Sword of Dawn

Bud took a light breath and was about to start today's work. Another monitor on the side touched his arm and said in a low voice: "Hey, did you know? Today His Majesty and the Silver Queen came to Solynburg !"

"I know, it was mentioned in the newspaper the day before yesterday," Bud glanced at his colleagues beside him, "but does it have anything to do with us?"

"You are... just boring," the colleague sighed, "That's the Silver Queen! Aren't you curious? Most people never see it once in their lifetime, but this time we have a chance to see a real person! It is said that Afterwards, she will visit the trunk area of ​​the giant tree and the eastern sector of the surface, which is a public event, and we plan to take a look at that time..."

Bud still looked indifferent. It wasn't that he had no curiosity about the big man from the Silver Empire, but as a former wolf general, he really couldn't act like an ordinary man in matters related to this "big man". People are as excited as this, but...

The Silver Queen's visit did not have an impact on him - if all his colleagues really went to the East Sector, there might be a lot fewer people in the cafeteria during dinner today... This is good news.

Bud's mind drifted a little again, but his focus quickly came together as the main antenna operator's 30-second countdown to the antenna's return sounded in the room.

The outside interference was blocked, and the former General Wolf saw only the holographic projection that constantly refreshed the data and curves, and a low, hollow and soft rustling sound came from the earpiece next to his ear.

The antenna has completed the rotation, and the monitoring channel is tracking the "sound" vibrating in the magical environment from all corners of the world with extremely high sensitivity. Those low and soft rustling sounds are mixed with some unirritating noises , Bud's mood calmed down further, he seemed to be integrated into these gentle echoes, and he could no longer hear the sound of the outside world.

The monitoring antenna listens to the frequency in the magic field, and all the subtle fluctuations are transformed into the vibration signal output by the antenna. They flow quietly through the huge and complex system of Sorin General Hub, which is even daunting, and finally gather here for monitoring In the center - in most cases, these echoes are meaningless, and the work of the monitors is dull and uninteresting, and even weeks are hardly rewarding.

But today seems destined to be an unusual day.

After immersing himself in the soft noise for an unknown amount of time, a somewhat abrupt whistling sound suddenly awakened Bud from his "intoxication".

Bud quickly sat up straight, his eyes widened, and almost at the same time, the follow-up reverberation of the whistling sound was filtered and reconstructed by the system, and a series of regular, drum-like vibrations and short pauses came from the earpiece , A regularly oscillating line was suddenly projected over the magic net terminal in the center of the room. It was an extremely clear and sharp line that the listeners had never seen before!

"Signal received! I-type fluctuation, it's that signal!" Bud shouted suddenly, and then quickly turned to the assistant magician, "Export my channel as a graphic output. Is the recording device online? ?”

"Recorder is online, converting - pattern coming soon!"

Chapter 1127 Beltira's Tip

All the enigmatic unknown signals vibrate in the invisible field, no one knows how far it has traveled, and no one knows what meaning it carries-it stirs up in the ubiquitous magic field. The faint ripples are so small that even the strongest and most sensitive magic masters can't perceive the traces it leaves in the atmosphere. It gradually became clear in the system of the Sorin hub, and after filtering and strengthening again and again, it turned into a clear and powerful "voice".

Budd and his colleagues had been chasing this sound for a long time, and the scholars who laid the foundation of the Ley Hub had been chasing it even longer before they established this dedicated listening department.

"The signal density seems to be higher than before..." The colleague on the side said to himself - what Bud heard has now been shared with everyone in the room, "These shocks seem to have become very Intensive..."

"This has never happened before..." Bud frowned, "Aren't these signals constant?"

"Who knows?" The colleague shook his head, looking at the holographic projection in the center of the room, "Wait, the picture seems to be transformed."

Almost everyone's attention fell on the large magic net terminal in the monitoring center. On the projected holographic screen, some lines were emerging and quickly connected to form a pattern—this was derived from Ms. Bertila's Decoding technology has now been widely used in the eighteen listening stations in the empire, from the cold North Port to the imperial capital in the south, from the Paramer Observatory to the main hub of Ten Forest City, no matter which listening station received the signal , it will be decoded and processed by this special "dot matrix drawing", and transformed into a plane pattern that seems to have some meaning.

