Translator: CinderTL
"Waaah!"
Tracy let out a short cry, her small body clutching a strand of Roland's hair as her wings trembled slightly in shock.
"This... this place feels so deep and dark! Could there be... something terrible down there?"
Roland didn't answer immediately. Instead, his sharp gaze swept over the profound darkness below, which seemed to devour all light.
The mana environment here remained stagnant, making spellcasting exceptionally difficult.
He concentrated, his fingertips struggling to condense a small, faint but stable flame. Then, he carefully tossed the spark downward.
The flame descended like a solitary firefly, tracing a brief arc through the darkness as it flickered and fell.
By the fleeting light, Roland managed to discern the rough outline of the ancient ruins exposed by the collapse beneath his feet.
It appeared to be the ceiling or upper structure of some vast space. He could see broken metal beams, twisted pipes, and fragments of a transparent material—likely shattered observation windows—scattered below.
The flame finally landed on a relatively flat metal surface dozens of meters below. It flickered a few times but ignited nothing, nor did it alert any obvious living creatures.
Roland held his breath, listening intently for a moment. Aside from the faint, ghostly whistling of the wind echoing up from the abyss, he caught no unusual sounds.
At least, in the area directly exposed beneath the pitfall, no immediate danger was apparent.
"Hold on tight, Tracy," Roland whispered.
Then, timing his leap with the spot the flame had just marked before it went out, he threw himself into the void.
His figure plummeted, the rushing wind whipping his clothes.
Just before impact, he tightened his core, adjusted his posture, and bent his knees.
He landed on the cold, hard metal floor with a soft thud, as lithe and steady as a lynx.
Once his footing was secure, he immediately refocused his mind.
This time, he exerted far more concentration than usual before finally condensing a stable sphere of light in his palm.
A soft yet clear glow radiated from him, barely dispelling the dense darkness within a ten-step radius.
The light's reach revealed the interior of these ancient ruins.
The area seemed to be a vast corridor or hall. Its walls were clad in heavy, rusted metal plates, many of which had peeled away to expose the rough concrete structure beneath. From the ceiling, countless severed cables and pipes dangled like the withered veins of some colossal creature. The floor was strewn with unidentifiable metal parts, shattered vessels, and a thick layer of dust.
Several intact devices embedded in the walls caught Roland's eye. They featured empty screen frames where glass had long since broken, with dust-covered buttons and levers below. Some panels still bore the faded indicators and blurred symbols of their former function. In the corners, he spotted the overturned metal frames of what might have been workbenches or lab tables, alongside toppled transparent containers whose contents had long since dried and carbonized.
The entire space was permeated with the cold, desolate air of a long-abandoned high-tech facility. This was no residential area; it had clearly been a place of research or observation.
But now, all signs of intelligent life had fallen silent, leaving only this wreckage—frozen in time and tragedy—to silently recount the past in the darkness.
Roland took a deep breath and cautiously extended his senses, spreading them like an invisible spiderweb into his surroundings.
After a moment, the tension in his nerves eased slightly.
At least within his range of perception, he detected no signs of any living creature—no heartbeats, no breathing, nor the twisted energy fluctuations that mutated demonic beasts might emit.
Yet he remained vigilant, feeling his way forward along the main corridor strewn with debris.
The corridor was occasionally broken by side paths or room entrances, but most were sealed shut by collapsed structures or piles of rubble.
He had advanced only a few dozen meters when a massive door, originally made of metal, appeared ahead.
But the door had torn free from one of its hinges and hung askew, revealing the darkened space beyond.
Roland turned sideways and carefully peered through the gap.
The orb of light orbiting him obediently drifted forward, gradually illuminating the room's interior.
The room was abnormally spacious and a complete mess.
Tall metal shelving units and bookcases stood against the walls, forming the room's main structure. Most of the shelves were empty, save for a few oddly shaped, heavily rusted remains of equipment that hung there in solitary isolation.
In stark contrast to the desolate shelves, the equally tall bookcases seemed largely undisturbed. They were arranged in neat rows, their frames mostly intact despite being covered in a thick layer of dust. The shelves were packed with items resembling books or documents, all coated in dust that obscured their contents.
In the far corners of the room, Roland spotted several metal skeletons of vehicles similar in design to the one Hagrid drove. However, they had been torn and twisted by some immense force, reduced to unrecognizable scrap metal piled up with the surrounding debris.
Roland drew the Radiant Moon Longsword from his waist and cautiously stepped into the room.
His footsteps fell on the dust-covered floor, making a faint shasha sound.
As the sphere of light pushed back the darkness, the implements remaining on the shelves came into clearer view. Though their shapes were blurred by rust, their basic structures were still recognizable, bearing a resemblance to the chainsword and hand cannon Hagrid used—especially the obvious grips and the recessed slots in their core zones.
Beyond those, there were many strange devices he had never seen before. Some had multiple nozzles, others were complex multi-barrel structures, and some were shaped like magnified insect limbs.
Yet, all these implements shared a single common feature.
