Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1061: Chapter 1060: About Elementals

Gawain thought that any normal person, upon knowing something supersonic had landed on someone’s head, would definitely not say something like ”Are you okay?”, even if it hit a sea demon capable of revival. But Rebecca could say it, and after she said it, everyone on site actually thought it was quite normal—this was quite impressive...

”Not everyone’s head is as hard as yours,” noticing the awkward atmosphere, Gawain sighed helplessly and tried to smooth things over, ”That out-of-control accelerate body sent Tiel back to her room for a revival...”

”Ah!” Rebecca finally realized and quickly apologized to Tiel, ”Sorry, this is our...”

”It’s fine,” Tiel waved her hand, ”Actually, it’s okay. I didn’t even realize what happened, but that being said, this thing you guys made is a bit dangerous. If it hit elsewhere, it could have been problematic...”

”Yes, dangerous,” Gawain said with a serious expression as he looked at Rebecca. Although Tiel had already said it was fine, looking at the chaotic scene, he still felt it was necessary to handle this accident seriously, ”Even though there weren’t serious casualties this time, it was still a serious experimental accident—necessary procedures must be followed. After the aftermath work is completed, you need to sort out the responsibility and incident report, and promptly address the hidden dangers of the related aspects.”

Rebecca shrank her neck, nodded while listening, and only cautiously opened her mouth after Gawain finished speaking: ”I understand, Ancestor...”

Gawain exhaled. He knew that although this girl was occasionally careless, she wouldn’t get muddled with serious matters, so after instructing her on handling the accident, he turned his attention back to the experiment—

Despite the serious accident, it was undeniable that Rebecca and her team had truly made something astonishing after their long and focused efforts.

They had broken through the Missile Limit, a problem that had troubled countless scholars for a long time—but why did just breaking through the Missile Limit cause such massive destruction?

Gawain first thought of the accelerate body that flew out: the key clues should be on that accelerate body.

”Have you found the accelerate body?” Gawain looked at Rebecca, ”It should have landed in the White River area.”

”I’ve already sent people to look for it, and I’ve notified the patrol teams near the White River and the guard posts on the opposite bank,” Rebecca quickly said, ”A report came back before you arrived, saying a deep pit suspecting to be from a high-speed impact was found on the riverbank, and now it’s about time to have...”

Just as she was speaking, a young laboratory assistant suddenly ran over from a distance, shouting excitedly as he ran: ”Your Highness! Your Highness! They’ve found the accelerate body! It’s being transported here!”

Upon hearing the news, Rebecca didn’t immediately celebrate but instead nervously asked, ”What about the site? How’s the site condition? Was the impact crater shape and surrounding debris undisturbed? How come they just transported it back...”

”Uh, the accelerate body was found by a levee patrol team on the northern banks, and the event happened suddenly. The patrol team, mostly volunteers, was unaware of these technical field details...” The young laboratory assistant calmed down from excitement, showing an awkward expression, ”By the time the follow-up notification arrived, they had already dug out the accelerate body. But the personnel who went for handover reported that the site damage wasn’t severe; the patrol team was careful during excavation and didn’t recklessly clear the ground.”

”...Okay,” Rebecca sighed, ”That counts as good news. Remind them to protect the site; I’ll personally go take a look later. Also, the patrol team acted with good intentions, so don’t blame them, make sure to thank them when the time comes...”

As she spoke, she couldn’t help but mutter, ”Seems like we’ll need to popularize this knowledge from now on. At least various patrol teams and sheriffs should know that when they find suspicious objects like this, they should preserve the scene and report to superiors first, rather than recklessly digging and moving them...”

Hearing Rebecca’s muttering, Gawain couldn’t help but smile slightly, then shook his head: ”The important thing is that we’ve found the accelerate body... Anyway, clean up this place a bit; transporting the object from the White River will take some time, so let’s find an intact room and prepare the analysis equipment and such—such a massive destruction was caused, and even a strange trace was left in the air that hasn’t disappeared yet. There must be a lot of clues left on it.”

