Sword of Dawn

Page 196

She raised her head to look in the direction of the sound, and found that it was the town square.

The Harvest Festival is approaching... The town will prepare celebrations for the festival. The mayor and the rich people should have invited bards and a circus troupe of "Black Hills" as usual. Before the Harvest Festival begins, these bards and circus The troupe will start to perform sporadic performances in the square, and these ten days will be the busiest time of the year here.

Mary hesitated, and slowly moved towards the square.

Go hear the tales of the bards...or see a free street performance by circus clowns.

These things don't cost money, and she won't leave muffin residue and breath on her body when she watches the performance, the instructor won't find out, and the tower spirit of the mage tower won't find out...

She just needs to look around for a while, since it's still early anyway... and the shop is also near the square, so she can drop by from this direction.

If I miss it this time, I'm afraid there will be no chance, and she can only come to the town a few times a year...

Mary's footsteps finally moved completely in the direction of the square.

The young female apprentice quickly crossed the street, passed through the narrow alley, and entered the town square from the alley. Just as she thought, the bard and the circus had already set up a stage here, and the sound of blowing and blowing was It came from those desks.

Many townspeople had already gathered in the square, but because it was only a small-scale performance, there were not too many people to walk. Mary hugged the package tightly in her arms, walked through the crowd with wide eyes, and tried her best to I want to imprint everything in my sight deeply in my mind.

There are some passages in the poems of the bards that have not been heard before, and although they are still old-fashioned knight stories, they are still novel and interesting; The skill of the circus pressing the bottom of the box still surprised Mary...

Mary already has a formal level of spellcasting—although she is still an apprentice of the old mage, her spellcasting level has reached a formal level—but this kind of trick performed on the street is completely different from the killing skills she learned in the mage tower. same thing.

She has only seen it a few times in her life.

The young female apprentice seemed to have forgotten her mission for a moment. She walked up and down the square, looking at all the things that caught her attention, until she came to the bulletin board in the square, and was stunned by the newly posted notice on the bulletin board. Several sheets aroused interest.

The literacy rate of Typhon people has only increased in recent years. Since His Majesty the Emperor implemented various new policies and established stricter and fairer contract rules, everyone can rent farmland and cattle from the state by contract. As a result, the people have a demand for reading and literacy, and driven by this demand, the literacy rate of Typhon people has only gradually increased, and bulletin boards in towns have replaced soldiers who read out government orders.

Mary knew that there were often new decrees signed by the emperor or big news happening nearby on the bulletin board. These things seemed far away from her life in the wizard's tower, but she was still very interested in them.

Her curiosity is very strong-even though this curiosity made her slip into that mage tower more than ten years ago and become a prisoner wearing a collar since then, this curiosity still exists.

She saw that there were new decrees written on the bulletin board, some were signed by His Majesty the Emperor, and some were issued by local officials:

"...according to Emperor Rosetta's decree, basic education will continue to be promoted, and the scale of the school will be expanded in the city...

"... When volunteers are recruited, one member of each family can be exempted from paying taxes for three years if they join the army. For specific matters, you can ask the local sheriff...

"According to the new decree of Emperor Rosetta, the post of 'agronomy supervisor' will be established, which will be held by the best local farmers. They will organize and promote planting experience. For remuneration and screening methods, you can ask the local tribune...

"The order to build the Burning Rock Acid Chemical Workshop...recruit apprentices...

"According to the new decree of Emperor Rosetta, excellent mages are recruited regardless of their background, and they are required to have superb rune skills and be good at magic circle research. Note: Those who understand ancient Gondor's magic knowledge are preferred, and those who understand self-charging magic circles are preferred."

Chapter 0470 Mary and Daniel

There are many contents on the bulletin board, but not all of them are new. Some old papers are covered by new pasted things, and some old papers have faded due to wind and sun, and the contents on them have become blurred. Clear, it looks quite strenuous.

The civilian literacy education and town notice system promoted by Emperor Rosetta are indeed good things, but there are also many problems, because there is only one channel to release news, so whether it is the new policy at the top or the chores in the town will be posted on the Here, no one has considered the issue of timeliness. It is often seen that the emperor's decree is followed by a notice to clean up the mud, and the news of the purchase of new grain is put together with the content of the distribution of grain seeds a few months ago. It is not easy to distinguish them clearly.

