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Chapter 682 Prison Cell

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Belmont did not say much, but a subtle smirk grew on his face as he watched mesmerization in Lex's eyes. Sure, his reaction was still tame and not nearly on the level he expected, but no one could deny the greatness of the Crystal race.

Indeed, Lex really could not come up with a single flaw in the exquisite structure. Despite all the ease the system afforded him in designing buildings, there was no replacement for meticulous and detailed planning. This was a step beyond anything he or even the Planning division had designed. What's more, he was a hundred percent sure that there were many details of this place that he was overlooking or simply unable to detect, for the fundamental purpose of this place was a prison, so how could there be no security measures?

Sure, he saw the endless number of guards, but he was sure that the security measures were greater than just that. Sure the majestic pressure the structure radiated was impressive, but he was sure that it had other more practical reasons as well.

Instead of directly taking Lex and himself to their next destination, as Belmont had been doing previously, he decided to walk and allow Lex to take more of the structure in. Unfortunately, walking through the structure did not elicit anymore reactions from Lex as his expression had long since returned to normal. Sure, he was studying the structure, but his motive was to absorb ideas to implement at the Inn rather than to appreciate its beauty.

The one thing he noticed only once he reached the structure was that the pattern made using spirit stones as tiles was identical to one of the characters he had studied for arrays.

The meaning of the character could not be expressed in a single word, and the nearest English translation of its meaning, or the way it expressed its power, meant 'strong earth'.

"The addition of a 'character' into the structure's design is ingenious," Lex said lightly. Of course now that he had seen the idea he could mimic it at the Inn, but something told him his implementation would still fall short of the original architect that designed this place.

"Returning to nature is a strong theme within the Crystal lifestyle," Belmont said with pride. "Biomimicry goes beyond just basic shapes and structures. True biomimicry is when one is able to recreate the laws of the universe within one's own design."

Lex nodded very seriously. This was already a very enlightening experience for him. If he could recreate what he learnt here, and implement it across the Inn, he felt he would reach a whole new level. But he still needed to study more. He had only seen things at a surface level. The most ideal situation would be if he hired a Crystal race architect for the Inn, and then thoroughly studied his process and learned it himself.

𝓁𝑖𝘣𝑟𝘦𝘢𝒹.𝑐ℴ𝘮

Though they were walking, it was not as if they were out for a casual stroll. Their speed was still incredibly fast, and in mere minutes they reached the center point of the pyramid, which was the entrance to a massive and elaborate underground structure.

Once inside, they took a spiral staircase that seemed like it was carved right out of the ground and seemed to go down forever. Since there were walls on both sides there was no way of seeing how far deep the staircase went, but every so often they would encounter a door to a certain floor.

Even with their impressive speed, they had to descend for at least 20 minutes before they reached not the bottom but the door they had to use. If Lex had to guess he would say they were around 60 miles (100 km) deep underground, which was an inconceivable concept to him. Across the various floors he felt differing auras, meaning that different restrictions were applied to each floor.

Although he did not know what the effects of those auras were, his instincts told him plainly that if he were to get trapped here, there would be no chance of escape. Teleporting to the Inn would be his only option.

Suddenly it occurred to Lex that there was probably some kind of formation deployed here to prevent teleportation as well. That was probably the first and most important part of a prison holding cultivators. But since he could still feel his connection to the Inn, he was sure he could still teleport out. At most, his teleportation would be delayed, like it had been on earth when the A.I. locked space somehow.

Lex continued to study the elaborate complex and took down notes as they went along. Luthor had long been asking for a prison, and Lex was considering taking inspiration from here and making one for him to manage when he returned from the war.

After going through various twists and turns, and descending several more floors as well as traveling through short distance teleportation formations which could not be accessed from outside the structure, they finally arrived at what was supposed to be a prison cell.

To Lex, however, it seemed like an underground mansion furnished luxuriously! Was this really the Crystal races concept of a prison? He was dumbfounded. This made even Swedish prisons look drab!

