Sword of Dawn

Page 255

"The Grand Priest doesn't care about the reasons, as long as the mutagen can take effect as planned," Bertila said, and then looked at the Elf Twins sitting not far away, "What is the state of the Eternal Sleeper's mind projector? ? When can I make the next contact with the wasteland?"

"The projector can be used at any time, but it requires the 'prowlers' in the wasteland to arrive near the projection site to establish a connection," the elf twins said in unison, "According to the agreement, the next time they arrive at the projection site will be between tomorrow and the day after tomorrow." between."

"Very good," Bertila nodded slightly and stood up, "The Grand Priest will be satisfied with this."

With the rustling of roots rubbing against the ground, the woman who had lived for centuries left the hall.

……

In the depths of the wasteland, in the corrupted and mutated homeland of Gondor, the tireless wanderers continue their seemingly endless trek.

A series of twisted and ferocious giant "trees" moved between the soil and rocks, their tentacles-like roots licked the barren and cracked ground, and the disorderly wind carried deadly radioactive dust. Whispering through the branches.

One of the leading giant trees stopped, and behind it, all the giant trees and those gigantic distortions following the "forest" also stopped.

The trunk of the giant tree at the head squirmed, and an old and strange face emerged between the cracked bark, and dry and strange words came from between its rustling branches and roots: "The uninvited guest has already arrived!" Start strengthening the cage."

"They can only procrastinate for some time," said another giant tree. "Our paradise will eventually spread all over the new world, and the stupid beings of the old world are destined to become dust in time and history like their gods. What they do now Every struggle you make is just to make the doomsday come more violently."

"Soon, soon..." "Soon..." "Soon..."

In the creeping chorus of sounds, rustling and wriggling, one after another, they move their roots again in an eerie unison, continuing their seemingly Wandering endlessly.

"A new world will come..."

The creeping forest sang in unison.

"We will take root in the new world.

"We've found the best position for the next era.

"This location...doesn't need anyone from the old world to touch and pry..."

Chapter 0589 Distant Communication

The roar of construction machinery echoed on the construction site, and the construction workers were busy among a large number of machinery, building materials, and scaffolding. Under the power of the machinery, a large area of ​​open land had been leveled, and the foundation was reinforced by elemental spells. The octagonal base frame is gradually taking shape. Inside the frame, Banner, the elven magister who serves as the technical director, is showing the workers how to connect the prefabricated rune substrates to the skeleton made of alloy.

——Cecil's rune substrate technology was a surprise to the magister. Using the precision and power of the machine, the repeated parts of the complex rune array can be mass-produced and prepared in a short period of time. The connection frame called "rune skeleton", the Cecils build magic circles at an astonishingly fast speed. The process that consumes the most time and energy in all kinds of magic facilities is the most economical in the construction process of the Cecils. The time-saving part.

The most important thing is that the "rune substrate" itself is a very versatile technology, and the runes of the elves can still be used.

It's a stroke of luck to be selected for the Cecil Team, and it looks like work here will be finished sooner than anywhere else.

Sonia and Gawain stood side by side on a platform above the ground next to the construction site of the sub-tower.

The elven messenger seemed quite worried: "You said that those believers in the death of all things are using the loopholes in the magnificent wall to send signals into the wasteland?"

"This is just our guess," Gao Wen nodded and said, "We have intelligence that the death of all things will have a communication technology called 'Dark Bridge', which is very likely to be a loophole in the wall of grandeur. On top of that, they have been stealing your channels to establish a connection with somewhere—and as a dark sect whose activities are limited to the northern part of the mainland, their signals are unlikely to be sent to the south, so they are most likely sent to the abandoned earth."

"...If this matter is true, even the gentle Majesty Belsetia will be furious." Sonia frowned, her tone full of disbelief, "but those cultists are sending signals to the wasteland... Who are they contacting? Are there still living people in the wasteland of Gondor?!"

While speaking, she involuntarily looked at the Sentinel Tower facing the Jianfeng Base, and at the purple-black land on the south side of the Sentinel Tower, her vision was full of disbelief.

In that piece of wasteland that has been completely corrupted and distorted, life has been cut off, and there are only desolate ruins and barren land, is it possible that something is really responding to those fallen druids? !What are they planning on this wasteland?

