Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons Chapter 861 - Taming the Fifth Year - The Board - 3

And while Seiya processed the implications of this revelation, finally understanding why his father and Orion operated with confidence that had seed unjustified from his external perspective after seeing Ren's power, Orion allowed another small smile to touch his lips.

Everything was proceeding exactly according to the plan that had taken years to construct.

Years of careful positioning, intelligence gathering, sacrifice, patience.

And soon, very soon, he'd have access to the second part of the Brain that would complete his understanding of the Crystal and unlock capabilities that would change the fundantal power balance in the kingdom.

Not military advantage.

Understanding. True understanding of how reality itself operated at the most fundantal level.

Everything else, the soldiers, the territory, Victor as hostage, the mutant control, was simply buying ti. Creating conditions where the final pieces could be obtained without interference.

He only needed to control that territory and the last keys.

The board was set,the pieces were moving and his opponent still didn't know the ga had changed.

♢♢♢♢

Julius and Zhao stood in a chamber that had taken years of dangerous exploration to reach, moving through tunnels that penetrated deeply into Yino's depths that few dared explore even with a complete team of experienced earth-elent tars.

The air down here was different from the tunnels they'd traversed earlier. Older sohow. Stiller. Like breathing into a room that hadn't been opened in decades, not stale exactly but carrying so flavor of accumulated ti that pressed against consciousness in subtle ways.

The ruin they'd discovered was completed…

That was their feeling from the mont they entered the first chamber where a guardian should have been stationed and found it empty of any recent signs of activity.

Soone had already cleared the path. Had already dealt with whatever protections existed. Had walked these sa corridors before them.

It was unsettling. These ruins housed rewards and power they didn't fully know. The fact that they were walking through unmolested suggested soone had them now.

And this was "The" main ruin… It was eerily similar to the descriptions Selphira had provided to Julius during her investigation about what had happened to Sirius' wife.

Sa general architecture. Sa pattern of 10 chambers connected by passages requiring to fill holes with sacrifices and fighting to permit progression. Sa symbols carved into the walls.

The symbols weren't decorative... Weren't religious iconography or territorial markings. They were instructions.

Written in a language that current scholars had spent decades partially deciphering for ager results. Written by people who understood the system intimately.

♢♢♢♢

They had descended through the first 10 chambers…

Each one larger than the last.

But all defenses were already spent by whoever had co before. The chambers were empty rooms now, their purposes fulfilled, their demands already paid.

By other people's blood.

Julius tried not to think about how many Gold rank tars had died here during the original completion. The math suggested at least 2-3 based on the sacrifice requirents carved into the walls. Maybe more if so chambers had required repeated attempts before successful passage.

They found an enormous door at the end. It was open.

Not broken open, not forced… Simply open, as though soone had offered the 3 big cores, entered, passed through, and left it that way behind them. Casual.

The door was maybe 5 ters tall and 4 ters wide, carved from stone that was darker and denser than anything in the previous walls. Symbols covered every surface, packed so densely they seed overlapped in places, like it had layer upon layer of instructions or warnings that Julius couldn't read or process.

Beyond it, the 11th and final chamber opened into a space that was sowhat large. Maybe 50 ters across. Hard to judge precisely in the dim lighting that filtered through crystal formations in the ceiling.

And in the center of that chamber, elevated on a platform that seed designed specifically for exhibition rather than practical storage, was what Orion had called "The Brain", or at least its purple half.

Julius stopped walking.

Zhao stopped beside him.

For maybe 5 seconds neither of them moved. Neither of them spoke.

They just looked.

It was a massive artifact defying easy description because it didn't seem to follow construction principles modern technology could copy.

An enormous dense sphere of 10 ters in height, ford by millions of threads of purple crystal interwoven in patterns that were simultaneously organic and geotric, like veins in living tissue arranged according to mathematical logic that no natural process could produce.

The crystal threads caught what little light existed in the chamber and transford it, multiplying it, redistributing it through internal pathways until the entire structure pulsed with soft purple luminescence from within.