In fact, it is indeed a skill to find useful content from these messy information, and as far as Mary knows, the promotion effect of literacy education is actually not that good, and most civilians do not have enough spare energy to read and write Even if they learn to read and write, they will not learn much from those casual teachers who come to class for a few copper coins every day, so there are not many people in the whole town who can read notices.

The content of the bulletin board is chaotic, and the literacy rate of civilians is still not high enough. These two factors even gave birth to a profession, that is, "reader".

If anyone wants to find something useful from that mess of notices-for example, a farmer wants to know the latest purchase price of a certain crop and when-then give the soldier a copper coin, and the soldier will find something useful Read it to you.

Of course, some information is worthless after being disseminated, and peasants with better literacy are likely to find out useful information and tell others about it. On the other hand, they will deliberately wet and dirty the content that may cause the most inquiries when posting the notice, so that civilians who want to know the price of the product or employment information have to spend a copper coin to ask...

But these have no effect on Mary. As a mage, she has the ability to easily read and distinguish all the things on the bulletin board, and she doesn't care much about the timeliness of these information-everything on it is of great importance to her. It's all very interesting.

There is no such thing as a bulletin board in the village at the foot of the mountain.

"Recruiting mages..." The young female apprentice looked through all the posted announcements with great interest, and finally her eyes fell on the notice of recruiting mages. She could see that it seemed to be for the sake of A research project is hiring, but the information itself is unusual.

The announcements for the recruitment of mages have been posted in the town... Emperor Rosetta seems to want to select a group of talents from the mages of the whole empire, and his recruitment scope is really wide. In this kind of rural town, you can see The mage who got the notice is at most a wild mage of three or two levels, right?

But then Mary thought of her mentor... That terrible old magician is probably an exception, living in seclusion in such a remote place, but his strength is unfathomable... It is said that the mentor also lived in the capital back then, I don't know Would he be interested in His Majesty's recruitment.

With such thoughts in her mind, the young female apprentice left the bulletin board and continued to wander in the lively town square.

The bard's verses sound exciting.

The circus clown's performance is impressive.

Even for a few poor craftsmen, they made a few straw weaving and woodcut trinkets on the square, which fascinated Mary.

So when she finally woke up from these things, the golden-red sunset light had already sprinkled on the roofs of the outermost circle of the square.

Looking at the golden-red sunset, watching the townspeople and performers leaving the square, the poor young girl finally became frightened: she completely forgot what her mentor told her to do!

Mary ran away and rushed to the shop next to the square. The only thing she is thankful for now is that she has been holding the package in her arms. If she was too addicted to the entertainment on the square before, she would buy the raw materials for the potion specially ordered by the instructor. If she lost it too... the mentor will definitely pull out one of her tendons and feed them to the bloodthirsty monsters in the mage tower!

Finally, luck favored this girl, and she bought the last batch of spell-casting materials before the shop closed, and by the time she came out of the shop, it was almost completely dark.

Looking at the last ray of sky light, Mary couldn't help tightening her old black short robe. It's not a wise choice to travel after nightfall, especially since there is still a long distance between the town and the mentor's mage tower. Walking on the mountain road for two hours, even though she is a mage with a formal spellcasting level, the mountain road in the dark is also full of dangers.

But the wrath of the old magician is more terrifying than the slippery mountain road and the monsters lurking in the dark.

Mary secretly regretted her slack actions today, while checking the package in her arms again, she finally walked out of the town.

She was still thinking about the messages she saw on the bulletin board, but after stepping on the mountain road, she threw all her wild thoughts aside.

Summon the flashing orb for lighting, prepare the protective spell for body protection, hold the dagger for body protection with your free right hand, the female apprentice walks on the dark mountain road with one foot deep and one foot shallow, after nightfall There is a cold wind constantly blowing from the mountain path, but Mary does not dare to distract herself by maintaining an extra layer of wind barrier: it is common sense for mages to save mana as much as possible when operating in the wild, as long as the external environment is not so bad that it affects thinking and judgment. To a certain extent, comfort cannot be overemphasized.

At last, before midnight, the dark and eerie spire came into view.

Mary was cold and hungry, but she made it back to the Wizard's Tower before the collar around her neck turned into a red-hot iron ring.

