Sword of Dawn

Page 194

Gawain didn't know how to answer for a moment, so he could only keep smiling, accepting Tyre's compliment.

And Tyre continued after being quiet for a while: "Actually, we are not without research on black traps. Although we have never understood how it happened, and have not observed its specific manifestations, But we have a guess about it..."

Gawain blinked: "Guess?"

"The civilizations that encountered black traps have one thing in common, that is, they have all developed to a very high level, at least they can survive the demonic tide—even if the civilization that was suddenly destroyed before the demonic tide came, they already have enough The ability to protect itself in the next wave of magic has been confirmed by our observers," Till explained earnestly, "We think... the black trap may be a kind of filter, as long as the civilization develops to a certain level Threshold, something destructive will be activated to destroy this season's civilization... You should be able to understand what I said, right?"

Tire seemed to have opened up the topic, and couldn't help but talk more and more. At the end, he suddenly remembered that Gao Wen was a "backward lander", so he couldn't help but add the last sentence.

"Of course I can understand, the level of civilization in Gondor was not low," Gao Wen said, frowning deeply, "But the filter you mentioned... If it is true, then the situation will be terrible It's..."

As long as civilization develops to a certain extent, it will be destroyed by some external factors?

Does such a thing really exist in this world?

"We are just guessing, because according to our observations, all civilizations that have developed to a certain height have been destroyed, and there is an invisible threshold stuck there, and none of the destroyed civilizations has surpassed it, so we can only judge the 'black trap' ' is a filter."

"Have you calculated this 'threshold'?" Gawain suddenly stared into Tyre's eyes and asked, with a very serious tone, "Is there any iconic 'point' in it? For example, a certain key technology has been broken through, or human Set foot in a key area?"

"Unfortunately, I can't sum it up. On the one hand, we miss the black trap every time. We can only see the remnants after the destruction. It is impossible to infer what the land civilization was doing before the black trap erupted. On the other hand, every time the magic wave is To reset the magical environment, the technical routes taken by civilizations in each season are very different, and there is no comparison between them," Till shook his head. "We can only give a rough standard now, that is, at least in the magic tide. Only civilizations that survive in the world are 'qualified' to be destroyed by the black trap."

Gao Wen frowned and pondered, and suddenly thought of a key question: "... Are those destroyed civilizations surpassing you?"

"...No," Tire knew what Gawain wanted to say, and she replied calmly, "We sea monsters are a civilization that has almost been destroyed once, but our remaining technological power still surpasses those land civilizations, and we... …did not encounter a black trap.”

The technical strength is higher than that of the land civilization, and the duration is longer than that of the land civilization. They have survived for more than a season in the magic tide, and the sea monsters who are sunbathing and jumping... have not encountered a black trap.

All of this was expected by Gawain, and this fact is why Gawain doubted Thiel's "black trap filter" hypothesis.

What triggers the black trap is not necessarily the progress in the field of technology, maybe the land civilization has touched it by mistake in other aspects-of course, there may be other reasons, such as the special life form of the sea monsters that prevent them from the black trap. , or... black traps only happen on land?

Gawain said his thoughts, and Tyre immediately denied: "Not only on land, there is a civilization that has developed a strong ocean-going navigation technology, and their offshore self-discipline platform and seawater extraction factory even opened up to ours. On the territorial sea, and built a semi-permanent residential dome in the sea-but they all died suddenly. A month ago, they were still talking to us about the development of submarine heat sources. A month later, we sent representatives there, but found The entire dome has been abandoned, and it's full of dead bodies..."

Gao Wen frowned: "The reason was not found at that time?"

"No. When the delegation found out, their dome had been abandoned for half a month, and a lot of evidence had disappeared. However, we found that their dome shield was closed from the inside. They should have turned off the protection by themselves, and then were drowned."

Gao Wen stared blankly for a while with his mouth open, but in the end he could only utter one word: "Weird..."

"Yeah...it's very weird," Tyr said slowly, and then he suddenly seemed to remember something, "By the way, speaking of it...the destruction of a season of civilization seems to be different from others...their destruction is not the same as that of an ancient It's about race."

"An ancient race?"

"Dragon," Tyre said a word that surprised Gawain, "that civilization was destroyed in a war involving giant dragons. It was a long, long time ago, when a land empire suddenly rose— They developed at an extremely fast speed and quickly ruled the entire land. They also had some contact with us, but before we had a deep understanding, the war suddenly broke out.

