Chapter 822: Chapter 821: A New Network Project

The flickering magic symbols dimmed one by one, and the buzzing crystal device began its cooling process. Emperor Rosetta Augustus opened his eyes, awakening from a state between reality and illusion.

He exhaled softly, feeling his mind relax, a sensation he had not experienced for some time, and then he left the magical device without any hesitation.

"If you feel mentally exhausted, you can rest a bit longer on this," Lady Windsor Maple said beside him, "Although it can’t heal the curse, it can at least ease your burden somewhat."

"Using soul anesthesia to relieve stress is effective, but long-term use will weaken one’s will," Rosetta said lightly, "This will be enough. Lady Maple, how are things?"

Windsor Maple looked at Rosetta with calm eyes and nodded slightly, "I tried to guide your soul and consciousness, and the mental pollution has indeed returned to normal levels, but there are no signs of external interference, basically ruling out the possibility of someone tampering with your mental world."

"...So the cause is not within myself..." Rosetta mused slightly, "Lady, what is your opinion?"

"As a scholar, I don’t make rash judgments without sufficient evidence, but I can share my thoughts. The curse afflicting the Augustus Clan is related to mental pollution left by the gods, and divine mental pollution inherently has the characteristic of transcending time and space, confusing reality, and is almost unaffected by mundane forces—recently, there have been unusual fluctuations in the curse affecting you, and since the cause is unrelated to your mental state, it indicates that something at the root of the curse has been disturbed, and what can disturb it must be of the same or similar magnitude of power..."

"Same or similar magnitude of power..." Rosetta frowned slightly, "Recently, there have been no anomalies in churches across the region, and it’s been a long time since any gods directly issued decrees in this world, even the upheaval in the Holy Light Church of the Cecil Empire did not affect Typhon..."

Saying this, he suddenly looked up, "Lady Maple, have you received any news lately?"

"The magic communication towers across the region have not reported any anomalies—however, the coverage of these towers is limited, and the mages at the lower levels may not accurately discern supernatural phenomena related to the gods, delaying much information that takes a long time to reach the imperial capital," Windsor Maple shook her head, "I will be monitoring this area of intelligence, and I will report to you immediately if anything arises."

"Hmm..." Rosetta nodded slightly, then said with a hint of regret, "Communication towers... It would be better if there were more communication towers or if their coverage was broader."

"The cost issues are truly challenging to resolve, and there aren’t enough mages to maintain those large facilities," Windsor Maple said with a tone of helplessness, "Actually, after completing the Imperial Avenue plan, especially after acquiring the Magic Train, the communication efficiency between the remote areas and the capital has improved significantly compared to before. Information that used to take almost a month to be sent from places like the west to the capital now only takes a few days, which is already a substantial improvement."

"Still not enough—remember the warning given by the Industrial Advisory Group? Factories calculate their production cycles in days or even hours. If fluctuations in raw materials from remote regions can’t be promptly communicated to the cities, it could cause an avalanche of losses within days, and the financial flows behind this need even more timely information transmission—machines have accelerated the pace of everything, yet Aldernon’s response and control ability over the southern and western areas are far from adequate."

"Those factory owners..." Windsor Maple instinctively frowned, her tone revealing a trace of disdain, "Your Majesty, forgive my bluntness, but they exaggerate the facts and attempt to emphasize their importance using ’specialized terminology’, when in fact, they just want you to loosen part of the control over the communication tower permissions, and to share the already scarce communication spell quotas from the Royal Mage Association."

"I can see that," Rosetta said calmly, "But at least part of what they say is true—especially with the rise of the Cecil Empire, our weaknesses are becoming fatal."

Cecil...

Hearing this word, which had recently appeared more and more frequently in the Empire Newspaper and various internal documents, Windsor Maple couldn’t help but grow serious in her expression.

She is an experienced mage but also an advisor to the Emperor, one of the "state officials" frequently in touch with imperial affairs and the various councilors, and of course, she is not ignorant of matters concerning the state of the empire. She knows what Emperor Rosetta is worried about and understands that his concern is not unfounded.

Without a rapidly rising Cecil, the Typhon Empire would not have many concerns, and no one would even realize that certain matters are worth worrying about—like the shortcoming of communication towers. Every Typhon citizen would believe that the empire’s abundant number of mages and the towers spread across important provinces are sufficient. Especially after the newly refurbished imperial roads across the country and new modes of transportation emerged, the improved efficiency in information transmission to cope with the current imperial situation is more than enough. No one would think they are inefficient; in fact, many would believe they are advanced enough, with no need for improvement within a century.

But right next door, there’s a rapidly rising Cecil—this fast-evolving "neighbor" has brought many "new things" to the Typhon people, such as Magic Guide Technology and competitive pressure.

Intelligence personnel risked their lives to bring back many valuable items, a significant portion of which includes descriptions of Cecil’s cutting-edge technology. These descriptions allowed Emperor Rosetta and the astute councilors to detect some of the empire’s shortcomings in advance.

This is perhaps the pressure brought by comparison.

"Their Magic Web Communication is developing rapidly. Even though it is all based on remote fast communication technology using communication spells, they have clearly solved the problems of cost and manpower—this is precisely the consistent advantage of Magic Guide Technology, and the Cecil people excel in this aspect," Windsor Maple said slowly, "We have always taken pride in our professional and massive mage teams, but clearly, the Cecil people have higher efficiency in using machines to replace these mages, at least in communication technology."

