Third Border City, underground laboratory.

After reading the report, Luo Lan rushed here with Anna as soon as possible. Through the thick protective glass, he saw two Festival Cubes in the center of the laboratory covered with lead plates in an activated state - one of them looked normal, while the red light emanating from the other was significantly shorter.

"The cube with the shorter red light... is it the latest imitation?" Anna asked keenly.

"That's right, in fact, its appearance completely stems from a mistake." Celine replied with great interest, "Usually, the patterns inside the cube are carved by the Fine Wrist. If the material is damaged, it is easy to make mistakes. Generally speaking, these faulty 'stones' will be discarded, but a week ago, when the Fine Wrist was carving component No. 236, the problem only occurred at the end - a tiny crack appeared in the center of the stone, making this component defective."

The materials used for the Festival Cubes all come from the Far South. According to the murals, these relics have been sleeping underground for at least a thousand years. After so long of wind and water erosion, the texture is often not ideal. Luo Lan thought thoughtfully, "And you didn't throw away No. 236?"

Celine nodded her main tentacle, "At the time, I felt it was a pity, after all, it was largely completed and might still be useful. So I replaced the same component of an earlier cube with this No. 236, to see if it could function normally."

"Wow, this is a nuclear torture device!" Luo Lan secretly wiped away sweat.

"Please rest assured, Your Majesty," Celine seemed to see through his thoughts, and raised her tumor-like head, "I conducted the test at the weapon test site in the Impassable Mountains. If an accident occurs, it will never affect Neverwinter - this is the basic belief of the Seek Truth Association members. Even if I unfortunately sacrifice myself, you don't have to be sad. In order to seek the truth, I have long put personal safety..."

Looking at her endless chatter, Luo Lan's initial trace of worry quickly dissipated, "Get to the point!"

"Ahem... excuse me," Celine cleared her throat, "In short, as you can see, the cube can still be activated normally, but the range of the red light has been shortened to less than one-tenth of the original. However, this does not hinder the provision of heat for the three-cylinder cube power, so I did another heating experiment, wanting to determine whether the heating efficiency of the shortened red light has changed - this experiment continued intermittently for two or three days, until I checked the uranium wafers, and unexpectedly found that it had not changed much, and even the consumption of magic power had decreased a lot."

Anna pondered for a moment, "Could it be... most of the cube's consumption is used to maintain the red light?"

"As expected of a high-level Awakened who is even younger than Agatha," Celine praised, "After thinking about it for a long time, I also tend to this answer - if the light is composed of countless tiny balls, then it is indeed not easy to make them move in the same direction. And the test proves that as long as the red light is not touched, its front and sides will not be affected. In this way, shortening the light does seem to save the cube a lot of effort."

"Wait," Luo Lan suddenly said, "Does that mean that the flawed No. 236 component determines the radiation range of the cube?"

This is a groundbreaking discovery, even more significant than solving the durability problem! The Festival Cube has more than three hundred components. These stones of various shapes and covered with textures are pieced together like building blocks. No one knows how magic works inside. But now, this problem seems to have a way to analyze it.

"You can think so." Celine's tone also faintly revealed excitement, "Perhaps each component's texture plays a specific role. If we can analyze the meaning of those carvings, we may also understand how the Festival Cube uses magic."

"One component is responsible for one function. From this perspective alone, the thinking mode of the Radiation Clan is quite similar to ours," Anna couldn't help but smile, "Should I say this is humanity's good fortune?"

"Of course." Luo Lan nodded without hesitation - he naturally understood what Anna meant. The differences between different civilizations are so great, not only in form and language, but also in thought. The chance of finding an object that can be understood and comprehended is very slim. The Underground Civilization is an example. It is also a core instrument for controlling magic power, but it can only control its operation after becoming a carrier. Celine has studied it for hundreds of years, and still has not understood its principles, which shows the difficulty.

In a sense, civilization is lonely.

Although he previously comforted everyone, saying that even if they do not need to rely on the inheritance of the God relics, they can still learn the knowledge of those fallen civilizations, but in reality, this is not an easy thing to achieve, especially when there is no guidance and they are only exploring on their own - when the ways of thinking are completely different, how can they learn from each other's achievements?

If Celine's speculation is correct, then a civilization that can resonate with humans may bring new ideas for studying magic power.

"By the way," Anna suddenly gave Luo Lan a playful smile, "Now that the cube power has been finalized and the durability has been broken through, shouldn't the reward you promised be兑现(dui xian)?"

Looking at the pair of blue eyes that shone with clear lake light, Luo Lan found that he could not say a word of refusal.

"Yes, yes, yes... Your Highness," he couldn't help but laugh, "I'll make it for you when we get back."

……

"Tu tu tu... boom pa..."

The faint noise coming from outside the window caused Soroya to lift the quilt in a daze and sit up.

"Ha--" She yawned sleepily, reaching for her clothes at the end of the bed. She was all too familiar with this sound, the roar of the steam engine starting up. When it sounded, it also meant that a new day had begun, and busy but orderly work was about to begin.

But it's really early, she glanced at Echo, who was still asleep on the other side of the bed, and put on her coat gently. She was actually more diligent than herself, and in the castle--

Wait, Soroya suddenly froze. This is not the factory area. Why is there the sound of a steam engine? Thinking about it carefully, today should be a rest day. Most witches sleep in until noon. Before mealtime, the castle is usually quiet, as if empty. Could it be that she was dreaming just now, dreaming of the work scene?

"Boom boom boom... pa pa pa..." However, the roar of the steam engine came from outside the window again, along with bursts of laughter.

"This thing is so interesting!"

"Your Majesty, let me try it too!"

"Me too! Me too!"

"Uh... what happened?" Echo also sat up, rubbing her eyes.

"I don't know, probably that Mí Yuè (Miyue) is causing trouble again..." Soroya stretched, walked to the window, and pulled open the thick curtains. Sunlight instantly poured into the room, illuminating the entire bedroom. Obviously, the sun had already climbed into the sky, so it wasn't too early.

After her eyes adjusted to the light, she looked downstairs, and then couldn't help but be stunned.

She saw that the castle gate was crowded with sisters from the Witch Union. Everyone's eyes were fixed on the center of the courtyard, their faces full of eagerness to try.

Following their gaze, Soroya saw Princess Anna sitting in a strange four-wheeled vehicle. Even without horses pulling it, it was still running happily around the courtyard, and Anna's smile in the car was incomparably bright, even surpassing the warm morning light.

This scene instantly attracted all of her attention.