This large-scale monitoring operation has been carried out so far. Although Bud and his colleagues (including colleagues in various parts of the empire) have not gained much, they have successfully captured the signal several times and drew more than ten simple images. "Decoding Graphics".

Without exception, they are all the most basic geometric patterns, and even the content is the same every time. There is no profound mystery in those simple points and lines, and even children can easily draw them on paper— — No one knows why these mysterious signals use such complicated methods to transmit some simple geometric figures, and Bard's colleagues gave them a very apt name: "urchin graffiti".

"Today's 'Naughty Boy Graffiti' seems to be very stable..." The picture in the holographic projection is still going on, and several geometric patterns have been clearly presented, and the colleagues on the side muttered softly, "The signal strength has not been obvious yet. Is it because we have replaced the main antenna crystal plate?"

"Very likely," another listener said casually while paying attention to the parameters of the equipment, "The raw materials for these antenna crystal plates come from the Ogulei Tribal State, the crystal mines produced by the Ancestor Peak and the original crystal dust from the Ash Mountain Mine The quality is much better.”

"The crystal mines from the Ancestral Peak? Hey, no wonder—I remember that the crystal mines from the Ancestral Peak before the trade line was opened up were top-level spell-casting materials, things that ordinary mages couldn't usually buy..."

The colleagues beside him were discussing in low voices about international trade, crystal mines, spellcasters and market changes, but everyone's attention was still focused on the lines that were constantly being refreshed, and Bud was engrossed in watching the holographic projection He has already seen those extremely regular squares, triangles, circles and hexagons. In the past monitoring records, this is already the limit of the amount of information recorded by the working group——

But the transmission of the signal continues, and more patterns continue to be drawn.

When a continuously spreading spiral curve appeared on the screen, the room became very quiet, everyone stopped their meaningless conversation, and more than a dozen pairs of eyes were fixed on the screen.

When a group of dots arranged in a specific grouping manner appeared on the screen, Bud heard someone beside him break the silence in a low voice: "We'd better...report this matter immediately."

……

The ubiquitous woody fragrance wafted into Belsetia's nostrils, and this refreshing aura made the Silver Queen unable to help but relax.

After arranging for Elaine to rest somewhere else, she, Gawain and Bertila stepped into a hall located inside the canopy of the giant tree.

Here, there are elegantly growing branches supporting the dome made of overlapping green leaves. The light-colored wooden columns fit the nearby walls like a slightly curved skeleton, and the flower vines are wrapped between the pillars and the beams of the roof, emitting a faint Mycelia or vines hang down from it, bringing bright but not dazzling light, further soothing the spirit of every visitor who steps here.

"This is my living room," Bertila's figure moved forward surrounded by a clump of vines, "General Margarita suggested that I open up a place that can be used to receive guests normally, instead of bringing people Take it to a deep biochemical lab or a biomass factory—although I still insist that the splitter tanks and biomass chambers I designed with my own hands are cute."

Belsetia didn't pay attention to what the other party said in the second half of the sentence, she just looked at the place in surprise, which obviously exceeded her initial expectations - she came to a curved open space at the end of the hall, a little He looked curiously at the layered green leaves in front of him: "The leaves here seem to be different in color from other places?"

"This is my balcony." Bertila said beside her, and as her words fell, the layer upon layer of leaves suddenly swayed and rose upward like a curtain—an arc A wide opening in the shape of a shape appeared in front of Belsetia, and the bright sunlight instantly poured into the hall. In the wide field of vision, a small half of the Solin Plain and the simple and elegant tower of Solin Fort appeared in front of her eyes.

"Sometimes I will invite General Margarita or others to come here to look at the scenery, but more often I will test the photosynthesis efficiency of different leaves here, which is one of the best areas for the canopy to receive light." Bertila continued.

"It's so beautiful..." Belsetia came to the edge of the open terrace and couldn't help taking a deep breath, then she turned her head to look at Bertila, and finally said what she always wanted to say, "You really changed A lot... no, it's almost impossible to describe it as 'change'..."

"All of us have changed a lot, for better or for worse," Bertila quietly looked at the grown-up Silver Queen. After a few seconds of silence, she suddenly asked, "In the hallway of the Saints Is there a portrait of me?"

