A Budding Scientist in a Fantasy World

Chapter 260

“Any other stragglers?” asked Alice. Nearly an hour had passed now, and she was starting to wonder how much more of a beating her mana filters could endure before they imploded.

“I’m not seeing too many with my shadows at this point. I doubt we got all of them, but we should have gotten most of them, at least,” sang Allira.

Alice sighed. She had hoped that they wouldn’t find any spiders after the first round of mana deprivation, which would mean that the second round would mostly be a safety measure. At this rate, they might need to cut off the mana supply multiple times, just to make sure all the spiders were gone.

Sometimes, that was life though.

“Breaking down the filters,” said Alice, before she deactivated them and moved them to the side of the room. They were still usable after some minor repairs. Alice would have to see about repurposing them and creating more mana-starvation procedures for future monster infestations later.

A moment later, Alice heard a sharp exclamation of surprise from Allira. “I found something odd,” she said. “There’s a room that shows signs of human habitation in it. Recent, too - not like the place where the old System creator must have stayed. I think that as recently as a few months ago, someone might have been living in the room. There’s no dust at all, and there aren’t any obvious signs of the culture from Alice’s home world.”

Alice blinked in surprise, and then felt her heart clench.

Someone had been in the System recently? As in… recently enough to have been here while everything was collapsing? Had they been inside of the System when things went wrong? How? Why? Alice suddenly felt like her mind was flooded with questions she had no answer to.

“What’s in the room?” she asked.

“Two beds. It looks like they took a lot of the materials from the System and used them for their own purposes, and didn’t bother taking the beds with them when they left. The room also has some crumbs in it, so they must have eaten here. And they never bothered cleaning up.” Allira wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Honestly, the room is rather gross.”

Alice frowned. If there was a room with signs of human habitation, she wanted to see it.

“Lead the way,” she said. Then, Alice paused. Was it really a good idea to bring the entire group to investigate the room with signs of human habitation in it?

“How about we divide into two groups?” said Ethan. “ I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave this room totally unguarded. After all, it’s basically the only room we need to maintain perfect control over to prevent other big monster attacks. I’d really rather not fight another giant horde of monsters head on. Doing that a few times was, frankly, enough.”

Alice nodded. That made more sense to her. Keeping some kind of group back to safeguard this room could also prevent them from walking into an ambush when they returned to this room.

“Who is staying and who is going, then?” asked Alice.

“I’d be happy to stay behind,” said Myra. “The fifteen non-Immortal Mages could also sit behind and make sure I have backup. I think that one Immortal and sixteen decently powerful Mages should be more than enough to hold this room if we somehow missed another third evolution monster, or something of the sort. It also doesn’t take away from critical researchers who can actually do stuff if you find another important room near the inhabited one.”

“I actually think that it would be better if I stay behind,” said Cecilia. “If you show me what to do, I can probably turn the power back off in an emergency. That would let us shut off most monster invasions a few minutes after they begin. More importantly, it would also be a way of sending a signal to the rest of you no matter how far you move into the depths of the System. The mana supply turning back off should be an obvious sign that something is wrong. Then, Allira can send back shadows and help you figure out whether we need a distraction, or rescue, or whatever else we might require. As Myra mentioned, a third evolution monsters could have survived by snacking on their minions, and they could now be creeping back here to take revenge or take the power supply back over. The odds are low, but not zero.”

“That’s a good point, actually,” said Myra.

“I could also pull some golems back and use them to help defend this place,” said Doll. “I think it would make sense for me to be here anyway - we already know how this room works and how to fix it, so I can just work on material production for Alice whenever she gets back here. My actual research skills have probably already been exhausted in terms of relevance. Whatever is left is mostly Alice’s domain.”

“So Allira, Ethan, and I will go investigate the new room alone?” asked Alice. She felt a twinge of unease at the idea - she had gotten rather used to the secure feeling of having multiple other Immortals ready if the situation collapsed. On the other hand, that probably wasn’t a great mentality for a new Immortal to have.

The biggest threats in the System had been dealt with. Realistically, Alice and Ethan should be more than enough to handle whatever remained. Allira coming along was already a lot of extra security, even if Allira hadn’t had enough time to rest yet after the battle to secure the power supply. Alice needed to get used to doing things on her own, now that the biggest hurdles in her path had been overcome.