...

The people at Test Site One didn’t have to wait long. Soon, a Magic-guided Vehicle marked with the Magic Guide Technology Research Institute logo arrived in front of the laboratory along the avenue—while the ruins at the side of the laboratory had just been cleared less than halfway. The laboratory’s security personnel and several technicians carefully unloaded the accelerate body, protected by wooden boxes and soft cloth, from the vehicle and immediately sent it to the south building of the lab. Here, Rebecca and her technical team had temporarily prepared a room for analysis and testing.

The large room was brightly lit, with the ventilation system on the side wall sending in fresh and clean air. Gawain stood with Tiel and Amber by the long experimental table, watching as two young assistant researchers carefully opened the wooden box on the floor, transferring its contents onto the table.

In an instant, a dozen pairs of eyes were all focused on the surface of that object.

It was a piece of metal that had been scorched beyond recognition, though it still vaguely resembled a cylinder originally. Its length was less than a meter, and its color was pitch black. It might have been cast smooth and polished once, but now its surface was full of craters, exhibiting a strange appearance akin to porous volcanic rock.

Gawain immediately noticed the craters and holes as if etched by something on it. After a brief observation, his brows furrowed: these marks initially didn’t appear unusual, naturally reminiscent of erosion damage from exposure to high temperatures, but he soon realized... the metal shouldn’t have been scorched to such an extent just from the brief flight at double the Missile Limit speed.

Sure enough, as he pondered this confusion, an elderly scholar on-site couldn’t help but mutter in confusion: ”It shouldn’t be... how did this thing get so scorched...”

Hearing the old scholar’s confusion, Gawain looked at Rebecca: ”How severe erosion and impact can the accelerate body withstand?”

”The accelerate body is cast with purple steel and Mithril alloy, with elemental enchantment on its surface—we initially considered it to endure high temperatures, so theoretically, this thing can even remain stable in magma for a long time,” Rebecca immediately replied, her face equally puzzled, ”Generally, this accelerate body can only be remelted and reforged in a specific frequency of ao energy environment, relying on normal high temperatures to burn it to this extent... although it’s not impossible, that temperature isn’t typical of ordinary flames. Could it be that after accelerating the object beyond the Missile Limit, the temperature it endures is even higher than being submerged in lava...”

No one could answer Rebecca’s question because in the history of human beings, no one had ever accelerated any solid matter to such high speeds—beyond the Missile Limit, the field was unknown to humans, no one could imagine what changes would occur when matter flew at such speeds or what phenomena it would experience. In this matter, Gawain, as a ”traveler,” was on the same starting line as the local scholars.

The technicians began studying the distorted accelerated object, while several technicians with mage backgrounds attempted various spells to test the changes in the nature of the accelerated object. After some brief observation and analysis, one of the technicians seemed to discover something. Pondering, he said, ”These markings... shouldn’t be just caused by high-temperature erosion. Look at these areas—the metal inside the gaps shows no signs of melting and solidifying, but rather seems like a portion of the structure was neatly cut away. And these holes, there are no signs of them having melted, rather, it’s as if they’ve... directly evaporated.”

Rebecca immediately moved in to inspect it closely and, after a while, said with a hint of amazement, ”It really does seem that way!”

Gawain listened to the experts’ conversation on the side. Although not a complete outsider in the field of magic, he already had a vague association forming in his mind, and couldn’t help but say, ”So, this isn’t just caused by high temperatures; much of the markings actually resemble... elemental erosion?”

”Yes, elemental erosion and elemental evaporation,” an elderly scholar pointed at the pitted surface of the accelerated object, ”Look at these parts—the metal structure constituting the accelerated object is only slightly deformed, indicating the temperature it endured was not enough to cause such widespread melting damage. The missing parts were more like they were completely eroded by elements, and then evaporated in the prime material world.”

”Elemental erosion and evaporation...” Gawain rubbed his chin, pondering, ”I know of the elemental evaporation phenomenon. According to ancient Gondorian scholars, when pure elementals undergo certain stimuli, they will quickly return from the prime material world to their corresponding elemental world. During this process, they briefly open a portal to the elemental realm and release immense energy... immense energy...”

