'Like a big brother...'
When Lucian heard Clara say he was like a 'big brother,' he couldn't help but think of Tribios.
He wondered how she was doing now.
Just how much had the script influenced Amphoreus?
In the first place, did the script even influence the actual Amphoreus?
Unfortunately, not only did Amphoreus have no coordinates, but it had also been hidden by someone powerful, so only the power of Trailblaze could open the entrance.
He couldn't help but wonder when the Astral Express would arrive.
"Mr. Lucian?"
Clara's gentle voice pulled Lucian's thoughts back.
He came back to his senses and then walked down from the air to the ground step by step, as if descending a staircase.
Svarog's camera-like head moved up and down, following Lucian's figure, with his big red eye fixed on Clara.
"Clara, are you okay?"
As expected, the first thing Svarog cared about was still Clara.
Clara left Lucian's embrace and then walked over to Svarog.
"Mr. Svarog, I'm fine."
Hearing this, Svarog finally shifted his gaze to Lucian.
"Re-evaluating target—threat level cleared."
"Welcome, savior of humanity."
"Immediately after running the calculations, handing everything over to you produces the best outcome. No one else can do it, so I invited you here."
Hearing this, Lucian looked Svarog up and down, then looked up to meet Svarog's gaze.
Honestly, Svarog's appearance wasn't anything impressive, but his computing ability was quite decent. If nothing else, just calculating that 'hugging' Lucian's thigh would be the best outcome—that was more than most could do in a lifetime.
"Alright, from now on, you'll be Belobog's tech advisor, in charge of supervising all research institute projects."
Lucian immediately assigned Svarog a new job casually.
"Do a good job, and in the future, I'll have Zandar boost your computational power. Maybe you'll get a shot to ascend like Nous."
As a leader, he knew well that he had to promise something big to get his subordinates to work hard.
"No, there will only ever be one Aeon of Erudition in the universe, so I cannot ascend." Svarog responded honestly. "However, the job you mentioned—I can do it."
Eat empty promises?
Svarog would never do that in his lifetime.
"As you wish." Lucian shrugged. "Now take me to the arsenal from the Old World."
"Order received. Protocol confirmed—please follow me."
Svarog immediately led Lucian into a hidden passage.
Clara, on the other hand, stayed behind to watch the base and comfort the other robots.
Svarog was the leader of the Robot Settlement, and Clara was second-in-command. Without Clara, this place would fall apart.
Lucian followed Svarog for a long time—they went up, then down, making eighteen turns until they finally reached a vast underground cavern.
At the center of the cavern stood a platform as large as two soccer fields, but Lucian could not make out any doors in the surrounding stone walls.
Meanwhile, Svarog operated an old machine, and after a few beeps—
*Rumble—*
Feeling the entire cavern trembling, Lucian looked up and saw countless hatches appear in the stone walls.
Lucian picked the nearest one and jumped in.
"Oh, so there's space inside the stone walls as well."
Lucian could not help but marvel as he saw that behind each hatch was a compartment of varying size, each holding different things.
What stood before Lucian was a railgun with a giant barrel and a spider-belly-shaped gun mount.
It looked extremely cool and obviously packed a punch, but its surface was covered with a thick layer of dust, showing that it had been stored here for at least five hundred years, maybe even longer.
'I wonder how this compares to the railgun in the movies back home? Starship civilizations are always stronger than mere spacefaring ones, after all.'
As everyone knew, the civilization of Lucian's original world was only at the spacefaring level, so they could not travel freely across the galaxy yet.
However, the civilization of Jarilo-VI's Old World could.
Lucian patted the railgun with a satisfied expression before heading to the next hatch.
"Hmm, what's this..."
He found something that looked like an RPG, but much more high-tech and futuristic.
"Searching database..." Svarog, who followed behind Lucian, spoke up. "It's called the Imaginary Ion Cannon. It accelerates ions with Imaginary energy and fires a blue energy beam."
"And this one?"
Lucian pointed to a weapon shaped like a rifle.
"It's a handheld railgun."
Upon hearing Svarog's answer, Lucian picked up the railgun, shook off the thick dust, and pulled the trigger, but nothing happened.
"Because it has been stored for so long, its energy has already been depleted." Svarog explained. "It needs to be recharged before it can be used."
"Recharge? Well, that's easy."
An Emanator could control Imaginary energy, so recharging the handheld railgun took no time.
Lucian saw the railgun light up with purple light, then he gently pulled the trigger.
*Ziiing—PEW!*
A purple bolt shot out, blasting a deep hole in the stone wall a kilometer away.
"Hmm, with weaponry like this, you didn't use it to defend against the Fragmentum monsters? Did you not like them or something?"
Lucian teased Svarog.
"Calculations showed that these weapons could not help humans survive the Stellaron crisis." Svarog could not understand the joke and answered seriously. "Using them would be a pointless waste."
"...Fair enough."
Lucian replied absentmindedly and moved on to the next hatch, seeing a single machine whose purpose was unclear.
"It's a quantum communicator, but it's already broken and cannot be used."
Svarog explained the machine's functions.
Lucian shook his head regretfully and moved on.
Surprisingly, the next hatch contained automatons, humanoid robots similar to Svarog, but they were all covered in dust and could not be activated.
Coincidentally, Lucian even found a broken star map, something that was useful for the current him.
"It's busted... Oh well, I can fix it later."
As long as he got the star map working, he could reconnect with other civilizations and stop Jarilo-VI from being isolated.
Of course, the downside was that the IPC would be the first to come collecting debts.
Remembering the astronomical bill from the original story, Lucian couldn't help but let out a cold laugh.
'Honestly, there's no way I can pay that off, so worst case, I'll just fight it out. Even though there are two confirmed Emanators of Preservation on their side, I still have the upper hand.'