The Silver Queen nodded: "It has been hanging there."

"Take it off," Bertila said softly, "A dark cultist shouldn't continue to occupy that position."

The Silver Queen stared into Bertila's eyes, she was not surprised at all, but she still shook her head: "...I guessed what you would say, but there has never been a precedent for removing the portraits of saints in the corridor of saints— —Perhaps you think that you have lost the qualification to participate in it, but your past achievements have not yet reached the point of being completely denied. For the silver elves, 700 years is too short."

"How long is that short time?"

"Let's wait until this giant tree withers," the Silver Queen said calmly. "At that time, we will be able to determine where Saint Bertila's life has gone."

Bertila stared at the Silver Queen for a while before turning her eyes to the distance: "...You elves are really a group of stubborn creatures."

"We are just used to thinking in a larger time span, and if you continue to survive, you will understand our way of thinking sooner or later," Belsetia chuckled suddenly, and then continued Turn around, "Compared to this, since we have talked about the death of all things, we have some questions to confirm with you."

Bertila turned her head, and her eyes lingered on Gawain and Belsetia for a moment: "Is it about the group of believers in the wasteland?"

Gao Wen was a little surprised: "How did you guess that?"

Bertila spread her hands: "It's related to the death of all things, and it can still show you such a headache. I can't think of any other topics."

"It does have something to do with them," Gawain nodded immediately, and then told the other party in detail the information he had obtained from Veronica, "Recently we confirmed one thing, those believers are not only still active in the wasteland , and they seem to be playing with the remaining energy in the Deep Blue Well, and even..."

Listening to Gawain's narration, although Bertila's expression didn't change much, the aura exuding from her body gradually became dignified. She waved her hands behind her, and the layers of leaves on the balcony closed again, blocking the In the bright sunlight outside, a crack suddenly opened in the floor not far away, and a magical device with a strange shape rose from it.

It looks like a magic net terminal, but its base is wrapped with many vines, and some extremely thin fibrous substances extend from the gap between the projection crystal and the rune frame. These special structures make the whole magic net terminal It looks weird as if it was parasitized by living things—but this is not the result of "parasitism", but the improvement made by Beltira himself to the distributed magic net terminal, which helps her directly control the terminal. The magic device can even connect her mind directly with the machine.

The next second, the terminal was activated, and the holographic projection clearly showed the picture outlined in Bertila's mind.

A tall creature that looks like a dry and twisted old tree appears on the screen. If you look carefully, there are distorted and weird human faces on the surface of the "old tree", and there are tumor-like and vascular growths. Things were covered between "his" branches and withered yellow leaves, and the roots of the ancient tree were wriggling on the ground, somewhat similar to the structure of Bertila's lower body, but even more distorted and disturbing.

The moment he saw these things, Gao Wen frowned subconsciously: "This is..."

"These are the Doomsday Cultists operating within the Great Wall, theoretically... our former compatriots."

"Incredibly mutated limbs..." Belsetia couldn't help exclaiming, "This seems to be completely out of the scope of human beings! They...how did they survive?"

"It is precisely because of this posture that they can survive in the harsh environment of the Gondor wasteland," Bertila said lightly, "This posture is to adapt to the terrible environment in the wasteland. Due to the body mutation caused by the radiation of mana energy, those mutated dark believers took the initiative to carry out adaptive mutation, a process they called 'upgrade evolution', and finally stabilized like this."

"You just mentioned 'theoretically former compatriots'," Gawain noticed the words Bertila used just now, "It seems that the sect of the end of all things is not so united—and these are located in the wasteland of Gondor. believers and you 'outside believers' have big differences?"

"Until the eve of the completion of the False God's Body, we believers living outside the wall still thought that the sect was united, but now that I think about it, this is just our wishful thinking," Berti pulled the corner of his mouth, as if thinking Showing a mocking smile, "Brother Gawain, I remember I once told you something about the believers of death in the wall - for hundreds of years, they have been living in the wasteland of Gondor. We have been working with them for such a long time, and have maintained With 'perfect tacit understanding', this directly leads us to ignore some things.

