Chapter 79#

Gears of Fate 21#

Arriving at the fourth workshop, Yu Feichen disembarked. Last time here, he’d only observed from the train. This time he could examine carefully. Mountainous gray ore was engulfed by the magical apparatus’s interior. Bizarre humming echoed endlessly. After a while, snow-white magical liquid finally dripped onto patterned metal plates.

This wasn’t a conveyor belt. Once accumulating to a certain amount, the drops would definitely be transported elsewhere by other means.

Following industrial world logic, the rarer the production, the more precious the item and the more careful its transport. If the magical liquid’s destination truly was the main control room as suspected, that place wouldn’t be far from the fourth workshop.

Yu Feichen simply waited for the plate to fill.

Time slowly passed. If it were the impulsive Chen Tong, he’d probably be cursing by now. But Yu Feichen never lacked patience. Finally, he calmly waited until the plate filled.

Mechanical sounds clicked. The metal plate slid outward, finally stopping on a smooth iron surface. Yu Feichen stood watching this unremarkable surface. The possibility of it serving a transport function was roughly equivalent to Jililigulung learning human speech.

Just as he thought this, mechanical rotation sounds suddenly came from above—four steel cables lowered a metal platform, appearing to be a simple elevator.

After the platform descended, the plate slid further and fit snugly into the platform, boarding the elevator.

The mechanical sound continued. This time Yu Feichen recognized it as a winch. Without delay, he quickly assessed the cable’s load capacity. He lifted the plate and held it in his hand, then unhurriedly boarded the elevator himself.

A steam-age elevator naturally had no passenger-detection ability. It simply carried him slowly upward, passing through the fourth workshop’s ceiling. Calling it a ceiling was inaccurate—merely a barrier composed of densely packed transmission machinery gears. Different machines had gaps between them, some large and small.

The ascent lasted a long time. The fourth workshop’s original location was above the fortress. At this rate, he was nearing the top.

Simultaneously, Yu Feichen felt the surrounding heat intensifying. Surging warmth and magical power pressed down from above.

Yu Feichen lowered his eyes, thinking. The magical liquid, as raw material, would naturally enter production apparatus. If he continued up on the elevator, he might deliver himself directly into the furnace.

The heat kept increasing, nearly exceeding what his body could bear. When it became almost unbearable, Yu Feichen leaned down to return the plate to its place. He gripped the nearby gear apparatus with both hands, using it for leverage to climb into the mechanical gaps and leave the elevator.

The elevator continued upward with its plate. Yu Feichen climbed upward through dense, complex steel apparatus. Metal’s distinctive cold scent filled his chest cavity. The tremor of gears rotating transmitted from his palms to his back. This place was like the blades of a meat grinder—one misstep meant being ground into powder.

After moving diagonally for some distance, the heat gradually faded. Yu Feichen began attempting to move vertically upward. After climbing roughly fifty meters, he emerged from the floor. Above, the endless mechanical apparatus ended. The space opened up.

—This was a bright, expansive chamber. Looking in all directions, northeast, southwest, up, down, left, right—brass-colored linkages and gears arranged haphazardly filled the space. Even the floor was composed of cog teeth meshing together. Each one rotated. It was the degree that might make Anphiel directly pass out. The largest gear had a diameter of hundreds of meters, making this human’s existence incomparably insignificant. Yu Feichen looked at it, recalling the massive gear they’d seen when gazing at the fortress’s peak.

So he was definitely at the fortress’s very top.

Because the floor was also made of gears, he sometimes had to stand on a gear’s edge letting it carry him, then transfer to the next gear at an appropriate position, gradually approaching the central machinery group.

By now, most of the night had passed. Yu Feichen’s power was nearly depleted. Standing before what appeared to be one of several giant steam engines, he no longer felt like thinking. He simply thought—this place was definitely the main control.

Clicking sounds approached. A mechanical dummy passed him, its grayish-white eyes gleaming with metallic sheen. It stiffly applied lubricating grease into the steam engine’s gaps.

Another mechanical dummy sprawled atop the steam engine reading gauges. Another was tapping and tinkering with a winch. The motion looked vaguely familiar. During today’s practical work, when Vincent led people repairing machinery, they were in a similar state.

Yu Feichen spoke to the nearest mechanical dummy: “Hello.”

The mechanical dummy didn’t respond.

It had once been human, but could no longer understand human language or seemed to have lost human consciousness. What drove it now? The survival instinct of being alive?

Yu Feichen climbed atop the highest steam engine’s peak. He needed to find a quiet place to stay and conserve energy. To maximize energy conservation, his thoughts slowed, gradually becoming unfocused and wandering.

Looking around, over a hundred mechanical dummies numbly wandered between machines, doing work that would never stop. Meanwhile, surrounding gears drove each other, slowly rotating, like the passage of time.

And gears propelled the entire fortress to operate according to predetermined rules. For the fortress, that rule was its destined fate.

Yu Feichen’s mind again surfaced the three divination cards he’d drawn from Murphy. He seemed to have a destined fate too. In an unpredictable future, something propelled his destiny through twists and turns into complete darkness.

At this thought, his heart beat slow and heavy, as if glimpsing that something—he suddenly realized he’d changed.

Life had always been monotonous, unchanging. Before this, he’d never imagined his future, much less anticipated or feared it.

But from this morning when he saw Murphy kneeling devoutly before Anphiel, he seemed to have split into two parts. One part handled the dungeon as usual. The other part became strange—he couldn’t tell if he was anticipating or fearing. In any case, he’d lost control.

Yu Feichen closed his eyes, suppressing that strange part.

When he reopened them, he looked toward a large furnace-shaped machine nearby, standing silent and motionless. In the bustling steam workshop with busy mechanical dummies, its appearance seemed out of place. Its stillness seemed strange too. Strange things often displeased people. Yu Feichen decided to investigate what was happening with it.

However, before he could move that direction, the machine suddenly moved. Then it actively drove toward him and emitted a monotone, cold voice.

“Beginning waste collection.”