Sword of Dawn

Page 417

Gao Wen nodded, and said unhurriedly: "Our magic network communication can be realized, not only relying on the rune group of the eternal sleeper and a simple inverter array, but also involves a large number of engineering fields, The fields of mechanical processing, materials, and rune logic, as well as the institutional adaptation behind them and the intervention of interests in countless related fields, each of these issues is a difficulty for Typhon, just to give an example... Feng once used huge manpower, material resources and time costs to establish a communication tower-based communication system between major cities in the country and between various military sites, do you know what this means?"

Hetty gradually showed a thoughtful expression.

Gao Wen didn't wait for Hetty's answer, so he continued on his own: "It means that hundreds of families have invested money in those communication towers, which means that hundreds of thousands of merchants, nobles and extraordinary people In order to share the profits of those high towers, the main managers and operators of those towers are Typhon's Royal Mages Association, and mages are not some noble people who don't eat the fireworks of the world - magic research requires massive financial support, A report by the Military Intelligence Agency last year mentioned that nearly one-third of the entire Typhon Royal Mages Association’s annual income comes from the communication towers they control..."

Hetty frowned slightly: "You mean..."

"The newer magic net communication technology is indeed more advanced than the communication tower, but before Typhon people completely solve the cost problem, the gap between the two has not yet reached the point where the former can completely replace the latter. Magic net communication is easy to use, but communication The towers have been laid on all the main routes, and they are not unusable... This is the biggest contradiction," Gao Wen smiled, "We laid down this land, banned all the privileges of the old nobles, and started from scratch. We don't need to face this kind of contradiction after building the magic net communication, but what Rosetta Augustus is engaged in is 'peaceful reform' - Typhon's national communication, neither completely belongs to the royal family nor completely belongs to the nobles , not to mention that it does not belong to those mages completely, it is a cake shared by all forces, and this is a big problem."

The corner of Hetty's mouth trembled, and he said leisurely: "It seems that Emperor Rosetta will have a headache again watching his parliament wrangling under the triple spire."

But soon, Heti couldn't help shaking his head again: "But no matter what, the Typhons still mastered a new technology. Their wrangling is only temporary, but progress is inevitable—and the Typhons are not Fools, Rosetta Augustus is a wise man, they know what is really important."

"Yes, Typhon will improve," Gawain nodded, and then he paused for a moment before speaking slowly, "But it's not a bad thing..."

……

In the depths of the Luan City Cathedral, in the large library that houses countless precious books, Archbishop Seven Terry, wearing a simple white robe and without any crown, is walking slowly among the towering and simple bookshelves. Treasurers and attendants in plain tunics were busy around him, carefully counting, recording, and moving in and out those ancient books, and special clerical staff set up a bookcase in the open space between the bookshelves. Desks are busy with registration, transcription, classification and other work.

Classifying, protecting and restoring ancient books is a long, complicated, and difficult job, which is extremely patient and unknown. What Seven Terry, the former progressive pastor of Luan City, is doing here today is exactly Organize and restore church collections.

He has been doing this work for two full years since he received the order from the Cecil family.

Chapter 0881

Since the coronation of His Majesty Gao Wen, the entire country has become a whole again, and the government affairs department has issued an order:

Carry out a comprehensive collation of all book files in the country, and carry out protective restoration of all knowledge.

The significance of this work is to sort out the technical data that have been scattered in the human world since the era of pioneering, so as to curb the impact of human civilization and technology; to protect historical evidence and records of various regions of the Old Kingdom, so as to end the past The records are chaotic and the history and legends are mixed and distorted; it is to collect and sort out the classics of all churches, to further incorporate and transform the religious forces in the empire, and to weaken and eliminate the knowledge monopoly of the missionary class.

There are countless scholars, priests, and clerks who have devoted themselves to this cause that may affect the empire for the next hundred years. Unlike those vigorous engineering projects that have attracted countless attentions, their work is low-key and boring:

Endlessly entangled with stale ancient books, sorting out the case files among a large number of repetitive, fragmentary and even contradictory texts, moldy ancient books and dusty scrolls, some of which have records from ancient Gondor. The powerful technology of the era, but some are just the crude words and bad sentences written by some bad noble poet, and all these things have been drowned in the pile of old papers all over the country, and have been lost in court struggles, church struggles and lord wars. Worn beyond recognition, almost forgotten.

