Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 913 - 912: The Chill of Autumn

The night is deep, yet there are no stars visible in the sky. Only a thin mist shrouds the entire city, making this vast imperial capital seem ethereal and elusive.

The weather has cooled down. Even though frost month is still some time away, fog has descended early upon the plains of Aldernon, which is most prone to fog. In the past week, there were foggy days on five out of ten days—and based on the climate patterns of previous years, the frequency of fog over the next half month to a month in the plains will increase.

Daniel donned a coat and left his room. He walked through the dark corridors of the mansion and leisurely arrived at the balcony, gazing at the streets of Aldernon submerged in mist from afar.

The bright glow of the Magic Crystal Street Lamps pierced the fog, outlining various silhouettes in the night. The darkness revealed the silhouettes of buildings, and many windows were illuminated. Soldiers patrolling with dogs passed by the nearby alleys, leaving a gradually lengthening shadow alongside the street lamps.

This is the wealthy district, where both infrastructure and security are the best in the entire city. In the adjacent blocks of commoners, the number of security soldiers is halved, and the street lamps are not as bright. As for the poverty-stricken areas... they are almost unchanged from a few years ago, at most they have a few more new-style street lamps, and some have already been vandalized by local gangs.

Nevertheless, ordinary people living in this city can still distinctly feel that it is slowly becoming more prosperous; the whole era is becoming more prosperous—those who have the opportunity to watch plays at the Magic Shadow Theater, buy imported foods and shoes, subscribe to fashionable magazines, feel this especially vividly.

Daniel has watched these changes being built up bit by bit.

The old mage gently rubbed his fingers, a near-transparent barrier enveloping him, creating a warm and cozy little space in the chilly autumn weather. He looked southwestward, seeing the bright lights shining deep within the night and mist, from which faint bustling sounds faintly drifted.

There is the street where the Vanarlion Salon is located, an "upper world" built at great expense by the visionary and insightful Earl Vanarlion. There are casinos, theaters, shops, stock exchanges, and the salon club at its core. The wealthy of Aldernon, including the so-called "new citizen class," have now treated it as their earthly heaven in this prosperous era, indulging in novel social activities themed around wealth comparison and refined living as a way of demonstrating their elegance, and they are addicted to it without tire. From the entrance to the exit of the Vanarlion Salon street, wealthy citizens and minor aristocrats alike can find places where they can spend lavishly, indeed quite amazing.

And, merely a block away from that dazzling scene are the impoverished districts of Aldernon, where darkness swallows up the night like it’s disappeared altogether. Occasionally, the silhouettes of buildings emerge from the gloom, eerily resembling specters.

"Vanarlion Salon" may indeed be considered, in some ways, a miniaturized version of Aldernon’s rapidly expanding "New Wealth Group." But Daniel is uninterested in it and has always prohibited his apprentices from approaching places of that sort.

"Just poor imitation."

In the night, the old mage muttered to himself, then stepped back to leave the balcony, repeatedly blown by the chilly autumn wind.

...

The morning of the next day, Gawain didn’t, as usual, appear at the Administrative Office or handle affairs in his study. Instead, he went directly to the Magic Guide Technology Research Institute, where Daniel and Rebecca were already waiting in advance.

In a vast laboratory, various devices for controlling the magic symbol system were installed on all four walls of the room. In the center of the room, there was only a single broad metal platform without complex experimental instruments, just a set of adjusted crystal projection devices. Above the projection device, a pale blue, semi-transparent schematic floated, briefly marking the Cecil Empire’s territorial outline.

"Ancestor!" As soon as Gawain appeared, Rebecca enthusiastically greeted him first, "You’re finally here!"

"Already such an adult—behave with more composure." Gawain helplessly glanced at his great-great-granddaughter, always so eager. Although knowing lecturing was useless, he still couldn’t help but remind her.

Compared with their first meeting five years ago, the once slightly inexperienced "unconventional viscountess" has already matured, at least outwardly, into a young lady who appears grown up. However, her personality has hardly changed, which seems to worry Aunt Heidi. Gawain, on the other hand, finds this may not necessarily be a bad thing—after all, he’s very likely to posthumously name this silly girl as queen...

Rebecca shrank her neck and muttered in response, unsure to what extent she listened to Gawain’s words, but he didn’t care much. Kamel broke the silence: "Your Majesty, we have already prepared the demonstration diagram."

Gawain nodded, arriving beside the metal platform in the center of the room. His eyes glanced over the magic projection suspended mid-air. In his sight, the location markings of Cecil Castle, Sherlin City, Tamdor, Sorinburg, St. Soniel, Bitter Winter Castle, and other cities were clearly visible. Bright lines connected the cities, and around the lines, individual light spots, dimly lit, could be seen.

"These light spots represent the currently completed Magic Web nodes. The lines are the communication lines currently in use—other than the southern borders, the communication between cities is basically single-lined. The triangle beside these hub cities represents construction progress; blue for completed, red for nearing completion..."

Kamel floated beside the holographic projection, explaining the annotations on the image to Gawain, constantly adjusting the projection device, changing the angle of the image to reveal various details.

This made Gawain have to express his admiration for the convenience of magic, and he quickly focused his attention on the last red triangle on the schematic.

"Currently, only the node at Bitter Winter Castle has yet to be completed..." he said softly.

Kamel nodded: "Yes, the northern parts of the Dark Mountain Range have a cold climate; with construction starting later than other areas by a month due to mountain terrain that complicates the work, the progress has been the slowest. However, under High Chancellor Victoria’s call, many local Transcendents have directly invested themselves in frontline construction. In the mountainous areas where large engineering machinery cannot enter, construction is conducted by Mages whose efficiency rivals that of machines. Thus, all nodes have caught up with the schedule, and the main hub of Bitter Winter Castle will be completed within a week."

