After that was settled, Cygnus went straight to his room where Astro and Ari were waiting. These past few days they were focused on bypassing the protective barriers around the secret room and to see the both of them meant that they succeeded.
"Do you have any good news for me?" He asked after he closed and locked the door.
There was not much inside the room so he could only sit on the couch and wait for them to report. Just like before, Ari and Astro produced a written report which they gave to the master. It was convenient and the master can read whatever they missed to report verbally.
"That secret room contains every research that the Magus Maximus has participated in. All results and written documents are in there. We also found these," Astro handed him a list of books that were in the room.
Cygnus carefully browsed through the list and the more he read, the more that his anger rose. He was not the kind of person who could get angry simply because of books but this time it was different. Those books were all records of things he despised.
He crumpled the list and burned it on the spot. "This world, what is with this world?" He narrowed his eyes and in a matter of seconds, the whole capital experienced an earthquake similar to what happened to Moonvale. "I really hate this place."
"Warning. Unstable mana detected. City destruction is about to be experienced." Ari spoke after a red warning appeared on her interface.
"What?" Astro was shocked and he looked at the master who was currently in a bad mood.
He tried to get near the man but before he could do it, the shaking of the ground became stronger that he couldn't keep his balance. He swayed from side to side and even the furniture started to fall on the stone floor. He knelt on the floor and grounded himself until he felt that the shaking was slowly subsiding.
He heard the master hum before the shaking finally stopped. "You are right Ari, I shouldn't be hasty because I needed to know why those information existed in this world."
Astro sighed in relief before he stood up and adapted his neutral persona. He looked around and saw mana threads that were moving around to fix the destroyed furniture inside the room. He then looked at the master who looked calm right now.
"Is there anything more in that room aside from those books?" He rolled his head from side to side and stretched his back before returning to his nonchalant posture.
"Yes, there's one more thing, it's a sealed box that emits dark mana. We were not able to open because the Magus Maximus might notice and Ari cannot use her x-ray vision to look inside. For some reason, it was getting blocked." Astro explained after he calmed himself down.
"No need to fuss about it, once I open that room, I'll open that box too. How about that dungeon below the tower, have you made progress on it?" For now, he was not interested in knowing what that box contained.
"Yes, just as you predicted, it is a laboratory as for the experiment they are conducting in that place, I don't have an idea." He tried to make out the data he read but no matter how hard he tried he could not understand the purpose of it.
"It is an experiment that involves the power to walk dimensions." Ari spoke from where she was floating. "I just finished analyzing the data and found that they are coordinates but it doesn't have a proof that other worlds do exist on those coordinates because all of their attempt to send a living human has failed."
Astro was dumbfounded at what he heard. So, they were really experimenting about crossing worlds. He clenched his fists when he heard that they've tried to send human beings. They don't really have any regard to any human life.
"Does that mean that they were able to send non-living things into those coordinates?" Cygnus remained calmed as he asked the question.
"According to their data, they believe that they had done so but according to my analysis, it is impossible." Ari flashed the data into the empty space and showed Cygnus the result of her analysis.
Cygnus looked at it as he placed his hand on his chin. His eyes were narrowed as he analyzed the data that Ari flashed before him. After looking at most of it, he leaned back and laughed. His hand covered his face as he continued to laugh.
"These data are completely ridiculous. In the first place, they don't have enough mana to run the spell and the amount they've sacrificed is not enough." He shook his head and sighed as he slowly calmed down.
"Sacrificed?" Astro couldn't understand the data because of the foreign language that Ari used but after hearing the master, he became curious.
"You are already familiar with how the laboratory works. Human sacrifice is necessary for all those experiments. And for this specific one," he pointed at the data, "more than what you can imagine should be sacrificed for it to fully manifest."
Astro's eyes widened at what the master was saying. It was already outrageous how the Magic Tower needed human sacrifices for all those experiments and now he felt like the grin from the master was insinuating something.
"What they sacrificed were only hundreds of people. Even though they used some mages who have large amounts of mana, it is still not enough. Those are only enough to activate the spell but not to manifest it. If they want to let the magic manifest, they needed hundreds of thousands and even millions of sacrifices." The grin on the master's face widened as he looked more and more deranged made Astro took a step back.
"But according to one of the documents, there was a time where they succeeded." Ari pulled up another set of data and showed it to Cygnus. "These data were recorded seventeen or eighteen years ago."
"This must be the record where Constantine was in their hands and it coincides with Ezio's birth. They must have used her to try and run the experiment but it is a shame that they only succeeded once. Can you trace where the person they used as a subject was sent?" He looked at Ari with a glint in his eyes.
"My system couldn't do that, master. Only you can travel dimensions and bring us along. We don't have that kind of ability," Ari answered.
"Hmmm, you have a point but the coordinates are written in here, can you tell me if a world exist in that point?" Cygnus changed the direction of his request but Ari could only stare at him.
"Master, I already told you that I don't have that kind of program. All I can do is input the coordinates on your spell then you can go ahead and check it yourself." If Ari could only frown and glare, Cygnus was sure that she would be doing that right now.
"Alright, alright, I'm sorry. I will stop now. I'm just a little bit lazy to do any work right now." He sighed and leaned on the chair once again. He was still thinking if he should go and check it out or just leave it alone.
Cygnus's bedroom went silent after that remark while the master was thinking of his next move. He then noticed that Astro was keeping silent and when he looked at him, his face was so serious. He couldn't help but burst out laughing once again.
"What's with your super serious face?" He couldn't contain himself and asked.
"I was just thinking that if the tower really needed that amount of sacrifice, then the whole kingdom would have been wiped out." Astro commented so calmly that it came as no surprise to Cygnus since the man would become like this when he was in shock.
"Probably but if that happened, their masterpiece would be revealed to the world so they decided to use a small amount and when they discovered that Ezio's mother had that magic, they used her instead. But there is a major problem, a dimension walker who has given birth will lose almost all of their power. That must be the reason why Grand Mage Jagan ran away with Ezio."
