"Eh? You mean the metal beneath our feet is actually water that's been transformed under extreme pressure?"
Layla exclaimed in surprise.
Although Nolan had uploaded a vast amount of knowledge from beyond the stars through the Akasha Terminal, human time and energy were limited — not every scholar could study everything.
Besides, that information wasn't all released at once.
So most scholars only focused on learning what related to their own fields. As a result, terms like metallic hydrogen were completely foreign to both Layla and Faruzan.
Even Mona, who had been granted high-level access to the Akasha Interconnected Network by Nahida — a privilege shared only among girls who were particularly close to Nolan — hadn't studied it.
She could browse nearly everything without restriction, but she simply hadn't had the spare time to dive into subjects outside her astrological research. Thus, this was the first time she'd even heard of water turning into metal under pressure.
"Uh… I think so, probably," Nolan replied, unsure himself.
He'd never actually seen metallic hydrogen before — he was merely making an educated guess.
After thinking for a moment, he said,
"Let's not worry about that for now. First, let's see if there's anything unusual around here."
With that, Nolan released his spiritual power outward, beginning to scan the area — what should be the planet's core. His scanning was linear, capable of extending up to two or three hundred thousand kilometers.
For reference, a planet like Earth had a core diameter of around six to seven thousand kilometers. This gas giant was far larger, though not to an absurd degree like ten or twenty times that.
As Nolan condensed his psychic power into fine threads and sent them out, he quickly detected that this planet's core had a diameter of roughly twenty thousand kilometers.
After a full sweep, he noticed the entire surface of the core was smooth as a mirror. If not for the fact that they were all in a stealth, unobservable state, they might not have been able to stand upright at all — the surface was that perfectly polished.
"Find anything unusual?" Mona asked, looking at him.
"Nothing on the surface. Maybe something lies beneath." Nolan frowned slightly and scanned the area again and again, but still found nothing out of the ordinary. Then he glanced down.
"Let's see if I can dig a little."
He directed the Sword God in front of him to condense its sword intent into the shape of a drill. It was just a form — the actual spinning was still controlled by Nolan's will.
The Sword God spun the sword-intent drill at high speed and pressed it down!
The metallic surface split open with ease — after all, sword intent carried the property of Sharp Intent, capable of piercing through nearly anything.
The metal fragments that were torn free didn't scatter, however. Instead, under the immense external pressure, they slowly melted back into the surrounding surface, fusing again as if nothing had happened.
"This is insane… Just how much pressure must there be outside?!"
Mona's beautiful eyes widened in disbelief. Layla and Faruzan mirrored her reaction, instinctively inching closer to Nolan.
If any of them accidentally stepped beyond the bounds of his invisibility field, they might very well end up like those bits of metal — crushed and absorbed into the core.
At this point, even Nolan felt troubled. If everything he dug up simply fused back into the ground under pressure, then the only way forward was to continuously extend the drill downward — a process that would drain a tremendous amount of energy.
And with a core more than twenty thousand kilometers across, was it really possible he'd just happen to dig straight into something meaningful?
He had his doubts.
Besides, when he rolled his fate dice earlier, he hadn't gotten Fortune's Blessing. So randomly digging in one spot and hitting something valuable was an extremely low probability.
Still… they had come all this way. It would be far too anticlimactic to just walk around for a bit and leave.
Nolan thought for a moment, then turned to Mona and said,
"How about trying divination? Maybe you can locate the anomaly directly through it."
Mona had been training alongside him for a long time and had devoted herself entirely to astrology. By now, her strength was already nearing Level 100 — one of the highest tiers even by Teyvat's standards, especially when it came to mastery of astrology.
If anyone could divine something like this, it would be child's play for her.
"Alright, I'll give it a try," Mona replied softly, nodding as she summoned her Hydro Divination Disk.
The disk began to spin with a series of faint beep beep beep sounds, and specks of starlight shimmered upon its surface. Slowly, they connected into a star map.
At the same time, vivid images began to appear within the disk's water surface.
A tangle of intricate mechanical structures.
Metallic robots two or three stories tall.
Drone swarms moving like buzzing bees.
And at their center — a radiant figure, enveloped in golden light — a supreme mechanical overlord.
"Those… are automatons?" Faruzan murmured, touching her pale chin, her expression filled with intrigue.
She was well-versed in the art of mechanisms — in fact, she was one of the founding scholars of that very field within the Akademiya. So the idea of mechanical constructs beyond Teyvat's world naturally stirred her curiosity.
"So, could this place actually be a base — or perhaps a ruin — related to machines and robots?"
Nolan mused aloud.
The visions Mona revealed were remarkably clear. Even from the few fragments shown, one could deduce a wealth of information.
"It's possible," Mona nodded lightly. "The location should be at our seven o'clock direction, about 3,400 kilometers away… plus 722 meters."
"That precise, huh? Then it's very likely the right place," Nolan said with pleasant surprise. "Alright then — let's head there."
Controlling his energy output carefully, Nolan took the group and warped directly toward the coordinates Mona had given.
The place looked no different from the rest of the metallic core — smooth and reflective like a mirror.
Without hesitation, Nolan commanded the Sword God once again, condensing its sword intent into a massive drill. Pressing both hands downward, the drill easily bored through the metal surface.
To keep the opening from closing under pressure, he continuously extended the drill deeper using sword intent.
Thanks to the Sharp Intent trait — the "nothing unpierceable" nature of sword energy — the drill spun freely, plunging downward like a falling spear, encountering no resistance whatsoever.
After about ten minutes, it had already reached a depth of over a hundred kilometers.
But the pressure here was immense. The walls on both sides compressed inward constantly, and the deeper they went, the stronger that crushing force became.
Nolan had to expend more and more energy to maintain it.
At this point, his energy consumption was exceeding his regeneration rate. If he kept going, it would turn into pure depletion — and if the bottom was still far off, he might not be able to hold out.
After all, he still needed to maintain the stealth field; he couldn't afford to drain his reserves completely.
"How much deeper is it?" he asked, glancing at Mona.
"About 150 kilometers total — just a little farther," Mona said, as her Hydro Disk changed again. A golden line stretched downward from its surface, ending in a slowly blinking light.
That blinking endpoint, unsurprisingly, marked the drill's current location — and beneath it, just a short distance away, lay a silver layer that was almost within reach.
"Phew…" Nolan exhaled in relief. "That's manageable."
A few more minutes later, the sword-intent drill suddenly spun into empty air — as though it had broken through into a hollow space. Nolan immediately understood that they had breached the ruin or base Mona had foreseen.
He then hollowed out the center of the drill, transforming it into a vertical tunnel that extended all the way down.
Nolan gathered the girls, and together, they leapt straight into the passage.
(T/N: I thought his Void Starsea can pass through anything? Maybe I missed something or Nolan being Nolan xd)
(End of Chapter)
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