The Mighty Dragons Are Dead-Chapter 811 - 0808: Sky Canal (Third Update, Celebrating 10,000 Coins Reward)
Chapter 811 -0808: Sky Canal (Third Update, Celebrating 10,000 Coins Reward)
This chapter is a special update for the “My Horse Feeding Sheep” 10,000 reward.
After precise positioning with the sextant, Ach picked up his pen and easily drew a rough map of the Flame Islands on his notebook.
The Flame Islands were not the kind where the islands were very scattered, covering a large area of the sea. They looked like the kind of fragmented oracle bone script preserved in museums, where a complete turtle shell had broken into many pieces and then pieced together—of course, Liszt would prefer to call it a broken shell.
The prestige of a turtle shell was too low, but calling it a shell immediately elevated its status.
The shell also resembled an elliptical leaf, pointed at both ends and round in the middle, with the whole taking a northeast-southwest orientation. Three large islands at the northeast corner, each nearly the size of Iron Hoof Island according to Ach’s depiction; the middle was the vast Flame Island, with Whirlpool Mountain located at the east-central part of Flame Island.
The southwest corner was made up of four large islands, forming the edge of the shell and enclosing an inland sea together with Flame Island.
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Of course, this was just a rough map; many areas were Ach’s estimations and had not been precisely located, nor had the island’s area and the sea area been calculated. To complete the mapping task of the Smoke Mission and to find the lost Formless Dragon would require a busy and extended period.
In any case.
The islands were called the Flame Islands, and the surrounding sea could not continue to be called the Sea of Azure Waves. Liszt simply gave it the name of the Shell Sea.
Every coastal sea area ruled by the Flame Country in the future would be called the Shell Sea.
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“Brother, Whirlpool Mountain is located deep inland on Flame Island, whether heading north, south, or east, there’s a distance of over five hundred kilometers,” Ach said. He was good at math, proficiently mastering the addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and squaring that Liszt taught him, along with other elementary knowledge.
However, Liszt had long forgotten advanced mathematics; he might not even be able to solve a quadratic equation, let alone functions like cos, sin, and powers.
But he did remember quite a few formulas for calculating area—a rectangle was “length” times “width”, a parallelogram required “drawing a height” before multiplying by the “base”, a triangle was “drawing a height” times the “base” then halved, the area of a trapezoid was “drawing a height” times the “length of the top and bottom sides” then halved, and the area of a circle was π times the square of the “radius”.
Besides.
There were also areas of abstract shapes that required cutting and filling to make them approximate rectangles, triangles, etc.; or by drawing grid lines, calculating the area of the shape within the grid, and then adding them up.
After he passed these formulas to Ach, Ach immediately expanded on them, becoming important tools for researching Magic Arrays and astronomical geography. Thus, Ach could easily calculate the distance from Whirlpool Mountain to the seashore, concluding that each route would be no less than five hundred kilometers.
“Five hundred kilometers is manageable. If Leo flies at full speed, it’ll take about three or four hours to get to the seashore,” Liszt said, doing some quick mental calculations.
But given the rare opportunity to come to the Flame Islands, Liszt did not plan to go back immediately; he wanted to first map out the island areas of the Flame Islands.
Completing the Smoke Mission was more important.
It concerned the whereabouts of an old friend, the Formless Dragon—with the Smoked Grass feast always carried with him, waiting for the Formless Dragon to come for dinner, and by the way, to consume the Bewildering Dragon Mind Fruit.
Leo landed, chewing contentedly on the Magic Potion and Auxiliary Medicine that Liszt had fed it.
Liszt, on the other hand, discussed with Ach his plans for building Flame City: “The city must be built, and the Great Whirlpool Magic Teleportation Matrix must be developed. The current problem is that there is considerable danger entering and exiting the Great Whirlpool, and many fragile items cannot be kept intact.”
“We can set up a water curtain magic array at the Whirlpool Entrance to slow down the ships crossing the Great Whirlpool,”
“But even if the ships slow down, they will still fall to the mountain base.”