The gate of the mage tower opened automatically, and the gatekeeper inside silently put the female apprentice into the tower. With a muffled sound when the heavy gate closed, the mountain wind and starlight outside were blocked out.

The mage's tower was still gloomy and dead, as oppressive as a cage, but Mary let out a long breath after entering the door, and she tiptoed to the stairs leading to the upper floor, preparing to buy it before the instructor found out. She put the things in the warehouse, and then hid in her room, but she stopped stiffly as soon as she took two steps.

The shady and lonely old mage stood on the stairs, quietly blending into the darkness like a statue, the sound of artificial nerve cords wriggling in the fabric and sweeping the ground came rustling, like countless poisonous snakes entangled The creeping sound is creepy.

Mary seemed to have forgotten how to speak, she stammered: "Mentor...I..."

A bright bolt of lightning struck her shoulder before she finished speaking, and along with the severe pain came the old mage's gloomy words: "Why is it so late?"

The lightning pierced through the simple robes that had almost no protective effect, scorching a piece of flesh and blood, but Mary, who had long been used to dealing with this kind of punishment, suppressed the trembling of her body and voice immediately, and lowered her head: "I am in the town. delayed..."

She didn't use reasons such as "the mountain road is not easy to walk" to explain, and she also has experience in this point: the instructor has profound knowledge in the field of neurology and brain wave manipulation, and those winding and wriggling nerve cables can not only be used to connect A certain mysterious thinking network can even detect lies. The last apprentice who lied in front of the mentor almost died on the test bench. She didn't want to use her life to test the mood of the old mage at the moment.

The old mage Daniel stared at Mary with dark eyes, he waved his hand, and the package in Mary's arms flew in front of him. After checking the contents of the package, he raised his eyelids again: "Remember, if you delay I will use you as the experimental material for the experiment that the master told me!"

Mary lowered her head and acted submissively: "Yes... yes!"

The old mage has a mysterious master, which she knows, and she also knows that the mysterious and powerful master gave the old mage a series of orders, researching new neural connection technology and brain wave amplification technology is the order Part of it - it is precisely because of these tasks that the old mage has recently frequently arranged for his apprentices to go out to collect materials.

Mary didn't dare to ask the secrets behind those studies, let alone the name of the mysterious "master". She was very clear about this: an existence that could make even a terrifying mentor so awed was definitely not something she could easily contact, saying Maybe just getting a little bit of news is enough to bring her a fatal disaster.

Looking at the timid female apprentice, Daniel frowned, not knowing what to think, and then suddenly said: "What did you see in the town?"

Mary didn't dare to share the details of her wanderings, but said something that might make the tutor less angry: "... I was reading the notices in the town... I wonder if there is any useful news..."

Daniel snorted: "Hmph, what useful news did you see?"

"His Majesty the Emperor is expanding the school... recruiting volunteers..." Mary immediately said what she saw, and put the piece of information she thought was the most important at the end, "By the way, His Majesty is still recruiting mages , it may be that the Royal Society of Mages is expanding its manpower, mentoring you..."

She didn't dare to speak any more before she finished speaking, because she saw that the expression on the instructor's face suddenly became more gloomy than ever, and the gloomy expression was almost full of undisguised resentment, but the instructor was After she stopped, she spoke: "Continue to talk—what does the emperor recruit mages for?"

"Maybe...it might be a research project..." Mary stammered, "I haven't written the specific content, but it requires...knowledge of mathematics and magic circles, and a special understanding of self-charging...self-charging magic circles ..."

The gloomy expression on the old mage's face suddenly changed.

He frowned and seemed to be in deep thought. While Mary was waiting tremblingly, he whispered to himself: "...Could it be that the empire is studying...the master may be interested in this news..."

Mary lowered her head and listened in a breathless manner. She was not interested in the old mage's master at all. She was hungry, sleepy and nervous to death. She just wanted to go back to her room as soon as possible.

The old mage finally woke up from talking to himself and thinking. He glanced at the apprentice who was still waiting at the bottom of the steps, a trance flashed in his eyes, and then he regained his clarity.

He waved his hand: "Go back to your room."

Mary bowed deeply as if she had been pardoned, and just as she was about to leave, she heard the tutor's voice coming from the stairs again: "... There is a plate of muffins on your table, it's for you."