For a moment, even she had an impulse to cross the magnificent wall and go to the land of death to find out the truth.

But she abruptly stopped this irrational thought, and turned to say in a serious tone: "Whether they are sending signals to the wasteland or not, their 'dark bridge' must have been activated with the communication function of the magnificent wall." It was shut down and abandoned. The most urgent task now is to restore communication with the southern part of the mainland."

"Regarding this point, our magic net communication terminal has been delivered, and the magicians are debugging it according to the communication key you provided," Gao Wen said, "If Kamel's transformation and design work, then today Before sunset, we can successfully send a message to the Silver Empire."

Sonia looked at Gao Wen in astonishment: "So fast?!"

Gao Wen smiled slightly: "We have the best magic masters, and the technology used by Cecil has always been ahead of traditional magic devices in terms of flexibility and developability."

He didn't even have the nerve to say that he actually started researching this set of communication devices long before he set off. At that time, Sonia didn't realize the big problem encountered by the Sentinel Tower, and he was thinking about the idea of ​​a magnificent wall ...

Fortunately, Sonia didn't care about these details—in the mind of this high-ranking messenger, it is obviously more important to be able to contact the home country as soon as possible.

As Gao Wen said, this temporary emergency communication system was finally debugged before the huge sun fell into the horizon.

This magic net communication device was set up in the headquarters in the center of the peak base. In order to house it, the technicians made a special room for it.

When Sonia and Gao Wen came here, the magicians had already completed all the installation and debugging work. In the center of the huge room was the brand new communicator from Cecil City. It was a medium-sized device with about A half-meter-high triangular pedestal, a huge projection crystal is placed above the pedestal, mysterious magic runes shimmer regularly on the metal parts around the crystal, and around this device, in the four corners of the room In the corner, you can see four black rectangular columns one person high and half a meter long and wide lying quietly on the ground.

The four pillars were specially designed by Kamel. Their function is to "translate" the signal of the magic net communication device into a signal that can be transmitted by the magnificent wall.The device was completed a few days ago, but it wasn't until the elves took out the communication key of the Great Wall not long ago that they could really come in handy.

"No matter how many times you look at it, your magic skills are so impressive," Sonia came to the magic device in the center of the room, looking curiously at the runes flickering around the crystal, "it can really Replace the communication matrix of the Sentinel Tower and send the signal to the south?"

"Theoretically it is possible," Gawain nodded slightly, "In addition, not all the devices in this room—in order to connect the signal to the energy flow of the magnificent wall, we also set up a device next to the base of the Sentinel Tower. A powerful magic obelisk, now that the obelisk is turned on, we can start anytime."

……

In the far south of the mainland, above the vast and boundless Silver Forest, the Temple of Stars is cruising at a low speed along the scheduled cruising track.

The silver-white and light-gold metallic texture shines everywhere, and the shape looks like a floating temple. The base is covered by countless light streams and runes. The flying sanctuary slowly crosses the northern border of the Silver Empire, along a delicate arc. The line is moving, its upper palace is facing the direction of the magnificent wall, and the sixteen antenna arrays set on the top floor of the temple are slightly swinging in the air, listening to every faint signal from the direction of the wasteland.

Inside the temple, in a silver-white metal hall, several alloy columns floating with mysterious runes are neatly arranged. A dozen listening seats are distributed around these columns, and the "wind listeners" in uniform are sitting In these seats, they stared intently at the holographic image in front of their eyes.

"Wind Listener" is the upper layer of "Windtalker". The task of the latter is to handle regular communication requests from the Great Wall, while the task of the former is to monitor all channels of the abnormal signal.Now the communication system of the Great Wall has failed due to overload, and the Windtalkers have had nothing to do for a long time, but the Windtalkers are still sticking to their posts.

Although they also couldn't receive any communication signals, they had to keep an eye on it—once the self-repair of the Sentinel Tower was over and the communication was restored, they had to report to the queen as soon as possible.

Then call the Windtalkers back to work (correct).

Today's monitoring channel is still quiet, with nothing but meaningless white noise in the signals sent back from all the antennas.

A male elf with short blond hair sighed slightly: "It seems that the Sentinel Tower will not recover in a short time... I don't know how the messenger teams going to the north are going."

