Mihawk took out what seems to be a thick stack of paper and a small bottle filled with black liquid. Uncorking the small bottle, he then took out a feather from inside his hat, and dipped quill of it inside ink holder and started taking notes. Mihawk accurately drew on the paper exactly as the paintings inscribed on the walls.
"Hmm... Very professional." Vash said observing Mihawk's action. Then he also glanced at the paintings one by one and strolled trying to find other inscriptions. With almost eidetic memory and high brain power, Vash didn't have the need to record them physically. And he could perfectly recall all the things he had seen in his lifetime.
Vash noted that almost every intact house had a type of wall painting depicting various facets of the life of these ancient mountain dwellers. Some of the drawings described their daily routines, and others their work. Wars, scientific achievements, timelines etcetera were also wall painted. Vash remembered all the paintings that he could find but he couldn't understand some symbols and representation of certain things which were still alien to him.
After half an hour Mihawk also finished his work and met up with Vash who was looking down a hole in the floor.
"You sure took your time..." Vash said feeling Mihawk walking towards him from behind.
"Well... You could have helped me finish it faster and save both of us some time." Mihawk retorted.
"Aye... Drawing is not my forte. Anyway, I smell sulphur, let's go down and see what's underneath this hole." Vash replied.
"Hmm... Maybe there is lava flowing inside...It seems like there was a door covering this hole but it's not here now." Mihawk said observing the edges. Vash jumped into the hole without saying anything and Mihawk followed. After getting down, their nose were assaulted by intense pungent smell. The duo then saw red light at the bottom of the hole, and they swiftly floated down.
"Seriously, what is it today??? We have been trekking tunnels one after another!! It's our third time now." Vash said disgruntled. Mihawk didn't reply as if he didn't hear the noisy complains and focused on getting to the bottom of the hole. The duo came out into a large spacious cave with deep base and floor filled with red hot bubbling lava. The place looked like an underground lake except it was made up of lava instead of water.
"Hot..." Vash said as beads of sweat started forming on his forehead.
"Look at the edges of this lava pond, there are thin pipes going into it along the cave walls." Mihawk said. Vash also saw a group of parallel pipelines with one of the end submerged into lava and the other, rising straight up, cutting through stones. But there were also four distinct thick pipes, like an old tree trunk, that rose halfway up the cave wall with one end curved and drilled into unknown location while the other end of them were same as thin pipelines; submerged into lava.
Vash's head gear started moving and recalled wall painting which he had previously remembered and pieced together the exact situation of this place.
"These guys were really genius. I don't how could they had been almost end up extinct with such an awesome technology in their hands." Vash said sighing.
"You know...Everything has an ending... Right?? They must had flourishing civilization for a long time and now they are no longer as prosperous as they were in the past." Mihawk also said sighing.
"You are right... But they had huge potential, and they could have easily colonized all the Galaxy with such level of technological achievements. It's a pity that that they came to this planet just to get wiped out slowly. Hmm... wait a minute..." Vash said and started thinking of other possibilities.
"What's a galaxy??" Mihawk asked perplexed.
"Hmm... Oh... I forgot that knowledge is heavily restricted here. Ok... I'll tell you about it briefly. So just as a moon revolves around a planet and a planet orbits the sun, the sun along with other similar suns also revolves around a heavy gigantic super sun and this whole system is called a galaxy in my hometown. I don't know what it's called here, and again, I could be wrong, I don't know if it's same here." Vash explained.
"Hmm... so you are talking about stars being similar to the sun??" Mihawk asked.
"Bingo... You are smart, at least for a sword junkie. Iyahahaha..." Vash laughed.
"Ok... So it isn't impossible that some of the moon dwellers had gone to other stars in search for resources." Mihawk said but he sounded skeptical.
"You could be right... But the question here is how?? With balloons!!??" Vash said amused.
"Look at this place, they had built a perfect system here. It could produce Seastone, electricity as well as weird sea clouds, though the facility to produce latter two seemed to have completely submerged into the lava. But you can never know whatever thing they could had built to travel interstellarly." Mihawk said.
"Alright, let's go and find other automata, It would best if that mechanical snake is still here, I could unleash it upon whoever pisses me off." Vash said jubilantly.
"Are you sure?? If that thing is also made from Seastone, can you defeat it??" Mihawk asked.
"Of course... Hmm... Hold on a sec. These automata require electricity and electricity production facility here seems apparently destroyed, then how was that T-rex moving!?" Vash said after some thinking.
"Could be natural thunder, remember we found it on mountain top." Mihawk said.
"Right... so automata inside here should still be in dead condition, It's going to be so easy." Vash said.