The duo did not knock or announce their presence, and simply walked through the forcefield that was shielding the 'prison cell'. They entered the building and made their way through, as if Belmont knew exactly where Ezio would be, and indeed he was correct.

They found their target meditating inside what looked like a zen garden, a small bird resting on his shoulder. Small yet colorful insects flew around him, reminiscent of butterflies and ladybugs. The scene was very beautiful and peaceful to watch. Lex decided that in the prison that he made… he might not add this feature. Or maybe he would. Who knows what kind of requirements he might have in the future.

Lex studied Ezio and tried to determine if he was the same Crystal elder he saw. As far as appearances went, he looked more or less the same, but Lex had very limited experience with Crystals so he was not sure if that was enough to identify him.

"When I gave you the letter, I expected it would be at least a century or two before you arrived," Ezio suddenly said, opening his eyes and focusing on Lex. As soon as Lex felt Ezio's gaze on him, he was sure of one thing: this was actually not the same Crystal he saw earlier!

Although back then Lex was comparatively much weaker than he was now, he still had a very good idea of the power level and aura of the Crystal he met. The Ezio in front of him was countless times more powerful.

But then Lex frowned. Despite the power difference, he could not explain why he knew Lex. Unsure of the correct answer, Lex could only share his findings with Belmont and leave it up to him to judge.

"This Crystal is a lot stronger than the one I met in the Minor realm. They cannot be the same."

Both Ezio and Belmont were surprised by the certainty in Lex's voice.

"How can you be sure?" asked Ezio, studying Lex thoroughly.

"About these things, I've never been wrong yet. You're definitely a lot stronger than the Crystal I met before."

Ezio shook his head in disappointment.

"There's a reason for that. If you had arrived in a couple of centuries as I expected, it wouldn't have mattered. But now that you've arrived so early, my plan is completely ruined. They'll find out sooner or later anyway, so I'll just tell you. The person you met earlier was still me, but that was just a clone of me that I've left in the outside world. That's why I appear more powerful in person."

Both Lex and Belmont were startled. Lex had been searching for a good cloning technique for so long. If he was able to discover one now, then Ezio really would be his lucky star. Not only had Lex received his 'thinking hat' from him last time, but had learnt incredible things just on the way to meet him. Should he hire him at the Inn?

"Ezio, do you know what you've done?" Belmont asked gravely, his body emitting a dangerous and furious aura. "Your sentence will only be increased further if what you've said is proven true. You know we'll track the activities of your clone now that we know about it. How many more crimes will we uncover?"

Ezio shook his head, as if he was uninterested in conversing with Belmont. Instead, his attention remained on Lex.

"I told you to find me when you've discovered enough secrets, and for every secret you share with me, I'll share one with you. The fact that you've come so quickly must mean you've learnt something important, or you wouldn't be confident enough to find me. So, tell me what you've learnt."

Chapter 683 Flaws

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Lex really wanted to get into this, but he did not want to start the conversation while Belmont was still distracted. After all, as things stood now, Belmont was a more reliable person to get what he wanted. At the same time, he had already started making plans for how to proceed if neither of them decided to help.

The situation had already deviated from what Lex originally would have expected, and although the situation was not completely out of control, it was best to be prepared for the worst. Although common sense dictated that faced with the destruction of this realm that they lived in itself they would definitely want to resolve the problem, he wanted to be prepared for the worst in any case.

"I have, indeed, learnt a few things that I want to discuss with you. But before I get into that…" Lex did not really continue, but he looked towards Belmont who still looked furious.

Ezio sighed, as if he had been asked to take care of an extremely tedious matter. Eventually though, he turned to look at Belmont.

"What is it that you are surprised about exactly? That in this instance of forceful imprisonment, I did not cooperate with you wholeheartedly? Are you familiar with the concept of prisons and prisoners? What part is surprising for you exactly? Allow me to educate you on the matter."