He couldn’t help but think of the staggering explosion at the side of the laboratory’s main building and the eerie trace lingering in the air.

”So that’s why the accelerated object caused such massive destruction?” Rebecca mused, ”Did it trigger elemental evaporation after surpassing the Missile Limit? The trace left in the air is from briefly opening an Elemental Rift?”

”This is a preliminary guess; we don’t have concrete evidence yet,” Gawain nodded, ”And even if we confirm the existence of the elemental evaporation phenomenon, we still need to figure out how it all happened—why does a regular piece of alloy, when accelerated beyond the Missile Limit, cause such a phenomenon? What exactly does it interact with during high-speed flight? Does everything, when accelerated to this speed, undergo such powerful ’evaporation’? Would situations differ if the speed is a bit faster or slower?”

Gawain’s series of questions came one after another, but Rebecca and the technicians were already accustomed to this— their emperor is exceptionally curious, and he would often exhibit the same exploratory spirit as a true researcher when in the laboratory. In fact, they themselves were equally curious about the questions Gawain raised.

Amber stood beside Gawain; however, she had been zoning out since the beginning. The technical knowledge involved felt like an enigma to her, a gap not mended by a few years of crash courses. She listened in a daze and realized she couldn’t keep up with Gawain and Rebecca’s train of thought, so she couldn’t help but poke Tiel beside her and ask in a low voice, ”Can you understand any of this?”

Tiel, with a justified expression, said, ”Of course, it’s quite understandable—though sea demons don’t fully grasp your land-dwellers’ magic system, at least in terms of elements and conventional physics, there are many commonalities between our knowledge.”

Amber: ”...”

Gawain overheard the conversation between Tiel and Amber, then suddenly turned his head to the sea demon. ”Speaking of the elemental realm, I remember that you sea demons should essentially be elemental creatures, right?”

”Yes,” Tiel swayed the tip of his tail, ”Strictly speaking, we can even be classified as ’water elements’—though we are much more advanced than they are.”

”Do you know anything about the relationship between elemental evaporation and the speed of flying objects?” Gawain asked curiously.

”We haven’t really encountered that—because all our high-speed vehicles are unusable now; the ones left are inefficient transportation tools,” Tiel sighed, somewhat self-deprecatingly. ”Though we once had a ship that could travel through the stars, nowadays... sea demons are no better than you when it comes to ’speed’.”

”I see...” Gawain said with some regret, then returned his gaze to the experiment table.

The distorted, pitted accelerated object still lay there quietly, its dark metallic pillar sealing a silence of knowledge.

Behind the Missile Limit, there seemed to be more and greater secrets hidden, secrets that perhaps no one could unravel in the near term, but much technology does not require decoding all related knowledge before it can be applied—at this stage, what purpose could Rebecca and her research team’s achievement serve?

...

In the northern part of the Loren Continent, deep in the distant, icy endless ocean, a dim glow floated in the dark seafloor.

Figures with snake tails and human bodies were silently and swiftly moving near the seabed, while light orbs used for illumination floated around them, dispersing the darkness on the seabed.

As the team advanced, the water currents ahead started showing signs of turbulence, fish in the vicinity noticeably dwindled, and some abrupt ”fissures” resembling transparent ice cones appeared in the surrounding waters, causing the entire team’s pace to slow down.

”Lady Cassandra,” a Naga wielding a trident sped up, coming beside the sea demon at the front of the team, his slightly raspy voice vibrating the surrounding seawater, ”There seem to be many Elemental Rifts here.”

”Strange... how are there so many Elemental Rifts in the prime material world...” Cassandra said with some confusion, ”Tsk, this isn’t a good sign, I don’t want to deal with primitive water elements in such a deserted and remote place.”

While speaking, she lifted her head and looked towards the distant, dark seafloor.

”Let’s speed up, and pass through this sea area directly.”