Duncan knew that his idea was bold and bizarre, even to the point where it seemed too outrageous even in this weird and unpredictable deep-sea era - to transform a real celestial body into the "stone ball" with a diameter of ten meters in front of him.
And making it float on the sea can no longer be described as delusional.
But once this idea emerged, it was difficult for him to completely drive it out of his mind. No matter how weird he felt, he couldn't help but think about it.
Because... they are so similar, not just in appearance, but also a strong... "intuition", and even a "kindness" that seems to span time and world dimensions.
His mind surged.
Duncan looked at the pale sphere in front of him. For a moment, he even felt that he had returned to that familiar world, staring at the moon in his hometown.
He just stared at the moon floating beside the side of the Brilliant Star, his expression remained frozen for a long time, until the sound of footsteps came from beside him, until Lucretia's voice reached his ears.
: "Father, this is it."
Duncan turned his head. At this moment, he didn't realize how strange his face was: "Ah... yes, that's it..."
Of course, Lucretia noticed the strangeness in Duncan's expression and tone. She seemed slightly nervous, and then said with concern in her tone: "Are you okay? Your face doesn't look very good... It's the stone ball that has
What's wrong?"
"It... is very good. Thank you for your concern, Lucy." Duncan waved his hand, trying to adjust his expression, then turned his head and pointed at the stone ball, "It..."
He stopped.
He couldn't think of how to explain this to Lucretia, how to describe the concept of "moon", how to explain another world, and his reaction at the moment, just like he did in front of Tirian - he even
I don’t know how to explain what a “planet” is.
So he could only open his mouth, and then changed the subject stiffly: "Did anything change after it fell? Was it like this from the beginning?"
"Yes, it was like this from the beginning," Lucretia nodded immediately, and then told the general process of discovering the fallen object, and added some details about the process of transferring it to Breeze Harbor.
Details, "...it floats in the air at a certain height from the sea through an unknown mechanism. Without interference, it will completely stay in place, but can be dragged by external force from the ship. Its interior is solid and dense, and it can be carefully lifted several times
Sampling has proven that its internal texture is similar to stone, but so far we have only collected relatively shallow components - the deeper you go, the harder it becomes, and the drill bit cannot drill at all..."
Duncan listened quietly and asked: "What else? What else did you find?"
"We are also trying to unravel the mystery of these 'lights' around us," Lucretia continued. "The huge geometric luminous bodies wrapped around the 'stone balls' will continue to release 'sunlight' outward, and the scale of the sunlight can illuminate the entire
A city-state, however, these lights are not emitted from the 'stone balls', or at least they do not 'shine' in the way we understand - the light is 'generated' directly in the nearby space, and then evenly emitted outwards.
spread.
"In order to verify this, we built a large awning to completely cover the stone ball. It turns out that this has no impact on the luminous geometry and the 'sunlight' on the nearby sea...
"In addition, we also confirmed that the surface of the stone balls is covered with a very, very fine layer of 'dust', which is 'attached' to the stone balls by unknown forces. Although they can be scraped off for sampling, they will not be removed if there is no external force.
Even the dust at the bottom of the sphere 'falls' down from the sphere, as if there is some invisible force 'adsorbing' them..."
Lucretia tried her best to explain to Duncan the various tests currently conducted by scholars on this "stone ball" and the information she knew so far.
During this process, she had been paying attention to the changes in Duncan's expression, trying to guess what kind of mood was hidden under her father's overly serious expression at the moment.
However, she couldn't see through it. All of her father's thoughts seemed to be shrouded in a thick layer of mist, shrouded deep in that familiar yet unfamiliar majestic face. The only thing she could be sure of was that her father really, really cared about this.
A "stone ball"—more important than she and Tirian imagined.
After a long silence, Duncan finally spoke: "You did a lot of sampling?"
"Yes, surface samples have been scraped from various parts of the stone ball, and this sampling is still continuing," Lucretia nodded. "The depths of the stone ball are very hard and difficult to sample, but its surface layer
It is relatively 'loose' and can be scraped off gray-white debris. The properties of those debris are no different from stone powder..."
