Sword of Dawn

"This is the ticket," she opened her eyes, looking at Archbishop Semler, "it's the ticket for Cecil, the wanderers outside the territory to accept us - Cecil has its own order and principles, we want to re- Back in the sun, these principles must be actively embraced from now on. Archbishop Semler, let everyone know that for every brain slave surviving, some of us will be sent to the mines and factories for a period of time in the future. It will be shorter."

Then she added: "In addition, I also remind everyone not to take chances, don't think that they have the ability to avoid the incorporation and transformation of wanderers outside the territory, don't forget, this time He just projected his consciousness into the sandbox and swallowed it. Has become the "upper narrator" of the gods, and long before that, he has penetrated and controlled the entire spiritual network."

An awe-inspiring feeling gradually emerged in Semler's heart. He looked very serious and nodded slowly: "I understand."

Selena breathed a sigh of relief, and then a slightly weird expression suddenly appeared on her face: "Now... let's discuss the issue of Archbishop Magnum."

Hearing this name, not only Semler, but even Wendy and Yuri, who had just arrived nearby, lowered their eyes in unison, with complicated expressions on their faces.

"Archbishop Magnum made a noble sacrifice this time," Wendy said in a deep voice, "Perhaps we should recognize him as a saint..."

"No, I'm not talking about that," Selena raised her right hand and held up the dream lantern, "I mean—"

Layers of gentle rays of light bloomed from the dream lantern, and suddenly, a loud voice that everyone is familiar with came from the light: "Hello, hello? Hello! Anyone hear it? Anyone hear it? What the hell is going on in this damn place, anyone hear?

"Hey! I'm stuck! This doesn't look like Sandbox One! Can anyone tell me what's going on outside? Anyone? Anyone!"

Selena raised her hand and brushed over the lantern, releasing the soul contained in the lamp. The scattered brilliance suddenly shrank into a figure in front of everyone. Magnum, with short red hair and short stature, stood in the hall, showing a Out of a translucent state, staring at the surroundings.

The surroundings fell silent in an instant.

"I collected his fragments at the 'Boundary', just like the Pope collected mine," Selina's voice broke the silence and awkwardness of a moment, "but it seems that this caused him some troubles .”

Magnum heard Selena's voice beside him, looked at the familiar hall in front of him in confusion, and scratched his hair subconsciously: "What's going on... I clearly remember that I have already..."

Before he finished speaking, he saw Yuri Charvin standing in front of him.

Embarrassment quickly emerged from his perplexed expression. The corners of his mouth twitched, and he forced his way up to greet him hesitantly: "Ah, Archbishop Yuri, it seems...we succeeded?"

Yuri stared at Magnum in front of him, was silent for several seconds, and then raised his right hand little by little——

Slowly and firmly extended the middle finger.

Chapter 0820 The Continuing Story

Magnum's expression stiffened.

After a few seconds, the corner of his mouth trembled: "Aren't you being rude?"

"Yes," Yuri nodded calmly, "and I suddenly feel that this is not bad."

Magnum: "..."

The one who finally came to his senses was Semler who was standing next to him. The gloomy and serious archbishop looked at Magnum who appeared in the hall in the form of a phantom, and nodded: "Then, now you are doing something similar to Celine. Archbishop Na's status is 'surviving'?"

"I don't know," Magnum looked down at himself in confusion, and then saw Selena standing next to him, "I entered a state of confusion before, and when I regained consciousness, I found that I was locked up. In a space full of twilight, I don't know what happened until now..."

"You performed the brain slave transformation without sufficient preparation, which led to your soul being completely withdrawn. I collected those fragments," Selina briefly explained, allowing Magnum to quickly grasp the current situation. Situation, "Currently you, like me, have become a ghost on the Internet. There is no problem in recent years, but after that you have to consider finding a 'mental calibration point' in the real world."

Magnum blinked and took a short while to digest this fact, and finally sighed with complicated emotions: "This is indeed different from what I imagined at first..."

Sammler nodded and looked at Selena: "So, he and his body have been completely disconnected, and he can't go back?"

"It's true—this is not a simple separation of the soul, but also involves the fragmentation and reorganization of the soul and a 'death'. For now, there is no technology that can restore him under similar circumstances."

Magnum suddenly felt a little crisis from Semler's words, and subconsciously asked, "Archbishop Semler, why are you asking this?"

