Even with that method, it would be best to just turn the system off for a bit.

Would I even be able to do that? I mean, only an idiot wouldn’t put a stop trigger for maintenance purposes, but would there be an identification system? Would it not work unless I was the right person?

The only way to do it without turning everything off would be to somehow clean it in the second it takes to empty the cylinder. I’m not fast enough to do that.

But if I was able stop this entirely, it would probably be in our best interest to complete this as fast as possible. The emptying of the cylinders took a decent amount of time, and this would take longer since I still have to consider how I’m going to do it. The description makes it seem as if there would be a time limit, but there wasn’t anything else to indicate that. It might just be that the factory is still a good distance away from the capital.

There’s also the chance that the tower just wants to keep it a secret and force a decision out of us. Destroy or fix it. And if we realized there wasn’t some count down given by the tower itself, they must’ve put something else here to put pressure on us to complete it. What if there’s some security system that gets activated depending on where I go, the others would probably be the ones dealing with it….

Which isn’t a serious concern, Dodger and Quartz would entertain themselves. Then again, those two muscle brains would probably damage the factory itself in the process. If they haven’t started doing that already…

….

I’m just back to the same conclusion, stopping the machine completely would be the fastest way to fix things.

And that side tangent about considering the logic of the challenge really doesn’t do me any good. If the tower was going to decide to fail me, it will do it no matter what I did.

If I had all the time in the world, I could probably eventually figure out some sort of equation to make this all work in the matter of seconds I’d need it to but for once I get to play with mechanics. I can’t believe I even considered doing it that way.

No, I get to go to the control hub of this place and look at it for actual challenge clearing purposes.

I flew down and grabbed Fluffy.

“Let’s go find us a brain.”

He tilted his head at me as I pulled him into the air.

“I mean I doubt it actually looks like a brain, but it serves the same purpose.”

I took us straight up to the hole in the ceiling from which the cables were run.

The tunnel was funnily large enough for us to pass through without creating any uncomfortable situation at least at the moment. The scale of everything within the furnace room made the cables look like thin strings from a distance but in reality, I was just able to wrap my hand around them. The pulses of light were bright and lit our way through the tunnel.

As we headed upwards through the tunnel, other cables joined the other four at various junction points. None of them seemed to be sending any red signals thankfully making the furnace and heart the only issues.

Though the number of accumulating cables did eventually make traveling up the tunnel near impossible. We were just able to slip through the hole at the end and enter what must’ve been the brain.

The room was large and had a convex ceiling and the hole we had come out of, marked the center of the dome. The cables went straight up to the ceiling attached to some sort of framework and then from there they ran along it for incremental distances before they dropped down in pairs.

Each pair of cables were mounted to their own standing stone tablet. I went over to the tablet that either the heart or furnace cable was going to. The red, return signal cable was attached to a magic circle carved into the face of the tablet. From the bottom of the circle came another cable that sent a different red signal along a new cable, back up to the ceiling affixed to a new hook and then along a rack system before dropping again and entering a circle engraved on the far wall.

But the tablet in front of me didn’t just contain the one circle. There was another, more complex engraved circle, that wasn’t connected to the first, but was connected to the cable sending the blue light.

If the blue light was the basic operation instructions, then it appeared that they wouldn’t change if there was an issue. I went to one of the tablets that all had blue lights and saw that they weren’t sending any additional signals to the far wall.

So, if the part was functioning correctly then there would be no signal sent to the far wall. The far wall must read the error signals and decide what to do, and the return slot must just read if there’s a problem or not.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

I went back to the previous tablet and took a closer look at the return slot. If the basic engraving system was similar to what I was taught, then I should be able to understand its base structure even without knowing the language it was written in.

The basics of sequencing pathways appeared to be there, it went through the first two symbols before splitting off, one that went to another symbol above the new cable and one that ended at a different symbol. The final symbol probably just released the mana from the circle so that the next signal could be read.

The first and second symbols were probably a check and then a path change. The symbol before the cable was probably a translation.

I followed the cable to the far wall and saw a length of dead cables and the two cables that were signaling a problem. They attached themselves to the wall at the top each in their own vertical engraving. At various points along the engraving there were small spots lit up in different colors, this was probably translating the signal for someone to be able to diagnose any problems.