The group nodded. Allira took a quick nap to regain some of her combat strength, and after a few final preparations, the three left for the room Allira had found.

The room was odd. It looked like a storage room that had been retrofitted into a bedroom. The room was lined with shelves. Now that at least a few stragglers from the System’s power supply were working again, the shelves had a variety of base materials crammed onto them - although most of the shelves were still empty. There were some other facilities in an adjacent room, which were clearly used to treat and combine those materials into the System’s base material.

However, while a few of the shelves were filled, and plenty more of them were empty, most of the room was occupied by a variety of other clutter. There were two beds set up in the room, both of which were positioned in obnoxious ways that would obviously block most golems from accessing the shelves easily. Most of the System was built with pure efficiency in mind, so the massive change in architectural philosophy was very noticeable. There was also a dining table littered with crumbs in the corner, and a few chairs. All of them had been made out of some of the wood types the System grew in a few corners of the massive superstructure.

After Alice saw the beds, she confirmed her original suspicion. This had not been created by the System’s original creator. The style, aesthetics, and organization style seemed so drastically different that they may as well have come from totally different eras. It was as different as seeing a Mayan pyramid sitting in the middle of a space-age city - the differences were just too stark to ignore.

“Who created this?” asked Alice. At the same time, she had a sneaking suspicion in her heart. That perhaps, they had finally stumbled upon the root cause for the collapse of the System.

Someone had broken into the System, or entered the System, and had let the monsters into the interior as well - either on accident, or on purpose. Alice wasn’t sure which, but it was obvious that someone else had entered the System recently. Monsters had entered shortly before or after the people did, and it was hard not to link these two events together. Of course, there was a chance that Alice was just falsely blaming whoever made these beds, and these two events were genuinely coincidental in how the timing worked out - but Alice suspected that the people who made these beds had either acted carelessly or maliciously, even if she was open to evidence claiming otherwise.

She tried to figure out how these two intruders had even entered the System in the first place. Perhaps they had been two {Outworlders}, just like she was? Or one {Outworlder} and their friend? That would make the most sense - after all, Alice now knew that the System had an explicit directive to lead {Outworlders} here once they could survive the journey. The entrances to the System were also hard-coded to recognize the {Outworlder} Achievement as if it were some kind of security pass. The System’s infrastructure was meant to provide {Outworlders} with a way home, if they wanted it. In a sense, two {Outworlders} finding their way here would be nothing surprising at all.

On the other hand, Alice now deeply suspected that these two potential {Outworlders} had been the cause of the collapse of the System, and these months of chaos, death, and devastation for most of this world. That thought left a terrible taste in her mouth. The original creator of the System had created a portal home with generally benevolent intentions. Sure, Alice was pretty sure the portal home didn’t work - after all, she had found a corpse stuck halfway between home and this world, and she was ninety percent sure it was the creator of the System. But the man’s goodwill and attempts to help this world were beyond reproach, unless there was something Alice was missing. For the most part, the results spoke for themselves. According to every history book Alice could find, before the invention of the System, humans had lived in small tribal villages, most of which were on the verge of getting wiped out by monsters the moment they got a bit unlucky. After the System, humans of this world had flourished, and developed their own unique civilization. To have someone - especially someone potential from Earth - take advantage of those kind intentions to wipe out an unknown but massive number of innocent people - that really made Alice mad. She had no idea whether it was out of malice, or out of incompetence and carelessness - but either way, the idea that the collapse of the System might have been man-made left a terrible taste in her mouth.

For a few moments, Alice just stared at the beds, unsure what to feel.

“Were these created by {Outworlders} who found the System right before we did, do you think?” asked Alice after several moments of thought.

Ethan touched the bed, and squinted in thought for a few moments. Finally, he sighed.

“Honestly, I have no idea,” said Ethan. “Though I honestly think the odds are low.”

Alice felt a strange sense of relief at the idea that this might not have been another Outworlder causing chaos. At the very least, Alice would prefer if it wasn’t someone from Earth who had caused all of this death and destruction.

“Why?” she asked.