Semler looked at Magnum, and said very seriously and calmly: "The body is useless to you, and I will arrange someone to burn it for you later."

"Ah?! Wait a minute! Don't burn it!" Magnum was taken aback, and immediately yelled after reacting, "What if it can be rescued?!"

"We are going to transfer the church headquarters next, including all the brain servants. We have limited manpower and time, so we can bring more supplies with one less body," Semler said very frankly. Seeing the slightest hint of a joke or a prank, this made Magnum's expression even more distorted, "Anyway, your soul has survived alone now, and your body is no longer needed. As for the rescue, didn't you hear what Archbishop Selena said just now?" ? This is something that is simply impossible with current technology..."

"It's useful! What if there is a breakthrough in technology in the future!" Magnum has a loud voice even in the soul form, and almost the entire hall can hear him shouting, "Anyway, we have to transfer so many bodies. Is it still missing me?"

"Archbishop Semler," Wendy suddenly broke the silence, and said from the side, "we should respect Archbishop Magnum's opinion, we really don't need this 'expenditure'. And considering that Archbishop Magnum has just done Given his contribution, it is not a good choice for us to abandon his body now."

"I'm just starting from the perspective of efficiency and pragmatism," Semler said with a straight face, "but what you said is also very reasonable, and I agree."

"Ah, Ms. Wendy, you are really upright!" Magnum suddenly showed a very moved look, "Thank you very much for your help, but I want to correct me, my body should not be considered a corpse now, although there is no He lost his soul, at least he still has breathing and heartbeat..."

Obviously, no one cared about this detail, and no one responded to Magnum's words. The latter shrugged in embarrassment, and then suddenly seemed to remember something: "By the way, when I was wandering in that dim light space just now, I vaguely heard some voices, which seemed to mention being considered a saint... I want to ask if this is talking about me?"

Semler and Yuri didn't seem to hear it, and Wendy shifted her gaze calmly, while Selena quietly looked at a place a little further away, as if she stayed out of the matter from the beginning to the end.

Magnum blinked, looked around, shrugged awkwardly and closed his mouth, and planned to ask again in a few days.

……

Cecil Empire, hours later.

The dawn sun shone into the dormitory, bringing a ray of warmth in the end of winter. Gawain lying on the bed suddenly opened his eyes. After seeing the familiar ceiling, he breathed a sigh of relief.

He knows that only a short night should have passed in the real world, but for him who has faced the "historical memory" of the upper-level narrator, it seems that he has just been separated from the history of thousands of years at this moment, a kind of separation of time and even age. The feeling lingered in his heart, and it took him a while to recover slowly - he should have woken up earlier, but he fell asleep until now in order to sort out his memory and mental state.

This feeling of detachment may cause worse results to ordinary people, and may even cause irreversible psychological trauma, but fortunately, none of this is a problem for Gao Wen - he is already familiar with this experience soaked in the long river of time, Once in a while, it feels like coming home.

After the information storm in his head gradually subsided, and all kinds of memories returned to their original positions, Gao Wen sat up from the bed and looked around the room.

Hu Po hadn't left all night, she was sitting on a nearby easy chair at the moment, she had already fallen asleep, her saliva was drooling all over the floor because of her awkward sleeping position.

Till was still curled up in the corner, but her tail was twisted and entangled. Half of her upper body was entangled in the tail, and her sleeping position... was hard to describe in words.

Gawain couldn't even reason for a while how the tip of Tyre's tail came out of that big lump...

Probably because the six senses were really sharp, Amber woke up soon after Gao Wen woke up. She suddenly opened those amber eyes. Wiping the saliva next to his cheek, he stood up suddenly: "Ah, you're back? Is the situation over there resolved?"

"It's solved," Gao Wen stood on the ground, took a deep breath against the brighter morning sun, and then exhaled slowly as if he wanted to expel all the gloom from his body, "No god has descended into this world. After today, all One can still sleep peacefully."

Amber looked at Gao Wen with wide eyes, and then suddenly laughed: "Oh, let me just say, you can definitely handle it."

Gao Wen nodded: "I need to inform other people, there are still many things that need to be dealt with in the future."

Then he glanced at Tyre in the corner again: "Also, I have to find a way to wake her up—I have to inform the sea monsters in the depths of the sea, so there is no need to wait any longer."

