Yarra's Adventure Notes-Chapter 108 - 30 Goblin Technology_1

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"Is this... a man-made structure?" Lina was surprised as she looked at the silver-white metallic walls in front of her. The wall did not seem to bear any marks of time, even though it had been there for God knows how long. It still looked new.

"Obviously." Pannis shrugged. "I don’t think it was formed naturally."

"No kidding." Lina glared at Pannis and approached the metal door. "Is it... a door? Why is it sealed by the metal? It fits so perfectly as if it was planned to be sealed from the very start."

"Yes, indeed, it’s a door." Pannis nodded.

"But why is there no door hinge or handle? How can this kind of door possibly open?" Lina furrowed her brows, pondered for a moment, then looked at Pannis abruptly. "Do you know this place? Otherwise, how do you know this is a door?"

"I’ve seen similar architectures." Standing behind Lina, Pannis folded his arms and stroked his chin, a look of reminiscence came over him. "A long-long time ago, I’ve seen them twice."

Lina’s eyes lighted up due to her intense curiosity, and she asked, "Really? What kind of structure is this?"

Pannis hesitated a moment and then slowly answered, "Goblin technology."

"What?" Lina exclaimed so loudly that she scared herself. "Goblin technology?"

"Correct, a creation from the Goblin Era." Pannis extended his hand to touch the metallic wall. "Many of their constructions during the 6th and 7th Millennium of the second era were of this style."

"So this is something from the second era?" Lina reached out with her shaking hand, mimicking Pannis, she touched this nearly ten thousand year-old structure.

The surface of the building was smooth and cold, possessing the unique feel of metal. Perhaps influenced by her thoughts, when her hand touched it, she felt a wave of antiquity and desolation. As she stroked the cold wall, she seemed to be taken back in time to the flourishing period of the Goblin Empire, to a time when deities had retired and mundane creatures controlled everything. Under the sunlight, metallic structures stood tall over the earth as numerous magic-powered motorbikes swarmed the metal streets. The streets were flanked by seas of people, throngs of green-skinned goblins bustling about eagerly. It was a world without deities, without faith; crystal energy, magic, and technology were all that people had.

"It’s hard to imagine such an era." Lina said, her voice filled with bewilderment. "I really wish I could see that world with my own eyes."

Pannis gave a knowing smile. "When I first saw the Goblin’s architecture, I had the same thoughts. But unfortunately, that era is now in the past; it’s our era now."

Lina shook her head forcefully, trying to banish the random thoughts in her mind, then pointed at the door and said, "Then do you know how to open this door that doesn’t look like a door at all?"

"This kind of door recedes into the walls on either side; there’s no hinge." Pannis explained.

"It recedes into the sides?" Lina attempted to push the empty space on either side of the door, but it didn’t budge. "How can it open then? There’s no handle, and the metal surface is so smooth."

"Hmm, these doors aren’t actually meant to be manually operated." Pannis said helplessly. "Don’t bother trying, using brute force won’t work. Their doors are automatic."

"What’s that? I don’t understand at all." Lina rolled her eyes, feeling exasperated.

"Let me explain. By automatic, I mean the door will automatically open if someone stands in front of it." Pannis elaborated, "It operates on pressure. There’s a pressure sensor in the ground right in front of the door. If someone stands on it and applies enough pressure, the door will automatically open."

"Alright, that I understand." Lina nodded. "But I’ve been standing here for quite a while, why hasn’t the door opened? Could it be because I’m not heavy enough? Hmm, that’s good news."

"On average, you’re heavier than a goblin, okay, don’t be pleased." Pannis sighed. "There are three types of automatic doors: bi-directional automatic, one-way automatic, and entirely manual."

"Can you take the initiative for once?" Lina complained. "Just directly explain everything."

Pannis resignedly continued, "Bi-directional automatic doors have pressure sensors on both sides, which means they can be opened from either side. One-way automatic doors only have a sensor on one side, so for people on the other side, the door is locked and needs a special key to be opened. On entirely manual doors, there’s no sensor on either side, and a key is needed to open them."

"What’s a key?" Lina quickly caught on to the important detail.

"Drakish." Pannis said. "Drakish lock is a specialty of the goblins. Each door corresponds to a specific person and a specific pronunciation in Drakish. Even if you know the Drakish to open the door, it won’t work if you’re not the designated person."

"Wow, how do you know all of this in such detail?" Lina asked, surprised.

"That’s the power of knowledge, something you wouldn’t understand." Pannis gave a thumbs-up to Lina and flashed a toothy smile.

"I’ll show you the power of knowledge!" Lina grit her teeth and after a moment, seeing Pannis’ twitching smile, she removed her foot from his.

"Actually, all these are obscure knowledge, generally known only by scholars." Pannis pondered for a moment, then continued. "I guess Vivian should know some. Not only these, almost all goblin’s creations that have been introduced have been thoroughly researched."

"But why haven’t I seen it?" Lina was puzzled. "Has someone restricted it?"

