As soon as Nero stepped out of the rocket fuel storage, he paid much closer attention to this place. The hallways were well lit, and vaguely reminded him of the corridors in schools. There was a thick white border around every door and window, while the walls and floor carried neutral colours.
The ventilation in here was perfect, making it seem like he was breathing fresh air rather than processed air, and the temperature was extremely comfortable.
It seemed that, compared to the rest of the research facility, which was just a little too cool, this place had been specifically designed to be occupied by humans for long durations of time.
He looked up and saw boards with directions pointing towards different directions of the Vault, and was incredibly surprised to discover that compared to other Eldrim texts he had encountered so far which were in an entirely different language, the boards contained Old Valen.
Valen was the dominant language in all six countries, though that had not always been the case. Each region had its own language, and oftentimes even their own dialects of the same language. Yet when the emperor unified the lands into one empire, he also spread the use of Old Valen across the lands.
Those who had been colonised could only adapt. But over the course of a thousand years, the language naturally evolved, taking on some influences from the many languages it replaced and also adjusting for how the language developed colloquially. That was to say, Nero could easily read Old Valen, but it just sounded a little odd to him.
Arter and Maximilian had walked somewhere far off into the distance, but Nero saw no reason to start searching anywhere specific. They walked up to the nearest door, and Nero placed his hand on the scanner right outside the door.
The door swooshed open, sliding into the wall itself, and revealing the room behind it. Just like the previous rocket fuel storage room, it was unassuming. Instead of countless cylinders, this room contained countless small, glass jars, each holding a small marble sized ball floating right in the middle.
What was intriguing was that each ball was a mix of different colours, as if a large volume of certain items had been compressed into a ball. The only thing that came to his mind was dirt though.
Dirt had a different appearance based on the layer it was in, so starting from the ground to several metres deep, if someone collected dirt and compressed it into a marble sized ball, it might look like what he was looking at.
"Any idea what these are?" Nero asked Gabriel as he studied the countless jars. There had to be hundreds of them.
"Nope, I've never heard of something like this. Wait, let me check the computer."
Nero followed him and watched as he turned on the computer, revealing an interface that looked unnervingly familiar. It was exactly like the computers they used in school. That eliminated the difficulty of trying to understand how to use them, though he immediately understood why Gabriel showed such an ugly expression while he tried to figure out what the samples were.
Everything was written in Old Valen, and it was incredibly awkward to understand.
After going through a few different files that contained highly complicated jargon discussing things that were completely beyond Nero's comprehension, he finally spotted a paragraph summarising a particular researcher's findings! .
"Upon diverse samplings of de mone, we discover that each sample holdeth a strange and unknown energie. De energie in de samples waxeth and waneth, according to de depth from whence they were taken. De deeper de sample, de richer de energie; and as men draw nearer to de core, de greater de concentration of that wondrous energie."
Nero read the paragraph twice, and his gaze locked onto a specific word: mone. In modern Valen it was pronounced completely differently, but there were just too many hints. He could easily guess that 'mone' was actually the moon!
After all, the whole city was named Lumina! While in modern Valen Lumina might be thought of as referring to light, in old Valen it meant moonlight! This whole city was, perhaps, closely related to the study of the moon!
"Gabriel, I think… I think these are samples from the moon!" Nero said, unable to hold his shock.
He looked from the computer back to each jar, and especially at each of the marble. No wonder they reminded him of dirt so much. They might literally be dirt samples.
If Nero understood the brief correctly, then these samples might not be limited to just the surface of the moon, but might be taken from deep within it!
Did this mean that hundreds of years ago, the Eldrim had already visited the moon? How was such a thing possible? But then again, he had just come from a room containing rocket fuel.
"Do you think we should grab a sample to bring back?" Gabriel asked, clearly not as impressed at Nero. "I'm worried that the container might break. The document did say that they had a strange energy, and I don't really want to experiment with that."
Nero frowned, then shook his head.
"It's better not to risk it. This can neither provide us with any immediate benefits, nor should it be of any value to the army. We can leave it here for now."
"It's strange. None of these samples look like they're from the Dark Moon. Why do you think that is?" Gabriel asked as they left the room.
"Who knows?" Nero said, shrugging. He suddenly remembered the Abstract curse he saw back with Footer, and how it took the shape of the moon.
Interest flashed in his eyes. There were secrets hidden here, but right now he was not really in the state to go exploring them.
The two walked up to the next room and opened it up. Who knew what lay in store for them behind each door? The Vault… was truly fascinating.