"You have to find a way, I'll go and notify Hetty and Kamel!" Amber ran to the door without saying a word, "They are all waiting for your news, they must have woken up very early..."

Before Gao Wen had time to say anything else, Amber had already rushed out of the door like a gust of wind, leaving him and a sleeping kraken in the room.

Apparently Amber knew very well how difficult it was to wake Tyre from his deep sleep, and she would rather run all over downtown early in the morning than try to wake him up...

Gawain looked at the door in a daze, then turned his head to look at Miss Siren, who seemed to be sleeping a little more abstractly than before, and shook his head helplessly.

Anyway, I tried boiling water, and throwing it out the window might not work. Sprinkling salt made her feel like she was going home. It was probably cut with a sword, and she just resurrected and went back to her room to sleep...

After thinking about it, Gawain bent down and leaned close to Tyre's ear (assuming her hearing organs are indeed ears), and whispered: "Your biscuit is gone."

Tier Jiling woke up suddenly, his messy tail rolled on the ground, and he lay on the ground in a state of embarrassment, and then yelled while thumping: "What, who said that? I haven't... eh?"

Tire finally woke up, twisted his upper body 180 degrees and looked at Gawain who was standing beside him. Only then did he notice that morning had arrived, and recalled the reason why he slept here: "You... are back? What's going on over there? Sample?"

"Unfortunately," Gao Wen shook his head with a half-smile, "You've been waiting for nothing."

Tire was stunned for a moment, and then understood the meaning of Gawain's words, but the sea monster who lost the biscuit suddenly laughed, and said happily, "Isn't this a good thing?"

Then she propped up her upper body, stretched her long snake tail, and slowly arched towards the door, waving her hands while arching: "Then I will inform my sisters first, and come back early to catch up on sleep..."

Miss Siren left, and Gao Wen was the only one left in the room. The morning glow gradually became brighter and turned into bright sunshine, which slanted into the room through the large floor-to-ceiling windows. The light narrowed his eyes slightly.

Cecil is at dawn, but it should be morning in the Orlande area. If everything goes according to plan, then the transfer of the Eternal Sleepers should have already started.

Next, Cecil, this huge machine, will operate in secret. The off-line of the Military Intelligence Bureau successfully established in Typhon in the past two years will also be active simultaneously. The units will cooperate and use the cover of the recent increase in trade orders to transfer the most core Eternal Sleeper technicians and technical materials to Cecil before Rosetta Augustus notices, and within a year thereafter Continue to transfer those lower-priority priests in a slower and more stealthy manner until the transfer is completed or the operation is forced to terminate.

Everything has been planned. The Military Intelligence Bureau led by Amber and the overseas railway agency controlled by Hetty have made all preparations for this. The next step is to see if the Eternal Sleeper can make a perfect cooperation.

Hope they can do a good enough job in the upcoming reorganization process...Selena and Megal III are smart people, they know what to do.

"Is it a good thing..." Gawain squinted his eyes, looked at the bright sun shining between the sky and the earth, and whispered to himself.

Some stories are over, and some stories...but continue.

……

Rosetta Augustus came to the tallest spire of the Obsidian Palace. He pushed open a door engraved with many runes, inlaid with gems and magic metal, and walked into the magic laboratory on the top of the tower.

The laboratory is spacious and bright. The alchemy experiment table and the arcane experiment table inscribed with magic circles are neat and clean. All kinds of esoteric and precious book scrolls are placed in categories on the large bookshelf against the wall. Two pieces of rune armor and bronze The puppet with its torso assembled is busy sorting out some sundries, and its movements are light and silent.

Seeing Rosetta enter, the two golems immediately bowed and saluted, and then returned to work.

Rosetta looked straight into the depths of the room, and a dignified and stable lady in a lavender robe was walking from there. She was the current president of the Typhon Royal Mages Association and the chief of Emperor Rosetta. Mage advisor, Ms. Windsor Mapel, a legendary mage.

This magic laboratory located in the Obsidian Palace belongs to her. It is not only one of the places where she works, but also symbolizes her special treatment and status in the empire as a rare outstanding genius in recent years.

"I salute you, my lord," Windsor Mapel bowed in front of Rosetta, "what do you want?"

Rosetta nodded: "I feel that the power of the curse has subsided, and that thing has calmed down."