Centuries of civilizational decline and chaotic medieval aristocracy have destroyed so much, and too many treasures have been dusted in the process.

As one of the participants in this cause, Seven Terry actually started his work earlier: shortly after the city of Luan was taken over by the Cecil family, he was here and these years spanned several centuries dealing with books.

As the headquarters of the Holy Light Church in the south in the past, Luan City was the largest cultural center and "knowledge hub" in the southern border at that time. The priests who monopolized theocratic power and a large amount of knowledge kept collecting books from all over the southern border into this city of churches, large and small. In the museum, they have been doing this for a full 100 years since the second dynasty—in the era when books were equal to treasures, this was something that almost every noble and church would do.

The tireless "plundering" behavior of missionaries in the old days led to the decline of other areas in the southern border, but on the other hand, Seven Terry had to admit: it was this greedy plundering and collecting that led to the decline of In the chaotic and declining environment of the southern region, many precious classics were preserved.

Seven Terry stopped in front of a towering bookshelf. He raised his head, his eyes swept between the tomes with heavy covers, and gradually moved upwards until he reached the solemn and heavy stone dome .

This is the last library in Luan City that has not yet been archived. Most of the books stored here are transcripts of books collected from various eras and "Books of Unbelief" that have nothing to do with the teachings of the Holy Light. Similar books are rare in this city. They are not taken seriously, so the storage conditions are relatively poor. The ancient magic circle used to filter the air in the library is working like a broken bellows. The precious materials that could have been preserved slowly turned into wrecks in the dark environment. In order to rescue these precious books, the best book repairers, scribes, and grammar scholars in the Luan area were gathered together , and even so, work progress is still the slowest here.

Fortunately, progress is being made every day, and more and more precious materials have been discovered and repaired, or copied, copied or stored in new media before they were completely destroyed.

At this moment, a church attendant in a gray tunic quickly walked over and bowed his head respectfully in front of Seven Terry: "Archbishop, we found a book, which looks a little strange."

Archbishop, this is the new title after the reorganization of the church, used to replace the previous cardinal or diocesan archbishop. With the martyrdom of all members in one day, the expulsion of most bishops in various regions, and the major reshuffle of the clergy above the middle level in the southern diocese, he, a priest with both qualifications and progress in the city of Luan, can be continuously promoted to become a priest within a few years. The archbishop also had no choice.

"Some strange books?" Seven frowned, "Take me to read."

A book was spread out on the workbench between the bookshelves. The dust and mildew on the surface had been cleaned up. The smell of some kind of alchemy potion wafted in the air. Utensils and scrapers, dental boards, parchment pieces and other tools used to restore ancient books, which make the book on the table look like a corpse waiting to be dissected-surrounded by autopsy tools, while tinkers and scribes are working Wait for the corpse to tell its secrets.

Seven Terry shook his head and shook his wild thoughts out of his head. After confirming the condition of the book with the tinker next to him, he sat down, carefully turned the pages of the book, and asked the person next to him: "What's the matter?" Discover?"

"This is a pieced together book - the collectors don't seem to understand the complex and profound origins behind it, but treat it roughly as a rural biography, crudely blending several irrelevant fragments together, A gray-haired scholar stood beside him and said, "At first we only noticed a few strange country tales at the beginning and the annotations made by a down-and-out nobleman on the pages of the book, and almost missed the things behind it..."

Crudely put together books - Seven Terry is no stranger to situations like this.The down-and-out nobles in remote places will do this. They are not much smarter than the farmers in the fields, but they want to maintain their dignity and "image of wisdom". One of the means of one's own knowledge and aristocratic background—however, the real work of repairing fragments is something that only profound scholars can do. It's nothing more than a patchwork of tattered books that understand.

The archbishop shook his head, skipped the boring ghost stories at the beginning, and turned the pages backwards, while the scholars at the side moved closer, pointing to the corners of some of the pages or the inconspicuous places in the middle of the pages: "Pay attention to these, Here...and here, these patterns..."

