Chapter : 801
“This is just a proof of concept, Sumaiya,” he mused aloud, his voice a low, hypnotic whisper. “It is a demonstration of a principle. The principle that logic itself can be captured in a crystal, that thought can be given a physical form. But to build what I truly envision… to build a true diagnostic engine, a machine that could hold the knowledge of a thousand libraries and perform a million calculations in the blink of an eye… that would require… more.”
He picked up one of the leftover, uncut Lilith Stones, a small, dull, B-minus grade rock. “These stones are the key. But they are… crude. Their crystalline structure is flawed, their energy capacity is limited. They are like trying to build a royal palace with mud bricks. One can do it, but the result will always be a fragile, imperfect thing.”
He looked at her, a profound, tragic sorrow in his eyes. “To build my true dream, Sumaiya… to create the tools that could truly revolutionize the art of healing, that could save not just one child but thousands… I would need better materials. I would need purer, more powerful stones. High-level stones. The kind of stones that are not found in the vaults of common lords.”
He had done it. He had not just demonstrated an impossible new technology; he had created a desperate, tantalizing need for a resource that he knew was almost impossible to obtain. He had made her a believer in a future that only he could build, and he had just told her what he needed to build it.
He did not ask her for anything. He did not suggest a course of action. He simply presented her with a beautiful, world-saving dream, and a single, insurmountable obstacle.
He let the statement hang in the air, a silent, unanswered question. He had created the world’s first magical computer. And he had just masterfully, subtly, and completely downplayed it as a simple tool for measuring herbs. The seed of his true, breathtaking ambition had been planted, and he could almost see the wheels turning in the mind of the one person in the kingdom who might just know where to find the key to his new, grand design.
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Sumaiya’s mind was a maelstrom. The events of the past few weeks had been a relentless series of paradigm-shattering revelations. She had seen the quiet doctor command a demon of fire, had witnessed him cure a disease that had baffled the kingdom’s greatest minds, and now, she had watched him create a machine that could think. Her understanding of the world, which had once been a solid, well-ordered thing, was now a fractured, chaotic landscape of impossible new possibilities.
And at the center of it all was Zayn. The quiet, humble, and utterly terrifying genius who seemed to operate by a set of rules that were entirely his own.
His final words echoed in her mind, a low, hypnotic hum. ‘Purer, more powerful stones. High-level stones.’
He had presented it not as a desire, but as a lament. A tragic statement of fact. He was a master architect who had a vision for a cathedral that could touch the heavens, but he was trapped with a pile of mud bricks. The quiet sorrow in his voice, the look of profound, frustrated ambition in his eyes—it was a performance, but she did not know that. To her, it was the raw, painful cry of a genius constrained by the limitations of a mundane world.
She looked at the strange, beautiful device on the workbench, the silent, dark crystal that had, just moments before, held a thought. She looked at the leftover, dull Lilith Stones. And she thought of the dying children, the suffering masses in the Coil, the endless, grinding war against sickness and death that they fought every single day in this small, humble clinic.
And then she thought of what he had described. A tool that could diagnose any illness. A machine that could hold the knowledge of a thousand libraries. A perfect, infallible healer. It was not just a dream of a better future; it was a promise of a world without the kind of pain that she herself knew all too well, the pain of watching someone you love fade away, powerless to stop it.
The seed of ambition that he had so carefully planted was not just taking root; it was exploding into a fierce, all-consuming fire in her soul.
Chapter : 802
He had not asked her for anything. He had not told her to do anything. And that was the most brilliant, most manipulative part of his entire strategy. He had simply made her a co-conspirator in his beautiful, impossible dream. The responsibility for its failure, or its success, now felt as if it were her own.
“These… high-level stones,” she began, her voice hesitant, the words feeling heavy and dangerous on her tongue. “You said they are not found in the vaults of common lords. Where, then? The royal treasury? The Mage’s Guild?”
Lloyd gave a small, weary shrug, the picture of resigned defeat. “Perhaps. But such places are beyond our reach, Sumaiya. The King is not likely to empty his vaults for the pet project of a slum doctor. And the mages guard their secrets more jealously than a dragon guards its gold. No. The dream is a beautiful one, but it is destined to remain just that. A dream. We must be content with the good we can do here, with our mud bricks.”
A new, hard light entered her eyes. The compassionate assistant was once again being replaced by the formidable, strategic operator. She was no longer thinking like a healer; she was thinking like a spy.
“Perhaps there are other sources,” she mused, her voice dropping to a low, conspiratorial whisper. “Secrets. Hidden caches. The great houses of Zakaria are ancient. Their foundations are built on secrets that have been buried for centuries. What if one of them…?”
She let the sentence trail off, her mind already sifting through the vast, complex web of palace gossip and hidden knowledge she had accumulated over a lifetime of being an invisible ghost in the halls of power. She was thinking of the old rivalries, the forgotten alliances, the whispers of hidden fortunes and secret mines.
Lloyd simply watched her, his expression one of polite, academic interest, giving nothing away. He had set the wheels in motion. Now, all he had to do was let her incredible mind do the work for him.
“It is a dangerous path to walk, Sumaiya,” he cautioned, his voice a soft note of warning. “Seeking the secrets of the great houses… that is a game that can get one killed.”
“We have faced the Dahaka Jungle and survived, you and I,” she countered, a small, fierce smile touching her lips. “I think we can handle a few grumpy old lords. Besides,” she added, her gaze turning to the now-dark crystal calculator, “some things are worth the risk.”
She had taken the bait. She had taken the mission. She had taken the dream and made it her own. Her loyalty to him was now absolute, her purpose clear. She would find him his high-level stones. She would move heaven and earth, she would pry open the deepest, darkest vaults of the kingdom if she had to, all in service of the humble, brilliant doctor and his beautiful, world-saving dream.
She finally turned from the workbench, her mind already buzzing with a hundred different potential leads, a hundred different avenues of investigation. “I must go,” she said, her voice now crisp and business-like. “I have… inquiries to make. Matters to attend to at the palace.”
“Of course,” he said with a small, understanding smile. “Your duties call.”
She paused at the door and looked back at him, at the quiet, tired man standing in the candlelight amidst his strange, wonderful creations. “Do not give up on your dream, Zayn,” she said, her voice a soft, fierce command. “I will not let you.”
And then she was gone, a whirlwind of newfound purpose, leaving Lloyd alone in the silence of his clinic.
He stood there for a long moment, the architect of a grand and terrible deception. He had created a thinking machine. He had planted a seed of world-altering ambition. He had turned a good, brave woman into his unwitting, most powerful agent.
He looked down at the dark, silent crystal calculator on his desk. “A simple calculation engine,” he murmured to himself, a cold, humorless smile touching his lips. “Indeed.” The most complex, most dangerous calculation of all was the one he was performing on the very soul of the kingdom, and so far, every variable was falling perfectly into place.
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