Noel continued to the next floor.
He found something slightly different on this floor. Instead of all the tubes with demon corpses, he actually found a lot of big machines. He didn't understand their function.
Next to the door were two big machines: one was a big cylinder-shaped machine, and the other was a cube. There were a few more complicated machines scattered in the room. However, they did have one thing in common. All of them were not active.
Considering this facility was a thousand years old buildings, there was no way the energy source could still provide them.
There was one more thing that piqued his interest.
"It's getting cold here." Noel measured the temperature with his bare skin. If not for the fact that he had both ice and fire spirits, he would have trouble adjusting to it.
He could only think of one possible reason. "It seems that I'm about to reach the bottom floor. I wonder what will await me."
Noel still didn't sense a single demon lying nearby. Since the ones he had found were dead, the Demon Hunter Medal didn't pick it up. So, if there was really another demon lying in the ambush, they should have died.
"Still, it's quite surprising that even with a facility like this, they don't install any booby traps." Noel looked around. After confirming that he couldn't find a single record, Noel continued to the next floor.
The temperature decreased even further. This time, the floor was filled with a lot of items. He could recognize some because it was a part of his job when he was with the Demon Relief Squad.
Noel easily recognized the room as storage. There were many shelves storing all kinds of items. Unfortunately, he couldn't find anything useful. Hence, Noel left the floor, heading to the next one.
And in this place, he finally saw the end of the stairs.
"Hmm?" Noel examined the stair. Since there were no more stairs, the area was turned into small storage. There was nothing suspicious among the items, so Noel headed to the door leading to the last room.
But when he held the door handle, he noticed it was so cold that even his hand almost got frozen.
"Ouch." Noel instinctively took out his hand and looked at his hand. There was no frostbite, but the fact that this item could somehow freeze him.
"I guess I should expect this level of power from an item that can almost evolve Heisk to a Humanoid Rank." Noel smirked, feeling challenged. Since there was no demon inside the room, he focused his energy on his fire element to fight against the cold.
"I don't know if this will work, but…" Noel took a deep breath and started pushing the handle down, only to find it stuck. As one would expect, the door was completely frozen.
He could destroy the door with brute force, but it would create a lot of noise. So, he wrapped the entire door with his Undying Fire. Instead of pouring too much to melt it, he only used enough Spiritual Energy to warm up the door until all the ice melted.
The process took five minutes, showing how powerful the ice was. But he finally could open the door.
*Fwoosh!*
A chilling breeze instantly escaped the room, brushing his skin.
"!!!" The coldness was so extreme that Noel instinctively poured more Spiritual Energy into his fire. This was the first time he had experienced this extreme cold. "What's wrong with this item?"
Noel gritted his teeth. If not for his Undying Flame, he would definitely get frozen just from the temperature alone.
But as soon as he adjusted himself to the temperature, he raised his head and found what had actually transpired inside this place.
"What?!" Noel gasped out loud. He couldn't believe it. On the opposite side of the room, he could see a lot of humans getting frozen.
Noel had realized where all the people in this area were. It turned out they had been hiding here this whole time.
However, he could only see a hundred humans on the opposite side. Considering the size of the room he had seen so far, he suspected that the rest were hiding behind the wall next to him.
Gulping down, he entered the room, seeking out the truth.
To his surprise, the room wasn't as big as the rest despite it being at the bottom of the building. Additionally, the spot where he expected to find the other humans that maintained this giant structure was actually filled by other species.
Yes, he could actually find demons and demi-humans getting frozen in this place. The demons seemed to be made of desert animals. They looked like they were trying to run to the left side of the room, but they ended up getting frozen.
On his left stood a few statues made of frozen demi-humans. They were looking angry as if they wanted to kill the humans in front of them.
Some of the demi-humans looked perfect like Old Ru, but some others had grotesque physiques like the ones he found on the upper floor. He realized that they were the failed creation.
Noel scanned the room, especially the demons. It seemed that they were trying to grasp something.
When he followed their vision, he found a small floating gem. The gem was like a blue jade. It was polished cleanly, but it didn't let out any light, making it hard to find if there was no clue. In fact, Noel couldn't find any trace of its Spiritual Energy as if it had been completely exhausted.
"What is this? Is this crystal the thing that I've been looking for this whole time?" Noel frowned. He entered the room carefully as the cold started attacking him, trying to freeze him like the others in this room.
Noel also scanned the room. There was one thing that didn't make sense.
Why would the humans and the demi-humans be placed against each other? They looked like they were arguing before getting frozen. Why would their number be low, not matching the size of this building? Lastly, why did the demons stay in that place?
At first, he suspected that 'something' had moved the demi-humans and the humans in this place. But when he looked at the demons, he wondered if that something truly existed. If that was the case, that something would have organized them.
Hence, his theory might be incorrect. In addition, he couldn't find a single answer to their number problem.
This building had a total of fifteen floors. Each floor had a size that could easily fit a hundred people. However, there was no way only a hundred people could maintain this building. They should have other staff to clean, cook, and do other necessities.
Hence, he believed that the number should have been at least two to three hundred people.
"Why does the number not match up? And the fact that not a single person remains on other floors…" Noel fell silent while walking toward the humans.
Although he wanted to grasp the ice jade right away, he shouldn't do it rashly. The way it froze the entire room showed him that this jade was extremely powerful. If he grabbed it casually, he might get harmed even with the Undying Fire protection.
Noel tried to examine each human and muttered, "Are they still alive? No, I guess. After all, I couldn't pick a single presence from the demons even with the medal."
"Still, these humans look rather unfamiliar…" Noel realized that their features were different from his or even the people from the Atrecaeca Kingdom.
After the Spiritual Energy filled the world, humans also began to evolve, especially with the help of the spirits. It was said that the natural color of hair in the previous civilization was only white, black, blond, red, and brown. But after the dark period, humans evolved, and the genes gradually changed to match the Spiritual Energy, including their hair and eye color.
Every single of these people had the same black hair. Their eyes were round, and their eyebrows were a bit thicker than normal people.
"Still, other than the facial features… I don't think there is any difference?" Noel looked up and down. He examined their bodies thoroughly, whether they were males or females. "Their skin color is similar to mine. But their facial features are different. I'm not sure, but I guess we have changed in the course of one thousand years."
Since he couldn't find anything from the human bodies, he began to switch to the demi-humans. Although some of them had a gross-looking mutation, he still examined them.
But Noel abruptly stopped in one of them. "Wait a minute… Isn't this…"
Noel sucked a cold breath and looked at the piece of clothing that a single of them actually had.
A part of it had been torn away, but the one that was still hanging got frozen, showing something that he could never believe.
What he saw was actually a piece of the white coat that the humans had. He raised his head, looking at the person's face.
"Don't tell me… They are conducting their experiments on the workers?"
Upon that finding, Noel realized why the number didn't match. It turned out the number was perfect all along. However, he had to count all the demi-humans and all those experimental subjects on the upper floor.