"One side of the war is the land empire, and the other side is the giant dragon—now the giant dragon rarely appears on the mainland, and you all treat them as legendary creatures, but in the war in ancient times, the giant dragon almost They flew from the north overwhelmingly, they were not like a hidden race at that time, but actually participated in that war...

"We still don't know which side started the war first, but the reason for the outbreak of the war seems to be related to belief, because the giant dragon destroyed a large number of temple facilities in the land empire in the early stage of the war, which was targeted attack.

"The battle was very fierce. The strength of the two warring parties was almost evenly matched. Many dragons died. Our observers couldn't even get too close to the battle zone - because they are already red-eyed, as long as they are not our own, they will attack .

"The battle was fought for ten years - such a long duration is also different from the ordinary 'black trap' phenomenon. Other civilizations that perished due to black traps disappeared very quickly - in the end, the giant The dragon wins miserably, and the once-thriving empire on land is wiped out.

"According to the scattered information brought back by our observers, the land empire at that time called the year when the war broke out the 'Year of the Against the Tide', so they also called that war the 'Battle of the Against the Tide'."

"The Battle Against the Tide..." Gawain always felt a sense of unreality when listening to this magnificent story from ancient times. This story is too far away from this era, but now it is being told by Tyre, It is inevitable that there will be a serious violation, but he believes that Tyr will not make up such a story for fun, "Indeed, it is different from the 'black trap' you described before."

"Yes, it lasted for a long time, the reason is clear, and we have observed it, so we have never been sure whether the 'Battle Against the Tide' was a 'black trap phenomenon', but one thing is certain— —If the Battle Against the Tide has something to do with the Black Trap, then the dragon must know something."

Gao Wen couldn't help laughing bitterly: "Are you asking me to find the giant dragon to get information?"

"What if there is a chance?" Tyre flicked his tail, "And I'm just giving you an idea, it's not my idea anyway."

Gao Wen: "..."

At this moment, he really wanted to shoot this fish to death on the shore...

Chapter 0466 The Restarted Laboratory

The Battle of the Black Trap and Against the Tide.

To be honest, Gawain never expected that he would hear such a shocking ancient secret in the chat with Tyr the sea monster, but after thinking about it carefully, he knew that if anyone in this world could tell more than him This satellite knows even more ancient and detailed historical data, so there are only this group of deep-sea saltwater fish that have been observing land since ancient times.

The so-called black trap...what the hell is it?

According to Till, it seems to be a filtering mechanism, or a "reaper mechanism" that harvests civilizations according to fixed standards. Every land civilization from ancient times to the present has been destroyed after developing to a certain extent— ——Destroyed by the magic tide, or destroyed by the mysterious "black trap", this fact makes people feel creepy.

But Gao Wen is also very clear that even if the black trap exists, human beings cannot stop the pace of development.

Because there is still a demon tide.

If you don't develop, you will die in the demon tide; if you develop, you may encounter a black trap.

The only thing he can do, the only possible effective thing, is to find out the truth about the "black trap" before human beings encounter it.

"I don't know if there is a development path that can withstand the evil tide and avoid the black trap, but I believe that sitting and waiting is definitely not the solution. The evil tide has no mercy, and it will not postpone its visit because of human awe and retreat. of."

Gawain looked at the night in the distance, and said slowly in a calm and indifferent tone, while Tire beside him opened his eyes slightly, and a smile appeared on his face: "A leader should have such awareness...you are a Nice friend."

Gao Wen also returned a smile and asked a question, "Why did you suddenly tell me these things tonight?"

Till shrugged: "It was just casually mentioned here during the chat."

Gao Wen didn't say a word, just watched the sea monster quietly until the latter showed a helpless look: "Okay - it's nothing, just take it as a return gift from Hongguang Technology. You may not realize it. What have you all come up with, but as far as I can tell, your brand-new use of magical energy is really valuable for us sea monsters. As a return gift, I just told you this...Of course, knowing this in advance is beneficial to you It’s not necessarily a good thing either.”

Gao Wen didn't pay attention to Tire's last words, but said very seriously: "You have already given Hongguang Technology's return gift."

