Genius Mage in a Cultivation World

"Just what the hell does that mean?" Layn asked himself while watching how the corpse of the monster started to float upwards before dissapearing in the darkness of the deep water. The light of this entire structure could keep it visible only for so far, yet it was long enough for the waters to suddenly fill with previously hidden monsters.

All at once, a swarm of seaborn creatures threw themselves at the corpse, quickly turning it into their meal. By the time it dissapeared from Layn's eyes, it consisted of no more but few spare chunks of meat hanging to the chewed-up bones.

"Did they fry its core or something?" Inspired by the sight, Layn attempted to uncover the secret of this wonder. At the same time, a doubt appeared in his head. 'If that's how this entire facility works, then shutting it down could result in a natural disaster, couldn't it?' the archmage pondered, trying to figure out how big of an impact this seemingly infinite factory of fresh meat would impact the flora and fauna of the massive lake.

Unable to find the answers just by standing besides the window, Layn turned around. When he first came here, he traced the production from the first step to the last one, hoping to understand what it was all aimed for. But now, it was time to do things in reverse.

'There needs to be some sort of certal powering system, that I can say for sure,' Layn thought. Moving back to the begining of the stone-creation process, Layn had to spend quite a while to figure out the connections between machines and other elements of the structure before he finally found where the main compartment was.

"What the hell," Layn muttered when he finally found out a way to push a small hatch open. Because what was inside the small room he entered, was way beyond anything he could imagine.

"Blackstone, heavenly arc, and is that… No fucking way," Layn could only recognise specific artefacts amongst an entire sea of different items. Yet, just the few that he could recognise were already valuable enough to push the entire modern nation into war for it.

"Should I dismantle this machinery or not?" Layn asked himself in a low voice, watching how every single precious element of set in front of him operated in a perfect harmony with other elements.

Just the single blackstone would be enough for Layn to never worry about lack of magical energy again. Given how it was the prime material one would use when playing around the fussion magic, he could easily turn it into the source of power for him, Irea and all the future disciples he would take.

'But what will happen if I destroy it?' Layn reached forward, only for the hesitation to stop his hand right before he could touch the stone.

For a moment, Layn didn't dare to touch the complicated machinery or any of the precious artefacts embeeded in it.

"Wait, what am I even hesitating for?" Layn suddenly asked himself, killing all his doubts from before. "It's not like it will be here in the future, so what does it matter if it falls apart a bit earlier than it shoudl?" Layn asked as he shook his head. Then, without any further reservation, he reached for the artefacts…

Only to stop his hand again.

"No, I can't be too hasty," Layn told himself, trying to mute the worry about the Irea while at it. "It won't do any good if I start some kind of disasterous chain reaction," he muttered, trying to figure out the way in which the entire machinery worked.

From the looks of things, the blackstone wasn't even the source of power for the entire structure, but a measly pacifying agent. Just like one would use it in magical reactor, the surges of wild magic from the heavenly arc infused itself into the blackstone, bringing its reactivity all the way to the lower limit of what it could sustain.

Choked by the insufficient amount of energy entering it, the blackstone could only output stable energy at a pretty low rate when compared to what it actually could when used properly. In other words, rather than making use of its reactivity to create magic energy, the unknown constructor of this structure used it as a stabilizing agent, as a way to turn wild fluxes of mana into a stable stream of it.

"It seems taking the black stone could easily lead to the entire mechanism colapsing on itself," Layn muttered under his nose as he continued to inspect the innerworkings of the mechanism.

The stable energy from the blackstone moved through the crystal circuts towards another artefact that Layn didn't recognise. 'I can't even tell what its doing… or wait,' Layn was unable to figure out just what was happening inside the artefact or what was the idea behind its work, but he was still capable of comparing the inputted stream of magic with the one that was outputed by it.

And there was a single, tiny difference between the two.

When the magic was entering the cubic-shaped container, it was thin. But when it was moving out of the item, it appeared to be condensed to the point where the crystal circuit could barely hold it in!

Yet, it wasn't even the most intriquing point.

Once the magical energy was condensed enough, it would pass through a set of similiar crystals… Only to end up just as thin as it was before. From that point on, this thinned-out magic would move all the way to the back only to be infused into the heavenly arch which would in turn spew out rapid flux of magic, closing the circle of reaction.

"And that means, the crux of this machine lays in those strange stones," Layn thought, analyzing the crystals that caught his attention. Then, unable to figure out anything else from just looking, he moved his hand forward, touching the crystal.

"ARGH!" In an instant, Layn's hand was set alight. Not with fire, but with the magical burn of a power too condensed to realistically exist. His fingers were melting, filling his mind with an unbearable pain.

"FUCK!" Layn shouted, backing out from the stones. In a desperate act, he released all the magical energy stored in his cultivation and aura alike, forming a tiny but overwhelmingly powerful spear of condensed magic and firing it away in a random direction.

With all the magic leaving his body, the burn on his fingers instantly stopped. The insanely condensed magic that transferred over to his fingers from when he touched those strange crystals, started to diffuse all over his body.

'Just like expected,' Layn thought while tightening his jaws. As ingenious as it was to allow this ungodly condensed magic to spread out to his entire body rather than containing it in a single part of his flesh, it didn't mean it was easy.

Because while his body stopped melting apart, the excruciating pain of the overwhelming force tearing him from within remained.

"Fuck,  fuck, fuck!" Under the onslaught of the immense pain, Layn could only crash around the place while trying to cope with the pain. 'At least I'm sane enough to steer clear from those stones,' Layn thought while casting a pained glance to the source of his current torture.

Those crystals didn't look all that strange on their own. Just a set of eight, greenish, glass-like structures, each around the size of a man's fist. But the problem with those stones didn't lay in their appearance. Or rather, it wasn't about the first thing one would notice when looking at them.

Once the torture finally came to an end when Layn's body finally managed to rein the insane energy in before assimilating it, the archmage finally could focus his mind on the task at hand. Leaning over the stones, he could finally see what was so puzzling about the color of those stones.

Because those crystals weren't green at all.

"Are they… transparent?" The closer Layn looked, the more mysterious those stones turned out to be. Because just as Layn observed, they didn't have any color on their own. But that gave birth to another question. "Just what gives them this greenish hue then?"

As much as Layn wanted to figure out the answer to that, there was no way he could do it on the spot. And with every moment he was inside this place,  the chances of his construction site getting overrun by the monsters were growing bigger and bigger.

"I guess that will be it for today's visit," Layn muttered in disappointment. He came here in hopes of obtaining materials that would allow him to quickly transform the small settlement he had into a magnificent sect where he could teach others the truth about the world.

Yet, even though he made a fair share of mistakes in his scientific career, Layn wasn't stupid enough to risk upsetting such a precise and powerful mechanism in attempts to just get some of its parts!

"Well, I will profit more off it if I learn how it works," Layn said, finally coming to a decision. But just as he turned around with the intention to leave, a small flash of green light suddenly drew his attention.

It didn't come from the machinery itself, but from somewhere underneath it. Puzzled by the situation, Layn laid down on the floor, trying to find the source of the light.

And then he saw it.

A single, green crystal laid in a small, circular depression underneath the entire machinery above.

And it wasn't connected to the machinery by any way or form.

"I guess I won't need to return empty-handed!" Tom muttered with joy, while his mind frantically attempted to find a way to transport this stone without burning his entire body with its condensed magic.