"It looks like some kind of coat of arms... shield-shaped frame, thorns, frost symbols..." Seven Terry's brows gradually frowned, "It's the coat of arms of the nobles, the upper nobles, but the recorder deliberately deformed it , does not seem to intend to reveal his identity. We need a heraldic scholar, or an expert in noble genealogy."

"Mr. Berkland has identified these patterns just now, Your Excellency the Archbishop," said the scholar. "After restoring the pattern in reverse according to the rules of heraldry, we confirm that it is the emblem of the Wilder family in the north."

"Duke of the North?" Seven's expression suddenly became serious, "Is this part of the pages left by a member of the Wilder family?"

"It's still a relatively core member--professional in heraldry, and qualified to use the family coat of arms at will. In addition, we also detected faint magic imprints in the pages--these parchments are 600 years old , but the magic power inside has not completely dissipated, which means that the one who left them may even be one of the earliest northern dukes!"

Seven Terry couldn't help but exclaimed in a low voice: "600 years?!"

"Yes, the results of the alchemy reaction identification surprised us too—it is a miracle that they survived in such a poor condition, but I think this has nothing to do with the magic power in the pages that has not yet completely dissipated." "Relevant," the scholar nodded, "but although the pages are generally intact, the writing inside is quite worn and defaced. We are trying to find a way to repair this."

"...Maybe we need to report this matter, Duchess Victoria will be interested in it," Seven Terry sighed lightly, and nodded, "Can you find out the origin of this book? I'm curious as to why it ended up here."

"Only part of it can be found. The collection records here show that this book was donated by a small church in the southeast - it was almost stolen there, and then the pastors of the local church decided that it should not be kept in the small church. in the church, and dedicated it to St. Loane's Cathedral. Obviously, the book was not taken seriously after it was dedicated."

Listening to the reports from the people around him, Seven Terry frowned slightly again.

……

The wind blows by the ears, the summer sky looks high and open, a dim black figure jumps on the top of the buildings, and finally stops on a bell tower in the Mage District, in the shadows, slowly emerges Out of an amber.

The "half-elf" girl sat on the outer edge of the bell tower in a posture that seemed dangerous to outsiders, enjoying the pleasant wind and overlooking the city with a smile on her face.

She likes the feeling of jumping between roofs, but the reason is not the "occupational disease is difficult to cure" that Gao Wen usually ridicules. What she really likes is the openness and freedom she feels during the jumping—the sky is endless as far as the eye can see. There is a passing wind by the side. This feeling may make many people tremble, but it makes Amber enjoy it with inexplicable peace of mind.

She hadn't considered whether there was any reason behind this preference, but now that she thinks about it, she thinks it might be because she used to live in a dark and closed place without the light of day for a long time...

Compared with the monotonous shadow world, this colorful "present world" is still interesting.

Amber opened her small bag, took out all kinds of snacks she had collected on weekdays, spread them out on the narrow platform outside the clock tower, and began to enjoy this rare moment of leisure (fishing).

The avenue leading to the Imperial College stretched out obliquely below her, and all kinds of passers-by could be seen on the road.

There are locals wearing summer clothes, mainly shirts, trousers or simple dresses, as well as foreign visitors in various dresses, ordinary citizens with busy lives, and students wearing Imperial College uniforms—— Among the bustling crowd, Amber even saw a gray elf with gray hair and a sturdy orc who looked like a child. They spoke various dialects and even foreign languages ​​with strange accents. In this prosperous imperial capital in a foreign country Come and go—for your education, for your fortune, or just for your knowledge.

Since the success of a series of diplomatic actions last year, under the background of more and more economic exchanges and cultural exchanges, the once isolated and rigid mainland countries have finally gradually loosened, and more and more visitors are visiting this new era every day The first international city in China, or visit several other prosperous cities of the empire, these visitors brought unimaginable benefits to the merchants of the old era, and the benefits... made more people flock to the new era.

This is how it all works.

The Minister of Intelligence of the Empire and the Supreme Council of Internal Security sat on the tall tower, overlooking all this while eating melon seeds.

