Chapter 289: Destination and Terminal
Energy! Power! The moment Ian realized he seemed to have cracked the key to this device, his heart surged with excitement.
However, upon second thought, he suddenly furrowed his brow.
Since the group before him had also found this instrument, there was no reason they wouldn't have guessed its function. But judging by the instrument's appearance, it didn't seem to have been activated before!
That meant either the previous group hadn't figured out the instrument's purpose, or they had but couldn't supply the necessary energy to power it.
Ian guessed the latter was more likely, so he frowned and pondered: What exactly powered this instrument?
Wind power? Steam? Neither seemed right. This round hollow sphere looked more like a container—maybe for water—but such a small amount of water couldn't possibly serve as a power source, could it?
Ian looked again at the golden lines on the floor. He felt that these lines covering the entire hall were no accident. If they were truly like an integrated circuit, then the real energy source for this instrument might well be electricity!
With this thought, Ian suddenly had a flash of insight. The people who had climbed up here before them might have known the instrument used electricity, but they would have been powerless to do anything about it.
But... Ian was different.
He pulled a fist-sized Thunder Stone from his pocket.
Ever since taking control of the Thunder Stone trade on Travira Island, Ian had accumulated plenty of these stones. Arions and the others were also using Thunder Stones to build an electric city, while Ian used them as a substitute for his Psychic Power.
Now, he always carried a Thunder Stone with him, ready to use the Misaka Card's skills at any moment.
And now, this Thunder Stone, brought up here by chance, could finally be put to use!
Under Baby-5's curious gaze, Ian gripped the Thunder Stone and slowly approached the instrument.
As mentioned before, when Thunder Stones come near a metal conductor, they discharge electricity. But this is merely a transfer of the ore's electrical energy—the discharge itself isn't dangerous. Otherwise, Waldo's Thunder Roar Cannon, which used Thunder Stones as attack energy, would have electrocuted everyone inside before firing.
Ian couldn't explain this peculiar physical phenomenon, but he only needed to know how to use it. As the Thunder Stone slowly neared the instrument, a strange scene unfolded: wisps of electric sparks began to flash from the stone and arc toward the instrument.
The moment the sparks touched the instrument, the indicator lights on the base's panel began to flicker!
A crackling sound filled the air. In Ian's hand, the Thunder Stone seemed to produce an electric whip that lashed repeatedly against the instrument, only to be absorbed by it!
Baby-5 watched in astonishment. She hadn't expected Ian's Thunder Stone to come in handy here. After her initial shock, she pointed at the hollow sphere and said, "Look!"
Ian looked up and saw that inside the hollow sphere, as the Thunder Stone's electrical energy continuously discharged, a bright spot of light was forming right in the center—a sparking point of gathered electricity!
It was concentrated electrical energy. Ian immediately understood: this hollow sphere worked on the same principle as Waldo's Thunder Roar Cannon, collecting electricity and condensing it into a plasma ball!
And as this plasma ball appeared, Ian noticed that the golden lines on the hall floor were beginning to faintly glow.
"That's right! This instrument is powered by electricity!" Ian couldn't suppress his excitement. He was now one hundred percent certain that the group who had climbed this Sky Island before them had never activated this instrument. They didn't have a Thunder Stone like Ian's to charge it! That meant the city's secrets still remained, undiscovered by anyone else.
So now, Ian felt like he was picking up leftovers—treasures and secrets that previous people had missed, now found by him. The feeling was incredibly satisfying.
"Once this instrument is fully charged, it will probably reveal some special hidden chamber, most likely right beneath this hall!" Ian thought.
However, to his surprise, after discharging for a while, the Thunder Stone in his hand suddenly turned to ash!
The discharge stopped. The electrical energy stored in the Thunder Stone had been completely consumed in such a short time!?
Ian stared blankly at the dust in his hand, then looked at the instrument. The plasma ball inside the hollow sphere was only about the size of a ping-pong ball, and the golden lines on the floor were still dim.
"This... this must be because the charge isn't enough, right?" Baby-5 asked.
"Yeah!" Ian nodded, thinking the same. He said to Baby-5, "Step back!"
