Chapter 178 – To the End of the World

Once they were in Frostland’s Gate, Mirian fetched the Elder artifacts from the Labyrinth, then briefed everyone on the research they’d done so far.

Song Jei took one look at what Mirian had been calling the ‘special’ acid dissolving a rock and said, “It is not acid. Sefora can explain. This is Elder…” She hesitated, struggling to find the words in Friian, then switched to Adamic. “The chemistry of the constituent parts doesn’t match what you’d expect by applying an acid. This is either unknown alchemistry, or some form of Elder technology. I doubt we can reverse the process of creating it, but we can put it to use.”

Mirian pondered that. “It’s strange to think of the Gods having… technology. Making discoveries and advancements as we do. It feels like they’ve always been above such things.”

Jei shrugged. “Perhaps they didn’t. Perhaps they were born with perfect knowledge of the universe. But I doubt that. Or they wouldn’t need tools such as these,” she said, gesturing at the Labyrinth artifacts. “Regardless, I’d term this substance as a separator, not an acid. Use it to figure out what each glyph’s base elements are, then put spell organs in it to figure out which ones match. The process will be time consuming, but the information can be stored in simple proportion tables.”

Mirian smiled at Jei. “I’ve always admired your brilliance,” she said.

A small smile flickered across Jei’s face. Then she said, tone still serious, “That is something Lily could help with. In fact, if we can find a container the separator won’t destroy, it can be divided up so multiple experiments can be carried out at once. Many townsfolk could be put to use, if you can get them to see the importance of helping a Prophet.”

Mirian could instantly see how helpful that would be for investigating unknown glyphs. She hesitated to get so many townsfolk involved. Ever since Troytin’s attacks after the Battle of Torrviol, she’d been wary of recruiting large groups of people. She had done it for Apophagorga out of necessity, but used deception to hide the nature of that recruitment until near the end of the cycle. Spreading knowledge about her nature as Prophet also spread changes. There was loss of control. A lack of trust.

But Jei was right, especially here in Frostland’s Gate where she was isolated from the rest of the world and its dangers. Recruiting more people and training them on experiments could produce far more results in one cycle than a small team. It introduced a higher likelihood of errors, but they could run the same experiments multiple times to check results. It would be especially useful for simple but time consuming tasks. She looked at her favorite teacher again and smiled. Song had such grace and wisdom.

She thought of Jei sacrificing herself by ramming her airship into Apophagorga and looked away.

“We can start recruiting people immediately. I can put on a little show in the center of town.”

***

Mirian’s conjured illusion of the Ominian was a big hit and a powerful motivator. The fact that she’d gone into the Labyrinth alone and returned from the end of a Vault and already knew most of the people in town before they’d even said a word to her further convinced people what she was saying was true. After that, there was something of a snowball effect: the more people believed her, the more they did the work for her to convince the holdouts.

Soon enough, half the town was helping in some way. Mirian could direct the hunting teams to precise locations to gather up myrvites for testing, and Frostland’s Gate had far more arcanists per capita than a usual village.

The special separator liquid quickly destroyed any container it was put in, then started decomposing the table underneath as well, much to Elsadorra’s dismay. Mirian started distributing modified copies of the gather liquid spell that worked, but moving the separator around only with spells proved horribly inconvenient. After some thought, Jei ended up using her crystal-weaving spells to create small diamond glasses, which the separator didn’t dissolve.

“It’s a single element, so the separator doesn’t act on it,” she said.

Within a few days, Beatrice was certain the separator liquid was isolating new elements. “Any alchemist would kill for this stuff,” she said.

Jei spent a great deal of time using the powdered elements with the Elder crystal fabrication device.

“In principle, it’s not dissimilar to Zhighuan crystal spells,” she explained to Mirian after some experimentation. “However, those spells have limits to the kinds of crystals that can be grown, and even the best-formed crystals will inevitably gather small impurities. With this device, as long as the elemental powder is provided in the correct ratios, and remains purified, the resulting crystals from this device should be flawless.”

Mirian immediately saw the implications. “We could create perfect conduits. Not only perfect conduits, massive ones.” She got to work calculating how long it would take for a device to create a mana-conduit crystal large enough to move the amount of arcane energy in a leyline. Jei checked her work.

“Sixty days,” she muttered when the calculations were finalized. That was the minimum amount of time needed to grow the crystal, and it assumed the device was in use at all hours of the day with no breaks. And the resulting crystal would have to be the size of an ice carnipede, so it couldn’t exactly be moved. “There must be a way to shorten the time.” Perhaps multiple devices could be used simultaneously. That means scouring other parts of the Labyrinth. Which may not be a bad idea; I could always find more uses for relicarium.