"If there is such a group of 'people' who no longer have the physical structure of human beings, do not have the social organization of human beings, live in an environment that human beings cannot survive and understand, and deal with the relationship with the surrounding environment in a non-human way, it will be This went on for a full seven centuries - how likely are they to maintain their 'human' essence?

"In this case, how likely are they to still identify with their own human identity and see those of us who have always lived in the safe zone outside the wall as their fellow confidantes?"

As Bertila said, he looked down at his limbs that were no longer human, and shook his head lightly: "After becoming like this, I have confirmed this point even more: even I need to use the device to create auxiliary thinking organs. If there is a way to maintain their personality cognition, then those believers who live in the wasteland of Gondor all the year round... I am afraid that they have ceased to be 'human beings' long, long ago."

"So it's almost as I expected, you actually don't know what those 'citizens' living in the wasteland are planning." Gawain shook his head, "You think that the sect is carrying out a great salvation plan, But in fact, for the group of believers in the wasteland, your plan doesn't have much to do with them..."

"But if it really has nothing to do with it, why did they cooperate with us in acting for 700 years?" Bertila looked at Gao Wen, with a stiff smile on his puppet-like delicate but lifeless face, "They Living in the wasteland, and have successfully adapted to the environment there, this is an invincible security state, outsiders can't threaten them, so why do they obediently cooperate with the orders from the Great Master of Darkness, pretending to be Pretend to be loyal to the sect forever and pretend to be still dedicating energy to a great cause? Are you worried about being exposed? Obviously not, they should not care about us."

Chapter 1128 Mathematics

Beltera's words caused Gawain and Belsetia to fall into thinking at the same time, it was like a flash of light, which suddenly led Gawain to notice some details that he hadn't noticed before——

If those cultists in the depths of the wasteland are no longer "human beings", and they no longer pay attention to the "great plan" carried out by compatriots outside the wasteland, and no longer pay attention to the outside world, then why should they cooperate? "outside church" actions?And since they have been cooperating with the actions of external churches for 700 years, it means...

"They've been providing us with data, and even helping us infiltrate Sentinel Tower, acting like loyal colleagues for centuries, making us ignore lurking anomalies and never consider Do such a group of 'siblings' with physical and mental mutations still have values ​​similar to ours?" Bertila's voice sounded from the side, "until the body of the false god lost control, everything was wiped out, the church outside the wall collapsed, and I finally If I have the opportunity to stand here, calm down and think about something without being disturbed, I will have the opportunity to see the problems here..."

"They are not helping you, they are only helping themselves," Gao Wen said in a deep voice, "The only reason they have cooperated with you for so many years is that this 'cooperation' is beneficial to them, or that you have something worth using Place... recall carefully, what in your series of plans may be used by those cultists deep in the wasteland, this may help us figure out their purpose."

"There are too many, biochemical engineering, environmental modification, divine factor, divine evil... We have too many plans, each of which may be useful to them," Bertila said in thought, "The wasteland There are completely different environments inside and outside, which means that many experiments can only be carried out on one side, and every research conducted by us and them is an extremely valuable source of information for the other party..."

"Then let's assume that all of this is their purpose," Belsetia broke the silence, "Ms. Bertira, the plans you mentioned just now should all be actually operated by you 'outside believers'. The data is shared with the 'Inner Cultists' inside the barrier, right? What all these projects have in common is that they are all related to the survival and transformation of living organisms in the environment..."

"What did you think of?" Gao Wen immediately looked at the Silver Queen, his expression became serious.

"Let's put technology aside for the time being—if those cultists living inside the Great Wall are regarded as a group of 'new species', what do you think this new species wants most now?"

"New species? What do you want most?" Gao Wen frowned subconsciously. Belsetia's words gave him some new thoughts. " and other inertial thinking, when the question returned to the simplest premise, he suddenly thought of something, "Wait, you mean what they want is actually a living environment..."

"The living environment, the simple but dangerous answer," Belsetia nodded slowly, "The wasteland of Gondor is a survivable land for them, but this habitat may not be so comfortable to live in now. ——The central area of ​​the wasteland is the ruins of the Deep Blue Well controlled by the Iron Man Corps, and the peripheral area is the warning zone under the monitoring of the Sentinel Tower. They can only carry out limited activities in some areas between the two, so...they Probably not happy with the situation.”