After Baby-5 moved away, electric arcs began to crackle all over Ian's body. He placed his right hand on his forehead, then pulled it away sharply, gathering a ball of electric light in his palm!
"Lightning Spear!"
Ian hurled the electric light toward the instrument. A dazzling blue flash appeared as the Lightning Spear struck the device.
Crackling sounds followed, and the electric light Ian had thrown was quickly absorbed by the instrument. The plasma ball inside the hollow sphere grew slightly larger.
"It requires this much electrical energy?" Ian said in surprise.
If it were anyone else, they would have been helpless. Even if they had Thunder Stones, the amount of electricity needed was enormous. By Ian's estimate, it would take dozens or even hundreds of kilograms of Thunder Stones to fill the hollow sphere.
And carrying that many Thunder Stones up here was a problem in itself...
Fortunately, Ian now possessed lightning abilities. Converting Psychic Power into electricity was his specialty. Since this instrument could absorb all forms of lightning, Ian only needed to continuously attack it with Misaka Card's skills to charge it!
"Lightning Spear, second!"
"Lightning Spear, third!"
Ian kept hurling electric attacks at the instrument. Whenever his Psychic Power ran out, he rested until it recovered. As he repeatedly charged the instrument with Lightning Spears, the plasma ball inside the hollow sphere visibly grew.
By the time Ian threw his thirty-fourth Lightning Spear, the condensed plasma ball had nearly filled the entire hollow sphere! At that moment, a massive tremor shook the ground again. The floor around the hall began to retract inward in large sections!
Seeing this, Ian and Baby-5 quickly stood together, staying as close to the instrument as possible, watching the earth-shattering transformation.
The hall's floor was made of huge, flat stone blocks, each one to two meters thick. But these blocks moved like some kind of mechanism, stacking and sinking, continuously contracting until they all gathered beneath Ian and Baby-5's feet, forming a massive stone pillar. Then, the pillar slowly began to descend, carrying Ian and Baby-5 like an elevator down into a dark, exposed shaft.
"This isn't right!" Ian thought in alarm. "We're on a Sky Island. The foundation can't be too deep. It won't drop us all the way down, will it?"
With this doubt, the two were lowered by the stone elevator, along with the instrument, about twenty or thirty meters until they reached the bottom.
What appeared before them was an underground chamber even larger than the hall above. But the moment they saw what was inside, both Ian and Baby-5 were stunned!
Meanwhile, far below on Travira Island, the members of the Dragon Hunter Pirates watching the feed through the Video Den Den Mushi were growing anxious. Just as Ian and Baby-5 descended, the image from the Den Den Mushi had cut out, as if something was blocking the signal. They couldn't see what Ian and Baby-5 were now witnessing.
Murals! The underground chamber was filled with murals! And the murals depicted figures that Ian and Baby-5 had never seen before!
Besides the murals, the entire chamber was packed with countless identical little dwarves. Each dwarf held a spear and had the same beard. But these dwarves weren't alive—they stood motionless, arranged in rigid rows.
"What are these? Are they the residents of this Sky Island?" Baby-5 asked in astonishment, staring at the dwarves.
"No, these are the real Sky Islanders!" Ian said, pointing to the figures painted on the murals. Many of the characters in these paintings had small wings on their backs, so Ian understood: these were the true Sky Islanders!
As for these dwarf-like soldiers, Ian finally recalled what they were...
Tracing the murals on the wall, Ian carefully studied the images, guessing at the story they told. And as he thought, these murals depicted the history of the Sky Islanders—or more accurately, the Moon People—arriving on this blue planet!
Ian thought of Enel. He realized he was seeing the exact same things Enel had seen after landing on the Moon.
In one mural, Ian saw a scene: three winged figures, tears streaming down their faces, holding balloon-like objects in their hands, bidding farewell to people on a ship. And the people on that ship were exactly like these little dwarves!
The winged ones were definitely Sky Islanders, while these dwarves were the robots they had created. As for the balloon-like objects the three Sky Islanders held, for some reason, they reminded Ian of the colorful balloons floating beneath the clouds of this Sky Island!
Ian immediately understood: this so-called Barron Gray Terminal was likely the first stop when the Moon People landed on this planet!
The term "Terminal" probably referred to the destination of the Moon People's journey away from their homeland...