Despite the blatant condescension, Belmont was not provoked. Though he allowed a bit of his pride to get to him when it concerned Lex's reaction to the Crystal races achievements, in professional matters he maintained his calm always.

"The only thing I am curious about is how you managed to hide the existence of the clone. Our methods are supposed to be thorough, so before anyone is admitted we test for clones among other things. If there is a loophole then the security of the entire place will be compromised."

𝒍𝒊𝙗𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅.𝓬𝒐𝓶

Ezio shook his head as if disappointed.

"Young man, the moment you think you know everything or are prepared for everything, you enter the territory of arrogance. To keep this place secure, you must preclude endless threats and possibilities, but I only need to come up with a single weakness or flaw to penetrate this place's security."

"Do not be pedantic, old man," Belmont said, his earlier grace of a lord all gone. "If you do not wish to say that is fine. We can still find out on our own now that we know there is an issue."

"When did I say that I wouldn't tell you? When I was imprisoned, I was tested for any soul connected devices or techniques outside my body, and the test came back negative. That was simply because the clone was in the gestation period. The connection with my main soul had not been formed yet, but within the clone I had left a small piece of my soul as well, which was absorbed. Thus, as a result, at the time of my capture there was no response to your tests."

"But you have been under lockdown. There is no way your clone should have been able to connect to your soul."

"It was not needed. Since the clone already absorbed a part of my soul, it already became destined to become an extension of me the moment it was born. It's just that during your testing, it had not been born and so was not picked up."

Belmont did not immediately reply, for he could not confirm the authenticity of his claim. According to his own understanding, such a thing still should not have been able to circumvent their investigations. After all, Valesco was not a project undertaken by the young and inexperienced Crystals. Some of the Crystals involved in establishing it were even older and stronger than Ezio, and so should have enough experience to account for such things.

Still, since Ezio had given his explanation, he would be sure to report it. They would, of course, still go through with their own investigations. But none of that was actually Belmonts' domain. After all, his responsibility was the border. The only reason he had conducted the investigation himself was because he felt if he went through the 'proper protocol' things would have taken much longer, and this was not a matter on which they could afford to lose time.

As if Ezio had read his mind, he smiled and turned to Lex.

"Now then, shall we discuss. I am quite eager to see what you have learned. I'll have you know, quite a bit of effort was put into erasing records of events from back then. Even many of the people who lived through the time remain ignorant of what actually happened. But do not be too worried. Even if what you have learned falls short of my expectations, you can always visit me again later. After all, like I said, I was not expecting you for another century or so."

Lex did not hesitate to smile as he heard Ezio. Clearly the Crystal did not want to raise its hopes too high for whatever Lex had managed to learn, and was trying to leave an opportunity for him to return in the future. He had no idea why he would be allowed to visit Ezio again in the future after his misconduct had already been discovered, perhaps he was expecting some leniency for unknown reasons. But that did not matter, for Lex could not even determine if the realm had a few centuries left to exist.

What if the realm was destroyed long before then? What would be the point in keeping all these secrets by then?

"I am also eager to see if I can meet your expectations. After all, if I cannot, who knows if I'll ever be able to get a chance to meet you once again. If you don't mind, I've also asked Lord Belmont to listen in on our conversation, since I may need his help in the matters that follow."

Occasionally missing content, please report errors in time.

Chapter 684 Silent

Lex had purposefully been cryptic in his wording to attract the two Crystals attention, yet he did not explain what he meant immediately. Nor did he wait for Ezio to respond, for in the given situation Belmont was of more use to him than Ezio. Moreover, based on his behavior of eliminating records of what happened, who knew if he was somehow complicit in whatever scheme was in place which was resulting in the realms degradation.

Therefore, while he wanted to still have a conversation with him to uncover as many secrets as possible, he had to ensure Belmont stayed as well.

"If I'm being entirely honest, I haven't had any time to conduct any real research into the matter myself," Lex confessed. "Anything I learnt was through a series of coincidences. There are some things the sources of which I can share with you, and some that I cannot. It's up to you whether you trust me or not, or find my narrative believable.

