Chapter 1539: Chapter 1537: Autai’s Brain
"Shua!"
The red-robed monk opened the scroll and recited the contents aloud, which were obscure and difficult-to-understand incantations.
"Coret... Fashen... Morlock..."
After chanting a long passage, the red-robed monk paused and looked around, as if searching for some change.
But nothing changed.
The red-robed monk was not surprised by this, as if everything was expected. He observed the surroundings for a few seconds, then refocused on the scroll and recited another obscure and difficult-to-understand incantation written on it.
"Coret... Fei’er... Lofust..."
After chanting, the red-robed monk repeated his previous actions and looked around.
Upon finding that there were still no changes, he recited the incantation on the scroll for the third time.
"Coret... Amiro..."
Fourth time.
"Coret... Uer..."
Fifth time.
"Coret... Ke..."
Sixth, seventh, eighth time...
"Coret..."
"Co..."
"..."
Richard stood beside, watching all this, slowly realizing that reality differed from his expectations—apparently, he wasn’t just waiting for the red-robed monk for a few minutes; it could be tens of minutes, several hours, until the monk finished chanting the entire scroll’s contents.
So what to do?
It seemed there was no other way.
Having come this far and waited this long, he could only continue to wait.
Wait, wait.
In waiting, Richard endured what felt like an excruciating three-plus hours and finally saw the red-robed monk finish chanting the last incantation on the scroll and roll up the thick open scroll.
Is it over... Richard sighed in relief, unable to help but feel tired for the monk... After all, chanting meaningless incantations for over three hours is remarkable perseverance.
Watching the red-robed monk place the scroll back into the wooden box, Richard stepped towards the monk, preparing to have a conversation.
Unexpectedly, the monk turned around, put a finger to his lips in a gesture for silence, then turned back, reached into the wooden box, and pulled out a second scroll.
The second scroll was noticeably different from the first; the first was gray, while the second was white and even thicker, estimated to take at least four hours to chant.
Richard: "..."
With a somewhat strange expression, he twitched the corner of his mouth, eventually returning to his original position, continuing to wait.
As the saying goes—since you’ve come and waited, what else can you do but wait to the end?
So Richard truly forced himself to wait.
That wait turned out to be seven days.
After seven days, Richard watched as the red-robed monk finished chanting the last incantation on the last scroll in the wooden box, exhaling deeply, feeling extremely bored, yet also extremely puzzled.
During those seven days, the red-robed monk did only one thing, reciting incantations. After chanting one, he would observe the surroundings for a few seconds, then continue chanting, without any anomalies occurring in the process.
What on earth is happening?
Richard furrowed his brows deeply as the red-robed monk closed the wooden box with a squeak, turned around to look at him, and said slowly, "Let me introduce myself first. You can call me Abel. I believe your mind must be full of questions right now. Please, with a little more patience, wait a moment longer and go to a place with me, and you’ll understand everything there."
After speaking, the red-robed monk named Abel didn’t waste any time and stepped towards a nearby two-story stone building.
Richard blinked and followed.
Upon entering the stone building, it was a large hall. Near the wall of the hall, there was a spiral staircase leading downwards. Abel stepped onto it, and Richard followed suit.
"Tapping..."
They descended the spiral staircase, stepping down one step after another, going deeper and deeper.
Ten meters, twenty meters, thirty meters.
The staircase was so deep it seemed endless; Richard followed for several minutes, noting that Abel showed no sign of stopping.
Then ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes...
Half an hour later, Richard estimated they had descended to the base of the mountain when Abel finally stopped and said, "We’re here."
Sure enough, Richard took a few more steps, planting both feet on solid ground.
At this point, Abel clapped twice, producing a crisp "pop" sound, and the surroundings slowly lit up.
Richard discovered that the interior of the 25,000-meter-high mountain he had seen from outside had almost been entirely hollowed out, replaced by densely packed interlocking gears, large dark gray crystal stones, countless circuits, and machinery engraved with magic patterns.
All of these were orderly combined to form a gigantic, purpose-unknown device.
Most areas of the device operated smoothly, occasionally trembling slightly, causing a chain reaction from the core area out to the edges, reminding Richard of the rockslide phenomena he encountered while climbing the mountain, seemingly caused by this.
Abel spoke, gesturing around at the gears and crystal stones, "Now displayed before you is the greatest magic tool in history and the pinnacle creation of the ancient wizard civilization, far superior to floating cities, wizard towers, which aren’t even comparable to it.
To create it, the Civilization Council, Exploration Department, Resource Allocation Station, Wizard Academy, and Research Institute united, deploying thousands of top magic pattern masters and hundreds of thousands of wizards, depleting the resources of twenty planes to complete it. Its name is... Autai’s Brain."
"Autai’s Brain? What is its purpose?"
"The role of Autai’s Brain is solely computation. It can calculate anything; if you input enough detailed parameters, it can even simulate the operation of an entire world."
"Since that’s what you said, it must not be used for that purpose currently," Richard said.
"Correct," Abel nodded, speaking candidly. "After its construction, it initially helped the entire wizard civilization with data processing, ensuring efficient connections with numerous other planes centered around the homeland, preventing order from deteriorating, and optimizing resource distribution.
But later, as you probably know, a strange catastrophe struck, numerous planes fell, and the civilization’s territory shrank dramatically, causing Autai’s Brain to gradually lose its function. It was first left unused for a while, and when restarted, it was set for the sole purpose of searching for the ultimate spell."
"Searching for the ultimate spell? What is the ultimate spell?" Richard asked.
"To explain the ultimate spell, we need to discuss what a spell is first," Abel pondered for a moment. "First, we need to understand what a spell is."
Looking at Richard, Abel asked, "Have you studied spells?"
"I’ve studied them for a while," Richard did not deny.
"In your research, what do you believe the essence of a spell is?" Abel asked earnestly.