And then at the bottom of the wall there was another cable, this one was lit up in yellow and ran into the floor into its own individual slot. But I looked around to see if there was a yellow cable.

I had to take a few steps to see along the isles of tablets, but I eventually saw a similar light.

I went over to it and this tablet had a few more cables. There was the usual return, send and problem translation cable, but then there were two more, one was the yellow signal I had seen before, and it entered the tablet at a point below the command engraving. The usual blue send signal was green and it came out at a different point. I knew that the specific symbols for each command engraving would be different, but this engraving had an additional stage.

There was a small engraving above the spot the yellow one entered, and then from right above that there was a separate cable, that had a different yellow signal that was connected to a point between the blue cable’s exit and the main command circle.

The yellow signal must’ve been a correction for the other signal. The extra sequencing pathways must be in place to reject the incoming command if there’s a correction and send it down the separate path to a dispersion point. But why was this one the only tablet that seemed to have this?

I checked all the other tablets to make sure, and none of them had this additional step.

What’s different about this one?

I looked more closely at the engraving. It was connected to the return signal’s circle. Which was also different from the others. The normal being two separate circles, the blue command signal, the return reader with the pathway change, and a cable connecting it to the far wall.

It was one complete circle. An input at the top and an output at the left end. The output had a manipulator, but a big part of the sequence of the main command seemed familiar.

I put myself in a floating seat so that I could sit at the correct level to read things better and gave Fluffy his own so that he wasn’t still clinging to me.

I pulled out the storage ring chain that I kept around my neck and grabbed my notebook storage ring. I fished around in it pulling them out one by one, until I found the one that contained all the calculations of my various experiments that I had done over the years. I looked through it for anything that seemed similar. Once I got closer to my more recent notes, I found what I was looking for. It was in a mess of calculations that were needed when I was researching things for my communication devices.

There was no point in reading my experiment notes as there was nothing about my final calculations in them, so I went for the device’s specific notebook. There I found my more detailed notes on the calculations. And the piece that was familiar, was part of my position tracking sequence.

So, the first part of this engraving was a translation of the position of the machine relative to whatever specified points of reference. With whatever was learned from that, it decided on direction commands with the rest of the sequence. The return signal is probably from a piece of machinery that received the initial signal from whatever positional reference points set up for the factory’s guidance. It would allow it to know where it was, but only in reference to the known markers.

If I was sending something to walk forever, I’d probably create a specific path, have it move from one point to the next. That’d probably make things easier. All of this would mean that the yellow signal that was interrupting the final movement decision was a course correction.

“Alright! All I have to do is fix the engine and it should correct the traveling path!”

I beamed at Fluffy.

“See this whole thing is just basically the factory asking for repairs. I’m sure there is a specific beacon or something that the factory is heading to now, that was assigned as it’s repair station. And it just so happens that a capital city was built within that path after its creation. It really is their own fault.”

He just tilted his head at me.

“I know you don’t get what I mean, or you don’t care but it’s still really cool. I promise.”

His face didn’t change, and I chuckled.

“Alright bud I’ll get to work soon.”

I went back over to the problem translation board. I looked around and saw that there was a break in all of the various engravings. The wall had an indentation, and it wasn’t till I got closer that I saw it was a bookcase.

Each of the books had a word on the spine, I couldn’t read it, but I had seen that both the individual tablets and what must’ve been their corresponding problem translation, had matching words. I took a look at the two I needed and found their corresponding books.

Opening them up I saw that these books appeared to be instruction manuals. In the end opening them didn’t change anything, I thought that the tower’s system might change things if it was relevant to clearing the challenge, like suddenly make it so that they were written in something I could read. But it seems like it didn’t consider this overly essential to completing it. I would have to think of a way to solve things while the whole system was running.

I mean…. I could test if I were to interfere with the command signal if the furnace would just shut off… or I could just try to translate things…

I shook my head, hard.

No, this is a mechanical issue that I can fix. I just need to think of things a bit more. I already knew what the problems were, if anything this board and the signals would just help me check my work. If after everything I try the signal doesn’t change, then I’ll just have to take another look.

But I should still look and see if I could figure out a system flush?

What should I do?