"I will assume that you already know about the existence of realms, so I won't go into detail about them. The first thing that requires scrutiny is that I was informed that this realm is suffering from some kind of anomaly."

Both the Crystals were taken aback by Lex's knowledge of realms. This was not a topic that could be considered common knowledge even in more mature realms, let alone the Crystal realm. Technically speaking, such information should have, at most, been shared with those who were about to break through the limits of the realm and transcend. Even then, most immortals actually thought the stories of ascendance and going to a higher realm were just rumors, and that earth immortals were actually the limit of cultivation. Only a select, elite few knew the truth.

The Crystal race was an unusual exception to this solely due to the fact that their entire race was abnormally powerful. Although for many of them, their cultivation rate was low, mainly because they felt no pressure to cultivate quickly, it was a common perception that every member of their race would reach the immortal realm sooner or later.

After all, the entire race was immortal. Even if they cultivated at the slowest pace possible, sooner or later they were bound to make enough progress to reach a higher realm. While other races had to speed up so that they do not become victims of declining vitality and their bodies failing them, the Crystal race had no such concerns.

𝓁𝑖𝑏𝑟𝘦𝒶𝘥.𝒸𝘰𝑚

As a result of this, they were a lot more liberal with sharing sensitive information as well. After all, to them it was only a matter of time till they became eligible to learn this information. It was only learning a little earlier than later.

Using his sixth sense Lex knew that his words had an impact on the two Crystals, but he did not pause for emphasis. There was too much to cover.

"I repeat, I was informed that the realm itself is suffering from some kind of anomaly, not that there is an anomaly inside the realm. Out of curiosity, I began to conduct some research on the matter. Due to my limited power, I obviously could not begin searching the entire realm, so then I began studying the history of the realm.

"The thing that stood out to me the most in the recent past is the abrupt hegemony of the Kraven. I tried to look into the Kraven a little more. Were they some suppressed race, hidden off somewhere in the realm? Were they a race that was born from mutation? Or, perhaps, were they invaders from another realm?"

Lex paused for a moment, to allow the two Crystals to absorb what he was saying. The most unfortunate thing was that if Lex had been able to converse with Luthor and the others, and talked to them about it, the Kraven would have been extremely familiar to them. It was not like they had run into the Kraven anywhere. Instead, they had already faced biological creatures who had been designed explicitly to fight against the inhabitants of a certain planet. If they had heard Lex's explanation, their first thought would have been that the Kraven sound like they were designed explicitly to take over the Crystal realm.

"These were, again, things I could not verify on my own, but I continued to pay attention to them and how the various nations reacted to them. Although I cannot begin to guess the rationale of the Crystal race, the reactions of the other races confused me as well. Of the original 7 great nations of the Crystal realm, an entire nation had been wiped out by the Kraven, yet still the remaining nations never sought to retaliate against them, and were forever satisfied to continuously lose land to their invasion, one county at a time.

"At first, these were only my suspicions. But then, I met someone from the royal family of the Hum nation. Although he himself did not understand the reason, I learned from him that the human race had purposefully been avoiding retaliating with full force. They had artificially engineered a situation where the Kraven were putting immense pressure on the entire nation, chipping away at it bit by bit, and somehow they were content with it. In fact, if someone were to take independent measures to retaliate against the Kraven, and achieved a certain level of success, they would be stopped from continuing to do so. The fact that the royal family itself is preventing retaliation against their sworn enemy is just too suspicious."

Lex was about to continue extrapolating, but Belmont interrupted him.

"The matter with the Kraven really is too confusing," he said, admitting to lacking certain knowledge himself. "According to latest reports, an unprecedented army consisting solely of immortal Kraven has laid siege all across the realm, save for the territories of the Crystal race. Yet when our allies solicited the Crystal nation for help due to the extenuating circumstances, our leadership remained suspiciously silent."