The construction of the camp had to proceed gradually. Although Gawain had already drafted a slew of regulations and plans, even sketched a blueprint for future expansions to make the camp a permanent settlement, these ambitions weren't something to be achieved overnight. Considering the literacy levels of the era, where the common folk and serfs were largely illiterate, knights only had basic reading and writing skills, and even trained soldiers could barely write their names and count to a hundred, any progress had to be slow.
Moreover, there simply wasn't enough manpower here, and Cecil territory couldn't sustain much more at the moment.
Realizing these constraints, Gawain returned to his tent and sat at his desk—a rare piece of furniture brought from Tanzan Town. Until the carpenters could fashion new furniture from the forest's timber, having even one desk was a privilege for Gawain as the lord of the land.
The desk was strewn with various papers containing construction plans, inventory lists, camp maps, and a rough draft of future developments, including plans for walls, docks, residential areas, production zones, and farmland. Ink, a quill, a pencil, and a wooden ruler lay on one side, while on the other side, Amber was sprawled across the desk.
Gawain picked her up by the collar, moving her aside. The half-elf girl, barely awake when lifted, yelped in surprise before turning into a shadow and disappearing from his grasp, reappearing nearby.
"You scared me!" Amber huffed, glaring at Gawain. "I thought it was an earthquake!"
Gawain couldn't help but laugh. "So this is how you guard the tent?"
Amber, completely unabashed, replied, "I was fully 'immersed' in all these scribbles of yours!"
Gawain glanced at the desk, then back at her. "And you even drooled on them?"
"Who can control that while they're asleep…" she mumbled, then looked curiously at him as he sat down at the desk. "Are you going to scribble out more weird stuff?"
"These are not 'scribbles.' These are plans, rules, and blueprints," he sighed, somewhat exasperated with the unruly half-elf. "This is why I specifically told you to keep an eye on them."
Amber picked up one of the sheets filled with symbols and numbers, looked at it for a while, and then shrugged. "Looks like nonsense to me. Can't make heads or tails of it."
"You're holding it upside down," Gawain pointed out.
Amber, looking completely unbothered, said, "These things are harder to figure out than magic formulas! How am I supposed to know which side's up?"
"That's why you need to learn. Knowledge is important." Gawain sighed, unsurprised by her reaction. She was, after all, a small-time thief with no formal education. Raised by her adoptive father and master, she learned a set of skills fit for a petty thief, enhanced by her mysterious shadow affinity, which was more than enough for her to survive as an adventurer.
Amber's literacy was limited to basic reading and writing. The drawings before her included technical terms, numbers, and shorthand notes; even Heidi would likely find them perplexing.
Thinking of Heidi, Gawain looked at Amber. "I told you to learn a few things from Rebecca or Heidi when you have the time, but it seems you didn't take it seriously at all."
"That'd be so boring! Besides, I don't like hanging around nobles…" Amber rolled her eyes. "Your beautiful great-great…whatever-granddaughter is so busy she doesn't have time for me, and while Rebecca's got a bit more free time, she's always ready to throw a fireball at me."
Gawain smiled knowingly. "You say you don't like hanging around nobles, yet you seem pretty relaxed around me."
Amber replied bluntly, "That's because you don't feel like a noble."
"And you're nothing like the elves I've seen before," Gawain replied, beginning to organize the papers and setting them aside. He then took out the crystals, laying them one by one on the table.
Amber mumbled as she half-vanished, "I'm just a half-elf who was raised by humans. I wouldn't know what a proper elf is like… Hey, you're not writing today? You're going to study these stones?"
To Amber, since these crystals had neither magical properties nor any resale value, they were just "rocks."
"If you could just stay quiet for a moment, I'd be eternally grateful," Gawain said, a little weary.
"Fine, whatever, study your rocks," she muttered before fading into the air, though Gawain could still sense her presence nearby, silently observing.
Turning his attention to the crystals before him, he realized that his study of them had yielded no results thus far.
He had examined them multiple times on the road, and in Tanzan Town, he even had Heidi try using a magic resonance spell on them. But nothing had come of it. The crystals didn't respond to magic at all, behaving more like ordinary stones.
However, were these crystals, carefully stored by the Gawain Cecil of seven centuries past in a mithril vault, something so ordinary?
Gawain speculated that they must be unique, though their special qualities might not be magical or might simply be beyond current magical understanding.
Setting aside the fragments, he picked up the single intact crystal.
The crystal fragments had already revealed part of their internal structure, though it was hard to discern with the naked eye. Once Heidi's magical lab was set up, he could try analyzing them using a crystal resonator. For now, though, he hesitated to tamper with the intact one, concerned that any testing might damage whatever "information" it might hold.
He held the crystal to the light, observing its geometrically precise form. Light played across its facets, reflecting in various colors and patterns depending on the angle. The craftsmanship was remarkably fine.
Moreover, he had already verified the crystal's incredible hardness; it could easily scratch mithril without suffering any damage itself. He could only wonder how the four crystal fragments had been broken in the first place.
After a while, Gawain tried pricking his finger and rubbing a drop of blood onto the crystal's surface.
Nothing happened.
Faintly, he thought he heard Amber suppressing a chuckle nearby…
Ignoring her, Gawain held the crystal, lost in thought. The mysteries only seemed to multiply: unknown origins of the crystal, missing memories, the enigmatic "sun" that resembled a gas giant yet defied explanation, and the mysterious "satellites" presumably still orbiting above.
Just as he began contemplating those satellites, he felt a faint warmth from the crystal in his hand.
At first, he thought it was his imagination, but the crystal soon started to tremble gently, its core faintly glowing with a blue light.
The combination of warmth, vibration, and light couldn't be a mere illusion.
Gawain stared at the crystal in astonishment. But before he could record its changes, a voice rang out in his mind—not exactly a voice, but more like information streaming directly into his consciousness. He "understood" its meaning: "Mental frequency resetting, re-establishing connection."
Then his mind suddenly blurred, as if something had abruptly entered his thoughts. Strange "data streams" seemed to flow in, but they didn't feel like an invasion. In fact, they gave him a sense of familiarity.
These "familiar data streams" soon translated into clear images in his mind.
He was seeing the land from a high altitude.
Rather than shock or joy, Gawain's first reaction was an exclamation in his mind: *"Oh crap, am I going back up there again?!"*
Cold sweat beaded on his forehead.
But he quickly realized he was still sitting in his chair. His soul hadn't been pulled out to orbit the earth as a satellite; his senses were intact, and he retained full control of his body. He simply had an additional view in his mind.
This realization allowed him to relax and focus on the images in his mind.
He soon noticed that the view was far from normal, resembling a filtered image with strange color distributions like a heat map. It was smudged with blobs of color, vaguely recognizable as mountains, forests, and rivers. The view covered only a small area—the northern side of the Dark Mountains, near the newly established Cecil settlement. He could barely make out the Whitewater River, the western forest, and a faint outline of the camp.
However, the image couldn't be zoomed in or out.