Chapter 818: Cubic Crystal

At last, the department heads lead Henwell into the deepest reaches of the Technical Research Institute.

They pass through several checkpoints and undergo stringent identity inspections before arriving at a building.

Their destination is a small five-story building. Nothing within a hundred meters of it rises above three stories.

Henwell immediately notices the extraordinary weight of its security.

Three medium steam ballistae have even been deployed there, with a room on every floor above the third housing a ballista.

Their ammunition appears to include Thunderclap Ballista Bolts, along with several other bolts that radiate extraordinary fluctuations.

Only a few dozen people inside the building emit extraordinary auras, but an Iron Rank professional is stationed among them.

This may be the most heavily guarded place in the entire Technical Research Institute, yet Henwell never even knew it existed.

Jax, the chief researcher, notices Henwell's confusion but says nothing. He simply continues leading the way.

After entering the building, the group goes to the second floor, but instead of continuing upward as Henwell expects, they stop there.

They enter a room and open a hidden door, revealing a chute that slopes downward.

A small rail cart carries them down the sloping passage and deep underground.

By now, Henwell can sense that they are beneath a tool shed not far from the building.

They are at least twenty meters below the surface. Henwell's curiosity sharpens. What have these people created that demands such protection?

The underground facility is not large, covering just over four hundred square meters.

Most of that space is occupied by a single apparatus.

It is a heavy forging hammer driven by a steam engine.

More than a dozen senior researchers crowd around it, recording every detail of the running machine.

"Huh?"

Henwell cannot hold back his surprise. He can already sense what makes the apparatus different.

It emits no extraordinary fluctuations, or at least none that are readily noticeable.

What it holds is something higher than extraordinary power, something only gods can command: laws.

At Jax's signal, the researchers start the forging machine.

They carefully place a strange block of metal on the anvil.

The block is strange because it hardly looks like metal at all. It measures only thirty centimeters across.

Little metallic luster remains on its surface, which looks more like a translucent crystal.

It appears to be something in which metallic and crystalline structures have fused together.

A researcher offers Henwell a noise-blocking device resembling a pair of headphones.

Henwell waves it away. He wants to observe exactly how the machine works.

The forging hammer falls, and Henwell exclaims for the second time.

He can see that the cube does not deform under each blow, yet the translucent crystal within it increases slightly.

More precisely, some of the metal is turning into crystal.

The change is tiny and nearly invisible to the naked eye, but Henwell still senses it clearly.

Henwell takes several steps closer to the forging machine, and a researcher immediately warns him of the danger.

"My lord, this process produces extraordinary energy leakage. It is harmful to the body."

Henwell shakes his head. "It is fine. I need to observe it up close."

Studying it from only a short distance away confirms Henwell's suspicion.

The object seems to absorb the energy produced by the forging hammer and convert that energy into crystal.

Henwell reaches beneath the hammer and touches the side of the cube, even as the hammer continues falling again and again.

He closes his eyes and senses the minute changes inside the cube.

Yes.

The object is accumulating energy.

In the end, Henwell even sticks his head beneath the machine, bringing his eyes level with the cube.

The sight terrifies everyone. If the cube shatters beneath the hammer, the next blow will land squarely on Henwell's head.

What they do not know is that Henwell would never attempt something so dangerous without confidence in his own strength.

Even if the forging hammer struck him, someone of Henwell's strength would suffer little more than a moment of dizziness.

They also cannot see the dragon's head stretching beneath the forging hammer beside him, studying the cube with equal intensity.

Henwell asks Barbarossa, "Do you know what is happening here?"

Barbarossa puts on the look of someone who has understood everything. "Release me, and I will tell you."

Henwell sounds disappointed. "So you have never seen it before either."

Barbarossa flies into a rage. "Ant! You dare insult Lord Deathwing's vast learning?"

Henwell snorts. "Heh... Those eyes are so clear and so stupid that I can tell you have not understood a thing."

Snap!

Barbarossa's jaws miss Henwell's head.

Snap!

Humiliated and furious, Barbarossa also fails to bite the cube.

Henwell calls on the Will Lock and drags Barbarossa back into his body before the ugly creature can cause any more trouble.

He spends another two full hours watching the process.

By that point, crystalline structure accounts for more than two-thirds of the cube.

Henwell looks up at the others. "What principle causes this?"

Jax shakes his head. "We do not know. We are still researching it."

"Where did this machine come from?"

"A senior scholar from the Arcane Academy built a private laboratory. Then the place exploded."

"The scholar died on the spot. No one who knew about the laboratory survived, and this machine was all that remained."

"According to the records the scholar filed, the goal was to forge an enchanted piece of extraordinary equipment."

"The machine's raw materials came from No. 4 Smelting Plant, its steam engine came from No. 3 Steam Engine Plant, and the forging mechanism came from No. 7 Forging Plant."

"We investigated every part carefully and found nothing unusual."

Henwell points at the cube. "Can the energy inside it be drawn out?"

"Yes, but only an extraordinary spellcaster can do it. Other professionals cannot."

"Dean Gallagher tested it. One standard Cubic Crystal contains power equivalent to one Fourth-Circle Spell and three Third-Circle Spells."

"However, extracting that energy is extremely complicated. An energy-channeling spell formation must be prepared in advance, and the preparation takes a very long time."

Henwell continues, "What kind of metal was converted into the Cubic Crystal?"

"Many kinds. Any extraordinary alloy can be converted, though metals that channel energy more efficiently crystallize more easily."

"Precious extraordinary metals such as Arcanite and Mithril perform especially well. Our own extraordinary alloys rank somewhere above average."

"Orma Alloy performs somewhat better, and the specimen before you is made from our highest-quality Orma Alloy."

"Once the machine starts, it must forge continuously for more than forty-eight hours to reach this stage."

"Reaching the critical point takes even longer, sometimes several days."

"Once most of the metal has become Cubic Crystal, extraordinary energy leakage begins to occur around it."

"We do not dare take further risks. We stop when crystallization reaches eighty-five percent."

As the researcher speaks, several people carry over a box containing what they call a finished Cubic Crystal.

Henwell reaches out to sense it. An enormous reserve of energy truly lies within.