“Well, I think that the idea that another powerful outworlder showed up right around the same time that you did is a bit far-fetched,” said Ethan. “Just as far as sheer mathematical probability goes, the odds of two outworlders showing up within such a small timeframe seems low, given what we understand about dimensional travel. Which, admittedly, is not much - but still. The other thing is that this room doesn’t seem to have taken a whole lot from Earth’s culture. Even though most of the room is empty, since the outsiders probably took most of their stuff with them when they left, I still don’t see anything that really indicates they were from Earth. Of course, this is far from definitive evidence - just a gut instinct on my part.”

Alice thought about Ethan’s words, and mulled them over for a bit, before she sighed. She would just have to keep her mind open and see if they could find any more information.

Regardless of who did this, or why, she would find a way to hold them accountable, after she figured out who did it and why. But that would have to happen someday in the future, after she figured out how to investigate the incident. For now, she had other priorities.

The group poked around the room for a bit longer, before they discovered there was a secondary passage in the room they had found.

“That’s strange,” said Allira. “When I looked at this room with my shadows, I couldn’t see this room at all. It’s like it was invisible.”

Alice blinked in surprise. That was incredibly unusual. Allira’s shadows were a fairly strong scouting and combat based Perk. How could she just… not see something that was right in front of her? It vaguely reminded Alice of…

Of the way the System directly hid System mana that was right in front of people’s faces.

Alice’s expression soured. She had a pretty good idea who had set up this ‘invisible door’ - and she also had a pretty good guess who had managed to dig it up, and make it possible to see. Alice had a sneaking suspicion that even {Outworlders} weren’t supposed to be able to see the door they had discovered - it was probably supposed to remain invisible no matter what.

Of course the creator of the System had taken some kind of countermeasure against people disrupting parts of the System. It was just that whoever had broken in afterwards had managed to overcome those obstacles - perhaps because the creator of the System had never anticipated the existence of Immortals, or perhaps he had overlooked some other method of bypassing his designs.

Alice sighed in frustration as they walked into the new room. At least she understood why they had used this specific storage room as a bedroom.

This room looked a little bit different from the rest of what the System’s rooms had looked like. It was a bit less damaged by spiders - although there were still obvious signs of parts of it being torn up and eaten, about eighty to ninety percent of the room was intact. It was also far larger than other rooms in the System - Alice was pretty sure this room was about the size of a major sports stadium from back on Earth. However, despite its size, it felt very cramped - because the room was jam-packed with enchantments so dense they made her feel oddly claustrophobic. It made it hard to get a full read on the dimensions and scale of the room, although Alice could still see the walls and ceiling through little gaps in the enchantments. It also had several kinds of mana that Alice had never encountered before. After using {Temporal Snapshot}, and taking a look at the room’s past, then spending several minutes poring over what she could see, Alice thought she understood roughly what this room was supposed to be.

“I think this is the System’s central processing unit?” asked Alice. “I have no idea how the System is running this central processing unit, mind you - I’ve never seen like eight of the mana types that are being used here, and I honestly have no idea what they’re doing or how they work. In all honesty, it just looks like nonsense to me. But I’m pretty sure I understand the overall objective, at least.”

“Can you rebuild this room using the blueprint room we found earlier, or your {Temporal Snapshot} Perk?”

Alice shrugged. “Probably? I might need to lean on the System’s golems to help me rebuild some of it, because I don’t even understand the mana types in play here well enough to rebuild them. {Rapid Reconstruction} will also run into some issues if I try to rebuild things that I don’t have a seed for. You know, directly rebuilding it might not be the best idea - I can see through {Temporal Snapshot} that there are a lot of different versions of this room. I can also see that belief mana was used to change this room somehow. I think this room is meant to have some kind of automated process for expansion, based on what people believe it to be.” Alice squinted at more of the {Temporal Snapshots}, before she nodded to herself. “I think I understand that part, at least. I figure repairing that, then getting the System’s golems to repair the rest is probably the best idea.”

“Sounds reasonable to me,” said Ethan. “You’re the expert here. We’ll go with your judgement.”

Alice nodded.

She had finally found the true ‘core’ of the System. With this room repaired, plus Doll’s Golems, and the blueprint room, and a reasonable supply of materials, the group had everything they needed to repair the core of the System. Then, the System’s golems would repair everything else, as long as they kept the monster population contained and made sure everything was working the way it was supposed to.

It was time to finish what she had started.