"Speaking of which, there are more and more people in this city, and there are many strange land races," a voice suddenly came from behind Amber, "There are so many strange and intelligent species on your land..."

Amber was taken aback by the sudden voice, and almost fell off the tower with her snacks: "Mom!!"

After finally steadying her body, she turned her head and glanced, and suddenly saw Tyre's face protruding from the shadow of the attic where the big clock was placed behind - and behind it was Miss Siren's upper body and a big pile snake tail.

"You scared me to death!!" Amber stared at the deep-sea salted fish in shock. This was one of the few experiences she had as a shadow master who was startled by other people's sudden appearance, and what was worse It was she who didn't notice that Tire was behind him before, "What are you doing there!"

"Looking for a place to sleep," Tyre yawned, "Betty is taking someone to wash and change the water in the sink in my room, so I'm going out to find a place to sleep..."

"I almost fell," Amber glared at Tyre again, "Let me tell you, your behavior of occupying public facilities to sleep casually should be prohibited by law..."

"I don't believe that this height can kill you—last time I saw you jump from the mana broadcasting tower in the city center, and sprint to the ground [-] times with shadow steps all the way, your hair was not messed—that I can fall to my death three times from the height, the terrible kind, smashing to the ground," Till said proudly, then directly ignored Amber's subtle expression, arched forward, and poked his head out of the clock tower , while looking at the scenery below, he muttered, "It's really lively... In Antavien, we haven't seen such a lively scene for a long, long time."

"Antaveen... I remember that's the capital of your siren, right?" Amber quickly adapted to the rhythm of Tyre's topic, "Actually, I've always been curious, what kind of society is your siren like?"

Till glanced at Amber: "As expected of the Minister of Intelligence, are you trying to collect intelligence?"

"Just chatting," Amber rolled her eyelids, "You think too much."

"Actually, it doesn't matter," Tyre said casually, "If you want to hear it, I can tell you a little bit."

Chapter 0882

The summer wind hovers between the buildings in the city, and the clear and open sky looks high and far away. Amber sits on the outer edge of the clock tower, looking curiously at the visitors from the deep sea next to her: "I heard that you are not The natives of this world—what are they called by the magicians... 'foreigners', are your entire race aliens?"

"This is not a secret, at least we sea monsters have never concealed this. We will tell every race or civilization we deal with frankly, but the civilization on land is short-lived, and it is always difficult for them to pass on things that are too old for a long time. And we only deal with terrestrial civilizations in very rare years, so your scholars on the land always think that we are too mysterious and even a little dangerous."

Tyre spoke unhurriedly, with the tip of his tail unconsciously waving circles in mid-air, appearing leisurely and relaxed.

"We are indeed not natives of this planet, but we have been on this planet for many, many years... To put it bluntly, we 'outsiders' have lived on this planet longer than your land Most of the so-called 'natives', but that doesn't mean much to us sirens.

"We come from a place so far away that even we ourselves don't know how far our hometown is from here - we landed on this world in a crashed spaceship in ancient times, and that Too many weird and bizarre phenomena occurred during the disastrous voyage. Some of our scholars who have survived from that era have not yet been able to crack the root of those phenomena, nor have they been able to find the location of their hometown.

"Isn't it a little too far to tell you this...?"

Tyre stopped suddenly and glanced at Amber, his face seemed a little embarrassed.

"To be honest, it sounds quite strenuous...but it's not too hard to understand." Amber blinked. "I know that magicians are fascinated by the starry sky. It has been like this since ancient times, but I haven't heard of it until now. Which powerful mage can really 'throw' himself out of this planet. No matter how powerful the flying technique is, there is a limit. It is said that the higher the altitude, the more chaotic and dangerous the magic environment - Rebecca is trying to create a It is a very, very high-flying aircraft. It is said that I want to try to see if the idea of ​​magic technology can break through the limit of flying, and take a look at the world under our feet..."

As she was speaking, she couldn't help but looked Tire up and down, her tone full of disbelief: "You said that you all crashed into this world on a 'spaceship', so at least your existence proves that the starry sky There really are other worlds out there, and they do exist—at least there was technology that could travel through the stars?"

