"Princess Tilly... her ability isn't flight, right?" Nightingale murmured.

"Well, although a flight magic stone can also make her fly, it can't carry such a heavy load," Roland replied, looking at the Unicorn circling overhead. "What's wrong?"

"Even though I've heard you say it many times, and I've been watching you while drawing and testing the internal combustion engine, it's still unbelievable when I see it with my own eyes... People can really fly like birds with the power of external objects." Nightingale said with emotion, "That's clearly just a combination of metal and wood."

"It is indeed just metal and wood, but what organically combines them is ourselves," Roland smiled slightly, "Hands, magic, and cognition... so it can't really be called the power of external objects."

"Everyone... can fly like her, right?" Nightingale said softly, "Including me..."

"Yes, everyone. Including you." Roland affirmed. The sky was not unfamiliar to Nightingale. She had ridden in a hot air balloon and on Maisie, but before the free and controllable flight, those were obviously nothing. Even Nightingale, who possessed magic, felt this way, let alone ordinary people with no special abilities? The charm of soaring through the sky, from the moment people looked up at the sky, has been deeply ingrained in them, unable to extricate themselves.

The pioneer of the Materialism Society was the best interpretation of this.

Thirty minutes later, the Unicorn landed steadily on the runway.

"How does it feel?" Roland asked Tilly, who ran over excitedly.

"This plane is amazing!" Her eyes sparkled, "In terms of handling, it's much more flexible than the Seagull. Seriously... although Wendy's wind control ability is not bad, it's always difficult to completely match my intentions, but this is different. The speed, pitch, and yaw during flight, every detail is under my control. It can be said that the movement originates from the heart, and the form is like limbs!"

Uh... movement originates from the heart, and the form is like limbs? Roland couldn't help but feel ashamed. Although the Unicorn referenced a lot of mature biplane designs, it was essentially still a prototype with simple technology and testing components. Controlling the control surfaces relied entirely on manual operation, and altitude and speed relied entirely on feeling. Being able to fly smoothly was already a huge improvement. If he didn't know the plane inside and out, listening to Tilly's description, he would have thought she was flying a modern fighter jet with quad-redundant fly-by-wire and flight control computer assistance.

Perhaps this is what a big shot is like.

"So... satisfied?" He waved to the hangar manager, "That's it for today—"

"What are you talking about, brother," Tilly interrupted, "How could thirty minutes be enough?"

"Then why did you land?"

"To tell you. You have a lot of work to do, don't you?" She waved her hand, "Go, you don't need to guard me here. I have many ways to fly that I want to try."

Watching her excited departure, Roland shook his head helplessly.

The plane not malfunctioning from the start was already up to expectations. With Tilly's level, she should quickly become familiar with the Unicorn's new features. Plus, she can get out of the plane herself at any time, so he really didn't need to keep an eye on her.

"Looks like you've been disliked." Nightingale gloated.

"You talk too much," Roland glared at her, "Let's go."

Nightingale smiled and grabbed him, disappearing into the mist.

...

Just as he returned to the castle hall, a guard came to greet him, "Your Majesty, the Third Border City sent a message saying that the task you assigned is basically complete."

"Oh?" Roland raised his eyebrows, "Where's the report?"

"They said they hope you can go there in person."

It seemed that what the two had discovered in Daqing Port was not something that could be explained in a few simple words. He thought for a moment and said, "I understand. Let's set off now."

After entering the underground, Celine was already waiting for him in the hall.

"Your Majesty, your prediction was correct. There are indeed materials for making magic cubes at Endless Cape." She extended her auxiliary tentacles and presented two samples to Roland, "The gray-yellow stone on the left is very similar to the magic cubes in terms of magic affinity. Even if it's not exactly the same, it's not far off. If the quantity is sufficient, I can start to replicate it."

"Sufficient quantity... how much is that?"

"Let's try a few thousand pieces first."

Uh... she really wasn't being polite. Even though the samples sent were not large, a few thousand pieces could fill the floor of a room. He thought to himself that the excavation of the "Cape Ruins" was imperative, and the sooner the better. "I will have people collect it. What about the other one?"

"The other one can only be described as incredible. First of all, it can be confirmed that the light it emits does not cause any harm to the test animals. It seems to be just ordinary light, not the kind of radiation you were worried about..."

"Radioactive particles."

"Exactly. Of course, it cannot be ruled out that it is very weak, so weak that it cannot be detected by animals—but even so, its harmfulness would not be a concern." Celine picked out a slice of "stone tablet" from the bottle on the right and placed it in Roland's hand, "I commissioned Lucia xiaojie to decompose a small piece of it and found that its composition is no different from sand."

"Same as... sand...?" Roland asked in surprise.

"Hard to imagine, right? It only looks like a stone—or rather, a larger grain of sand, but it has a certain degree of flexibility. It also emits light when compressed. There is probably nothing more bizarre in the world."

"Hmm..." He played with the sample in his hand, pondered for a long time before opening his mouth, "It can't be said that way."

"Could it be that you know what this thing is?"

"Not really, just thought of something else..." Roland said slowly, "Since matter is a combination of elements, then in addition to the elements themselves, structure is also a major factor affecting its properties. We think it's strange, just because we know too little."

Good carbon elements, under the tetrahedral structure, are called diamonds and have extremely high strength; while graphite with a hexagonal layered structure is brittle enough to be broken by hand. If a layer is torn off, it is graphene, which has excellent conductivity, but when two layers of graphene are stacked together and rotated a slight angle relative to each other, it undergoes a completely different change—it becomes an insulator. And when it is lowered to a certain temperature and electrons are injected, it is converted into a superconductor.

From beginning to end, only one element, carbon, is performing.

This is the mystery of materials.

In fact, even in later generations, the exploration of the microscopic world has only lifted a small corner. In this dark field without theoretical guidance, what people do is no different from what they did thousands of years ago—arranging and combining, randomly groping. Even the most common elements, when mixed together, can produce amazing phenomena.

"Luminous stone tablets" and Soroya's various coatings may not be mysterious because of magic.

But because people know too little, it is mysterious.