Ach paced seriously, “I’ve heard my brother tell the story of a canal being opened between two great seas. With differing sea levels, ships can pass through by adjusting different valves to control the water flow.” The canal story she referred to was actually the Panama Canal, casually mentioned by Liszt in his free time.
However, Liszt was clearly mistaken; the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean are at the same level.
It’s due to geological constraints that prevent direct excavation. The Panama Canal relies on the height difference of the rivers, elevating before descending ships so that they can pass through. China’s Three Gorges Dam follows a similar lock-based navigation method. In fact, the world’s earliest lock-style canal was China’s ancient Spirit Canal.
Unaware of his own blunder, Liszt nodded and said, “Correct, that canal operates by adjusting the sluice gates to manage water flow, facilitating step-by-step navigation. So you mean to build such a canal on top of Whirlpool Mountain? I’m afraid that’s not possible; a three-thousand-meter height difference makes canal excavation unfeasible.”
“But magic can do it. Ach can design a magic array for water columns that can rise and fall. Starting from the Whirlpool Entrance and relying on the mountain’s terrain, about thirty magic arrays with a vertical drop of a hundred meters each would make the navigation possible.”
“Even so, the number of resources consumed would probably be astronomical.”
“Once Ach masters the Ice Attribute, I’ll delve into the property changes of the Earth Attribute. By then, using Earth System Magic to completely transform the mountain, we can reduce resource loss!” Ach said ambitiously.
She had read the magic books that Kenley Truth had brought from the Steel Ridge Kingdom, which recorded a few scattered magic masterpieces from the time of the Moon Empire.
It is said that there was a “Sky Canal” stretching from the capital of the Moon Empire all the way to the western frontiers, supported entirely by magic arrays. However, the Sky Canal had long been obliterated in the river of history, and many magicians had attempted to verify the existence of the Sky Canal’s remnants, but none had been found yet.
Therefore, Ach hoped to design a low-grade imitation of the “Sky Canal” for Whirlpool Mountain.
Being an Archmage herself, if ancient Archmages could achieve it, why couldn’t modern Archmages? The magic books she had read about the Ancient Moon Empire depicted whimsical tales that broke free from the mold. It made her realize that for magicians, the only limit was imagination.
Unfortunately, the golden age of magic civilization no longer existed.
Liszt was not as optimistic. With the Magic Web’s decline, it was difficult for magic arrays to draw Magic Power from it, and they required all sorts of precious magic materials to be set up.
This kind of resource expenditure was definitely astronomical. Right now, even maintaining his two dragons was burdensome, let alone wishing he could plunder a few Pioneer Mandates each year.
To spend more resources on constructing a canal seemed quite unrealistic.
However, he didn’t want to dampen Ach’s spirits, “Then let’s wait for you to complete the Elementalization of the Earth Attribute and switch to it soon. Then we can further develop the Great Whirlpool Magic Teleportation Gate… For now, think of a way to use the Great Whirlpool to transport resources and start developing this vast archipelago as soon as possible.”
Ach wasn’t one to aim too high, “Brother, can we do this: build many ships like the Flame Number, carefully reinforce them, and then fill them with resources and people before sending them into the Great Whirlpool. Ach can go through first and use magic to catch the big ships at the Whirlpool Entrance, then set them aside to unload?”
“So you’re suggesting using the Flame Number as a one-time transport vessel?”
“Yep.”
“It still seems a bit wasteful, but it indeed saves more trouble compared to shipping resources across the sea. However, it would often trouble you and me.”
“Hehe, as long as brother doesn’t find it too tiring, Ach is really looking forward to crossing the Great Whirlpool again and studying the Magic Teleportation Array. It might not be long before Ach can set up a new array, laying out a Teleportation Array from Black Horse Island to Flame Island!”
Liszt laughed. All this talk about “Sky Canals” was unreliable; this was the best plan, “I look forward to it.”