As the president of the Royal Mage Association, it was not easy for her to speak these words, but she knew that even if she didn’t say it, the wise Emperor Rosetta Augustus had already perceived it. Moreover, her mentor, Daniel, is now the Empire’s foremost Arcane Master, and the many things he created have seriously shaken every rigid traditional mage in the association—the facts are beyond dispute.

"Magic Web Communication is a good technology..." Rosetta’s expression was serious, "We must master it, or find ways to improve our Communication Towers from it, regardless of the cost."

As he spoke, he suddenly asked, "Have we analyzed the result from the merchants who sent over a ’Magic Web Terminal’ before?"

When it comes to the technical field, Lady Windsor Maple’s expression immediately became serious—she knew what Rosetta referred to as the "Magic Web Terminal," which was a machine secretly brought across the border by a respectable western merchant who risked being hanged by the Cecil Clan. The merchant hid it in piles of furs and spices to evade Cecil border checks, and offered it to the emperor upon returning home. Now, that precious machine lay in the Imperial Construction Association’s laboratory, being analyzed by a technical team led by Daniel.

"We disassembled it into parts and replicated its complex and ingenious magic symbol and crystal structures internally. It may not be long before we can replicate an identical machine, but that is meaningless," Windsor Maple shook her head, "The Cecil Clan packed a very strange set of symbols into that machine, which isn’t standard communication spells and even carries characteristics of Divine Arts. No one can decode their specific functions and meanings yet. I am quite curious about where the Cecil Clan drew inspiration to piece together such a peculiar Array...

"Master Daniel warned us that if we can’t fully understand the meaning of every part of the symbols, arbitrarily replicating that set of equipment could be very dangerous—the Cecil Clan might hide traps within it that could allow them to directly interrupt or even eavesdrop on the devices we replicate."

"Master Daniel is a wise person, and his advice is always very pertinent," Rosetta slowly nodded, "Be cautious with that machine, find the parts we can use, and the rest...we will eventually figure it out."

"If only we could get the prototype of the Magic Web Terminal, or the original symbol rubbings..." Windsor Maple sighed, "The prototype doesn’t undergo subsequent simplifications and optimizations, often containing very clear technical ideas that might help us uncover the secrets of those symbols...Of course, that’s only wishful thinking."

Rosetta’s expression was stern, remaining silent.

...

In the Cecil Palace, inside the study draped with blue velvet carpet, Gawain detailed his experiences in the dream realm to Aunt Heidi and others, including the end of Sandbox One, the confrontation with the Supreme Narrator, and the current situation of the Eternal Sleepers after the event concluded.

The bizarre and inexplicable "God Descent Crisis" caused everyone in the study to widen their eyes (except Kamel, who merely glowed), the mysterious gods and the perilous crisis deeply moved everyone. And what made them even more emotional was that all this happened just last night—

Last night, the winds were calm, and Cecil’s night was peaceful, yet beyond reality, a certain world was in upheaval. A God Descent Crisis even erupted in the distant Typhon borders, which truly gave Aunt Heidi and others a serious sense of unreality.

After slightly digesting the massive information brought by the ancestor, Aunt Heidi quickly entered a working state, thinking while saying, "The transfer of Eternal Sleepers should have already started over there, I will immediately launch the Empire’s connection—before Aldernon realizes, we should be able to transfer those core personnel and technical data..."

"Some technical data will be sent first via the mental network," Gawain said, "although the headquarters of the Eternal Sleepers is gone, their mental network still operates, just entering its least efficient ’basic mode,’ it can no longer support the dream city, but purely transmitting data is not a problem. Of course, for obvious reasons, the most core technical data won’t be sent, the Eternal Sleepers will carry them until the train we dispatched takes them to safety."

Aunt Heidi unconsciously frowned: "At such a time..."

"Normal reaction—if they didn’t do this, I would worry about the intelligence of those core talents and the authenticity of those data," Gawain said with a smile, "Rest assured, the Eternal Sleepers have mastered mental powers and have been lurking within the Typhon borders for years, they are experts at survival and escape. We shouldn’t worry about them being caught by Augustus before they escape."

"Your Majesty," Kamel, who was floating aside, spoke up, "Since the Eternal Sleepers’ mental network needs to switch to basic mode, will our Origin Laboratory be affected?"

"Theoretically...it can continue running, as the Origin Space itself hasn’t occupied the computing power of the dream city, and it’s constructed on the ’basic layer’ of the mental network, a layer that would always remain operational under any circumstances," Gawain mused, speaking of exploiting resources thoroughly but then abruptly changing his tone, "However, I’m already planning to modify and relocate the Origin Space, including a total restructuring of the mind network of the Eternal Sleepers, making it more controllable and harmless. Now it’s clearly the best opportunity, so I plan to temporarily shut down the current Origin Space—Kamel, what is the progress of our own ’Immersion Capsule Network’ now?"

"We’ve successfully implemented networking in a laboratory environment and simulated operations without relying on the Eternal Sleepers’ mental network, currently adjusting the overall stability of the network, enhancing its adaptability to the Magic Web Communication system, and making minor modifications to the immersion capsules to reduce their burden, making them more suitable for use by untrained ordinary people—the custom-designed machines sent to Gran Territory are a successful example, and we are researching a civilian version based on that."

"Excellent, this is the key part of transforming the Eternal Sleepers’ cult, creating our own network," Gawain nodded with satisfaction and gradually revealed a slight smile, "Since things are progressing smoothly in this area...Kamel, I’m assigning you a new project that can advance synchronously with your current tasks."

Kamel emitted a buzzing sound: "New project?"

"’Narrator Neural Network,’" Gawain said with a smile, "The future advanced communication system will be built upon it."