The substance that glowed faintly in the darkness directly cleared Gawain's sleepiness, and he didn't care that these gray-black things would be stained, and pulled them up directly in the big basket.

Soon, some pieces were turned over that were clearly different from the surrounding matter.

The light that is "inlaid in" inside them is a little brighter, more concentrated and more stable.

From the outside, these things are still black cements, but in the loose structure there are many crystal-like crystals no more than a millimeter in diameter, which are the source of the light. Gawain crushed a piece of cement, carefully picking out a few crystals from it, and found that they were still glowing, and were a little brighter after losing the influence of the impurities around them.

A certain intuition caused him to open up his ability to perceive magic, and some constant, shimmering clouds of mist appeared in his field of vision: these crystals contained a certain amount of magic.

Gawain pinched a crystal, his fingers slowly pressing, and the crystal finally shattered: it was hard, almost as stone, but it was more fragile than the natural crystals that magicians used to process their staffs and store their magic, and as it was crushed, its light was gone.

The magic escaped.

So what the hell is this thing?

Gawain frowned deeply, he really wanted to take this thing to Hetty for consultation immediately, but the latter was probably asleep at this time, and tonight's accident must have made her very tired, plus she had to worry about the construction of the camp during the day, it was not easy for her to get a good night's sleep.

So Gawain had to forcibly suppress his thoughts and prepare to wait until early tomorrow morning to find Hetty.

In the second half of the night, there was no more turmoil, and the camp was surrounded by darkness and silence, as if the kingdom of the legendary Night Lady had descended......

Early the next morning, Gawain went to Hetty's tent with the tiny crystals that glowed in the dark, and learned that Hetty had gotten up earlier to go to the lab, so he ran to Hetty's magic lab.

Located in the southeast corner of the camp, near the Dark Mountains, this "magic laboratory" is currently the only house in the entire camp that is built of stone and wood as the main material, and it occupies a large area, even if there is no superfluous decoration, it can be said to be the "mansion" here. This is not that Hetty wants to engage in particularism, but the magic laboratory does have requirements for the environment, and many magic and alchemy experiments are required to be carried out in a fairly quiet and stable environment, and the use of stone walls is also for the convenience of depicting the magic circle.

The mage is a very practical creature.

But to the uninitiated, the sturdy and atmospheric building was so mysterious that Amber suspected that Hetty's job inside was to mix potions and poisons like an old witch, but she didn't dare to go in and make sure - for fear of being beaten.

When Gawain arrived, Hetty was busy among the piles of crystals - she had her own workbench in the middle of the lab, and the unusually large round table was divided into three parts, one of which was inscribed with a magic circle and was surrounded by various magical materials, one part was filled with various bottles and cans and alchemy tools, and the third part had only one device, which was a crystal resonator bought at a high price from Tanzania.

It is a device dedicated to the study of various types of crystals, as well as the inscription of magic circles on the inside of crystals, and it is the outstanding creation of the magicians of this world, and its precision and beautiful appearance are completely different from the crude and primitive tools that Gawain saw in the civilian society of this era. It has a pedestal as the core, on which are held in place three natural magic crystals of different sizes with brass mechanisms, and around this core pedestal are several independent, angled circular artificial crystal slices, and behind each crystal tile, there are also gray-white vertical plates for imaging.

It's arguably the most expensive thing in the entire lab, and Hetty uses it with care, not even Rebecca's eldest niece, who is also a mage (although she only knows fireballs).

If Amber really dares to sneak in, it looks like she will really be beaten......

Gawain saw Herty put a lilac crystal in the center of the crystal resonator, and through the stimulation of the three surrounding magic crystals, the target crystal resonated, and this resonance produced a detectable "ripple" in the ubiquitous magical environment, through the artificial crystal flakes around the resonator, this ripple formed a picture that could be observed by the naked eye, and was projected on those gray-white vertical plates.

The structure of the runes can already be seen on two of the vertical boards, and on the scratch paper in the corner of the table is a sketch drawn by Hetty based on the projection structure.

It seems that she is studying the ancient military crystals that she brought out of the treasure trove in the mountains.

Hetty was a little surprised by Gawain's sudden visit, because Gawain usually went back to check the progress of the project at this time, or drew a bunch of drawings in his tent: "Ancestor? How did you get here? ”

"There's something I want you to see," Gawain said as he poured out the cements inlaid with fine crystal particles from the lambskin pouch he was carrying, while looking at Hetty's "workbench," "Are you studying the magic circles inside those ancient crystals?" ”

"Yes," Hetty nodded, a little apologetic on her face, "It's a pity it's not going well." ”

As she spoke, she looked at the unsightly pieces in Gawain's hand: "These are ......"

