Chapter 893: Lucius Romano (4)


    ?


    "Some buildings?"


    "Yes. They all looked like research centers, and more than that, they all had the remnants of some symbols on them."


    Erik realized something. It couldn''t be a coincidence. No, it couldn''t.


    The young man traveled through the vast cave and tunnel systems that the vige had relocated to before arriving at Liberty Watch.


    There he found thaids and a harrowing monster. A humanoid beast, looking like a thaid, but with no brain crystal power.


    Thinking about it, that was weird. Why did a monster like that, as powerful as it was, have no brain-crystal power?


    But that wasn''t everything. Back in the city''s main building, where Liberty Watch has now established its town hall, he found some documents.


    The problem was that these documents showed a date that predated the appearance of thaids, and yet, the documents talked about these vile beasts as if they were spotted daily. It was weird back then; it was strange now.


    But Erik never found an answer to his questions, at least not until now.


    "Was that symbol depicting a mortar and a pestle, intertwined by a silver-colored line?"


    Lucius was shocked. "How do you know that?"


    "This ce..." Erik said. "I think it was another research center for those guys.


    He paused.


    "I was the first to arrive here. Back then, this cave was home to plenty of thaids and a harrowing humanoid monster. Sometimeter, I arrived at a vige, and after much time, I made friends with the vigers. We cleared this ce and slew that monster. But before leaving the first time, I went to the building a couple hundred meters from here and there. I found some documents. They all had the same symbol."


    "This doesn''t exin why you made that connection," Lucius said. "What did those documents say?"


    "Most were destroyed," Erik said. "But the few remaining talked about Thaids; they were written much earlier than their first appearance."


    Lucius wasn''t surprised. "So, you came across one of the Silverline Corporation''s research facilities?"


    "I did."


    "So did I. The ckguards were setting up their bases there, but it would be more urate to say that they were actively searching for these locations. I looked around for a long time and eventually learned that they were not looking for the bases themselves, but for what they contained. Mostly research papers."


    "Did you have the chance to read what these papers were about?"


    "Yes. Some were studies about mana, some about thaids. As you said, those guys already knew about them and knew about mana much before the first thaids appeared."


    Silence reigned for a bit. Those guys, the Silverline Corporation, knew about thaids and mana. But how did they find out? When?


    "The ckguards apparently knew about that already, but that wasn''t what the ckguards were searching for. The Silverline Corporationpleted its research. Don''t ask me when or how. For months, I followed the ckguards. Apparently, they found something, an email, or a document saying that the result of this research was in a base deep into Mur."


    He paused, thinking back on the harrowing experiences he had to endure to reach that ce. "We had to traverse the entire Lorogia region. The ckguards could either take a longer route along the coastal line or get through the mountains. Guess where they chose to go." "The coastal route?"


    "AH! Those damned fuckers chose the mountains! Many people died, and food ran out after months of sitting on the mountain''s hills. Those guys had resorted to... Well, I prefer not saying it. At that point, I had enough and decided to leave. I knew where to go, and so I did. In the end, I reached a base. No one had been there in a long time, so most documents were there. What I found out, well, you know what it was."


    "The Biological Supeputer."


    "Indeed. They used a human brain to make it, ording to the papers. They put a person inside that thing."


    "Ah..."


    That exined a lot. It exined why the AI was so advanced and why it could respond to Erik as if it were a person. Erik often asked himself and the system those questions, but an answer never came. Though something weird became clear after he asked the biological supeputer to talk like a person. The AI... it was not a sort of robot...


    "So, you found it, but this thing allows me to get more brain crystal powers. We all know that to have a Brain Crystal Power, one needs a brain crystal. There were none back then. You said these guys were studying mana, but the biological supeputer looked like the result of another research project."


    Lucius paused. "It is not the result of another research project; it is something they made after theypleted their initial research. Studying mana-these aren''t the right words to describe what they were doing. No, they were trying to control it. The problem was that they couldn''t... unless..."


    "Are you serious?" Erik was shocked. It all made sense. That was why his father said he found out the source of the Sinister Cold, the dreaded disease, or blessing, that brought brain crystal powers to humanity.


    "I am. The Silverline Corporation is responsible for the appearance of the Sinister Cold, or at least for its appearance among humans. They were responsible for the creation of brain crystals powers and the ability to wield mana through brain crystals. That was all to control mana, to turn men into gods."


    Erik''s expression transformed into one of utter astonishment, his eyes widening to the point where they seemed to take up his entire face.


    His jaw dropped open, ck with the weight of the bombshell his father had just dropped, and his skin paled as if the blood had been drained from it.


    For a moment, he was a statue, frozen in the moment''s gravity, the gears in his mind grinding to a halt as he tried to wrap his head around the staggering implication of his father''s words. "But that wasn''t what the ckguards were searching for. Maybe they knew it already. What they were searching for was the biological supeputer itself."