A long-haired male elf beside him turned his head: "The last news that was sent back shows that all the human nations are already preparing to repair the barrier, and they should have already started by this time."

"I hope they can get the most basic secondary tower facilities up and running as soon as possible, so that the self-repair speed of the Sentinel Tower may be accelerated," said the short-haired elf. "The communication in the north is cut off, and such days are really difficult."

"I heard that your daughter is in the north?" A female elf next to her heard the conversation and couldn't help asking.

Now that the handover time is approaching, even the elves will feel a little relaxed.

"Yeah, I fell in love with humans, and I won't come back," the short-haired elf who spoke first said helplessly, "I can't persuade her, let her go."

"How do I remember that this happened 200 years ago?" The female elf looked curious, "Didn't it mean that she will come back after the human dies?"

The short-haired elf sighed: "Alas... now is her third human husband... maybe the fourth? I'm not in the mood to care."

"Look out, friend," an elf on the monitoring seat a little further away also joined in the chat before the succession, "at least better than the one from Shuangye's family. It is said that Sonia's high-ranking messenger specially applied for this." Went to Ansu..."

The elves at the scene looked at each other and smiled tacitly.

Some people are feeling: "You can't escape the power of your mother even if you become a high-level ranger..."

It may be difficult for the aliens in the northern part of the mainland to imagine that the mysterious and elegant elves would talk about these household things like humans.

But the chatting time of the "wind listeners" was abruptly interrupted by a sudden sound of wind chimes.

The ringing sound came from a listening seat. At first, the listeners in the seat thought it was a false alarm of the system-similar false alarms had happened three times in the past month, but soon, more listening seats uploaded The bell rang, and the holographic projection also showed signs of detecting unknown communications!

The listeners who were ready to hand over were stunned for a moment, and then all the elves forgot about calling it a day, and quickly returned to their jobs.

"Following the signal..."

"Confirmed from the Great Wall, Sentinel Tower 37's last retweet! It's an internal signal—but it doesn't carry the imprint ciphertext of the Sentinel Tower, it's an unknown signal!"

"Tracking the source... The starting point is at Sentinel Tower No. 6! North of the mainland!!"

"The signal strength is too weak - Lorraine, turn on the booster antennas, and all the booster antennas point to Sentinel Tower 37! Hurry up, we have received the signal from the north!"

Everywhere in the Temple of Stars, between the pointed towers and the roof of the palace, the silver-white armor that is integrated with the building silently slid away to the side, and antenna devices with elegant arcs rose from the concealment. It turned in the air, and quickly pointed in the direction of the Gondor wasteland.

A few minutes later, a high elf wearing a light golden robe and a crown of flowers and leaves hurried towards the core of the Temple of Stars, the bedroom of Queen Belsetia.

Belsetia was preparing to rest under her attendant's attire, but she had already faintly sensed that the antenna array of the Temple of Stars was operating abnormally. Just as she was about to inquire about the situation, a confidant minister came to her, and she immediately stood up: "What happened?" What's the matter?"

"Your Majesty, the communication link of the Great Wall has suddenly been restored - the signal comes from the north, and the high-level messenger Sonia and the human Duke Gawain Cecil wish to talk to you."

"Sonia and Duke Cecil..." Belsetia couldn't help raising her eyebrows slightly, but quickly asked, "Didn't the communication function of the Sentinel Tower say that it will not be able to repair itself until at least next spring?"

"The signal was not sent by the sentinel tower, it was some kind of communication technology of human beings," the regent lowered his head, "Sonia's high-ranking messenger said that an emergency had occurred, and she had to agree to the establishment of an emergency channel by human beings."

"...I understand." Knowing Sonia's code of conduct, Belsetia didn't bother with this issue at all, she waved her servants to step back, and stepped forward, "Lead the way and transfer the communication to the main control room. "

"Yes."

Chapter 0590 after 700 years

After intense debugging, more than a dozen failed calls and communications, and nearly two hours of unbearable waiting, the technicians monitoring the Magic Net communication device finally detected a regular pattern from the energy surge from the Great Wall. The feedback signal of -

The magic net communication device has replaced the communication function of the Sentinel Tower at this moment. It cannot obtain the special magic pattern characteristics of the Sentinel Tower, but it has the communication key inside the Silver Empire. Under normal circumstances, this will be an illegal access request , but in today's situation, illegal access requests will also be responded to by monitors.

