Azimuth: The Elden Throne

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"... I still have some things left to ask you..."

'Time to cross another thing from my to-do list.'

Dale opened his inventory, taking out an item from within.

It was a strange metal box of considerable size with dozens of gears tightly packed inside.

Blueish light emanated from its core, hidden underneath layers of cogs and micromachinery.

It was hot to the touch, as if still active, but it remained motionless, giving the impression the cube was still in working condition, albeit broken beyond function.

The metal was somewhat dirty and slightly rusty at the edges, but with a good scrub, the shiny metal underneath would be revealed, it was in top-notch condition, considering where it was recovered from.

[The Revolving Cog]

"Hm?... Oh… What an interesting item you have there." Qrubin said with some visible and audible surprise as he looked at the item

With a nod, Dale opened his mouth, ready to explain what he had in his hands:

"This is…"

"Wait, don't tell me, let me figure it out first." Qrubin requested as he snatched the box from Dale's hands via magic, interrupting him rudely as he focused on the item

/Shush.../

The box slowly floated in the air, rising to his eye level, standing just a few palms from the surface of the Crystal Qrubin was sealed in.

/Shunn.../

/Creak... Crunk…/

A few magic circles manifested in each facet of the cube, and soon enough, the gears and cogs within the box sprung to life, causing Dale to feel a strange prickling sensation on his skin.

'... Hopefully, I'm not being bombarded with radiation…'

/Mumbling…/

Throughout this entire process, Qrubin kept mumbling something in a low tone, incoherent words even Dale with his enhanced hearing could not understand.

/Flashed!/

The seconds turned into minutes, and eventually, the entire cube shone with light as all of its cogs and gears aligned, opening a straight path to its core, shining a soothing yet strong blue light directly at Qrubin.

"Hooo… This was harder than I thought." He said with a chuckle as he looked at the cube

"I've gotten rusty."

"Huh... Have you ever seen one of these before?" Dale asked as he noticed Qrubin's tone and familiarity with the technology

"No, this is my first time."

"What... So how come you've gotten rusty, exactly?"

"Ha… I used to be better at solving puzzles like this one… But that doesn't matter now."

"This is from Zenith, isn't it? Some sort of old Mana reactor to power a particularly unique structure. And it's in such a pristine state too… How did you get your hands on it? I've never seen anything from Zenith that wasn't in a half-obliterated state."

"Wh… How did you know this was from Zenith?" Dale asked with incredible surprise as he raised his head to look at Qrubin

"Although we were known as the Southern Wall Corps, we still had a Division focused solely on Naval Warfare, that much you should know."

"They were in charge of raining down attacks on any of the Monsters trying to cross the Skinking Arquepelago, to try and decrease the pressure on the Southern Wall if even a little."

"Though that wasn't what they were trully good at."

"More often than not, they would go on expeditions to the other Continent to conduct research, after all, if you just keep defending, you fall to the mercy of your enemy's forces. The best way to solve our problems would be to figure out its source."

"And amidst those expeditions, relics were brought back, that is how I came to know of it, this is clearly Magitech from Zenith, they were rather… Showy with how they presented their machinery and inventions."

"Compared to the Old Empire which was more contained, although in no way less functional."

"Anyway, what is this object? And what exactly do you want to do with it?" Qrubin asked as he moved the cube around, continuing to inspect it

As he moved the cube around, he began to disassemble it, causing hundreds of tiny pieces to fly around in the air in a magical display of magic proficiency.

"... I wanted to use it to reactivate Resko's Clocktower." Dale replied plainly as he thought of the future

'To increase Resko's rating, the way to do it is by organizing our forces, creating new stations and employing the people.'

'But with limited resources, constructing new things is out of the equation, we can only reactivate old stations and try to make do with repairing them to their former power.'

'I'm unsure what Resko used to be rated at, but aiming for the same value is likely impossible, but still, getting 1-2 Stars close to their peak shouldn't be an impossibility.'

'Nonetheless, we have to start somewhere.'

""...""

