The Dragon of Dreams

Chapter 411: Why?

Late Evening - Mid Winter : Eikasía | Eastern Bahamut

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"So, from what Madam Monachikós said, you're quite adept with Acardi technology." Using some wind magic to keep the maids and butlers running about the halls of the estate, Keras, the Elafos family patriarch, spoke with an oddly excited tone.

"I am. Do you perhaps need my help trying to identify an artifact?"

Quickly shaking his head, he motioned his wing to a few servants, sending them off before entering his office. *Woosh*

Compared to the rest of the gold-laced estate, his office was quite a refreshing space. With mostly everything made of beautiful chocolate-colored wood, detailed with black cast iron, and supported by raw, thick tree trunks along the walls, it reminded me of some of the more nature-bound architecture I would traditionally find in Siratha.

But while it was beautiful, after quickly walking over to one of the towering bookshelves and plucking a series of books off the shelves, the familiar hiss of hydraulics filled the air, and the entire wall sank in before being pulled to the side. -Hoh?-

Curiously using my aura to check it out, I rather quickly found a series of hydraulics identical to what was in the old Acardi crawler I found, just sized up considerably, and powered by a series of old, clearly somewhat neglected electric motors.

Or at least it'd look that way to an untrained eye. "Did you find the motors like that?" Noticing he didn't quite know what I meant, I quickly elaborated. "The electric coil things that make the whole secret door system work."

"Hoho~, is that what those are called? None of those worked when we found them, but after finding one that worked a little bit, we figured out how to repair the rest."

"Hm." -I see that...- Looking at what was essentially a redneck repair of an advanced electric motor, I could only smile and nod. -But I have to give credit where it's due...- "Just getting them working is quite an impressive feat, you should be proud."

"Oh, we certainly are. The biggest issue is that the rules these devices follow aren't the same rules of the world we know. I believe Madam Monachikós said you called it science?"

I was quick to nod my snout as my gaze drifted around at the rows of sculptures, artwork, and artifacts lining the wall. "Science is the true foundation of the world, magic just expands on it."

Looking back at me with a glow in his eyes, Keras's posture straightened with interest. "Exactly! It's been so difficult to try and study things that don't rely on magic for that exact reason. We have to frame our minds around laws we don't know, so even trying to explain simple things like why an object moves when touched becomes quite difficult."

"Hahaha," A wave of nostalgia instantly blew over me as fuzzy old memories passed through my mind. "I know the struggle. Once you know more of the basics though, explaining more complex things gets easier." -At least to an extent...- Having theories of quantum mechanics come to mind, a part of me wanted to correct myself.

But even if I did, someone learning the most basic of basics wouldn't understand. "I see, I see! How fascinating..." Quickly falling into thought, we continued to lead me down the long, descending hallway, continuing idle conversation with a mix of questions about science, and inquiring about my own interests.

From what I could see, while his family specialized in brewing liquor, creating drinks, and managing taverns, his personal interests were aimed more at the Acardi. After stumbling across an old crash site in the dunes of the Banvean, he became fascinated with the world of advanced technology, using his family's endlessly expanding fortune to fund research into it. But there were constantly challenges with that, one being his wife, and the other being his family's 'noble obligation'.

After all, like nearly all nobility, they had a city to manage. Even if they didn't plan on doing any expansion, just general upkeep and management was expensive.

At least that was the case before Hera came along. "Ever since Madam Monachikós bought Eikasía from us, I've been able to funnel so much money unto the research that we have actually made some rather significant advancements. Hiding just how much money I'm spending on it from my wife has been a challenge, but it'll all be worth it in the end."

Finally coming up to a large, black-metal door, he held his claw up to his family insignia before injecting some mana into it, undoing the lock. *Cl-Click*

*Woosh* Pushing open the door, the familiar, sterile white-light-lit environment I'd expect from an Acardi facility peeked through the door before it opened enough to reveal a room lined with white tiles, and filled with about a dozen dragons of all ages spread out at tables, tinkering with half-assembled pieces of Arcardi tech.

-Hoho~,- It was a sight that instantly hooked me in. "Is this from a ship you salvaged?" Looking up in the ceiling and walls with my mana, I found the familiar support structure of an Acardi ship, just cut, sectioned off, and buried a few kilometers under a huge field.

"That's correct!"

Hearing his voice boom, everyone in the room jolted and glanced back at us with a mix of curiosity and annoyance.

"This is my lab! Only maybe fifteen people even know this place exists, but this isn't what I wanted to show you."

-Oh?- Getting more interested as I looked around and tried to gauge the level of the researchers, he led me through the room before opening up a series of three doors acting like an airlock.

But while still in the first airlock, one of the researchers was quick to come up to me. "If you have anything on you that is not made of mythril, please leave them here." Motioning to a small padded compartment in the wall, he bowed his head. "Beyond that door, you will be exposed to some rather harsh and extreme conditions, and it is recommended you wear safety equipment if necessary, and speak up should you feel anything abnormal." Motioning to the opposite wall, I found a series of hanging items that resembled a glass muzzle and goggles.

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-Are these to breathe?- Getting curious, I quickly waved him off. "I'll be alright."

