Carman and Ryuzu stared at the swirling black substance behind the double doors. Bright ribbons of color swirled out of the portal and into the air before disappearing. Tiny white star like spots danced in the dark substance.
Ryuzu turned towards Carman, "are you sure we want to go in that?" Asked Ryuzu.
"It should be fine after all, the characters in the game did it all the time, but if you are worried about it let's do this." Said Carman as he pulled out some rope, a copper ingot, and an apple from his storage space. He tied one side of the rope around the apple, and the other around the copper, he tossed the apple through the portal and used the rope to pull it out, the apple came out perfectly fine, he repeated the process with the side tied to the copper ingot. The ingot was also fine after going through the substance.
Carman then stuck his hand into the portal, the substance didn't have any mass to it, there was no weight or resistance from it that Carman could feel as his arm passed through it. The only sensation he could feel was a odd mixture of both warm and cold until his hand reached the other side of it and he could feel air flowing around his fingers and palm.
Carman pulled his hand out and looked at it, there were no signs of damage to the appendage, showing it to Ryuzu, she confirmed that there was nothing that she could see wrong with the arm, Ryuzu tested her own limb in the portal and had the same results. The looked at one another one last time and stepped into the portal.
As he walked into the room Carman felt something shift. It wasn't until he focused on his elemental sense that he realized. The distribution of elements in the area was much different than the world outside.
Outside the region of Chenyu Vale, the dominion of the Hydro and Geo Archons intermingled, with their respective elements dominating the rest.
Looking around with his elemental sight, Carman could see the area was filled with particles colored a light cyan, and some that were a neon green.
Carman could identify the former, it was Anemo energy, but the other was harder to identify. While he initially suspected it was Dendro, it just didn't match the shade he associated with Dendro energy.
As he looked around, it seems like the elements were pulsing. There was something further into the domain that was causing ripples in the elements.
Switching back to normal sight, Carman looked at the cleanly designed hallway. It was obviously designed by people from Khaenri'ah. Their architecture was hard to mistake for other cultures. And the fact it had elements that reminded him of the interior of the collosal ruin machines removed any doubts he had, he followed the ripples as they occured, his curiosity overwhelming his caution given how quiet the domain was.
He walked down the hallway, Ryuzu by his side. He came across a door, on the frame around it was a small device that was going red. Using his elemental sense for a few minutes, he could feel that the source of the ripples was coming from this room.
Looking at the device fixed to the was quite obviously a scanning device of some sort, but it did not seem to read biometric information as he tried putting his hand and eye in front of the device and only ended up with spots imparing his vision for a few seconds from staring at the light emitted by the device.
Deciding he would try to find another way in, he and Ryuzu walked around, almost all of the doors were locked with the same device. It wasn't unitl they looked back around to the front that Carman noticed a small alcove with an open door that has been counseled behind a slope in the wall.
As he entered the lights turned on illuminating a messy office. There were papers strewn around the floor, what appeared to be legal documents to scrawled notes, to research reports all these papers covered a large section of the floor as though they were spilled from the previous occupant throwing them aside looking for something in a hurry.
Ryuzu bent down and picked up one of the papers that appeared to be a research report and tried to read it. "Carman, these are written in Khaenri'ahn, but they must be written in a cypher, since direct translation is only giving me gibberish."
"Whoever was in here last, was leaving in a hurry, must have been the person working here too, since anyone who was raiding this place would have taken the treasurer chest at the front, and would have moved the paper into one area rather than spreading it around." Said Carman. "Then again why wouldn't they take the chest at the front? Why would there be a chest there?.... This world makes no sense sometimes."
Thinking back on the treasurer chest that had appeared out of nowhere Carman started to get a headache so he tossed the thought into the back of his mind and started moving the papers on the floor into his Item Storage for later. To save space, he stacked similar looking documents into stacks before storing them. Carman kept going until he and Ryuzu had stored every paper scattered around the room, it wasn't until something strange was picked up in his storage that they stopped. In his storage, Carman found a small rectangular device.