After a short period of secondary signal adjustment and enhancement, the interference in the channel stabilized at an acceptable level, and the first fusion of the human communication terminal and the elf communication medium achieved satisfactory results. The communication request was first sent to the southern part of the mainland in the form of text and voice, and it didn't take long to get a reply:

"His Majesty Belsetia will answer the communication."

"We have obtained a higher level of authorization, and the screen is about to be connected," Sonia stood by the communicator, identifying the characters on the holographic projection with a little rustiness, and then prompted the operator on the side, "Open the second channel —The communication signal of the throne area is separate."

Gawain raised his head and looked at the group of scattered and trembling illusion projections above the magic net terminal - after a while, it began to gradually stabilize, with faintly identifiable lights and shadows condensing from those scattered and trembling colors and lines , and finally formed a clearer image.

There is still a lot of interference in the picture, but considering that the signal has passed through the entire Gondor wasteland and the entire continent, the effect is already very satisfactory.

An elven woman with golden vents, a crown on her head, and a court dress with gold trim on a white background and complicated lace appears in the center of the picture.

The leader of the elves, the queen of the Silver Empire in this millennium and the next millennium, the master of the Temple of Stars, the ruler of the Ancestral Forest and the Silver Forest, Belsetia Morningstar.

She sat there, her appearance was exquisite and noble, she had the appearance of "a treasure created by the gods" just like the rumors, and there was a majestic majesty covering her whole body, so that everyone who saw her would be shocked at first. Time realizes her identity as the ruler of the empire. Her throne is the legendary "Seat of Dominion". Countless pipes and cables extend from the back of this crystallization of ancient technology, like some kind of weird wings behind her. Shu Zhan, the ruler sat quietly on his throne, his eyes first glanced at Sonia, and then fell on Gao Wen.

Her expression seemed to change slightly, and her majestic eyes softened slightly: "Duke Gawain Cecil, your resurrection is indeed true—thanks to the protection of the forest and the ancient spirits, this is really a miracle Goodbye."

"You are really different from what I remember," Gawain flipped through the memories he inherited in his mind, and sighed from the bottom of his heart, "Queen Belsetia."

In Gawain Cecil's memory, the queen was still a little girl who would run around, love "adventures", and would be taken aback by the heroic stories fabricated by Charlie and others. Tia's initial impression was also based on this foundation, but at this moment, those long-standing memories are gradually melting away.

Seven centuries later, the former little girl has finally grown into an imperial ruler.

"You are still the same as I remember," Belsetia showed a slight smile, "Just call me by my name, just like before."

"Then I'll be informal—you know, I don't like red tape," Gao Wen nodded and said, "As you can see, we have rebuilt the channel between the north and the south of the mainland, which uses some of our new technologies—a little I will introduce it to you in detail later. Before that, Sonia's high-level messenger has more important reports."

This is a reunion after a 700-year absence, but both parties know that they have no room for chatting and reminiscing about the past.

"Yes, Your Majesty," Sonia immediately stepped forward, "There is an emergency, and I have to agree to establish this emergency channel——I have something to report to you about the Great Wall and the end of all things. Your Majesty, Our Sentinel Tower has been corrupted by humans, and there is a terrible hole in the system of the Great Wall..."

Belsetia's expression instantly became serious: "Tell me in detail."

……

The narration did not last long. As a high-ranking messenger, Sonia knew how to convey information concisely. She quickly explained to Queen Belsetia what she had seen and heard in the Tower of Sentinel with Gawain and others. , especially those vines found in the Shadow Realm. Afterwards, Gawain added information about the hidden bridge, about the possible use of the dark bridge to send signals to the wasteland by the Doomsday Cultists.

After listening to the information, Belsetia frowned and thought for a moment, her complexion was obviously not very good. After a short silence, she looked at Sonia: "Sonia, the vines you found have withered, Is it?"

"Yes, but the possibility that the 'Shadow Vines' of other Sentinel Towers are still alive cannot be ruled out," Sonia said with a serious face, "and even if the vines wither, the damage they caused to the Sentinel Tower has not disappeared— Through some unknown mapping method, the Sentinel Tower in the Shadow Realm is also affecting the operation of the tower in the real world. Magister Banner has determined that several key systems of the Sentinel Tower are damaged to varying degrees, and The anomalous signals caused by these damages have been tampered with and covered up until now."