Jei nodded. “I can experiment with the device, and teach others to use it. We can also investigate different potential conduits. The Zhighuan crystal spells are specific to a known mineral. These devices don’t seem to have that limit. They may allow us to break new ground.”

Mirian nodded. “I’ll leave you in charge of that, then.”

On the 1st of Duala, Mirian headed north again.

***

Over the next three cycles, they made significant progress on glyph research and conduit tests. At least one more substance from the Vaults seemed to a be a perfect conductor, though it was hard to say if that was true or merely a limitation of their measurement instruments. They also isolated several new elements purely on accident, just from taking various rocks and myrvite organs and dissembling them with the Elder separator liquid. In other circumstances, that would have been a fantastic development for their careers. As it was, it was hardly helpful. Despite all the strange crystals they were able to grow, corundum remained the most efficient mana conduit. They discovered several common rocks from which aluminum could be extracted, which would be useful for obtaining the raw materials, but no ways to make the crystal formation faster.

There were some hints that some of the tri-bonded glyphs they were learning could regulate arcane energy in novel ways, but it was hard to say how that might be used to regulate a leyline. The leylines themselves fluctuated drastically in how much energy was moving through them at any given time, and snaked about as they traveled in the deep underground. Then, there was still the issue of how to get to them.

“I know where several leylines will breach the surface,” Mirian told Jei one evening. “Presumably, a device could be created at the location ahead of time and send the energy into a new place.”

“The device would have to withstand several thousand myr of arcane energy,” Jei said, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

“Yes, I don’t quite have a solution for that. Nor the spontaneous energy transformations that cause blast waves and fires. The other possibility is that, at the bottom of the Labyrinth, there’s direct access to the leylines.”

Jei looked even more incredulous. “Assuming the Labyrinth floors progress linearly, wouldn’t that be ten floors deeper than anyone has ever gone, including a Prophet?”

Mirian sighed. “Something like that. There’s several different estimates about what floor of the Labyrinth it would be, and some leylines appear to run deeper than others. But you can see the problem. That’s why I’m approaching the problem tangentially. Eventually, I have to figure something out. If by some miracle I’m able to bend Akana Praediar to my will, I’d still need to have something for them to build.”

“What of the Divine Monument?”

“It could be directly connected to the leylines, or it could be unconnected but the magnitude of the explosion disrupts them anyways. Since the explosion is propagating mostly in the fourth dimension, it probably hits the leyline much harder than one would guess based off the distance.” Mirian frowned. “That’s another thing I need to work on. It’s hard to know what to prioritize. And then there’s Ibrahim and Atroxcidi. If I have to start organizing a defense of Baracuel, I’ll have lost. I think he can do it, given enough time. He nearly had the Praetorians dead when I first intervened. That puts me on a deadline.”

“I agree with your choice not to engage him directly,” Jei said. She looked over at the pile of Elder artifacts they still couldn’t find a purpose for. “It’s possible those tools are designed to engage directly with Elder technology. Have you tried using them on the Divine Monument?”

Mirian smiled at Jei again. She loved how smart she was. Selesia and Nicolus were both smart too, but they didn’t have her maturity. But Mirian hesitated to say anything. Jei had dedicated herself to Mirian absolutely, sacrificed her life multiple times. And she was her teacher. It felt strange to even consider asking her to be more than that.

“What?” Jei said, seeing Mirian’s look.

“Ah, nothing. Sorry. I’ll definitely have to try that. Next cycle, maybe. There’s… something north. A difference in the ambient mana. It’s strange to say, but it’s like there’s someplace up there calling to me.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Jei looked at her. “Have I told you of Sun Shuen?”

“You did.”

Mirian thought of the Ominian, guiding her north in her dreams. They have not shown you that place for nothing. The Ominian clearly found great beauty in the world of Enteria. But it’s more than that. She thought of where they stopped. A great expanse of glimmering blue glaciers, with a single peak in the middle of the ice.

“We’re not making much progress this cycle anyways. I’m going to leave for the north earlier. Going to go farther. I think the Ominian wants me to see something.” She wondered if the others had the same dreams of the frostlands. If they ever felt the urge. Perhaps they saw the same visions, but like Troytin, twisted it to mean what they wanted, rather than what the Elder God was trying to say.

***

This time, Mirian packed more dried food into her bag and a few extra mana elixirs and left just after the myrvite stampede.