Chapter 1306: Retrieving the Crystal
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Similar to the Crapple Research Station, CARS, the main structure of the sacred mountain of Asurn was also constructed from crystals. Different types of druse, crystal towers, and walls constituted the complex structure within the ancient spacecraft. But unlike conventional spaceships, many of the cabins in Asurn were not directly connected. Perhaps, so extre security requirents had necessitated such a sealed design for the key compartnts from the outset. The only way to access these compartnts was through the gatekeeper or defeating Asurn’s security system. Through a portal, Lady Gloom brought Hao Ren into the Energy Circulation Hub.
It was a pyramid-shaped chamber, where lavender druse grew in all four corners. As soon as Hao Ren entered this place, he saw a massive crack above the chamber running through the wall of the sacred mountain. Looking through the crack, Hao Ren saw the gloomy sky outside. There was a white crystalline conduit, broken in half and flickering with sparks, just below the crack. The floor in front of the conduit had crumbled and sunk. A crystal, different in material compared to its surroundings, was lying quietly in the pit.
Perhaps the crystal had changed in shape and color when it passed through the Wall of Reality, because there was no way Hao Ren could have known the nature of the crystal just by looking at it. Nevertheless, his heart skipped a beat when he saw two lines of text on the crystal.
“Hearts and arrows.
“Exquisitely designed.”
Hao Ren was dead sure that the crystal did not have this “logo” when he dropped it into the Scarred Nebula. This text must have only appeared when it went through the Wall of Reality. So what was this text about? Was it the mark the goddess left for herself? Was it a credit cookie the goddess left behind after cutting the crystal? Or was it simply the manifestation of her neurotic obsession with hearts and arrows?
Whatever it was, Hao Ren was now sure who caused the situation in Asurn—it was him.
Cold sweat was trickling down his forehead onto his toes. He had never prayed to the goddess before, but this ti, he could not help but call out her na in his mind.
While having that thought, Hao Ren beca conscious, quickly looking up and around. But there were no signs of divine lightning punishnt. Instead, he saw a golden-white object floating at the top of the pyramid chamber.
It was a tablet, about one-ter square, and half an inch thick. It was unevenly edged and had a light on its surface. When he looked at it, Hao Ren could not help but feel a sense of tranquility.
He even felt his divine power, diffusing in a pale white halo from his body, resonating with the tablet. Two similar divine powers from different sources seed to be interacting with each other. “Hey, bro, what’s up there?”
“Where are you from?”
“I’m from another universe where there’s a goddess. I’m a fragnt falling off her body.”
“Oh, what a coincidence; there’s a goddess in my world too, but sobody has stabbed her.”
“Holy moly!”
Of course, Hao Ren made that up in his mind; he had no idea what the two divine powers talked to each other. But the truth would not be far, he figured.
Lady Gloom wanted to stop Hao Ren but was surprised to see that there was nothing bad happening to him. “You can even stare at the Tablet of Commandnts directly?”
“That’s the Tablet of Commandnts?” Hao Ren knew, but he asked for the sake of asking.
“That’s right. It’s sothing that the goddess of creation made. But I have never seen a mortal who could not only survive before it but even look directly at it without a problem. The tablet releases the thoughts of the goddess. Except for non-living things like , normal living creatures could not stand before it.”
“When did I say that I was a mortal?” Hao Ren’s eyebrows arched. “Can you take down the tablet for ? Forget it if it’s an important component of Asurn.”
Lady Gloom hesitated for a mont before she raised a finger in the air, and then the tablet descended slowly. “It’s not part of Asurn. No one knows what is the goddess’s purpose by leaving it here. She placed it here without leaving behind any instruction.”
Hao Ren curiously ca close to the tablet, both sides of which had so engravings. On one side was an unknown, complicated pattern. On the other side were a few lines of textual inscription.
“Who am I? Why am I here? What should I do? Do I have any aning? What is around ? Where are their boundaries? Why do they appear like that? Are they aningful?”
Was this what the goddess left behind?
Hao Ren’s brows knit together. Suddenly, he felt a slight burning sensation on his right hand.
A red scar appeared on his right hand, once burned by divine blood.