Mary raised her head in astonishment, as if suspecting that she had heard something wrong.

However, the old mage just waved his hand, his artificial nerve cord had quieted down at some point, and his tone was full of impatience: "Today is your birthday."

Chapter 0471 Daniel's Contact

Mary left with a look of confusion and a trace of carefully hidden expectations, while Daniel stood quietly on the dark stairs for a long time. His once burly body was now bent, and he was wrapped in a black suit. Under the robe, the artificial nerve cords extending from the back of the cervical spine trembled in the black robe, making very slight noises. He was like a faded oil painting that blended into the dark background, and his shriveled and sullen face was full of signs of time. under the crack.

But after standing there for a long time, the faded oil painting was reinfused with vitality. Daniel blinked, nodded slightly in the direction Mary left, then turned around, and walked towards the height of the mage tower little by little.

More than ten years ago, the time when he had not completely become hysterical and lost control of his emotions due to neurotransformation surgery appeared in his mind. At that time, he was awake most of the time and still Retained the last trace of amiability towards the apprentice.

Then, a setback in the search for magical truths overwhelms him, and the Eternal Sleeper's neurosurgery and brainwave technology transform his mind into a monstrosity, losing his ability to maintain lucidity and control his emotions in exchange for those Forbidden knowledge of cultists...

But recently, his rationality and self-control have returned—although not fully, but partly.

Daniel walked through the long winding stairs to his own room on the upper floor of the mage tower. He opened the dark wooden door and stepped into it.

The room is furnished with a variety of furniture that suits the preferences of an elderly mage like him: solid wooden tables and chairs, carved bookshelves and storage tables, iron candlesticks and alchemy platforms, and a tower in the center of the room that can control the operation of the entire mage tower. magic brazier.In addition to these furnishings, all the exposed walls, floors and roofs in the room are full of weird and mysterious symbols and patterns.

That is not the dream circle of the Eternal Sleeper, nor is it any kind of rune system known to the world. Even the pretentious royal mages in the imperial capital cannot have the honor to come into contact with these incredible things.

These symbols and patterns are bestowed upon him by the "master", and their power is far beyond the comprehension of the human mind.

Daniel also doesn't know the principles behind these symbols and lines, he only knows that these things are of great benefit to him.

After closing the door, the old mage came to the brazier in the center of the room, sprinkled a handful of spices into it, and then relaxed in the reassuring incense, watching the room in a manner like a work of art The symbols in the texture.

Those complicated and weird symbolic lines seem so complicated that it will make people mad even if they look at them more, but in fact their effect is just the opposite. Surrounded by these symbolic lines, Daniel only feels that his heart is quickly filled with positivity. High-spirited power, a sound like a gentle sea wave echoed in his head, he felt himself sinking into the gentle sea water, countless pleasant thoughts and thoughts emerged, healing his severely torn and deformed soul bit by bit , and even physically healed his nerve tissue.

He originally thought that the injuries deep in his nervous system could never be healed—that was the "gift" he got when he was bewitched by the Eternal Sleeper many years ago. Huge hidden dangers were left in the process, the maddening noises and faint stings tormented him for more than ten years, and directly led to his paranoia, but these injuries were unexpectedly destroyed by some complicated and weird " "Screen" was healed... It has to be said that only the master can create a miracle.

Daniel enjoyed slowly in such a pleasant atmosphere, but he still remembered the owner's warning, and when the weird thought of "should we go dig the squid?" suddenly appeared in his mind, he immediately cut off this addiction State, wake up in an instant.

This is also one of the reasons why he locked these "gifts" in his room and prevented his apprentices from touching them: Although the master did not issue an order in this regard, he felt that once those apprentices who were not determined After seeing these symbols and patterns, they may not be able to break free like themselves, maybe they were directly guided by the thoughts in their minds, jumped into the sea and drowned.

After regaining consciousness, Daniel shifted his attention away from those patterns—after getting used to it, it is actually not difficult to resist the power of these patterns—he remembered what the apprentice Mary told him, and what the master told him command, and walked towards a magic circle in the corner of the room.

He connected his nerve cords to the nodes on the magic circle, and began to call the indescribable "master"...

……

In the southern border of Ansu, in the lord's mansion of the main city of Cecil, Gao Wen had just finished reviewing a report document from the Kant area. He stretched himself, and was about to reach out to take another document, but his movements stopped suddenly. down.