The "madness" curse of the Typhon royal family is a semi-open secret, and the presidents of the Royal Mages Association, as the best occult experts in the empire, will naturally be the direct insiders of this secret. For two centuries, these outstanding Spellcasters are all responsible for analyzing the curse and trying to find a way to deal with it. Although there are no significant results to this day, the royal family still maintains their trust in them.

In private, members of Typhon's royal family would often speak directly to Windsor Mapel about the "curse of madness".

"Disappeared?" Windsor looked at Emperor Rosetta with some surprise, "Did it just happen?"

"When I woke up in the morning, I felt that it was fading a little bit. After a few hours, it returned to its previous 'normal' state, no rebound, and no further reduction," Rosetta said in detail about what she felt. In front of Mapel, he treated himself as an ordinary patient, which helped the legendary mage better judge the situation, "I think there must be reasons in the mystic field behind this change, and I would like you to check it out for me. .”

"Of course... we can start now."

Chapter 0821 New Network Project

The flickering runes dimmed one by one, and the humming crystal device began to enter the cooling process. Rosetta Augustus, who was sitting on a special seat, opened her eyes, from a certain distance between reality and illusion. The mental state of the room is awake.

He breathed a sigh of relief, feeling that his spirit had been relaxed for a long time, and then left the magic device without any regrets.

"If you feel mentally exhausted, you can rest on it for a while," Ms. Windsor Mapel said next to her. "Although it can't cure the curse, it can at least make you relax."

"Using soul anesthesia to reduce stress is effective, but long-term use will weaken people's will," Rosetta said lightly, "That's all. Ms. Mapel, how is the situation?"

Windsor Mapel looked at Rosetta calmly, and nodded lightly: "I tried to induce your soul and consciousness, and the spiritual pollution has indeed returned to the normal level, but no external interference has been found. signs, you can basically rule out the possibility of someone tampering with your spiritual world."

"...Isn't the reason on my own..." Rosetta pondered for a while, "Ma'am, what do you think about this?"

"As a scholar, I will not jump to judgment when the evidence is insufficient, but I can talk about my own thoughts. The curse suffered by the Augustus family is related to the spiritual pollution left by the gods, and the spiritual pollution of the gods is inherently The characteristics of transcending time and space, confusing reality, and hardly being affected by mundane forces - the curse on you has fluctuated abnormally in recent days, and the reason has nothing to do with your own mental state, which means that the root of the curse has been disturbed, Those who can disturb it must be forces of the same level or close to it..."

"The power of the same level or similar..." Rosetta frowned slightly, "Recently, there are no abnormalities in the churches everywhere, and there has been no direct decree from the gods in this world for a long time. Even the Church of the Holy Light in the Cecil Empire has undergone tremendous changes. , and never affected Typhon..."

As he spoke, he suddenly raised his head: "Ms. Mapel, have you received any news from here recently?"

"The magic communication towers in various places have not reported any abnormalities - but the coverage of the communication towers is limited, and the mages at the bottom may not be able to accurately identify the extraordinary phenomena related to the gods. Therefore, many intelligences are delayed, and it will take a long time to be sent to the imperial capital. "Windsor Mapel shook her head, "I will pay attention to the information in this area, and will report to you as soon as possible if there is any situation."

"Hmm..." Rosetta nodded slightly, but then said with a frown of emotion, "Communication towers... It would be great if there were more communication towers or their coverage could be wider."

"The cost problem is really difficult to solve, and there are not so many mages to maintain those large facilities," Windsor Mapel said helplessly, "In fact, after the completion of the Empire Avenue project, especially after the acquisition of the magic train, remote areas and the imperial capital The communication efficiency between the two is much higher than before. It used to take nearly a month for the information that could not use the communication tower because it was not important enough to be sent to the imperial capital from places such as the west, but now it only takes a few days. It's a huge improvement."

"It's still not enough—remember the warning given by the Ministry of Industry's advisory group? The throughput cycle of factories is calculated in days or even hours. If the fluctuation of raw materials in remote areas cannot be fed back to the city in a timely manner, it may cause an avalanche within a few days. Losses, and the flow of money behind it requires more timely intelligence transmission - the speed of everything is accelerated by the machine, and Aldernan's ability to respond and control the south and west is far from enough."