"The clocktower?... You want to use such an intricate piece of ancient technology to reactivate the clocktower of all things?" David asked as his eyes twitched

He may not understand the intricacies of the object, but from Qrubin's words, he had an idea of how valuable it was, which only made him more confused as to Dale's intentions with the object.

"No… That's actually a good use for it…" Qrubin said as he pulled a small spherical object from within the metal box

"I'm still studying it but this reactor is simple. It absorbs Mana from the surroundings and converts it into mechanical force, however, it does quite a bit more than that just from a preliminary look."

"... Although I can only speculate on some of its functions given there are many output and input channels..."

"It's not self-powered, although it's abnormally efficient."

"It has a core made from an unknown material… It seems to be feeding the cycle, consuming itself in the process. But still, this process is extremely efficient, and it's thanks to this core as well."

"If we give it an ideal environment, in theory, I believe this engine could run forever... Or at the very least, its core would last for much longer than the metal husk that contains it."

"Resko's clocktower is also not a simple piece of machinery, it's at the center of the city and it's part of several older systems running underneath the city."

"It is no coincidence it is the tallest building in the city, being even taller than the Church's Hill."

"Restoring it could potentially aid in restoring some of those systems as well."

"But one thing at a time…"

"Anyhow, care to shed some light on the origins of this item? If you don't mind an old man prying…"

"I don't mind... I suggested that it be installed in the clocktower because this engine used to power another clocktower, so I thought it would be fitting to use it for what it was created for."

"A clocktower?... Of course, this isn't an Engine, it's a Mana Diffuser. Meant to equalize a source and scatter it around other systems while also..."

Qrubin began to voice out a dozen other strange terms, causing both David and Dale to get a headache.

Before long, David tried to tug at Dale, trying to incite him to say something to wake up the Mage from his daydreaming...

"Ahem!... As for where I got this from… It's an old relic from Pil-

Iros."

"Hm?... Ah yes, Pil-Iros… Wait, isn't that the Capital of Paxus?..."

"Wait! Are you telling me this is the engine that powered Pil-Iros clocktower? The original one?" Qrubin asked with great surprise as he changed his focus from the engine to Dale again

Dale touched the back of his head, thinking as to how he should reply to the question.

Technically speaking, this was taken from the tutorial zone by Ermin, to get it, he had to go through a series of puzzles as he climbed to the top of the tower before extracting it using the correct method.

Failing to do would cause the clocktower to collapse due to its broken and unstable state, although it would still fall regardless if one succeeded in their task or not, destroying whatever relics it held.

It was a limited event… One of the reasons why there were no talks of such items being discussed in the online forums.

Dale was sure that there were likely no more than 5 such items circulating, but which of them was the original? Were any of them even fake?

If a replica is 100% similar to the original in both appearance and function, can you even call it a copy?

To answer that question, he first needed to understand the Tutorial, just what was that space?

A real place locked in time? A copy of the real world? Just what was it?

As such, he couldn't just say it was the real thing as he was still on the fence regarding these items from the tutorial…

Afraid that one day they would just break his trust.

"I don't know." He said as he shook his head, raising his hand to grab the gearbox after Qurbin reassembled it

"This was passed onto me by a friend, one that I trust, so I can only take his words for it…"

'Sorry Ermin! Take the brunt of it for me!'

"Hm… It seems pretty good to me… But how spectacular, never had I imagined my eyes would fall onto such a relic, you're quite resourceful, I would've indicated you to one of the Generals if you were there 100 years ago." He said with a raspy chuckle

"And why is that?" Dale asked as he looked at the box, trying to understand it or even interact with it like Qrubin did

"Don't you know Dale? Zenith went through a collapse a thousand years ago, their cities, kingdoms, and empires all fell like the leaves of a tree in a storm, leaving behind only empty husks for the future generations."

"The many races that inhabited the lands scattered, vanishing completely, leaving behind a silent, dead continent."

"?!"

"The records of such times are few and far between, I think we only had 2 in our Vault, I don't quite remember now..."

"That…"

'A thousand years ago?! Could it be… Is that the period between both games?!'

The pieces of the puzzle appeared, one at a time...

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Notes