Hetty, who was standing in front of the desk because she was delivering the documents, noticed it, and immediately asked with concern: "Ancestor, are you alright?"

This "Cecil Butler" was a little worried. After all, the ancestor was too old. Although he looked like a dragon and a tiger on the outside, he might sprain his tendons when he stretched...

Of course, she didn't dare to say that casually—that was something Rebecca would do.

As a mature and steady butler, Hetty would only worry silently in her heart, and then secretly add an extra dish of bone soup to her ancestor's dinner.

Gawain could never imagine how many strange thoughts were hidden in the mind of Hetty, who was usually calm, elegant and decent. He just waved his hand and said, "It's okay, I just want to meditate suddenly...you can find Amber and let her guard it." gone."

"Amber should be stuck in the Military Intelligence Bureau, I'll stay here," Hetty said, and frowned slightly, "I've also heard from Amber that you sometimes meditate suddenly...it's a health problem Is it?"

"In terms of health? Oh, of course not." Gao Wen was stunned for a moment, then waved his hands dumbfounded, "I'll let you know in the future. You can keep watch for Amber. Don't let anyone disturb you. If there is something urgent, you can use your strength." Give me a pat on the shoulder."

"Yes." Hetty lowered her head, answered seriously, and silently decided in her heart to order the kitchen to add an egg to the ancestor's dinner later.

Gao Wen had already started to let go of his mind, and after a while, he had already entered the hidden space that was "stolen" by himself, which was located in the gap between the spiritual network.

The old mage Daniel was already waiting in the space. When he saw Gawain appearing, he immediately stepped forward and bowed deeply: "My lord, I am sorry to disturb you suddenly."

"It doesn't matter," Gawain waved his hand, creating tables and chairs in the space, and he was the first to sit down, "Sit—what happened?"

During this period of time, although Gao Wen has put most of his energy on integrating and governing the southern border, he has not forgotten the things outside the southern border, especially the Eternal Sleeper Network, which is the object of his constant attention .It's just that the Eternal Sleeper has been relatively quiet recently, and there haven't been any major changes in the network, so he basically just went online to check the news step by step, and then gave Daniel some tasks to learn, research, and steal technology.

He didn't expect that the old mage would take the initiative to contact him.

Daniel carefully sat down opposite Gawain, pondered over his vocabulary and said, "That's right, my lord, one of my apprentices accidentally heard the news that the ruler of the Typhon Empire... might be studying the magic net, or researching the relationship with Technology related to the magic net."

Gao Wen controlled the surprise in his heart, and responded seemingly indifferently: "Oh?"

"Rosetta Augustus issued an order to recruit mages, and the recruitment orders were even posted in remote towns closer to the border, and the talents he recruited were rare—it was required to have a certain knowledge of ancient Gondor's magic technology. People who understand, and who are also familiar with self-charging magic circles, I think of your 'magic net' from this."

When Gao Wen promoted the Magic Net to the outside world, for the convenience of promotion, he once called the Magic Net "a lost technology from the ancient Gondor Empire", which he also mentioned to Daniel.

"Knowing ancient Gondor's magic technology, and at the same time being familiar with self-charging circles...it's really not common." Gao Wen stroked his chin and said in a slightly thoughtful manner.

Ancient Gondor's magic technology is a "high-end field" in the eyes of magicians. Basically, only mages with a certain amount of talent, background, and strength are qualified to delve into and master a little superficiality. In the low-end tasteless field, before the nameless wild mage created the magic net, the "cheap and inefficient" creation of the self-charging magic circle has always been disdainful by great magicians, and talents who can study these two fields at the same time ...

It is almost equivalent to finding two people who are good at cross talk in the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Even in Violet, the magical kingdom in the north, I am afraid that there are not many such non-mainstream mages.

It's no wonder that Emperor Rosetta Augustus would issue recruitment orders to the outside world even when he had the Royal Society of Mages in his hands, and even posted the recruitment orders to the backcountry—in those hermits with weird tempers and solitary lives Among mages, maybe you can find a few talents in this area.

Unexpectedly, the "advertisement" that he made up at will to promote the Magic Net would mislead the ruler of Typhon under the circumstances of a mistake. Gao Wen couldn't help but feel a little funny. ...