Roland immediately picked up the phone connected to Third Border City, "Tell Celine not to disassemble the Ritual Cube yet! I'm coming over immediately!"
"Yes... yes, Your Majesty!" The communicator on the other end clearly hadn't figured out what was going on, but even so, he followed the instructions.
"Take me to Border City," Roland said, turning to Nightingale, "as quickly as possible."
"Understood," the latter smiled slightly, flashed over and grabbed his hand, "It might be a little dizzy."
Then the two instantly disappeared into the mist.
Five minutes later.
"Ugh..." Roland covered his mouth as he appeared in the underground hall. It had to be said that Nightingale's proficiency in using her ability had improved significantly since they first met. Traveling through the black and white world was like surfing, with one wave after another coming at him, but she was able to use the momentum to move forward, her movements flowing like water, which could be described as art. But these were not so pleasant in his eyes—especially the changing outlines blurred the boundaries between plane and three-dimensionality, and the feeling of the world turning upside down, or being inverted left and right, was a hundred times more *ciji* than a roller coaster. "Finally... arrived."
Nightingale smiled and gently patted his back.
"What's wrong, Your Majesty?" Celine slowly descended from the top of the cave with a bunch of tools in her hands. "I heard you were looking for me?"
Looking at the hammers, saws, and files held by her tentacles, Roland breathed a sigh of relief, "Looks like I made it in time."
But why are there halberds and axes in the tools? Could it be that she wants to chop the cube into powder?
"Where are the ancient relics?"
"Still in the underground laboratory."
He took a deep breath, "Can you replicate it?"
Celine was obviously stunned, "Are you sure? That thing is useless."
"Perhaps it's not entirely useless." Roland briefly explained his thoughts, "The biggest drawback of steam power is the large self-weight of the fuel. If there is a way to use the cube to replace it, it is likely to bring a new round of revolution to industrial production."
An efficient and powerful power source is always the core of what industry pursues. Whether it is used in manufacturing, power generation, or equipment, it can cause qualitative changes.
Of course, taking this step will not be easy. Traditional boilers and magic cubes are not simply replaceable. After changing to a new heating method, the heat circulation and interaction system, control system, and maintenance will change accordingly. Before success, there may be countless failures, but this possibility is worth his effort to try.
"Boiling water... so that's what it is," Celine pondered for a moment, then said with some embarrassment, "But... if I don't carefully explore the internal structure, I'm afraid it will be difficult to replicate—after all, it involves magic, and you won't let me disassemble it."
"Ahem, I mean, don't disassemble it as garbage." Roland coughed twice, "If it's for the purpose of replication, meticulous, careful disassembly is of course no problem."
"Is there such a thing as non-meticulous, careless disassembly?" Celine asked in surprise, then her tone seemed a little aggrieved, "In the past, in the Exploration Society, damaging any relic would be punished. And from the time I joined the society until the fall of Taqila, I was never punished. Nataya even praised me personally, saying that I have a natural knack. If I were to be reckless in research, the core instruments in the main hall would probably be gone."
Faced with this self-praising defense, Roland looked at the tools in her hand with suspicion, "Did you use these to disassemble relics before?"
"These?" Celine was stunned. "How is that possible? Didn't you replace the sisters' weapons and equipment...? It turns out that no one uses those swords, guns, and axes anymore. Instead of letting them rust in the warehouse, it's better to use them to make other things—my database happens to be missing a few shelves. By the way, why did you regard these discarded weapons as research tools?"
Nightingale immediately covered her mouth and turned her head away. Judging from her slightly trembling shoulders, she seemed to be enduring quite hard.
Roland couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed, "No, I thought that once you encounter
something related to magic, you would fall into a state of fanaticism..."
"It must be Pasha who said that," Celine supported her large tumor with her main tentacle, "She can't tell the difference between fanaticism and interest at all... A true explorer needs a clear and meticulous mind, and precise and controlled actions. Working continuously for days, or chanting words from a book, is not crazy at all—"
Seeing that the other party was about to go on and on, Roland quickly interrupted her, "Let's not talk about that. Only by figuring out the structure of the Ritual Cube, are you sure you can replicate it successfully?"
Once she talked about serious business, Celine returned to normal, "It depends on the complexity of the cube. Although I can't be 100% sure, the possibility is not low. Because it has a very obvious feature, that is, it can be manipulated without magic, which means that the biggest difficulty no longer exists."
"The most difficult thing to replicate is the way magic is used!" Roland instantly realized the key point.
"You're absolutely right." Celine nodded her main tentacle. "Humans, demons, Underground Ming... or other races, have very different ways of using magic due to physiological and ideological differences. Take magic stones, for example, we may never be able to embed stones into our bodies like demons, so as to obtain multiple abilities. Similarly, if I hadn't transformed into the Primal Carrier, the human body alone would never be able to repair the magic core."
"The fact that it can be manipulated without magic means that I don't have to study what kind of magic cyclones this extinct civilization possessed, and how they used them. To be honest, without enough data accumulation, this hurdle is almost impossible to cross. But now, I just need to be completely consistent with the original, so that magic can achieve the same effect. Of course, this was still an extremely difficult thing in the Taqila era. Now that I have a magic core that can be adjusted at will, the situation is much better."
Celine paused for a moment here, "But in addition to this, there is another difficulty that needs to be solved."
"What is it?"
"Materials." She said, "I have also been studying the cube these days, and found that although its appearance looks like a stone, it is not made of stone. I can't determine what it is, maybe it is the bones of aliens, or the solidified matter of something, in short, I need more samples... But you said before that the Cursed Temple has been emptied for many years, and even this relic was only known by chance, so whether the same effect can be achieved with alternative materials is still unknown."
"Materials..." Roland pondered, "Perhaps there is another place where similar things can be found."
Judging by the time, that remote area should have undergone tremendous changes... He looked up to the south, and if the murals in the temple were not fictional, maybe he could find something there.