"Those factory owners..." Windsor Mapel frowned subconsciously, her tone of contempt could not be concealed, "Your Majesty, with all due respect, they have exaggerated the facts too much and tried to use 'professional vocabulary' to highlight them The importance of communication, but in fact they just want you to let go of the authority of some communication towers, and want to share the small quota of communication skills from the Royal Wizards Association."

"I can see that," Rosetta said flatly, "but at least part of what they say is true—especially with Cecil's rise, our weaknesses are becoming fatal."

Cecil...

Hearing this word that appeared more and more frequently in the empire's newspapers and various internal materials recently, Windsor Mapel couldn't help but look serious.

She is a senior mage, but she is also an advisor to the emperor. She is one of the "state officials" who frequently come into contact with imperial affairs and members of parliament. Of course, she is not ignorant of things like the country's situation. She knows Emperor Rosetta is worried about something, and knows that this worry is not unreasonable.

If there is no Cecil who is rising rapidly, there are many things that the Typhon people don't have to worry about at all, and no one will even realize that certain things are worth worrying about - just like the shortcomings of the communication tower, every Typhon People would think that the abundant number of mages in the empire and the communication towers distributed in various important provinces are sufficient for use, and after the newly renovated arterial roads and new means of transportation in various parts of the empire, the improved efficiency of information transmission is used to It is more than enough to deal with the current situation of the empire. No one will think that they are inefficient, and many people will even think that they are advanced enough that there is no need for improvement within a century.

But next to it is Cecil, who is rapidly rising—this fast-growing "neighbor" has brought many "new things" to Typhon people, such as magic technology, such as competitive pressure.

The intelligence personnel took the risk and sent a lot of useful things, a considerable part of which was the description of Cecil's cutting-edge technology, and these descriptions made Emperor Rosetta and those members with sharper eyes aware of some shortcomings of the empire in advance. plate.

This is probably the pressure brought by the comparison.

"Their magic network communication is developing rapidly. Although they are all long-distance and fast communication technologies based on messaging, they have obviously solved the problem of cost and manpower occupation-this is the consistent advantage of magic technology. The Cecils are here. "We have always been proud of our professional and large team of mages," Windsor Mapel said slowly, "but obviously, it is more efficient for the Cecilians to replace these mages with machines." , at least in communication technology.”

As the president of the Royal Wizards Association, it is not easy for her to say these words, but she knows that even if she does not say some words, the wise Rosetta Augustus has already understood, not to mention her teacher, Daniel is the empire's leading master of magic at this moment, and many things created by the latter have truly shaken every staid traditional mage in the association-the fact is irrefutable.

"Magic net communication is a good technology..." Rosetta looked serious, "We must master it, or find a way to improve our communication tower, no matter how much it costs."

As he said that, he suddenly asked: "A businessman sent a 'Magic Network Terminal' before, did you get the result of the analysis?"

Talking about the technical field, Windsor Mapel's expression immediately became serious—she knew what the "Magic Net Terminal" Rosetta was referring to. Risk of hanging A machine smuggled across the frontier, the merchant hid it in piles of furs and spices to evade Cecil's frontier inspection, and returned home to present it to the emperor, and that precious machine is now Lying in the laboratory of the Imperial Manufacturing Association, the technical team led by Daniel is conducting analysis.

"We disassembled it into parts, and restored its complex and exquisite internal structure of runes and crystals. Maybe it won't take long before we can replicate an identical machine, but this is meaningless," said Windsor Ma Pell shook his head, "The Cecil stuffed a set of very weird runes into that machine. It is not a conventional communication technique, and it even has the characteristics of divine magic. No one can decipher them yet. I am very curious about where the Cecils got their inspiration and assembled such a weird magic circle...

"Instructor Daniel reminded us that if we can't fully understand the meaning of each part of the runes, it would be very dangerous to imitate that set of equipment rashly - the Cecils may have hidden traps in it, and they may be able to directly intercept or even eavesdrop on our imitation device of."

"Master Daniel is a wise man, and his reminders are always very pertinent," Rosetta nodded slowly, "Treat that machine with caution, and find out the parts we can use from it, and the rest...we will always Got it."

"It would be great if I could get the prototype of the magic net terminal, or the rubbings of the original rune..." Windsor Mapel sighed, "The prototype has not been simplified and optimized, and it often contains very obvious Technical ideas may help us uncover the secrets of those runes...Of course, this can only be imagined."

Rosetta looked stern and didn't say a word.

……