Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1301: Chapter 1300: Fell In!

Morgan seemed to be ignited with a burning fighting spirit. This old scholar, once a member of the court Mages of Old Anzu, thought he had become a person indifferent to all things. The years had given him steadiness and calm, but in the past two years, he realized that his enthusiasm for new things had never truly faded—he last felt his passion burn like this when the Palamere Observatory was newly completed.

At that time, he had first observed a sky several times vaster than ever before through modern enchanted lens arrays and auto-calibration arrays. The recording equipment of the new era creaked beside him, spewing out real-time data from other astronomical observation points, and greetings from the imperial capital came through the communication terminal... When an entire era came crashing down, he was as excited as he was today.

Honestly speaking, his resistance to the conjecture mentioned in that awkwardly phrased and childishly written paper was not as strong as he pretended. Despite the conjecture’s content being too incredible and severely contradicting the common understanding of this world, as an old scholar who had spent most of his life exploring the mysteries of Magic, he knew that many "truths" in this world were contrary to people’s intuitive perceptions. But having said that... understanding is one thing, yet the argument of the "Unified Wave Hypothesis" was absurdly extreme, especially its "theoretical support" section, which was completely unacceptable to a rigorous and traditional scholar like Morgan.

To make such bold assumptions about the cornerstone of the entire world based solely on the extended interpretation of the nature of Dark Wave, on guesses about some phenomena, on a "result" from an unrepeatable observation that left no trace—although the entire hypothesis achieved internal consistency in the end, Morgan did not agree with many of its premises.

Even the name "Goddess of Magic" didn’t work—let alone adding the King’s name.

"So you’re not planning to duel with me," Benjamin couldn’t help but smile as he looked at his suddenly spirited old friend. He drank the last bit of cold tea in his cup, glanced down at the magazine spread out on the desk, and couldn’t help but twitch his lips. Apparently, this thing was still quite difficult for him to accept, although he didn’t have the impulse to immediately write a rebuttal like Morgan did. He just shook his head, got up from the chair, "This thing gives me a headache... You continue your research here; I’m going to the lens array to clear my mind."

"I’ll go with you—this article’s content isn’t something that can be researched in a short time," Morgan also stood up and said, "The observation conditions have been very good these past few days, so we can complete the remeasurement of the sixteen Dark-III stars around the Frost Throne Constellation. The data we brought from St. Soniel are too outdated, and correcting all the mistakes and omissions is no simple task..."

The two astrologers talked as they walked towards the "focal platform" located at the center of the circular hall. But at this moment, an assistant standing next to the focal platform suddenly ran towards them with a look of tension and confusion: "Masters, you must come and see—There’s something abnormal with the image!"

Benjamin and Morgan instinctively exchanged glances and quickly followed the assistant to the focal platform—

The so-called focal platform was essentially the endpoint observation device of the observatory’s main lens array. It was a precisely circular platform with a diameter of about three meters, placed directly on the ground. In the center, a man-made crystal, precisely ground and Magi-calibrated, was embedded. A special Alchemy Solution was injected into the crystal, allowing it to resonate with the lens array above and the array floating over the observatory, projecting the starlit sky observed by the main lenses onto the surface of the crystal. The projection could be zoomed, recorded, or switched to Magi-sight using equipment surrounding the platform.

In essence, this observation device functioned similarly to the magical devices used by the Royal Observatory of St. Soniel. Still, the precise and efficient modern craftsmanship provided the lens group driven by machinery and the focus crystals powered by the Magic Web with stability and room for improvement far beyond previous capabilities. For Morgan, this was much more practical than the antiques he used in the Old Capital.

He approached the platform’s edge, looked at the focus crystal embedded at the center protected by a transparent shell, while his assistant stood at the control terminal beside him, adjusting the large, precise, and complex equipment on the observatory’s upper level. Accompanied by the sound of machine operation and the humming of Magic power flowing through the magic structure, the old Mage saw the surface of that focus crystal ripple with black ripples, which gradually calmed into the appearance of the night sky. Points of light presented on that black curtain—however, around each star could be seen faint blue phantom lights, and the entire sky background seemed filled with faint but annoying dark lines as fine as hairs.