"Rebecca tossed the 'slag' last time, but I found something interesting in it," Gawain said as he rubbed the broken crystals embedded in the slag, "These things have a magical reaction. ”

"Magic reaction?" Hetty frowned, then took a closer look and was immediately surprised, "Is there really one?!" What is this? ”

"So I'm going to take a look," Gawain picked out one of the detached crystals, "can your crystal resonator see its structure?" ”

Hetty couldn't have imagined that Rebecca's random operation would make such a strange thing - she thought that Rebecca was burning stones in the shed all day long, even if it was arranged by Gawain, after all, Rebecca had a lot of brainstorming ideas in the process, such as throwing grasshoppers into the furnace - she carefully picked up the crystal that Gawain handed over, and put it in front of her eyes to take a closer look.

"Isn't there anything bigger?" Hetty frowned a little in annoyance, "It's so small, it's hard to observe." ”

Gao Wen couldn't help it: "This is already the largest piece, at least the size of a grain of rice." ”

"Okay, I'll try." As she spoke, Herty took the ancient crystal from the center of the crystal resonator: its rune arrangement had been recorded, and there was no need to further test it.

Hetty then carefully pinched the "crystal" the size of a grain of rice with a small pair of tweezers, placed it in the center of the pedestal of the resonator, and activated the three magic crystals on the pedestal.

After a short wait, some vague lines appeared on the "screens" on the periphery of the resonator: they were not only very blurry, but also faint as if they were transparent, and if it weren't for Hetty's early extinguishing of the nearby magic crystal lamp, Gawain probably wouldn't have seen them at all.

After all, the crystals that are the object of observation are too small.

"This structure...... It is indeed an artificial crystal, and it is very regular," Hetty carefully distinguishes the forms of those lines, and carefully injects the minimum amount of magic into the pedestal, and as the magic is infused, the lines on the projection gradually brighten, and dyed with a halo like a rainbow, "able to absorb foreign magic and transform them into forms that exist steadily within the crystal......"

Hetty withdrew her magic and watched as the projections followed.

A few minutes passed, and the projection on the riser did not change in the slightest, and the resonator's own mechanism with its ability to accurately sense magic did not move.

"Mana is stored stably?!" It was only then that Herty showed a more surprised expression, "Escape rate...... So low?! ”

Gawain stared straight at the pedestal in the center of the crystal resonator, where a "faux crystal" the size of a grain of rice was emitting a white glow visible to the naked eye: it seemed that as the magic was filled, its brightness also increased.

He immediately realized why he hadn't noticed these things mixed in the waste when it was dark in the tent before: these "artificial crystals" were empty when they were first refined, and of course they would not glow without magic, and as they were placed for a longer time, they began to spontaneously absorb the free magical energy in the atmosphere, which was a slow process of self-charging, and it took two days to charge before it could finally glow slightly at night, and it was finally discovered by Gawain.

Hetty was also fascinated by the crystal's strange nature, and she continued to pour energy into the crystal with uncontrollable excitement - a crystal the size of a grain of rice certainly wouldn't hold much magic, so she soon found that the thing was "saturated".

The tiny crystals began to emit a steady milky shimmer and showed no signs of disintegrating themselves due to saturation.

"So this is an artificial crystal that can store mana?!" Gawain looked at Hetty with a look of surprise, feeling as if he had picked up a treasure, "Then how does its maximum capacity compare to natural crystals?" What about stability? I see it's glowing all the time, what about its self-depletion rate? ”

"Wait a minute, wait a minute, I still have ...... I'm going to test it carefully," Hetty's excitement in her heart was no weaker than that of Gawain, but she still maintained the calmness that a mage should have, she picked up the small crystal and walked to the analysis magic array next to her, and said casually, "The problem of self-depletion should not be big, although it is glowing, but the main thing is that the free magic in the air is affected by the crystal and resonates, and the magic stored inside the crystal is not much lost, so it should be able to keep the magic power for a long time......"

As she spoke, she placed the crystal in a fluted "vessel" made of rubies, and placed the vessel in the center of the magic circle, ready to try to retrace the magic stored in the crystal.

The magic circle was activated.

The crystal particles in the ruby vessel made a soft "pop" sound, and then turned into a piece of slag.