It was beautiful.

It was also deeply, fundantally wrong in ways that Julius couldn't articulate but that his instincts scread about with intensity that made his skin crawl.

The wrongness wasn't visual. The artifact looked magnificent, even awe-inspiring. The wrongness was… spiritual… sothing about the energy it radiated that conflicted with natural patterns Julius had spent his life using and studying. It was like looking at a painting that was technically perfect but depicted sothing that shouldn't exist.

"It's exactly what ancient texts described," Julius murmured with reverence and with concern about the implications of the discovery. "Control center for... sothing. A system that manages aspects of how the ancient civilization operated."

Not a weapon, not a power source. An information system.

Like the administrative center of a city, where information flowed in from all districts, was processed, and decisions were sent back out. The Brain wasn't powerful in the way beasts were powerful, through force and capability. It was powerful the way a nervous system was powerful. Through connection... Understanding of the whole picture when individual parts couldn't see beyond their imdiate surroundings.

Zhao observed from a slightly more distant position, wings still partially extended in case he needed to react quickly to so threat. "But can we do anything with it?" he asked with common curiosity, cutting through Julius' reverence. "Or is it simply an artifact we can see but can't use without so of that knowledge lost with that lost civilization?"

It was the question that mattered. Historical significance was interesting for scholars. For the current crisis, only practical utility counted.

Julius had been considering that question since first seeing the Brain. And the answer beca clear as he examined the structure more carefully, observing the surrounding platform's base.

Even touching the brain cautiously and trying to direct his mana into it, searching for any response, any indication of dormant functionality that could be awakened...

Nothing…

The surface was smooth and cool and completely unresponsive to his attempts. Like pressing against very hard glass, his mana simply slid off without penetrating.

"We can't do anything," he said finally with frustration evident in his voice. "The activators are missing. The cores that should be placed around the base, possibly to provide energy or the switching-on control, aren't here."

He pointed toward indentations surrounding the Brain in a perfect circular pattern.

Seven spaces. Each one designed specifically to hold objects of the sa particular size and shape. Carved with precision that suggested the platform had been built around them rather than the spaces being added afterward.

And all of them were empty.

Dust had accumulated on the surfaces in layers visible even in the dim lighting. Not light dusting but genuine accumulation, the kind that built up over years of undisturbed settling.

Zhao moved closer to examine the indentations more carefully. "How long have they been empty?" he asked while running his finger along the dust that had settled in visible layers.

"So years judging by accumulation," Julius responded after careful analysis. "Perhaps 2 to 3 years approximately if the sedintation rate here is comparable to other ruins we've studied."

He gazed at Zhao. Zhao looked back.

Neither needed to say what they were both thinking.

3 years... Roughly coinciding with the period since Dragarion had been crystallized. Roughly coinciding with when the power vacuum had created conditions that certain factions could exploit.

Coincidence was a luxury Julius had stopped believing in years ago.

"Soone who knew this location but didn't get crystallized took them after the war," Julius continued, voice taking a darker tone. "Removed the cores after the corruption's crystallization way before we had a chance to arrive to discover this place. And they likely knew that without those activators, this Brain is just an interesting and indestructible object like other large crystals we can't use for any purpose."

He stood before the magnificent, pulsing semi sphere and felt the particular helplessness of finding exactly what you'd been searching for and discovering it was useless without sothing else. Like finding a magnificent ship but no ocean to sail it on.

The Brain was here. Operational in every way except the one that mattered.

Soone had made sure of that. Had removed the activators at precisely the right mont to ensure that anyone who eventually found the Brain, and had known Julius eventually would… Powerful information but inert. A door without a key.

Julius felt certainty settle in his chest similar to cold stone.

Orion and the opportunistic faction were behind this.

He didn't have proof. Didn't have evidence that would satisfy formal investigation. But the pattern was unmistakable to anyone who understood how the opportunists worked.