"It suddenly became like this just now," another assistant said nervously, "At the time, Burke and I were adjusting the projection arm of the Magic power filter, trying to superimpose it on the main lens group. We have coordinated this many times without issues, everything was normal this time as well, all mechanical arms were in the preset positions and angles, and the symbol array didn’t report an error, yet the image suddenly turned like this—no matter how we adjust it, it doesn’t work..."

"You didn’t touch the main lenses? No mechanical collision or even slight scraping?" Benjamin asked with a serious frown.

"No, we’re sure of it," the assistant quickly said, "In fact, after the system was adjusted, the image was normal for several seconds, before anyone touched it, it suddenly became like this..."

"Strange..." Benjamin frowned, turning to Morgan, "I’ve never seen this kind of malfunction before. If it were lens group damage, the picture shouldn’t uniformly spread across the whole crystal. If it were the non-physical filter fault, the symbol array should have alerted... Should we go up to the dome to check?"

Morgan had been frowning and silent since earlier. Only after Benjamin finished speaking did the old Mage look upwards at the open roof of the observatory, then gently stomped his foot, his entire body rising into the air, flying towards the direction of the large lens installation.

In just a moment, the old Mage reached outside the roof, hovering in the cold night sky, his sharp eyes scanning the lenses, crystals, rune triggers supported by mechanical arms, and a semi-transparent great barrier covering the entire device. Benjamin soon flew out from the observatory, floating in mid-air beside Morgan.

"How is it? Did you spot anything wrong?" Benjamin casually asked while examining the devices below.

"The lens group is fine," Morgan replied solemnly, then slowly raised his head to look at the sky. In the clear and deep night sky, the stars were twinkling brightly, "There’s a problem with the sky."

"The sky!?" Benjamin was greatly surprised, but as he surveyed the heavens, he saw only the usual twinkling stars, "What’s wrong with the sky?"

"Magi-sight," Morgan whispered as a faint blue glow appeared in his eyes. The old Mage raised his head, slowly scanning the clear and cloudless night sky. In his specially enhanced eyes, a dense "cloud web," seemingly formed by countless crisscrossing mist trails, covered the earth’s sky. These misty, phantom lights presented a very light blue color, invisible to ordinary people, and even Mages must have extremely keen observation to vaguely see their traces.

With Morgan’s reminder, Benjamin also switched to Magi-sight. After careful inspection, he finally noticed those things floating in the sky, which greatly surprised him, "What are those?! Some giant structure among the stars?"

"No, they’re in our atmosphere... Look closely, they pass over the western mountain peaks," Morgan said seriously, "These things seem to rise from the depths of the earth and float in mid-air, interfering with our astronomical equipment..."

Benjamin blinked hard, trying to get a clearer look while muttering, "This thing looks really sinister. I’ve never encountered anything like this in my life... Should we report this to the imperial capital?"

"Of course, it needs to be reported immediately..." Morgan began to say, but as soon as he spoke, those misty floating cloud-webs in the sky suddenly vanished, disappearing like waking from a dream, leaving no trace.

The old Mage rubbed his eyes instinctively, his eyes filled with the glow of Magic Power repeatedly scanned the night sky, but besides the restored clear night sky and the multitude of stars, he couldn’t find any of the previously seen "foreign objects."

A broadcasting device near the observatory roof began to sound, and the voice of one of the assistants came through: "Master, the image is back to normal! Did you fix the lens array?"

Benjamin and More looked at each other— they hadn’t done anything yet.

...

"I didn’t do anything! I was just here every day fishing for something!" The sea demon with pale purple long hair floated in the seawater condensed from pure water elements, waving the Light-Wave Warblade in her hand while nervously speaking to the superior who had come to inspect the situation, "How would I know that this thing would suddenly change its flow and injure a passing elemental lord?"

"I can vouch for that," Vila, the sentinel with blue long hair, raised the tip of her tail, saying, "Caroline is ranked as our number one ’Cube Salvager’ here; she’s already salvaged exactly six cubes so far!"