"The superficial knowledge of shipbuilding is nothing. You can figure it out after a few years of research, but the general magic energy... has always been our bottleneck. We sea monsters can't feel the magic power in nature, and we can't understand and remember it. For your spell model, we have been using the most simple and crude methods with poor stability and efficiency to obtain energy, and due to the influence of the magic tide, our efforts in this area are almost every tens of thousands of years or 10,000 In +years, everything will be overthrown and restarted... so you should be able to imagine how important it is to us to hope to break through the bottleneck."

Speaking of this, Tyre was silent for a moment, and then continued: "The siren is not used to indebting others, even friends."

Gawain looked into Tyre's eyes quietly, and nodded lightly after a long time: "I understand, then I accept your kindness."

"Very well, may your civilization prosper - very pleasant conversation tonight."

Tyre's voice came in the night, and she jumped forward, the tail of the fish reflected the starlight, drawing a beautiful arc under the starlight, and fell towards the gurgling water of the Whitewater River.

Gawain stood on the rock by the river bank, lowered his head and quietly watched the direction of Tyre's fall.

"...Affected by the local water element cycle, the water level of the Baishui River will drop at night—did you fall to your death?"

"I'm fine!"

……

Even knowing that there are more challenges waiting for him in the distant future, Gao Wen will not stop his footsteps—or, it is precisely because he knows the mysterious and terrifying phenomenon of the "black trap" that he is more serious. To speed up the development of certain areas.

Although it is still uncertain whether there is a connection between the war against the tide in ancient times and the black trap, but the giant dragon that has always lived in seclusion will participate in the war on the mainland on a large scale, and the spearhead of the war is directed at human beliefs, which is high enough Wen turned his attention to the gods.

He doesn't know what role the gods play in "The Black Trap," but he doesn't mind adding some insight into the gods.

In the deepest part of the Rebel Fortress, in front of the magic gate leading to the Shadow Realm.

The ancient hall built 1000 years ago has been refurbished, the damaged walls and roof have been repaired and decorated with contemporary cement materials and paints, and the ancient magic circle that has long been scrapped on the ground has been replaced by a modern magic net. In the brand-new hall, only one thing still maintains the most original appearance: the round magic door in the center of the room.

Around the Might and Magic Gate, several magic circle platforms for monitoring are flickering with flickering brilliance. The magic technicians in white researcher uniforms are busy around the Might and Magic Gate, monitoring the situation of the gate, and their bodies are full of mystery. The brilliant Kamel floated in front of the gate, and released a powerful arcane pulse towards the energy center of the gate.

The slightly dim runes on the gate immediately brightened up, and a stable passage to the Shadow Realm was opened.

"The laboratory in the fortress of disobedience is ready," Kamel turned around, and said to Gao Wen and others who arrived here early in the morning, "We can start at any time."

Gawain looked around at the people around him - apart from Wright who had to participate in the experiment, Pittman, Amber, and a group of researchers led by Rebecca came with him.Originally, Heidi also wanted to come along with her, but considering the busy affairs of the government affairs department and the fact that Heti herself had quit the R&D team, she finally stayed in the government affairs department.

Amber is unwilling to come, but she is Gawain's bodyguard and the most powerful shadow master in the territory. Considering the inextricable connection between the Shadow Realm and the Shadow Realm, it would be too much to bring her It is an insurance for early warning of channel fluctuations, so whether this guy is willing or not, Gao Wen forced her to come here.

After confirming the people around him, Gawain nodded and looked at Wright: "Did you bring the test board?"

Wright took out the holy light substrate from his body: "Here."

Emily emerged from the mid-air behind Wright, and waved to Gawain in greeting.

Oh, and this little girl should also be counted-she is Wright's binding equipment.

Gao Wen shook his hand at Emily, and then walked forward first: "The testing equipment is ready in the laboratory...then let's go in."

After passing through the passage leading to the Shadow Realm, the interior of the Rebellious Fortress was presented to everyone.

The 1000-year-old facility was reactivated, but only one of the laboratories was reactivated, and most of its area remained as Gawain had first seen it—even worse than when he first saw it. Be deserted and empty.

Because all valuable ancient equipment and sample material has been removed.

The group ignored the empty corridors and rooms, but walked directly into the depths of the rebellious fortress under the leadership of Kamel.

They walked through the outer corridors of the fortress, and passed the fan-shaped hall where the remains of 970 people were once placed.