"Of course it exists, there are other worlds, and there are technologies that can go there," Tire laughed, but soon she put away her smile and couldn't help sighing, "Unfortunately, after so many years, we both I have not successfully repaired the spaceship, and I have not seen any other races in this world successfully leave this planet... This second point is particularly strange, as if there is an invisible barrier on this planet, and this barrier has not blocked it. Anyone but everyone dies before touching the barrier."

Amber's pointed ears trembled subconsciously, and her expression became a little subtle: "These words... have you talked to the old... Your Majesty?"

"Of course, his curiosity is even stronger than yours," Tyre said casually, "before you became interested, he already asked me about everything about the siren."

"...Then would you mind telling me what your 'spaceship' looks like?" Amber asked curiously, "How does it fly?"

"I'm afraid this has no reference value for your technical system—and I know the general idea myself, after all, I'm not a professional technician."

"It's okay, anyway, I'm just curious - of course, if you don't want to say it, then forget it..."

Till glanced at Amber, and saw that there was indeed a curious light shining in those big amber eyes, she couldn't help laughing, stretched her waist vigorously, and said in a lazy tone: "Okay , Anyway, I just slept enough, and there is still a while before the next sleep... If you have nothing to do, then I will tell you how we live in Antavien."

……

Kamel floated into the assembly workshop, and various sounds of machinery running and personnel commanding and responding immediately came from all directions.

He looked not far away, and saw a large group of people busy around a large-scale equipment, that equipment has a long acceleration track - and judging from the interfaces at both ends of the track, it has more acceleration The structure awaits to be connected—massive numbers of magic capacitors and overdrives are fastened around the rails, and a dizzying array of devices is being attached to the body of the device one by one.

A middle-aged man with a bald head was directing the staff at the scene. He had a serious and focused expression on his face, and the only circle of hair on his head was wet with sweat, reflecting the light with his scalp under the light, but he Apparently, these minutiae have not been noticed: the work in front of him is very important, and it is worth a bald man to temporarily forget his fur problems.

Kamel drifted over there, and greeted him after the other party noticed him: "Marin, how is the situation?"

Marin Leslie saluted Kamel, then raised his finger and pointed to the acceleration device next to him: "As you can see, our previous design has been overturned, and the meltdown of the continuous acceleration guideway is a big problem. We are re- Design the balance between these rails. This time it's going well, and maybe in a few days we'll be able to do the next accelerated test."

Kamel nodded slightly.

The middle-aged man in front of him named Marin Leslie has a noble surname, and in fact he is indeed born in a noble family - Viscount Leslie, the consul of Tanzania City, is his uncle, but as a member of the noble family Marin is obviously more willing to deal with knowledge and technology.

As a member of the Institute of Magical Technology with more senior qualifications and stronger abilities, he leads a second-level team. Their task this time is to find a way to get the "extreme acceleration device".

This device is a key part of the "High-Speed ​​Aircraft Project". It was initiated by Rebecca, the head of the Magic Energy Technology Department, and handed over to Marin and his technical team for specific completion.

This is how many projects of the Magic Technology Research Institute now work—as the top person in charge of the Magic Technology Department, Rebecca's energy is limited after all, no matter how many fantastic ideas she has, what she can pay attention to at a time There are also a few, so as the research and development projects become more and more complex and diverse, and as the number of technicians gradually increases, she begins to split many projects into various secondary laboratories or independent research groups. Up to now, almost All relatively basic or relatively short-term research and development tasks are completed by teams led by senior researchers like Marin (relevant honors and awards will of course also belong to these teams), and Rebecca and Kamel are personally responsible The project actually only accounted for less than [-]% of all the research and development tasks under the Magic Technology Department.

These two percent are real long-term and cutting-edge content.

In addition to this, Kamel and Rebecca will regularly visit various project teams to confirm the progress of various tasks-just like today.