A thought ca to mind. Hao Ren carefully reached out his right hand and touched the golden-white tablet with the side of his hand that once stained with divine blood.
But the vision Hao Ren was envisaging did not appear. He just felt that so disorganized information drifted past his shallow consciousness. The info gave him so knowledge about so unexplained things, but upon careful analysis, those were rely trivial information. It was about the creation of life and scenes about the early universe, which was useful but not sothing that Hao Ren was expecting from the tablet.
It was unlikely that the information stored in the golden-white tablet was irrelevant. Most likely that the decoding thod was incorrect, or the tablet had so protection chanism, in the form of a higher access right, perhaps.
Thoughts flashed across Hao Ren’s mind. But he did not waste ti on it. While examining the tablet, he kept an eye on the Energy Circulation Hub that the crystal key had damaged. He was figuring a way to fix it.
According to Lady Gloom, the hub could self-repair. After removing the crystal, the facility should be able to restore. But it took ti, so he wanted to speed up the process.
While thinking about that, a question suddenly ca to mind. “Lady Gloom, if removing the crystal could let Asurn restore itself, why didn’t the gatekeeper fix it earlier? Did you not say that non-living things like you will not be affected by the Tablet of Commandnts?”
“We can’t get close to the crystal,” Lady Gloom said while pointing to the ‘hearts and arrows’ lying quietly on the floor. “It has so self-protection chanisms. In the past few months, Number One and I had been discussing many repair options, but they were not successful because of the existence of the protection chanism. Had you not shown your understanding of this piece of debris, I wouldn’t have let you co. As logical AI, we don’t play dice.”
So the problem was that ordinary humans could not get up to the top of Asurn, and the two AIs that could get there could not approach the alien crystal.
As if to prove what she said was true, Lady Gloom inched closer to the crystal key. When she was about a dozen ters from away from it, a shield suddenly shrouded the crystal. The repulsive force of the shield was so great that it forced Lady Gloom to retreat. And then, there were so words on the shield.
“Piss off!”
It was Raven 12345’s style of magic through and through. This magic, categorized under the heading of “Field Protection—Goddess’ Will” in the bible that the goddess gave Hao Ren, was commonly known as Truth Protection.
The purpose of this magic was to prevent the crystal key from falling into the wrong hand. In this respect, it was a well-thought-out plan by the neurotic goddess.
Hao Ren was trying to disable the “Piss-off” magic.
For him, lifting the magic was a piece of cake.
While communicating with the magic in his mind, Hao Ren released a few autonomous robots from his Dinsional Pocket.
The autonomous robots shuffled around the damaged energy conduit and the underlying pedestal, scanning the damages.
The failure of the Energy Circulation Hub was mainly due to a damaged transmission dium, but the base was relatively okay. In theory, when the crystal key was removed, it would clear the entire circulatory system of interference. Once the energy conduit was restored, the hub would be back in normal operation.
This thod would not restore the system to its original condition, but it would function without issue. After the ergency repair, Asurn would slowly self-repair and take so ti for the system to be back on track.
Just as Hao Ren was fiddling with the protective mode of the crystal key, he felt a tremor under his feet.
“What’s happening?” Hao Ren turned his head and looked at Lady Gloom.
“The intruders are breaking through the barriers in the Final Protocol Zone,” Lady Gloom said. “They are close to the Ark of the Sacred Covenant.”
“I don’t think they can open the Ark of the Sacred Covenant with the ‘plate.'” Hao Ren frowned. “How much ti we have?”
“About 10 minutes.”
“Enough.”
Just as Hao Ren’s voice trailed off, the shield around the crystal key disappeared.
He quickly tucked the problematic crystal into his dinsional pocket, and then directed the autonomous robots to connect their tentacles to the crystal conduit. The crystal conduit, which was self-restoring slowly, recovered with an even quicker speed as the robotic arms attaching to it supplied it with greater energy.
“You can activate the will hub now,” Hao Ren said to Lady Gloom as he wiped away the non-existent sweat on his forehead. “Let’s et up with Calaxus and others, then head to the Final Protocol Zone.”
Reviews
All reviews (0)