Gawain's eyes became deep and serious. At this moment, he thought about a lot of things, while Bertila, who was not far from him, silently turned his head and glanced at the magic net terminal. The mutant treant projected above the terminal The image was slowly rotating in mid-air, those distorted limbs and plausible human faces contained inhuman minds deep inside, after staring for a long time, the former dark female headmaster sighed softly, as if talking to herself Quote: "We've strayed too far..."

Gawain was awakened from his contemplation by this sentence, but just as he raised his head to say something, he saw Bertila suddenly appearing as if she was listening attentively. Two seconds later, she stopped listening, but her tone became very strange. Seriously: "The monitoring team just sent an emergency contact. They captured some... very special information. We'd better go to the monitoring center to see for ourselves."

"Monitoring team?" Gao Wen quickly realized that what the other party was referring to was the long-term monitoring project that captured "mysterious signals" at the major magic network hubs, and his expression immediately changed—according to Bertila's personality, if it were not the case It's really a bit special, she won't be so urgent, "Okay, let's go now."

Belsetia next to her was taken aback by the sudden change in the situation, she cast a curious look at Gao Wen: "What are you talking about?"

"Remember what we talked about in the square just now?" Gawain glanced at the Silver Queen, "That antenna device—just right, now I can directly take you to see what this 'monitoring' project is doing. What."

While talking, there was a "click" sound of the wooden structure moving and deforming in the living room, which was "grown" by the giant Sorin tree, and the wall at the other end of the living room was slowly opened, revealing the pipe-like structure inside. The structure and a transportation device with seats that are stopping in the pipeline, Bertila said as he walked there: "We can go to the monitoring center through the vascular channel, which is a little faster than the outside channel."

Gawain led Belsetia towards the transportation pipeline while looking up at Bertira in surprise: "You still built a pipeline transportation system within yourself?"

"It was General Margarita's suggestion to me. The giant tree of Sorin is huge, and there are many facilities in it arranged in a complex three-dimensional arrangement. Conventional elevators or external corridors cannot meet the commuting pressure of all facilities, so Margarita The general advised me to design a 'chute' that would allow for the quick transfer of people and supplies between facilities - her inspiration seems to have come from farm barns in the South, where farmers would use similar chutes to place The dried grains are sent directly to the warehouse..."

Gao Wen listened in a daze. He was surprised that so many creative things were happening in fields he didn't know about. He was surprised and relieved by this. He thought about the application of such things in other factories. The foreground, and compared it with similar things on the earth, and then saw Beltira stop at the entrance of the pipeline, as if he had no intention of going in.

He was a little surprised: "Aren't you going with us?"

"I will re-create an 'incarnation' waiting for you at the exit," Bertila said, and at the same time, the flower vines behind him like a cloak swayed gently to show his existence, "Look, the avatars of me The ability to move is actually limited, and there is no way to take a 'vehicle'—these vines do not allow the avatar to quickly transfer over long distances."

So Belterra is wired?

Gao Wen couldn't help making some weird comments in his heart, and then asked unbearably curiously: "I'm suddenly a little curious, what would happen if these vines were really cut off suddenly while you were maintaining this avatar?" Sample?"

"There will be a lifelike Bertila doll, made of wood," Bertila said expressionlessly. "She is essentially just a medium for communicating with people. After the nerve cord is severed, there will only be an empty shell left."

"...That's reasonable." Gao Wen's mouth twitched, that's all he could say.

Bertila looked at Gawain seriously: "Are you interested in this kind of doll? If you want, I can cut one out for you - unlike other wooden products, she is easy to maintain, you just need to Soak her in the frost grass potion for two hours, take it out and dry it, and it can be preserved for at least half a century."

"No, thank you." Realizing that the topic might take an unexpected direction, Gawain quickly waved his hands, pulled Bersetia into the transport device in the pipeline, Bersetia didn't say anything, just kept Standing on the spot with a numb look, then the protective shell of the pipeline was smoothly closed, and the soft lights were lit up in the cockpit at the same time.

Belsetia watched all this calmly throughout the whole process. As the Silver Queen, she has seen many things in her long life. In most cases, she can maintain this indifferent and calm posture, although the "Wanderer" Both her personal character in private and Bertila's current appearance exceeded her expectations, but these things are not bad things.