Speaking of this, she paused, looked at Duncan hesitantly, and then raised her finger to point to the floating platform used for studying stone balls not far away: "Do you want to go over there with me and take a look?"
"……good."
Duncan and Lucretia arrived at the "research station" built by the elves, and then passed the connecting bridge on the upper level of the research station to a platform directly connected to the surface of the stone ball.
The diameter of ten meters is insignificant for a celestial body, but as an object right in front of you, it is still a huge object. Even if you don’t count the height of it floating on the sea, the diameter of the sphere itself is actually more than
As high as three stories.
The elves fixed a platform on the "waist" of this behemoth, and fixed it with hoops surrounding the sphere and a series of anchor bolts and diagonal braces. The platform was small, only a few square meters square, but it was enough for a foothold.
Duncan stood on the platform, stretched out his hand, and gently touched the...moon.
A rough, cold touch came from the fingertips, like stroking a stone.
He took back his hand, looked at the little gray-white dust stained on his fingertips, rubbed his fingers, and let the gray-white dust fall slowly.
Some dust slowly floated towards the sphere and landed on its surface again.
"This phenomenon is also puzzling to us," Lucretia's voice came from the side. "The dust scraped off from the sphere seems to be attracted by the sphere itself. When the distance is close enough, those debris
It will actively return to the surface of the sphere. However, this 'attraction' only exists between the materials of the stone sphere itself. We have tested it with other light powders..."
Duncan hummed, but didn't say much.
"I heard from my brother that you called this weird stone ball 'the moon,'" Lucretia said while carefully observing Duncan's reaction, "and you seemed very excited when you saw it.
…Do you know anything about this stone ball?”
"It..." Duncan hesitated for a moment, and then finally spoke slowly, "It looks different from what I know. It should be very big, much bigger than what it looks like now..."
"Big?" Lucretia blinked, "Is it bigger than the Lost Home?"
"Much bigger than that."
"Is it bigger than the Pilgrimage Ark of the Four Gods Church? Or bigger than the city-state?"
Duncan shook his head: "It's bigger, it's bigger than you can imagine."
"...Could it be bigger than the boundless sea?"
"I have not measured the Infinite Sea, but... maybe," Duncan said softly as if talking to himself, "Maybe it is bigger than the Infinite Sea, because this sea named 'The Infinite' is actually only
It’s just a cage surrounded by fog.”
Lucretia opened her eyes wide.
For some reason, she suddenly thought of her childhood at this moment. The few questions and answers she just asked seemed to suddenly go back a century, triggering memories that had long been sleeping in the deepest part of her mind - she vaguely remembered that many times
Many years ago, I asked my father a similar question.
At that time, she asked her father how big the boundless sea was.
Her father told her that this sea is very big, bigger than the Lost Home, bigger than the city-state - it is vast as its name suggests, and can accommodate a person's lifelong curiosity and impulse to explore.
She remembered it firmly and followed in her father's footsteps to become an explorer and a "border scholar". As a member of the Lost Home Fleet, she followed her father to many places, including remote and unpredictable places.
"Border", she felt that her father did not deceive her when she was a child - this sea is really big.
But now her father tells her that the "infinite sea" is just a cage surrounded by fog.
The "stone ball" in front of me, which is only ten meters in diameter, should be larger than the boundless sea.
Lucretia squinted her eyes, raised her head and looked up at the "moon" in front of her, trying hard to imagine that it was bigger than the boundless sea, but for the first time she felt that her imagination was so limited - not only could she not understand her father
You can't even imagine it.
"Such a big 'moon'... How much space does it need to accommodate it?" She couldn't help but ask, "As you said, it is even bigger than this world..."
The boundless sea is not the whole world.
This sentence came to Duncan's mind instinctively, but he controlled his urge to blurt it out.
Because he really has never measured this world, let alone passed through the fog called "border".
He was not sure whether this boundless sea was really the whole world.
And Lucretia was destined to be unable to understand what a universe big enough to accommodate billions of stars would look like.
Even if she owns a ship, and the name of that ship is "Brilliant Star".
"...I'm sorry, Lucy," Duncan finally sighed softly. He turned his head and looked into the eyes of the "Sea Witch", "I can't explain this to you."