"His Royal Highness Rebecca is having a remote meeting with the technical exchange representatives of the Silver Empire, and she will come over after the meeting," Kamel said casually to Marin Leslie while paying attention to the work of the on-site technicians, "I I read the report when you activated the acceleration device last time, although the device melted down at that time, but according to the records left by the monitoring circle, the acceleration body should have been infinitely close to the 'missile limit' before losing power?"

"But still failed to break through," Marin shook his head regretfully, "and afterwards we also found that the surface of the accelerated body had serious element erosion damage, which was probably caused by the lack of time to release the waste energy inside the guide rail—— Under extremely high circumstances, many things have developed beyond our expectations, and there are still many things that need to be adjusted and improved."

"Take your time," Kamel's voice was low and trembling with reassurance, "Success always requires the accumulation of such failures."

Hearing the trustworthy words of the ancient great magister, Marin nodded solemnly, and then he wiped the sweat from his brow——when he touched the bald scalp, he seemed to be depressed for a moment , but soon he regained his energy and devoted himself to the calibration and assembly of the acceleration device again.

……

Gao Wen put down the reviewing work at hand, stretched his slightly stiff shoulders, then let out a deep breath, stood up and walked to the window.

The sunshine outside the window is just right, and the prosperity and grandeur of the city can be seen.

Everything is finally on the right track, and a rare period of stable development is coming to Cecil—with the establishment of a series of diplomatic relations, the smooth advancement of overseas business activities, and the new name "Cecil" in the surrounding area Countries are gradually being recognized, and more and more businessmen, students, and sojourners are coming here from afar. Cecil's merchants and envoys are also slowly making their way to the Augure Tribal State, the northern countries, and even the Typhon Empire. diffusion.

Magical technology broke the barriers built by the old production order, and liberated a large number of productive forces from the land, followed by the prosperity of commerce and the circulation of "people", and all of these brought cultural changes. Communication and its inevitable impact on relations between nations.Originally distant and strange countries will lose their aura of mystery with the injection of commodities, and the strangers who appear together with commodities will further broaden people's horizons—whether people like it or not, countries, races and races, civilizations and The barriers between civilizations are being impacted, and the once idyllic situation of seemingly beautiful and peaceful but isolated and closed is being challenged.

The civilians in the hinterland of Cecil also began to come into contact with the gray elves, the red valley people, the dwarves, the orcs and even the goblins, and more and more humans are appearing in the hometowns of these races. At the beginning, the communication only took place in a small area, but there is no doubt that this is the situation that Gao Wen hopes to see.

If possible, he hopes that this period of steady development can last longer.

A light knock on the door suddenly came from the study door, interrupting Gawain's reverie. He heard Betty's voice from outside the door: "Your Majesty! We have visitors!"

Compared with a few years ago, the voice of the little maid is much more mature and calm now, but it is only her voice that is mature and stable. When choosing words and sentences, Betty still has a hint of rashness and lack of "dignity" from time to time. .

Gawain smiled, turned around and let Betty in, and said casually, "There should be no visitor appointment today—what kind of person is it?"

Betty, who was wearing a royal maid's long dress and was a little taller than a few years ago, thought about it, then nodded and said, "It's the guests you mentioned that can be specially notified, Miss Melita, and the one who came last time... ...another lady!"

Obviously, she had already forgotten the name of "the other lady" - but several years of growth finally prevented her from shouting out the word "forget it" with confidence.

"Melita and Noretta? Are the two here together?" Betty's forgetfulness did not affect Gao Wen's extraction of useful information. After learning that it was the two senior agents of Mithril Vault who visited together, he subconsciously He frowned, "And he still took the initiative to come to the door..."

Then he temporarily put some doubts in his heart aside, and nodded slightly to Betty: "Let them in first."

"Yes, Your Majesty!"

Betty bowed vigorously, trotted away, and not long after that, Gawain heard two rhythmic footsteps coming from outside the corridor.

A moment later, Melita and Noretta appeared together in front of Gao Wen.

"Sorry for the hasty interruption," Melita took a step forward first, and said with the same polite attitude as always, "I hope this didn't cause you any trouble."

"It's okay, I welcome friends at any time," Gao Wen nodded, "It's just that I didn't expect two senior agents from Mithril Vault to visit at the same time... Did you bring anything?"