Looking at Keras for confirmation, the researcher seemed a bit nervous, but with a nod, he let us past. "Then I wish for you to have a pleasurable experience..." Tapping a button with his wing as he bowed, the middle door behind us quickly closed before taking a moment to seal.

-Pleasure?- "Pft-, what sort of crazy shit do you have down here?"

"Haha, its nothing like that." Walking up to the door, he gently tapped a simple button. *Click* "It's just a little something I've been working on." *WOOM*

An unbelievably intense burst of mana instantly flooded the room before a metal-melting heat blew over us.

It was so intense it even made Keras, an old ancient, squint for a moment.

But that was only before the heat, ripping past us like the wind of a hurricane settled, and the overpressured door opened.

"Holy..." Walking through the door and out onto a pure mythril platform, my eyes went wide. "What the fuck.. is this..."

"Hah!" Letting out a loud chuckle, he walked out to the edge of the platform before waving me along. "I've been wondering the same thing ever since I found it..."

Finally peeking over the edge, the image my aura painted in my mind, the sight of something I couldn't believe met my eyes.

Nearly twenty kilometers down the excessively massive, heatshield-coated room was a small Acardi facility suspended over an orange and blue pool of liquid emanating nearly as much mana as the mana well beneath the Tree of Prayer. -What the hell..? Was this place an old mana well?-

With temperatures hot enough to melt steel and enough mana to break apart atoms, the structure down below had to be made of some kind of extreme mythril. -It must be black mythril...-

Unable to get my aura through it at such a distance, I quickly turned to Keras. "Could I go down and check it out?"

But it was a question that just wiped the excitement off his face. "U-Uh, well... I don't mean to underestimate you, but my body starts deteriorating at just a few kilometers down.. let alone all the way to that.. thing..." Looking down the hole again, his eyes gleamed with a mix of anxiety and fascination.

A fascination I couldn't help but respect. "Is it the heat or the mana?"

"It's the mix, but I can handle the heat with magic for a bit.. the issue is it only gets hotter and the mana only gets thicker as you go down..."

-Yeah, I see that...- At the bottom, the temperatures were so insane that even mythril would melt. -But...- "That shouldn't be an issue. If you want to come down with me, I can keep most of the heat and mana off you." Noticing his hesitancy, I was quick to spontaneously cool the air around him, condensing it to fog before separating him from the air and mana in the room entirely using a shell of space mana. *Vwoom*

His gaze instantly shifted with a mix of awe and skepticism. "What the... How did you do that?"

"It's a trade secret." Quickly walking past him, I hopped over the railing without hesitation. "Anyway, feel free to come down at your own pace, I'll keep the shell around you." *WoooOOOOSH* Folding my wings, I instantly started slicing through the dense plasma, descending into the sickening mix of mana and beyond-volcanic heat.

But it didn't take long for me to start slowing down.

-What the hell..?- Finally approaching the side of the rather tiny 'facility' suspended by several complex metal cables, my mind twisted with confusion.

With no external sensors to entrances, I tried to just force my mana into it, but normal mana couldn't even get through the shell.

And I only knew one thing that could cause that. -Space mana...-

The facility itself was reinforced with space mana, something I only knew to come from two sources, me or a rune. -Did they.. figure out how to create space runes?-

But that couldn't have been right. Something like a three-dimensional rune wasn't something any creature less than a god could decipher. -Three-dimensional mana mechanics just aren't that simple...- But as I gathered the space mana in my aura and forced it into the facility, I had to once again be enlightened to the horror that was the computer.

Inside the facility was a series of machines, mechanical arms, and electrical systems all meant to move around and reorient tens of billions of tiny cubes, each being a tiny section of an oversized three-dimensional rune like an unsolvable puzzle with countless unused pieces.

However, regardless of that, at the center of the facility was a large collection of blocks, around twenty meters across, containing several billion individual puzzle pieces that, while extremely inefficient and unlike anything I had ever seen, appeared to be a functioning space rune. -That's.. possible..?- It even used methods and shortcuts I didn't think were possible.

But my fascination never had the chance to show itself through the horror written across my face. -They actually.. solved it...- Quickly turning my attention to the cables holding it up, I forced my aura through the walls, looking to see where the cables led, only to find that they were connected to massive arrays of thousands of quantum tether communication modules almost identical to those I had found in the communications tower in the Death's Gape.

However, the facility wasn't connected to all of the communication modules...

Following a set of cables back up to the top of the room, I found sections of metal among the heat-absorbing tiles where cables likely suspended another facility at one point, and followed the other cables down through the walls until my aura could no longer follow it. -What the hell is this place...-

With no way to the surface besides the path I assumed Keras had made, I did idly question how the whole place was built.

It was in the middle of Bahamut after all, it wasn't a place where the Acardi could do whatever they wanted. -There's no way Hera or Bahamut wouldn't have realized they were building this if they had come from the surface, so...- Looking down into the boiling magma, I pushed my aura as deep into it as I could...

But while I found a huge opening not too far down, well below it, the same, rectangular cut walls trailed deeper and deeper. -Did the Acardi.. come up from the mantle?-

But then that begged the question... -W..why.. here..?-

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