Their core sections all had a distinct slot or recessed structure designed to house some kind of "core device."
Roland stepped forward cautiously, picking up a few of the less-rusted implements to examine them closely. They were heavy in his hand, the metal cold to the touch.
He tried to channel a faint wisp of mana into one of the hand cannon-like devices, but there was no response. The internal rune structure had clearly been completely destroyed and rendered useless by the long ages.
He checked the others; the situation was much the same.
"It seems," he thought, "this is the source of the weapons and vehicles used by the knights of the Rust Knight Order."
Roland understood. He surveyed his surroundings and began checking the room's other exits.
Aside from the skewed main door he had entered through, there were several smaller doorways in other directions. Two of them, however, were severely warped from external pressure. Through the cracks in their panels, he could see the dark spaces behind them, completely filled with dense sand. Clearly, those paths were impassable.
Only one set of double metal doors, facing the bookshelves, remained relatively intact. They were sealed shut, showing no obvious signs of damage.
After thoroughly scouting the area, Roland focused his attention and walked toward the bookshelves.
He carefully blew away a layer of dust, revealing "books" made not of paper, but of a flexible material resembling tanned leather or a special synthetic composite. Their covers were hard, with metal-reinforced corners. Though coated in dust, the material itself seemed to have resisted the ravages of time.
He gently pulled out a relatively thin volume. Its cover bore a title written in a fluid, unfamiliar script:
Observation Post No. 7: Daily Maintenance and Energy Node Log—Era: Crystal Rhythm.
"Observation Post No. 7... Era of Crystal Rhythm..."
Roland murmured the names, his heart quickening.
So this ancient ruin dates back to the Crystal Era?
With this thought, he flipped open the booklet and began to skim its pages.
The contents were mostly dry data—maintenance logs for energy pipelines, calibration records for observation instruments, and readings of mana fluctuations in the surrounding environment.
But soon, in a thicker volume titled Emergency Defense Protocols and Standard Equipment Overview, he found much more critical information.
The book contained clear diagrams, detailing the structural breakdowns of weapons like chainswords, hand cannons, and other bizarre armaments.
His gaze locked onto the section depicting the weapons' energy cores.
The diagrams explicitly labeled the core's name:
Entropic Cinder Core.
The text explained that this core could capture and stabilize the naturally chaotic and disordered "inert ether" from the environment. Through a specific rune converter, it would then transform this ether into "Active Entropic Cinder Energy"—a highly corrosive and destructive power used to fuel weapons and certain facilities.
As he read further, a specific title appeared repeatedly in the descriptions of the weapons' and facilities' designers.
"Construct Artisans?"
Roland stared at the unfamiliar class name on the page, his brow furrowing slowly.
In all his reading, he had never encountered this title in any tome.
Yet, according to the descriptions in these books, the abilities of this class combined energy theory, material properties, and precision forging to create constructs and energy devices with specific functions.
It sounded extraordinarily powerful—an advanced class path that seemed to merge an [Enchanter]'s runic knowledge with a unique form of engineering.
Could I possibly become this lost, powerful class by mastering the relevant knowledge and skills?
This thought drove him to devour the other books and pamphlets with even greater focus, hoping to find more information about the "Construct Artisan" class itself—its specific transmission methods, core skills, or advancement paths.
However, systematic records of the class itself seemed scarce.
Most of the literature focused on the operation and maintenance of specific facilities or the application of the "Entropic Cinder Core."
Just as he thought he would find no more clues, a relatively ordinary pamphlet tucked between the heavy ledgers caught his eye.
He pulled out the notebook and opened its yellowed, fragile pages.
The handwriting above was not as neat as an official document. It bore a distinct personal style, somewhat scrawled, yet brimming with emotion.
"...Success! We've finally succeeded! After seventeen cycles, we have made a breakthrough in the reverse compilation and reconstruction of the Entropic Cinder Core's bottom-level energy runes! The new compatibility protocol has passed testing, and the core output stability has increased by 320 percent."
"More importantly, it can finally generate a beneficial resonance with the power wielded by those haughty transcendent professionals, creating a mutually reinforcing synergy rather than a simple energy clash!"
"Look! Let's see who still dares to say we 'Construct Artisans' can only build useless 'iron lumps' and 'fire pokers'! This is what true..."
At this point, the handwriting suddenly became extremely scrawled and distorted, as if the writer had been scribbling furiously in a state of intense excitement or had been abruptly interrupted.
"Alarm... What's happening? Energy readings are skyrocketing... Out of control... Containment walls have failed... What on earth is going on..."
The following pages were either blank or covered in unrecognizable ink stains, as if soaked in liquid, and frantically scratched lines.
The record ended abruptly here.
Roland's heart quickened.
He had found the key location mentioned in the notes—the core zone where this groundbreaking research had been conducted, and where the disaster had likely begun.
He whispered the name that had appeared repeatedly in the first half of the journal.
"The Bottom-level Protocol Hall..."
(End of the Chapter)
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