"Order Magister Banner to send back all the information, and I will immediately let the Astromancer Association study a solution," Belsetia's voice was full of majesty, "In addition, I will also order the Royal Druid Society to confirm whether the Silver Empire is There are degenerate druid sect activities, you keep in touch with the empire at all times."

Then she paused, and turned her gaze to Gawain: "Duke Cecil—you just said that this special communication line was established by human technology?"

"Strictly speaking, it's the technology of the Principality of Cecil," Gawain nodded, "Ansu's overall technology is severely faulted, and the development of different regions varies greatly. The Principality of Cecil was rebuilt after I was resurrected. We are trying to Take a special technical route, I named it 'magic', and the current communication system is one of its technical achievements. Ms. Sonia has been staying with me for a long time, and she should be familiar with magic technology. He has his own understanding from the perspective of elves.”

"Indeed, Your Majesty," Sonia said, with a hint of emotion in her expression, "We have seen many unimaginable things since we came here. The magic technology is completely different from the old magic technology. ...the idea, it is very practical, it is very practical in many fields, we are now using its power to build the first layer of magic power confinement ring of the 'secondary tower'..."

In front of Gao Wen, Sonia reported to Queen Belsetia the experience and activities of her messenger team in Ansu—of course, her report was very brief, and it was all content that could be made public. During the report, Gao Wen took advantage of this time to sort out his thoughts.

He finally managed to establish contact with the Silver Empire in the extreme southern part of the continent, and established contact with this ancient civilization that possessed countless treasures of knowledge, and this contained a meaning that he could not ignore.

I have to find a way to turn the Silver Empire into sociology +8.jpg (×)

Gotta get some ancestral technology out of the silver empire's treasury (√)

He was thinking about the possibility of establishing in-depth communication with the Silver Empire, thinking about how to exchange the magical technology in the hands of this ancient civilization—even though he had copied many things from the Sentinel Tower, he knew that those scattered There is a big gap between the real thing and the real and complete technical information.

Kamel sent him a message after studying those anti-gravity runes, clearly stating that there are incomplete, difficult to parse, and encrypted parts in those rune arrays, although they still have great reference significance, But turning that into a usable technology is obviously not going to be easy.Kamel believes that simply relying on copying some runes from the Sentinel Tower to analyze them is far from enough. If you want to achieve technical results with the highest efficiency, it is best to reach an open and honest communication with the elves.

Gao Wen, who also hoped to establish a good relationship with the Silver Empire, deeply agreed with this.

The conversation between Sonia and Belsetia was over, and the latter's attention returned to Gawain. The queen nodded slightly: "You are still leading your people forward as you did 700 years ago, Open up new lands."

"Survival is not easy, and only development can survive on the edge of the wasteland," Gao Wen said unhurriedly, considering his words, "Actually, I'm going to take this opportunity to talk to you about Cecil's development—to be honest Come on, now that we have established this communication channel, the Principality of Cecil hopes to establish closer...communications with the Silver Empire."

"Communication?" Belsetia raised her eyebrows slightly, "Which aspect are you referring to?"

Gawain looked into the other person's eyes, and he finally decided to get straight to the point: "In terms of technology. We are very interested in Silver Empire's anti-gravity technology, rune stacking technology, shield technology and other fields. At the same time, Cecil's magic technology It should also be a reference for the elves. The failure of the sentinel tower reminded us that the "safety barrier" we built back then may not be safe enough, but everyone has been stagnant for too many years. In this world that is gradually becoming dangerous, we must find a way to break this situation - development, only development is the last word."

Belsetia didn't seem to expect Gawain to say this, she looked a little surprised, while Sonia next to her had a look that she had expected: as early as when she was exploring the Sentinel Tower, she had learned from Gawain I guessed such a development from his attitude: this old friend who came back from the dead was very interested in the knowledge of elves.

The high-ranking messenger thought of the conversation she had with her son not long ago, and recalled what Soldering said, so she decided to wait and see the Queen's attitude.

Belsetia didn't express her position immediately, she thought for a while, and then said: "Duke Cecil, can we talk alone?"