"No, in fact, you have witnessed it too. The crystal-energy motorbikes are a replica of goblin technology." Pannis explained in great detail: "But most goblin technology cannot be replicated."

"Why?"

"For the same capacity of crystals, goblin technology’s utilization rate is ten times more efficient than ours, and their energy storage technology is even dozens of times ours." Pannis pointed at the metallic wall and said: "People can’t explain the reason, they can only guess. The mainstream conjecture is that the main cause of this gap is due to the material quality. The metal refining technology of the goblins in their era was something we simply cannot match. The composition of their metal is still impossible to analyze, let alone replicate."

"That’s unfortunate." Lina sighed regretfully, then suddenly realized something. "All this talk, what you mean is, this door is locked, and we can’t open it, right?"

"Even if it is locked, it can still be forcibly cracked open. After all, doors exist for the sole purpose of being opened." Pannis shrugged his shoulders, not worried at all. "Plus, this door most likely won’t need to be forced open; it should be a one-way automatic door."

"How do you know that?" Lina realized that today, her level of intelligence was no different from an idiot, having asked countless times ’how did you know’.

"Look here." Pannis squatted down next to Lina’s foot, pointing at the ground.

"There are many claw marks." Lina also squatted down, noticing deep scratch marks covering the rocky ground in front of the door. "Were these left behind by those magical beasts?"

"That’s correct, the size matches perfectly." Pannis used his hand to measure the size of the claw marks. "These are new marks, and they couldn’t have been here for more than five days at most."

"What does that have to do with a one-way automatic door-" Lina stopped midway through her question, and the realization dawned upon her. "I see now, you believe that they accidentally activated the pressure sensor inside to open the door and come outside. They couldn’t go back in after they came out."

"Exactly, that’s what I estimated." Pannis clapped his hands together, saying, "Looking at the direction these claw marks, all point towards the inside of the door, appears as if they were pushing against the door desperately to get back inside."

"Now that you mention it, it does seem like it." Lina nodded her head. "So, their true lair is inside?"

"Possibly." Pannis replied. "But in a building of this size, considering their body mass, the food source can’t possibly satisfy them. How did they grow so big?"

"What’s the use of thinking so much about it." Lina pulled Pannis up from his crouching position. "Why not go inside and have a look? Didn’t you say earlier that it doesn’t require any force to open the door? Open it already."

In front of the big door, Pannis leaned in, peeking through the narrow gap in the door and said: "If this really is a one-way automatic door, then only need to increase the pressure on the sensor inside, and the door will automatically open."

"I know that much." Lina, arms folded, stood by watching Pannis mumble, "The question is, how can you increase the pressure on the sensor inside from outside? We can’t really dig a hole, right? If we were to dig a hole, we wouldn’t need to open the door."

"No, you can’t dig a hole. The foundations of goblin-built structures are all metallic; you can’t dig into it." Pannis detached himself from the door and shook his head: "So, we need a bit of trickery."

"Trickery like lock-picking?" Lina teased. "I wouldn’t have guessed; you’re also a part-time thief."

Pannis laughed, rummaged in his bag for a bit, then extended his hand to Lina: "Pass me the gauze."

Lina curiously handed him the gauze previously used for bandaging. Looked at Pannis as he ripped off a meter-long strip from a roll of gauze and held it up to the door. "So you’re going to stuff the gauze in?"

"I can’t stuff it directly, this gap isn’t linear, it’s more intercrossed like gears." Pannis used his fingers to mimic the gears, "Therefore, whatever you directly stuff will completely be stopped from entering. If you use a bit of energy controlling tricks, it’ll be different. Like for instance, this way."

As Pannis spoke, he raised the hand holding the gauze in front of him. Under precise control, as soft and thin as it was, the gauze stood upright. In front of Lina’s shocked gaze, from the very top of the upright gauze, it slowly and steadily started to bend back and forth at right angles. Eventually, it formed an interlocking gear-like structure, all the while remaining upright in the air.

"Look, just like that, you can stuff it in." Pannis offered a slight smile and lightly flicked the upright gauze; against all odds, the gauze didn’t wobble at all.

"Such energy control." Lina smirked in amazement. "It really is mystifying."

Pannis straightened the gauze once more, slowly inserting the top end into the gap, probing bit by bit before moving forward.

"Hmm, encountered the first turn, left, good, it passed. Now to the right, hoo, then forward, perfect, to the right again, oh dear, a dead end; time to turn left, and left again, and move forward." As Pannis muttered these words, he was cautiously drilling the gauze in; his expression focused, without blinking once.

For a full ten minutes, Pannis maintained that same posture, the gauze in his hand becoming shorter little by little. At last, Pannis’s eyes brightened up. He loosened his grip and stretched his body for a while before gripping the gauze again. "Finally got in. Now let it touch the ground, easy, you see, it’s already in contact. So, lastly, put some pressure on it... Open for me!"

Accompanied by Pannis’s final shout, the tightly shut metallic door swiftly opened to the sides, revealing the space behind it.