All the remains in the fan-shaped hall were transported out and properly buried in the cemetery outside Cecil City. Now the hall is empty, only rows of seats remain silent in the dim light , Kamel couldn't help but slow down when he walked through the fan-shaped hall. He looked at the place where he had been trapped for 1000 years, but in the end he didn't say anything, but went straight to the end of the hall and opened the Passage to the highest security laboratory.

Gao Wen was taken to a room he had never seen before.

This room is just outside the fan-shaped hall. Judging from its location, it should be close to the gate leading to the resting place of the giant deer Amorn. Gawain saw that this laboratory has been thoroughly cleaned and maintained. In the rectangular room The lights are bright, and there are magic experiment tables and various experimental devices based on rune technology. At the end of the room, there is a huge floor-to-ceiling window.

There is a slight light curtain floating on the surface of the floor-to-ceiling window, but outside the light curtain is an endless dark space. In that dark space, countless broken and floating boulders and small pieces of land can be vaguely seen, and a huge mountain like a hill The body of the giant deer is located in the center of the entire dark space. The soft shimmering light it emits illuminates many metal fragments and small pieces of pumice floating around it. It looks extremely beautiful, but it is also extremely strange.

Wright looked at the body of the giant deer Amoen through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Although he had already known about the fall of the God of Nature and had given up his belief in the God of Holy Light, at this moment, he still couldn't help it. I was touched by the holy and huge body of God.

Gawain stepped forward and patted Wright on the shoulder: "Don't look - what we are going to do today is an act of disobedience."

Kamel came to the center of the laboratory, where a circular platform was set up. This platform is also one of the few remaining ancient equipment in the entire laboratory. He opened his hands in front of the platform, injecting pure arcane energy into it. In the metal pillars on both sides of the platform, accompanied by a sudden low humming sound, the ancient magister whispered to himself:

"Defeating the plan, the experiment...continues."

The low humming sound gradually turned into a gentle and steady sound. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, a more solid and more obvious energy barrier appeared out of thin air, and gradually enveloped the entire fortress of rebellion. A mechanically monotonous and slightly distorted synthesis The voice came from the sound device on the roof of the laboratory:

"...The secondary energy system is activated, and the operator certification is passed...

"...is opening the active protective barrier...opening the passive protective barrier...opening the divine power filter...opening the same-frequency early warning system...

"...emergency fusing system testing...emergency fusing system status normal...

"Serious warning: the main artificial intelligence of the bastion is offline...the backup artificial intelligence is offline...the database at all levels is offline, and the network at all levels is offline..."

"Ignore." Kamel said quietly.

"Ignore the error message, the auxiliary authority is transferred to the basic response mechanism, and 90.00% of the nine operators are detected to be missing... Ignore, remove the operator authentication restriction. The basic response mechanism has completed the self-test of all functions, and the response mechanism is online.

"Good day, Chief of the Kamel Slane Think Tank, I wish you a happy work."

Even though he knew that what was speaking at this moment was just a basic response mechanism that had no thinking ability and was programmed 1000 years ago, Kamel went back to the past in a trance at this moment, and saw the busyness of this laboratory in a trance. , The scene of people coming and going, he felt the arcane energy in his body vibrating. After a long time, he said softly: "Good day, rebels... let's start."

Chapter 0467 Controllable Holy Light

The laboratory's protection system was successfully activated.

This set of defense systems established in the age of Starfire showed how consummate magic skills the Gondor Empire possessed in that era of the heyday of human civilization—although most of the devices in the rebellious fortress outside have been destroyed by the tide of magic. Erosion and 1000 years of weathering have failed, but in this hidden fortress of disobedience, the ancient defense system remains minimally functional.

"Amazing..." Although Amber didn't know anything about the things in the laboratory, she couldn't help but marvel after hearing the synthetic voice that answered automatically, "What was that just now? Golem? Tower spirit? It's a mage from the north." The kind of artificial mind we made?"

While manipulating the complicated magic runes on the circular platform, Kamel replied casually: "Golems and tower spirits? That's just a trivial skill...We used to be able to create a mental core that is almost human, and they can be like Humans think like humans. The iron soldiers with mental cores and our magister corps are regarded as the two most powerful arms on the mainland, while the golems and tower spirits of the barbarians in the north... are huge in size, slow in thinking, and full of loopholes in the logic system , is simply a defective product.”

