Someone finally got what he wanted.
What followed remained strictly between the two of them.
...
Kain had brought back a portion of the Lightcubes—crystals capable of storing human consciousness.
If they could be manufactured in Asuna's world, producing them here in the Warhammer universe should not have been too difficult.
Yet their production genuinely ran into problems.
Archmagos Cawl had needed less than half a day to gather all the required materials and manufacturing equipment. The preparations might have seemed rushed, but neither faulty calibration nor defective materials were responsible.
Instead, some strange form of interference would invariably occur during the manufacturing process, preventing the Lightcubes from being completed.
One possible explanation involved the anomalies affecting the four fundamental forces of the universe, something Kain had encountered in surviving records from the Golden Age of Technology.
Occasionally, abnormal fluctuations within a particular region of space could produce bizarre changes.
The speed of light, for example, might suddenly shift from approximately three hundred thousand kilometers per second to an unpredictable value. It could conceivably fall as low as one meter per second.
There had even been an incident in which an Astartes' power armor could be pierced by an ordinary wooden stick.
That unfortunate Space Marine had happened to be standing in a region where the fundamental laws of the universe had been distorted, allowing a simple stick to punch straight through his power armor.
Almost no one in the material universe could remember such cosmic anomalies afterward.
Only someone inside the Quantum Ghost Field aboard Kain's ship could retain those memories.
Otherwise, some unseen force would erase their recognition of the anomaly. They would accept the wooden stick piercing power armor as perfectly normal.
Even after the affected region returned to normal, their altered perception would prevent them from recognizing that anything strange had ever occurred.
As for whether the current production failures had been caused by the same phenomenon—whether the manufacturing equipment happened to be located inside a region where the universe's fundamental forces had become distorted—that possibility could be tested in several ways.
The simplest method was to attempt production in several different regions and compare the results.
After another half day passed, Archmagos Cawl finally identified the problem.
"This technology has been locked out," the Archmagos explained.
Only after listening to his detailed explanation did Kain understand what he meant.
The situation was somewhat similar to how the Trisolarans had used sophons to lock down Earth's fundamental scientific progress in The Three-Body Problem.
Cawl suspected that the Men of Iron had imposed this restriction during the Golden Age of Technology. They might have feared that humanity would use technology of this kind to resist them, so they had made it impossible for humans to manufacture anything resembling a Lightcube.
In other words, humanity in this universe had once possessed the technology needed to manufacture Lightcubes—or perhaps something even more advanced.
During the war, however, the Men of Iron had employed some unknown technology to ensure that humanity could never produce such devices again.
"So Lightcubes are unusable in this universe?" Kain asked.
"No. They can still be used. We have only been prevented from manufacturing them. Once a finished product already exists, the lock can no longer affect it."
As he spoke, Cawl gave Kain a meaningful look.
"Since I cannot manufacture them myself, procure one hundred million finished units for me."
He certainly did not hesitate to ask.
Now that he knew the Lightcubes were products of a technological field the Men of Iron had deliberately sealed away, did he honestly imagine they would be so easy to obtain?
"I can't get that many. I'll start you off with ten thousand."
"What kind of bargaining reduces one hundred million to ten thousand?"
"I was about to ask what kind of person opens negotiations by demanding one hundred million."
"Very well. Ten thousand will suffice for now. Replenish my supply as quickly as possible afterward."
As Cawl spoke, a metal container approximately one meter tall opened beside him. A small transport cart rolled out from within, carrying ten black spheres, each roughly seventy centimeters in diameter.
Kain recognized them immediately.
They were among the STC devices he had traded to Cawl during their original transaction.
He still did not know precisely what they did.
The transport had apparently delivered them here so Cawl could return them to him.
"I have already extracted and copied the technology they contain. You may take the devices back and use them yourself."
One of the mechanical arms belonging to this particular Cawl avatar tapped a black sphere.
The curved surface facing Kain immediately transformed, opening into something resembling the muzzle of a cannon. Light gathered within it before projecting a holographic display.
The hologram presented its information like a three-dimensional slideshow.
Approximately ten seconds later, the display shut down again.
Kain understood what it had shown him.
It had provided a brief tutorial explaining how to operate the device.
The technology contained within the STC astonished him. It immediately reminded him of another series—Space Battleship Yamato.
The STC contained the technology behind a Dimensional Wave-Motion Implosion Emitter.
In simpler terms, it held the construction data for a Wave-Motion Gun.
Once the STC device was connected to the systems of a warship intended to carry the weapon, it would analyze the vessel and design a Wave-Motion Gun tailored specifically for that ship.
The completed weapon could then be fitted directly onto the vessel, eliminating the need to tear the entire warship apart and drastically rebuild it around the cannon.
It was somewhat like the Freedom Gundam from Gundam SEED, whose wings could combine into a detachable backpack system.
All they needed to do was design something resembling a universal interface, fit it onto the warship like an additional layer of armor, and then mount the Wave-Motion Gun onto it.
Of course, they could still completely redesign and extensively modify the vessel if they wished.
Kain immediately stored the devices inside his personal space.
He did not care that Cawl had witnessed it. Their previous Materia transaction had already revealed that Kain possessed such an ability.
The Archmagos probably assumed it was some form of quantum teleportation.
Kain promptly logged onto the Hyperdimensional Channel and contacted A2, arranging for the devices to be delivered to her for immediate use.
The Moon-class cruiser on her side had not yet been fully constructed. This was the perfect opportunity to incorporate a Wave-Motion Gun into its design.
Come to think of it, the Yamato from Space Battleship Yamato was only a few hundred meters long, yet its Wave-Motion Gun supposedly possessed enough power to destroy an object the size of Australia.
That level of firepower might not destroy an entire planet outright, but it could easily annihilate its ecosystem.
Fire it a few more times, and blowing the planet apart probably would not be especially difficult. In that sense, it could certainly qualify as a planet-killing weapon.
So how many could they mount on a five-kilometer-long Moon-class cruiser?
No, that was not how this calculation worked.
Within its original series, the weapon required a certain amount of time between shots. It was like a mage casting an ultimate spell—the cannon needed both a lengthy charge-up sequence and a cooldown period.
Besides, Kain did not yet know whether the Wave-Motion Gun contained within this STC functioned exactly like the one from the original series.
In that story, Earth had accelerated construction of its Andromeda-class battleships by building them within a Time Fault deep inside the planet, where time flowed at a drastically different rate from the outside world.
That Time Fault had been created as a side effect of the Cosmo Reverse System.
Kain had previously encountered descriptions of similar Time Fault devices on the mechanical planet. In many respects, the technology was almost the exact opposite of a stasis field.
Humanity during the Golden Age of Technology appeared to have mastered it as well.
Unfortunately, neither the mechanical planet nor the fortress later used to modify the Necrons had preserved any archived records of that technology.
(End of Chapter)
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