"Very good..." Gawain exhaled deeply, finally feeling a rare moment of relief, "this way, the empire’s Magic Web can finally connect, becoming a genuine ’web’..."

Kamel’s buzzing voice also carried a hint of sentiment: "Indeed, Your Majesty."

Gawain didn’t speak again for a moment, just gazed somewhat absentmindedly at the flickering points and lines in the holographic projection, feeling restless.

The empire-wide integration of the Magic Web... this is one of his most ambitious plans, and so far, it’s the longest-running, most labor-intensive, resource-demanding, and far-reaching plan.

Each of those glowing points in the projection is a Magic Obelisk or Node Tower, some having begun as early as the establishment of the Empire, or even before it, with related engineering projects already launched.

Some were initially built by teams dispatched from the Cecil Principality in various locations; some were constructed by local aristocrats during the principality’s technology export, later standardized and upgraded; some have been newly built under the guidance of the Empire High Council over the last couple of years. Large and small nodes are distributed in the empire’s main cities and transport hubs, extending outwards from these as baselines, aiming to cover the "primary urban zone" as much as possible, thereby forming a preliminary "network".

Separate "regional Magic Webs" and Magic Obelisks don’t amount to a true magic "web"; they are merely small-scale energy stations and regional communication points. It is only by interconnecting them all that Gawain’s envisioned "Empire Magic Web" truly becomes a "web", enabling rapid transmission of directives from the Supreme Administration Office and feedback from various locations across the realm. The entire Cecil’s energy supply will be assured, and the wilderness between the cities and cities will be protected. Where there is a Magic Web, there is energy, information, security, and productivity, all prerequisites for further advancement of this nation.

And this ambitious plan began when Cecil was still just a principality, with Gawain laying this network over roughly three years — and that’s under the convenience of magical powers and pre-existing foundational technologies in this world.

To enable the operations of this vast network, one of the most critical facilities is the "main hub" devices located in important cities throughout the empire.

These are enormous Magic Crystal Arrays, installed on customized towers (or certain trees), with vast coverage areas. Yet wide-ranging coverage is just one aspect of their function; their greater role is in coordinating, balancing all subordinate hubs connected to them, and controlling lower-level basic nodes through them. Now Gawain’s "empire-wide Magic Web integration" plan’s final step awaits these main hubs to come online.

—— Currently, the empire’s major cities rely on a series of relay towers to maintain a linear connection, which clearly isn’t enough. From capacity to risk resistance to actual efficiency, it completely falls short of Gawain’s needs.

"The completion of the Magic Web integration signifies the first phase of this project is truly concluded," he slowly spoke after a long silence, "Next will be continuing to increase the quantity of basic nodes and secondary hubs across all regions..."

"More?" Rebecca couldn’t help but exclaim in surprise from beside him, "I feel the coverage area is already quite extensive..."

"Not enough, far from enough," Gawain shook his head, his gaze never leaving those points and lines, "It’s not even halfway."

His words startled Rebecca, yet they were entirely serious — the current empire-wide established Magic Web node scale, seen through the lens of people today, might already appear as an unimaginably colossal entity. However, Gawain knows that within a mere three years, what he established is just a "basic framework"; those seemingly vast node-covered areas in fact only include major cities and large-scale towns, with lower-level villages or more distant settlements still out of reach.

Nonetheless, in the eyes of many from this era, this degree of Magic Web far surpasses imagination — allowing every town to wield magical powers at any time, possess strategic-level barriers and instant communication, modernized lighting and Mage technology-based entertainment and work conditions is sufficient. As for extending the Magic Web to lower-level villages, or even remote mountain wilderness... they simply fail to grasp its necessity.

This reminded Gawain of a remark he often heard in his past life: Village Networks.

Village Networks... this is indeed a grand endeavor.

Gawain breathed out softly, gradually speaking: "Continue extending, cover every village, every inhabited area. This is our next objective; this might take several more three-year periods, but it’s absolutely necessary."

Rebecca blinked, adept in the technical field and not dull in other areas, yet she still couldn’t ponder far beyond the current era as Gawain did, though it didn’t hinder her from revealing a radiant smile, nodding energetically: "You’re certainly right! Let’s do it then."

Gawain couldn’t help but grin bitterly at this naive child.

This kid... being a viscountess is already stretching her capabilities, inheriting the throne... let’s just posthumously award it.

On the other hand, Kamel seemingly grasped Gawain’s intent, his eyes infused with arcane light sweeping across the entire holographic projection map, then nodding subtly: "Maximizing dissemination, extending coverage to... holds immense significance for the country’s future, for every individual on this land."

Speaking thus, this Master Mage from a thousand years ago suddenly chuckled self-deprecatingly, shaking his head: "If the Gondor Empire hadn’t overly relied on the Well of Deep Blue back then, if we had found a way to freely distribute magic power across the realm at that time... it wouldn’t have been that blowing up a single energy well destroyed everything. Even in the face of chaotic wave, humanity’s preserved civilization surely would’ve been more substantial than seven hundred years ago."

Gawain nodded gently, and then the room fell into silence.

Half a minute later, he broke the silence: "Once affairs here are concluded, summon Veronica and meet me at the Administrative Office."

...

Before noon, Kamel and Veronica together arrived at Gawain’s office in the Administrative Office.

Upon entering, they noticed Aunt Heidi and Amber were also present.

"Take a seat," Gawain nodded to the two ancient Defiers, gesturing to the seats near the desk, "I’ve brought you here because I’ve received some information concerning Typhon — I now suspect it may have some connection with gods."