Led by Constance, the group left the lord's castle and took a lift hidden deep in the mountain to directly reach the mountainside of Frost Snow City.
Their destination was the "Old Palace".
"Here?" Seeing the building in front of her that has become a historical attraction, Vivienne showed a look of surprise on her face, "Is this the place where the black sword knights performed the transformation ceremony?"
"Strictly speaking, it's underground," Constance smiled slightly, "and it's the place where the transformation ceremony was 'used to be'."
Hao Ren suddenly thought of his previous discovery: Under the old palace, there is a weak energy source that continuously releases pulsating fluctuations.
He originally planned to find an opportunity to investigate this old palace today, to find out what secrets it hides underground, but he didn't expect that before he took action, he would have the opportunity to enter this building openly. Opportunity - the plan really can't keep up with the change.
With the Constance Ribbon Road, everyone can easily enter the old palace. When passing through the ancient and gorgeous front porch of the palace, Constance talked about the palace: "Frost Snow City is the capital of the Dragon Empire. It was thousands of years ago, hundreds of generations to the average human being—so even knowledgeable scholars don't know much about the oldest parts of the city.
"People only know that there is an old palace in this old capital, but few people know that the first holy arsenal of the Black Sword Knights is also in this city, and it is hidden underground in the old palace."
Hao Ren's ears twitched when he heard the word "Holy Armory": "As far as I know, all the black mechanical swords come from the Holy Armory. They are cast and stored here. In other words, the holy arsenal is their barracks and headquarters in the true sense."
"That's right, and I would like to add one more thing: the holy armory is not only used to forge and store mechanical swords, it is also a... holy tomb."
Constance said solemnly, and in front of her stood two heavily armed Broken Sword Knights, who were guarding a gate in the old palace that looked the same as anywhere else.
But Hao Ren could feel that there was one of the energy pulse emitters behind the door.
Constance is now using someone else's body to act, but the Knights of Broken Sword seem to have a special feeling for their master. The two knights standing at the door immediately stood up and saluted: "Your Highness Princess!"
"Open the door," Constance nodded, "I'm going to take some distinguished guests to the holy arsenal."
The gatekeeper knights immediately carried out the order without hesitation. They simultaneously activated the magic devices on both sides of the gate, and the heavy gate that seemed to be described as an ancient cultural relic made a sound of mechanical friction, and slowly moved towards the gate. Retreat on both sides.
The entrance to the holy arsenal appeared in front of everyone.
It was a cylindrical hall, the ring-shaped walls of the hall were inlaid with countless neatly arranged metal prisms, and in the center of the hall was a metal platform more than ten centimeters above the ground. As Constance stepped into it, the induction lamps in the hall lit up, and with the sound of magic power injection, the magic lamps placed in various parts of the hall brightened up, quickly turning it into daylight generally.
Although this place has been abandoned for thousands of years, the interior is still as good as new, which shows two things: first, it is regularly cleaned and rectified, and second, the materials and construction techniques used in this building have been far away. Far beyond the present era.
"The real holy arsenal was moved to the south when the capital was moved back then, and all the mechanical swords and most of the casting, infusion, storage, computing, and transformation equipment were removed. There is only one Empty shells and some old-type facilities that are difficult to dismantle and relocate," Constance said as she walked towards the round platform in the center of the room, while the door of the hall was closed by two guards of the Broken Sword Knight from the outside, "but even so, the old There are still a lot of things that can be used in the holy arsenal. In addition, the inheritors pass on knowledge, not material wealth, so as long as we are given enough time, we can rebuild a lot of things on a blank basis, and I will Using that knowledge, some new devices were built here, and after docking them with the old database... it will work."
Constance stepped onto the platform, and a soft female voice sounded in the room: "External connection detected... The administrator has passed the authentication. All systems are on standby and ready to accept instructions at any time."
Constance waved to Hao Ren and his party: "Come on, I'll take you to see what our heritage is like."
A group of people stepped on the platform, and the latter shook slightly, and began to sink slowly towards the bottom of the floor.
Lily's eyes widened, and she drew her trademark little exclamation, "Wow..."