[Item: Research Facility Administrator's Access Card
Type: Khaenri'ahn device.
Description:
A device made using technology from a lost civilization, due to lack of knowledge, you are unable to discern how it works.]
Pulling it out Carman looked at the small slate, it was made of a smooth white material with visible circuitry visible in places where the white material didn't cover. Various words in Khaenri'ahn were glowing slightly with a dim orange light. It seemed like this is what they needed, Carman briefly considered looking through the rest of the office, but finding what was causing the ripples in the elemental energy was still drawing most of his curiosity.
He and Ryuzu walked out of the office, after they closed the door, the device on the frame glowed the same red color as the others. Waving the device over it, the device glowed a light blue before turning off and causing the door to swing open.
Carman closed the door and left once the device glowed red again. Heading back to the door containing whatever was causing the ripples, Carman held the device up to the scanner and when it unlocked, Carman pushed the door open and stepped into the room. As the lights powered on, carman's gaze swepted around shifting his elemental sense to elemental sight. There were a few things gs that glowed, but there was only one that was glowing in the same Anemo and strange element that filled the domain.
Walking over to it, Carman found a glass cylinder sealed with metal on either end. The cylinder seemed to be attracting the elements but then lost its control over them causing the building power to burst, making the elements ripples in a small shockwave. The amount of power behind the blast wasn't very strong and didn't cause any damage to Carman, it was as though he was being hit by a few dozen of the little party snaps children would tape to toilet seats or doors back in his previous world.
The inside of the cylinder was obscured by a dark grey colored smoke, changing back to his regular sight, Carman could no longer see the elemental particles, or the smoke, instead he saw a feather, it's quill a bone white color, and it's bristles transparent.
Curious he tossed the cylinder into his System storage a d looked at the description.
[Item Khaenri'ahn Sample Canister
Type: Khaenri'ahn Technology
Description:
A device designed by Khaenri'ahns to store samples of various materials and substances for research purposes.
This unit holds a feather taken from the corpse of Gale du' Temps, a wind sprite that was once part of Istaroth, the god of a thousand winds. The power of the feather was siphoned out and stored elsewhere, the only other thing left in the device is a miniscule amount of Karma emanated by this feather, caused by the fragment of the divine sprite's will feeling enraged by its power being stolen and kept out of its grasp.
]
Carman's face blanched slightly as he read the word "Karma" accounted with a dead divine being.
As he was about to say something to Ryuzu, a familiar noise made itself known
-Ding-
[System Rebooting...
....1%...15%...37%...42%....64%....75%...
...88%....97%.... Complete.]
[Welcome back to the Engineering System, new and improved, with many Quality of Life improvements, including protection from mind jacking.]
-Ding-
[You have mail]
[Title: Heya Kiddo
Massage:
Heya, it's me again. Sorry for the wait, had to do a bit more reprogramming than I initially expected. I have upped the processing and intelligence of the system, so hopefully you won't have to wait for my attention when some god effs with one of your skills. Sent Truth packing to his own dimension, course the bigger was butthurt about not being allowed get his grubby mitts on your world, and tore apart the skull you were going to get in his way out. Had to build a new one by Frankensteining it. It will be included in the patch package.
I have also added the ability to gain exp via methods other than building stuff, such as through battle. You will know gain exp from things like battles, I have already added the exp from the battles and other encounters you experienced while the system was offline.
You'll notice that you now have a Mail function. That was something requested by a few of the gods that have found out about your situation. So you might get mail from time to time. I have also added a few other functions to the system, originally, there were upgrades you could get in the store, but now I unlocked a few of them.
Attachments:
[ System Patch Pack]
]
[Would you like to open [System Patch Pack]?
[Yes/No]]
Selecting yes, Carman watched a new window popup.
-To be continued