"It's a pity that when the tide of magic came, the over-sophisticated mental core was the first batch of equipment to fail, and the Iron Man Corps turned into a pile of scrap metal in the arsenal." Gao Wen shook his head, "The only thing we were lucky at that time was At least those iron men were scrapped, not out of control - otherwise it would have been worse."

Hearing Gao Wen's words, Kamel could only let out a long sigh.

While speaking, the ancient magister finally completed the preparations for the test.

On the round table in the center of the laboratory, a set of devices based on Cecil's rune technology was placed on the table.It has a set of general-purpose honeycomb magic nets. Six honeycomb units are arranged to form the energy supply part of the entire device. They are placed in the center of the table, and a special large rune substrate is connected to the lower edge of the honeycomb unit— —That is the inverter array unit designed by Pittman.

The output end of the inverter array is connected to a set of rune trigger devices. The rune trigger is connected to a blank substrate made of copper. There are grooves left on the blank substrate, which can just fit the holy light substrate into it.

The whole test device is so simple, all the structures are clear at a glance, and the mechanism is also clear.

"Using an inverter array to recharge the Holy Light Rune itself is not a complicated process. Our first test purpose is to verify whether this process can be realized, and whether it will incur the "divine punishment" of the God of Holy Light in this process. , " Kamel floated in front of the test bench, explaining the purpose of this test to everyone on the scene, "The laboratory is equipped with a perfect divine power defense system, which can guarantee that even if the God of Holy Light sends divine punishment, it will be defended The system filters it out—it has a high level of protection, and according to the actual test that year, even if the flesh and blood of the giant deer Amorn broke out out of control outside the laboratory, it would not affect the safety inside the barrier."

The reason why Gondor researchers were able to carry out various researches on the power of gods was because of this defense system—otherwise, even if the giant deer Amorn had fallen, this group of mortals would be studying how to give the power to the gods next to the corpse. Slicing the gods is enough to kill them a thousand times.

The fact that all members of the rebellious team survived back then proved the reliability of this defense system.

"This level of protection is definitely enough," Gao Wen nodded, "That is to say, after we activate the inverter array, we can judge whether the device is in danger of causing God's punishment according to whether the laboratory is attacked or not." ?”

"Exactly." Kamel nodded slightly.

Gao Wen thought for a while, and then asked a new question: "If this device is successfully activated and does not cause divine punishment, how can we determine whether the structure of the device itself successfully avoided the divine punishment, or it helped the user avoid their own punishment?" Mind Seal?"

God's punishment and spiritual seal, these two factors are the two shackles that affect the use of the power of gods by mortals.

Although Gao Wen is not a researcher, he is very aware of the importance of the word "rigority" in the experimental project. The question he raised is to verify the effect of the above two factors in the experimental process as rigorously as possible. The role it plays - if this cannot be confirmed, then the Holy Light Rune technology will undoubtedly leave a huge hidden danger.

"...I must say, you really have the heart of a researcher," Kamel couldn't help admiring, and then said, "Don't worry, we have already thought of this—we are on the rune trigger A linkage device that can transmit magic power is set up. This linkage device is connected to another holy light substrate, and it is directly connected. The tester needs to inject his own magic power into the rune trigger and activate the device. In this way, when the rune trigger is closed, At that time, two holy light substrates were activated at the same time: one was directly activated by the tester's own magic power, which we called sample No. [-], and the other was indirectly activated by the magic net and inverter array, which we called sample No. [-]. By observing the activation of these two samples, we can determine at which link the tester's mind stamp appears in the whole process, and whether its existence will affect the operation of the inverter array. Of course, in order to realize this process, the test The applicant must be an extraordinary person with magical talent."

Gao Wen was completely convinced by Kamel's design - this is indeed a professional researcher, and the problems that he can think of himself have already been thought of by professional researchers.

The key point of the process designed by Kamel is to confirm whether the tester's mind stamp remains valid throughout the process through "Sample No. [-]". Since the mind stamp is an inherent attribute of the tester, as long as The No. [-] sample was affected by the mind stamp, so it can be confirmed that the "steel" always exists, and the tester did not avoid his own mind stamp because of the device's "Magic Net-Inverter Array" structure.

After checking the device, Kamel stepped aside, while a young researcher came to the platform.