That evening, Arthur was summoned to the Headmaster's office.
He expected expulsion for tasing a nobleman. Instead, Headmaster Alaric handed him a heavy, rusted iron key.
"You possess a terrifying practicality, Mr. Pendelton," Alaric said, suppressing a smile. "The King promised you access. Here it is."
He pointed to a heavy iron door behind his desk. "The Sub-Basement. The Royal Archives. Do not touch the cursed books. Do not release the sealed spirits. And be back by curfew."
...
Arthur unlocked the door. A spiral staircase wound down into the darkness. He clicked on his Mana Flashlight (another invention) and descended.
The air was stale. Dust motes danced in the beam of light.
He reached the bottom. It was a massive library, filled with rotting scrolls and stone tablets. But Arthur wasn't interested in poetry. He walked to the section marked "Pre-Calamity Artifacts."
There were broken swords, shattered crystals, and...
Arthur stopped.
On a pedestal lay a metal plate. It was etched with glowing blue lines. To a mage, it looked like a complex rune of summoning.
To Arthur, it looked like something else entirely.
"This isn't a rune," Arthur traced the lines with his finger. "These are tracks. Copper traces."
He looked closer.
"And these symbols..."
Most mages interpreted the symbols as 'Earth', 'Wind', and 'Fire'. Arthur squinted.
1 ... 0 ... 1 ... 1 ... 0
"Binary," Arthur breathed. "The Ancients didn't cast spells. They wrote code."
He grabbed a nearby scroll titled The Ritual of Awakening. He unrolled it.
It wasn't a prayer. It was a schematic.
[System Notification: Compatibility Detected.]
[Language Identified: C++ (Archaic Dialect).]
[Blueprint Unlocked: The Iron Golem.]
[Translation: It is not a monster. It is a Programmable Autonomous Unit.]
Arthur's hands shook. The "Magic" of the ancient world was actually high-level programming that manipulated mana instead of electricity.
"If I can debug this..." Arthur looked at the broken metal hulk of a Golem in the corner. "I can rebuild it. I can build a computer."
Suddenly, a voice echoed from the shadows.
"You can read the Language of the Gods?"
Arthur spun around, flashlight raised.
Standing in the dark was a girl. She had silver hair and pale eyes. She was wearing a tattered Academy uniform from a decade ago. She was translucent.
[Ghost Detected.]
[Name: Alice.]
[Status: The Guardian of the Archive.]
"It's not the language of the Gods," Arthur said, lowering his light. "It's machine code. And your syntax is messy."
The ghost blinked. "Syntax? You... you are the one we have waited for."
End of Chapter 25