After sinking for a short distance, an extremely vast underground space appeared before everyone's eyes. Hao Ren saw that outside the transparent shaft was a cave like an inverted giant bowl. Part of the outer wall of the cave was covered with thick alloy, but there were also some areas where rocks were exposed. In the underground space, many layered areas can be seen, and various large and unknown equipment are installed in each area, forming various fully functional... production lines.
It's like an ancient factory full of alien atmosphere.
"That's the old foundry," Constance pointed to one of the areas, where several sophisticated large-scale equipment could be seen installed on the base, and behind the base were connected conveyor belts and a large number of pipes and cables , "The mechanical sword was cast there, but to be honest, the casting of the mechanical sword itself is the most shallow and simple part here... Although some special materials are used, it is only a mass-produced product after all."
"So what restricts the number of mechanical swords is neither the technical difficulty nor the limited raw materials of the sword body." Hao Ren immediately thought of this, "Then what determines the number of '770,000'... I am afraid it is the soul."
After collecting enough information, seeing the situation of Grand Duke Owen and his plan to transform himself into the Black Sword Knight, Hao Ren had already guessed about the nature of the Black Sword Knight. As soon as he said it, he touched the truth.
"That's right, souls," Constance nodded lightly, pointing to another area below, "770,000 immortal heroic souls... They used to sleep in that place, waiting to be infused with the psionic energy of Black Sword In the core."
Hao Ren looked in the direction of her finger, and saw dozens of neatly arranged black cubes. Those black cubes were placed on a platform made of alloy, and there were countless shimmering cables connected around them. Faint lights can also be seen flickering on the cube.
And in the wider area around those cubes, there are already empty platforms and disconnected lines-apparently, the cubes left below are only a small part of the once huge number, most of which have been removed.
"There used to be 770 servers here, but most of them have been moved to the new holy arsenal in the south. The rest are servers that have failed during the long operation and have lost the value of migration. The souls inside have been were moved out, and the machines themselves were on standby. I fixed a few of them, but to be honest, they're useless."
Vivian frowned slightly: "Because there is no soul to use, right?"
"Where did those souls come from?" Hao Ren continued to ask, "If I'm not mistaken, it's from the last era..."
"That's right, the warriors of the last era," Constance nodded. "In the last era, my father led his army to defeat the heroes of the previous generation who turned into monsters. The last warriors were those 770,000 people—almost 90% of them are not inheritors, but they can still rely on the power of the ruling scepter to cross the era and maintain the memory of a reincarnation. After the end of the era, the world was destroyed and reshaped again, and 770,000 souls followed my father to this new world. After that, it took many years for my father to complete the soul infusion and transformation technology, allowing them to reappear in the world as Black Sword Knights."
Lily frowned, thought hard, and suddenly realized: "So, you choose the strongest and best soldiers to train as black sword knights, in fact, you are using their bodies as containers, right—then their original souls? Erased by you?!"
As soon as Lily said this, Hao Ren, Vivian, and Leah also looked at Constance seriously: the nature of this matter is quite serious.
"Of course not," Constance naturally thought that the other party would have questions in this regard, and immediately shook her head with a smile, "It's a contract."
Hao Ren: "A contract?"
"To control a body, the original soul is always the most suitable, so black sword knights must keep their original souls. In fact, the most important thing in the infusion ceremony is a soul tuning contract: an ancient soul from the previous era, An original soul from modern times, the two souls communicate to jointly control the body and weapons, the ancient soul is responsible for providing knowledge, skills and experience, and the modern soul is responsible for the specific control and thinking process, after complex integration and adaptation, the two The soul will be completely extracted and injected into the mechanical sword to become a composite AI—the Black Sword Knight is born in this way," Constance explained the process, "Of course, not everyone will succeed, and Not everyone will accept it. The transformation ceremony of black sword knights has always had a high mortality rate, and some trainee knights have resistance after learning the content of the contract—since slight resistance will greatly increase the probability of failure, so those Those who don’t want to accept it will have their memories washed out, and then they will be expelled for various reasons. The usual saying is... the trial failed.”
Hao Ren raised his eyebrows: "You guys are quite humane in this regard."
"Humanity? No, we just chose the most effective method," Constance said lightly, "We chose this solution only because the control efficiency of the fusion of the two souls is higher and more robust. If it is unnecessary to keep the original souls, we will not hesitate to erase those souls."