it’s an auxiliary power source for research facilities,” Gawain shrugged. “Usually used to provide instantaneous ‘ignition’ for energy-intensive equipment, like prismatic lenses and the like. In Gondor’s time, magic wasn’t just for fighting—though that was certainly one of its main uses. Magic could do so much more. Honestly, I think mages should focus on applying their knowledge and magic to research like this.”

“Research…” Hetty muttered in disbelief.

She was no stranger to the word. Mages were synonymous with researchers, delving into the mysteries of magic and deciphering runes. But no matter the research, the ultimate goal was always to improve spellcasting ability. Mages who couldn’t enhance their own power were seen as poor researchers.

Instinctively, Hetty felt that Gawain’s idea of “research” was very different from hers.

This ancestor seemed to always look at things from a far broader and more practical perspective. He often mentioned “popularization” and “mass production,” which clashed with the mages’ tendency to specialize narrowly and even isolate themselves from one another.

Hetty shook her head, pushing aside these irrelevant thoughts. She heard Sir Byron ask, “My lady, is the magical energy coming from this place?”

Hetty concentrated, then shook her head. “No, but it’s very close.”

“Mark this spot,” Gawain said. “This ancient device is completely broken beyond repair—no point in fixing it. But it contains at least half a ton of mythril and seven or eight tons of obsidian, plus a large amount of adamantine and purple copper steel.”

“Wait a minute…” Hetty’s eyes widened as she stared at Gawain. “Ancestor… you’re planning to dismantle this priceless ancient magical device?!”

“What else?” Gawain glanced at her. “It requires ultra-pure mana to ‘ignite,’ and that purification technology no longer exists. Even if we had the energy, this thing has been here for a thousand years—its internal structure is rotten. Repairing it would be harder than building a new one.”

Hetty was stunned, her expression strange. “You might not feel it coming from seven hundred years ago, but this is an antique…”

Gawain’s face twitched. “It was an antique even before I died. But we have to be practical. It’s worthless sitting here. Only by melting it down can it be reborn.”

Hearing this, Hetty realized arguing was pointless and nodded reluctantly, feeling a pang of guilt.

They say a child selling the family land doesn’t feel bad, but it seems the ancestor selling the land himself doesn’t feel bad either…

Discovering the mana focusing device meant they were close to the deep research facilities. Coupled with Hetty’s earlier detection of magical energy, the source was likely some still-functioning research apparatus.

Gawain quietly activated the knights’ “danger sense” skill, ready for any magical traps or ancient radiation.

As they moved forward, he casually asked Hetty, “By the way, I heard they call you ‘my lady’ instead of ‘miss’ or ‘madam’—are you married? What about your husband?”

He’d been curious for a long time but never found the right moment to ask.

Hetty was momentarily taken aback, but it was normal for an ancestor to care about her marriage, so she answered, “I’m not married. When I came of age, I devoted myself to the goddess of magic, Mylmina, renouncing my inheritance so it could pass to Rebecca’s father. According to noble law, an adult woman who renounces her inheritance through religious devotion is considered married—that is, dedicated to her faith. I could have kept my noble title as a non-hereditary baroness, but that year the estate was in trouble, so I… sold the title to a merchant.”

Gawain nodded, acknowledging her explanation, and the information about the goddess Mylmina surfaced in his mind.

Mylmina, the goddess of magic—also called the Lady of Mysteries and the Mistress of All Spells—is said to govern magical power. She was the world’s first dragon and the first elf’s mentor, credited with creating both the legendary draconic magic and existing elven magic. Unlike other gods, Mylmina isn’t a “strong faith deity” but more of a “symbolic god.”

She has no formal religion or worship system; nearly all spellcasters are her casual followers, but fewer than one percent formally devote themselves to her. This likely stems from spellcasters’ general love of mystery and lack of reverence for gods.

Among that one percent are many like Hetty, who formally devote themselves simply to prove renunciation of inheritance or for similar reasons.

Princess Veronica of the Ansu royal family’s devotion to the god of holy light is similar, though unlike the impoverished Cecils, she hasn’t had to sell her noble status and can still be called a princess (or hold the corresponding clerical rank).

After answering, Hetty felt a bit uneasy. She worried about two things: whether the ancestor would be angry that the Cecil family had fallen so far as to sell their noble title, and whether he’d be upset that she was still unmarried at her age—especially the latter. What if he suddenly turned around and gave her a classic ancestor’s matchmaking speech: “Why aren’t you married yet? When do you plan to marry? What about that person over there?”

Good grief, an ancestor from seven hundred years ago nagging about marriage—that’s even more pressure than parents!

That thought almost made her not worry about selling the noble title and getting scolded…

In the end, Gawain just asked casually and moved on.

Hetty’s wandering thoughts didn’t last long, as she finally sensed the magical energy source just ahead.

(End of chapter)