Chapter 26: Chaos Heart
"Compared to all that, I'm more curious about how a swordsman like you ends up spending so much time in a laboratory."
Scanning the decorations and statues along the corridor, Joshua casually asked, "I wanted to ask this when we were corresponding through letters, but now that I see you, you seem to be a regular here. It really doesn't match the impression I had."
"I am a swordsman, that's true."
Facing the warrior's question, Brandon answered matter-of-factly: "But I'm also a scholar. That's not contradictory, is it? I'm from the Kaos Family, there's no way I could be completely ignorant of magic."
Joshua thought about it and realized that was indeed the case.
The Kaos Family was a long-established, powerful aristocratic house. They were representatives of the imperial faction, a clear centralist faction. One of the three founders of the Imperial Royal Mage Association was an ancestor of the Kaos Family. Due to their family's academic heritage and bloodline inheritance, every generation of the Kaos Family produced many powerful mages, wielding significant influence within the Empire's mage circles.
As a family that had once produced a legendary archmage, even if the Order Twin Blades and Brandon's potential had led this family heir to become a swordsman, they would never allow him to have zero contact with magic. The scholar profession was similar to life professions like blacksmith or tailor, and didn't conflict with the swordsman's main class. It was perfectly normal.
The two continued talking as they walked deeper into the Mage Association. Since it was late at night, the interior lighting was dim. The adjusted magical lights were even less bright than the moonlight outside the Association. Fortunately, everyone present, including Ying and Lin, had night vision, so there were no accidents of bumping into walls. After a while, they all arrived before a silver-white laboratory door.
Brandon stepped forward slightly, raised his right hand, and pressed it against the right side of the silver door. Instantly, a flash of fluorescent light passed through, as if verifying something. Shortly after, a gentle female voice came from inside the door: "Brandon Kaos, welcome to Laboratory No. 3 for Magical Creature Research. Current time: Year 834, April 5th, 10:22 PM. Would you like to open the laboratory door?"
"Open the door."
"Understood."
The swordsman gave the command crisply, and the silver-white door silently opened. Brandon noticed the curious looks from Joshua and the others, turned back, and explained with a smile: "That was the Association's 'Tower Spirit,' Miss Flora, speaking with us. She's responsible for managing the internal security permissions of the Association."
"Artificial intelligence, or an artificial soul..."
Joshua glanced sideways at the two little ones beside him, then recalled Number 3 back in Moldavia. Suddenly, he realized something: "Right, although the Empire's Mage Association isn't as technically capable as a few mage organizations in the Eastern Plains, they should at least have no problem with simple artificial bodies. After all, they created the first-generation Divine Mechanism four hundred years ago based on data from another world. Why should I go far when the solution is right here?"
Thinking this, the warrior decided to ask Brandon about this matter later, which could also fulfill a wish for Number 3.
Behind the laboratory door was a small compartment. The blonde swordsman entered first, and immediately, countless beams of mage light swept across his body. Without needing an explanation, Joshua could tell those were cleaning spells to remove various dust particles and germs from the body. They were harmless, a standard procedure for entering and leaving precious magical laboratories. So he led Ying and Lin inside as well, undergoing a sterilization scan.
Beyond the compartment was the main body of the laboratory. It was a spacious rectangular room, with all four walls made of silver-white steel. Around the room were various containers, bottles, and jars, along with labeled cabinets of magical materials and a Mana Core. The laboratory's ceiling was densely packed with crystal pipelines for supplying mana. As Brandon entered, these pipelines began charging the various equipment in the lab, emitting a cold, blue-tinged light.
"Not bad... more professional than I imagined."
Even Joshua couldn't help but praise. He could see that, setting everything else aside, just that set of power supply equipment and the Mana Core would cost nearly one hundred thousand gold coins. That was just the basic cost price. Adding in the piles of specialized equipment and magical materials, each laboratory probably cost several hundred thousand gold coins—enough to arm a force of three thousand men to the teeth. Nobles below the rank of count shouldn't even dream of it, and even slightly impoverished high nobles wouldn't have the spare funds to maintain such a facility.
Mages really were filthy rich.
"Right? So I said, unless it's some forbidden experiment, most mages in the Imperial Capital choose to come to the Association for research. The professionalism here even earns praise from Teacher Nostradamus, let alone others."
Brandon also seemed very satisfied with this place. He was now bending down to open a steel cabinet in the corner. While entering the password, he said, "On normal days, several archmages and I study the Mad Dragon Virus and Abyss derivatives here. Recently, we've actually made some progress... Take a look."
With that, he opened the tightly sealed steel cabinet, which seemed designed to isolate extremely dangerous items. White, sacred patterns slowly floated on its surface, as if constantly purifying whatever was inside.
The moment the cabinet opened, Joshua felt the Azure Orb on his chest suddenly pulse. Immediately, alarm bells rang in his mind—the warrior had possessed this inheritance from the Sage for a long time and had developed a certain understanding of its reactions. That pulse from the Azure Orb meant there was an extremely powerful Chaos creature ahead of him.
But where?
In fact, it wasn't just the Azure Orb that reacted abnormally. Ying, who had been standing nearby curiously examining the laboratory, also turned her head sharply. The silver-haired girl's sharp gaze swept across the room, but she couldn't find the enemy her instincts warned her about.
Lin was also on alert, but his reaction wasn't as intense as Ying's. The black-haired boy simply moved a bit closer to Joshua, ready to initiate Divine Mechanization and fight.
At Brandon's waist, the two unremarkable blades—the Order Twin Blades—also flowed with an inexplicable sacred light. They reacted just like the Azure Orb, but judging by their owner's expression, he seemed long accustomed to it. The blonde swordsman took something out of the cabinet, straightened up, and turned to show everyone what he held.
It was a black crystal sealed inside a cylindrical crystal pillar. It was only the size of a thumb, covered in countless complex geometric polished surfaces that reflected external light. At the center of the crystal was a dark red light mass, like a heart, slowly pulsing and changing its shape.
The crystal's appearance was unremarkable, merely a decent black gemstone. The pulsating red light mass inside might add a bit of value. But Joshua knew that evaluating its worth as a gemstone would be utterly foolish.
"Chaos Heart... Divine Power Crystal."
He murmured to himself: "I never thought I'd see this thing at a time like this."
(To be continued)