"I didn’t ask you to vouch for that!" Caroline immediately glared at her comrade upon hearing this, "I want you to testify that these flowing ’Deep Blue Vein Flow’ streams weren’t skewed by me!"

"Oh, well I can’t say then," On hearing this, Vila waved her hand dismissively, "This, I do not understand."

"You... "

"Alright, alright." A "Abyssal Commander" who had come to inspect the situation couldn’t help but interrupt the two noisy sentinels, this fish-tailed sea demon with short, neat hair and dressed in tightly fitted alloy armor was personally assigned by Queen Petia, tasked with investigating a sudden injury incident near the Boundless Sea Outpost—

It’s said that a Deep Blue Vein Flow near the outpost suddenly changed, with a significantly altered energy flow severely injuring a Water Elemental Lord passing nearby. The injured party believes this matter is related to the sea demons stationed locally, who often salvage things from the vein flow, and to prevent this issue from exacerbating the carefully eased tensions between the sea demons and native water elements, the queen dispatched her to investigate and mediate.

The Abyssal Commander, feeling somewhat at a loss, turned to look a short distance away, she saw that the unlucky Water Elemental Lord was still floating in the seawater, its massive elemental body almost split in half, the vortex-shaped lower body attempting still to twist and merge with the upper half, yet regardless of appearance, it seemed difficult to preserve— Noticing the Abyssal Commander’s gaze, the Water Elemental Lord promptly turned its head, a faintly visible face showed a fierce look, but besides the fierce appearance, he couldn’t take any action, appearing like he wanted to speak out but lacked the strength.

Beside this elemental lord, many Elemental Guardians and even more Lower Water Elements gathered, each unable to fight back.

The Abyssal Commander looked in another direction, that was a vast blue light stream emitting a dim blue glow in the depths of the sea, flowing turbulently like a rushing river; this was the culprit causing this event, originally an "Deep Blue Vein Flow" near the outpost— Soldiers stationed at the outpost reportedly found their greatest pleasure daily in salvaging those black cubes from this vein flow. Now, for reasons unknown, it suddenly changed, causing the water elementals living nearby to suspect the sea demons of being responsible... which seems to have some reason.

But the Abyssal Commander believed that two sentinels before her likely weren’t responsible.

They lack the power to disrupt the operational process of the Deep Blue Webway’s "Planetary Power System" —and not far away the unfortunate Water Elemental Lord likely understood this as well.

"I heard you mention that when this vein changed direction there were other changes?" The Commander pondered and turned to look at the sentinel named Caroline, "Did it undergo splitting?"

"Yes, many small offshoots suddenly spread out from the main trunk, traversing through the seawater to unknown parts," Caroline recalled while speaking, "However, it lasted for less than half an hour, and soon those offshoots all disappeared— but the remaining ’main trunk’ still remains in the changed form as of now."

"Suddenly splitting into numerous offshoots... then disappearing..." The Abyssal Commander frowned and murmured, "I wonder if the Deep Sea Witch can research something out of this."

She then looked at Caroline curiously and asked, "You’re usually the one salvaging the ’cubes’ from this vein flow the most, how do you do it?"

Although she didn’t believe Caroline was the reason for the vein flow’s change, necessary inquiries were still needed, she had to take a questioning posture.

"Oh, that’s simple," Caroline’s face immediately showed a proud smile, she raised her Light-Wave Warblade, demonstrating as she spoke, "I just use this, stand ready nearby, then strike when I see something coming, like this—"

She vigorously swung her hand, thrusting the Light-Wave Warblade into the Deep Blue Vein Flow, and stirred it two times: "Very simple..."

A swift black shadow suddenly appeared in the surging blue light stream, while Caroline was enthusiastically explaining her unique secret, completely unaware of its presence— accompanied by a loud crash, the black object collided solidly with the warblade Caroline held, the sudden immense impact prevented her from leveraging it as usual, instead directly disrupting her balance in the water,

Accompanied by a cry of surprise, the previously enthusiastic purple-haired sea demon fell entirely into the rushing blue light stream!