It's just that after the traffic cockpit in the pipeline started to slide, she still couldn't help asking: "Is it really okay to take me directly to the 'monitoring center'? It sounds like you just achieved something huge—this kind of Doesn't it involve confidentiality?"

"It does have a certain level of secrecy, but as I said on the square before, the project itself is open source to neighboring countries, and to the Silver Empire... will be open source," Gao Wen explained, "the fact We have even sent a technical team to actively contact the Holy Dragon Principality and the Typhon Empire in order to establish a larger-scale, data-communicating monitoring network..."

The Silver Queen couldn't help but widen her eyes in astonishment. She had indeed heard Gao Wen say that this "monitoring" project was open to neighboring countries, but she didn't expect it to be open to such an extent. The technical exchange between the Cecil Empire and the Silver Empire is a joint action at the technical level that has never appeared in the mortal kingdoms before, which made her unable to help asking: "Why do we have to do this to this extent?" ?What the hell are you monitoring, so that you need to...across an entire continent to do it?"

Gawain looked into Belsetia's eyes. Under the light that flashed quickly, the Silver Queen's eyes were full of curiosity.

"We are tracking a signal, the source is unknown, the meaning is unknown, and the content of the analysis is also vague, but it can be confirmed that it is a man-made signal, and I think it...may bring us something that can subvert everyone's three views. "Gao Wen said slowly, "We have been tracking it for more than two years, and recently more and more data have made experts realize one thing: only the information collected from the magic web hub in Cecil Efficiency, it is impossible to complete the tracking and locking of this signal."

Belsetia's eyes widened, but before she wanted to say something, a slight shaking came suddenly, followed by the sound of the pipe casing opening.

As Bertila said - this pipeline transportation system is indeed very convenient.

In the brightly lit monitoring center, the fluctuations of the mysterious signal are still echoing in the equipment, the paper tapes and cardboards used to record the signal waveform and images have been piled up on the recording table, and the printer is continuously outputting more continuous paper to record the Every subtle change in the signal, and in the holographic projection located in the center of the room, a large-scale geometric pattern and dot matrix are still expanding in scale.

Bard's eyes were fixed on the picture, and he was awakened from his contemplation until a voice suddenly came from beside his ears: "Your Majesty is here!" "Ms. Bertila is here too!" "It's the Queen... the Silver Queen... ..."

Bud quickly raised his head, and saw three figures coming from the exit of the commuter pipeline, but before someone saluted, Gawain, the leader, waved his hand to stop them.

"Go back to work," Gao Wen's voice sounded in the room, "Just come over and the person in charge of the monitoring channel—who caught this signal?"

Bud immediately got up and left his post to come to Gawain. After saluting, Gawain looked at the familiar man in surprise: "Is that you?"

"Yes, Your Majesty," Bud said with his head bowed, "I'm in charge of the monitoring team."

"Very good, well done," Gawain smiled, nodded, and then his eyes fell on the holographic projection in the center of the room, "What's the situation now?"

"The transmission of the signal is still going on, and the stability is far better than before. So far, there have been no interruptions or unresolvable clutter," Bard said immediately, "According to the decoding method created by Ms. Bertila, we have successfully output these graphics. ——The graphics are clear and regular, which shows that the decoding idea is correct, but in terms of content..."

Gawain stared at the content presented in the projection, his eyes had a seriousness that no one else had seen before.

He saw the basic geometric shapes neatly arranged in the first row, including very regular squares, triangles, circles and polygons.

He saw smooth curves beginning to appear in subsequent patterns, lines that spiraled open, closed intersecting geometries.

A dot matrix grouped according to the increasing law, a coordinate system with a horizontal axis and a vertical axis, with undulating dots distributed on it.

The discussions among the people in the room were very low. The most obvious sounds came from the magical machines running everywhere. The equipment that output the printing paper made a rattling sound. The printing paper stored in the paper bin was exhausted. The staff hurried forward and replaced with new printing paper.

"Your Majesty, look at these contents..." Bud whispered aside, "These things seem to be..."

"It's mathematics." Gao Wen finally exhaled softly, and his heartbeat gradually calmed down in a deep breath.

Bud was silent for a moment, and said in a low voice: "...You really think so."