Sword of Dawn

Page 131

"I'm the director of the Military Security Intelligence Service! Director!" Amber stared at her and pointed to her nose, "You appointed me personally, oh my god, you didn't forget it at all..."

Gao Wen hurriedly pushed back Amber's head, which was getting closer and closer, while waving his hands: "I haven't forgotten, of course I don't have internet - the main reason is that I didn't expect you to actually be working. The main thing I see you doing every day is Find various departments to make money, and the rest of the time is making trouble for me, and I still treat you as not doing business at all."

amber:"……"

The half-elf lady stared and confronted Gawain for a long time, and then thought that she couldn't beat her opponent anyway, so she persuaded her to go back: "In addition to the magic engine, I also received information that several territories in the western region of the southern border Rudimentary magic nets or clues related to magic nets appeared on the Internet. Some noble lords are recruiting rune craftsmen and rune masters, and some people are recruiting magicians at high prices. The lord has already bought or secretly learned some information about the magic net, and is trying to copy it."

"Has the magic net started to spread... Slower than I imagined, but considering the impact of winter, this speed is not bad," Gawain nodded while thinking, "Viscount Andrew also worked hard."

As soon as Gao Wen mentioned Viscount Andrew, Amber couldn't help but rolled her eyes: "What are you talking about - before Viscount Andrew tremblingly bought the technicians you sent over secretly, spent a lot of money and half of it went into your pocket After all, it was not easy for someone to learn it secretly, so you suddenly sent a messenger to say that the magic net can be sold, not only can it be sold, but you can even let him act as an agent to sell it to farther places... You are such a cheater Is it?"

"I didn't want to trick him at the beginning, who told him to do some tricks?" Gao Wen spread his hands helplessly, "This is the most troublesome thing for me when dealing with the nobles of this era. Obviously, I can do it openly. Business is good for everyone, and you have to over-interpret your own wild thoughts. But I believe Viscount Leslie will learn the lesson after this... Doing business with Cecil is different from other places."

Chapter 0315 One Step Forward

Of course, Amber knew that the "rules" set by Gao Wen were different from other places, just like Gao Wen's whole thinking was different from others.

Would normal people sell their advanced technological achievements?Would normal people try to toss the magical power that should belong exclusively to nobles and extraordinary people in the direction of cabbage?Would a normal person establish a government affairs office and a whole set of administrative agencies, and delegate all the exclusive powers that belonged to the lords to those "civil servants" who came from low-level nobles or even civilians?

Gao Wen did it all, and every time he had a reason.

"Now the magic net has begun to spread in the southern border, and imitation prototypes have appeared in the noble territories near Leslie and Kant. Some big nobles with sufficient financial resources and well-informed information also know the news of the magic engine. They should I will be very interested. Just like you planned, Viscount Andrew, not Cecil, will come forward to sell it. This will further dispel the concerns of the nobles in the southern border. If there is no accident, after spring comes and the trade roads are smooth. , we will have a steady stream of large income - just enough to be used to purchase more raw ore and expand the population."

After listening to Amber's report, Gao Wen nodded slightly: "Viscount Andrew is a familiar face in the southern region, and his connections can help us send the original magic net and magic engine to other nobles, as long as they taste a little bit of sweetness... …it would be impossible for them to refuse the next offer.”

"In addition, there is news sent by Padrik that alchemy potions are still selling well in winter, and some merchants have even settled in the eastern border and the Holy Spirit Plain. However, the large amount of cheap potions in their hands has also aroused the concern of the local lords. Pay attention, Padraic is a little worried about this," Amber reported solemnly, "he is worried that those nobles will squeeze the distribution side of the chamber of commerce under the drive of profit... His original words are as follows: Not every noble is like Duke Cecil is as honest and trustworthy as he is in business with conscience."

Gao Wen raised his eyelids: "What is the specific situation? I think he should not only send complaints."

"I really can't hide it from you," Amber scratched her hair. "He said that there have been several relatively bad incidents. In a place in the north, some local nobles detained our pharmacy merchants and asked those merchants to pay half of the money. Sell ​​them the goods at a very low price, or declare our apothecary merchants to be illegal traders."

Gao Wen showed interest: "Oh? An extremely low price? How low is that?"

"...a third, or even a quarter," Amber said with a resentful look on her face, "That's a steal!"

Gao Wen couldn't help laughing: "Well... With the current selling price and the cost of the alchemy factory, even a quarter of it is still profitable."

"Are you still laughing?" Amber was stunned when she saw Gao Wen's appearance, "They are robbing Cecil of the money! If they didn't still care about your name, they probably didn't ask to keep some of the goods , but ransacked the merchants directly!"

"It's not good to rob merchants directly. If that happens, no one will dare to continue selling potions on their territory, and I won't be able to reach out." Gao Wen stroked his chin and thought for a while, "Well, write a copy for me. Instructions to Padraic, telling him that those businessmen who have established themselves should take the initiative to contact the local nobles, isn't it a quarter of the price? Yes, Cecil is willing to pay a quarter of the price. Sell ​​potions to them in batches, our pharmacy merchants can even reserve half of each shipment for them, and the condition is that those local lords want to protect the distribution rights of Cecil pharmacy merchants in their territories, We must prevent other traditional herbalists and alchemists from suppressing and crowding out pharmacy merchants."

Seeing Amber's dumbfounded expression, Gao Wen deliberately smiled and asked, "Do you think those local lords will agree to these demands?"

Amber opened her mouth for a long time, and finally said: "Of course they agree! Idiots don't agree! You can buy a bottle of alchemy potion with a dozen copper coins! If you can get such great benefits, you don't need to tell them They will take the initiative to protect the pharmacy merchants, and even help them deliver the goods! But what good do you do..."

Before Amber could finish speaking, Gao Wen interrupted and asked, "What do you think the local lords are buying cheap alchemy potions for?"

"What is it for?" Amber was stunned for a moment, "Anyway, it can't be used to rinse your mouth..."

"It's definitely not for your own use," said the half-elf lady who was cute when she fell into a trance, but Gawain didn't intend to tease her this time, "Our alchemy potion is an 'inferior product' mixed with water, although it is not suitable for ordinary people and It is still a good thing for adventurers, but it is absolutely impossible to get into the eyes of the nobles. Those local lords must have known this in advance, so there is only one reason why they buy cheap potions in large quantities - they are for their own people. They are for their private soldiers, guards, and minions."

Amber is not stupid, sometimes it is just her habit of thinking that prevents her from making a turn. At this time, Gao Wen reminded her a little, and she realized what this cunning old rice dumpling in front of her was planning.

"what do you mean……"

"Shipping in large quantities, as much as you want, the generous Duke Cecil will let every noble army in the southern border use high-quality and cheap alchemy potions, and brave soldiers will no longer need to put the stinky black The ointment and grass root mud are wrapped on the wound, and in this process, I will only charge a small amount of money." Gawain leaned back on the chair and said calmly, "With a good alchemist potion, no one will use those herbal ointments and witchcraft methods that have little effect, and the expensive traditional alchemy potions will disappear quickly, do you know what this means?"

Amber touched her neck subconsciously: "This is what you said last time...the noose?"

"That's right, the noose," Gawain exhaled softly, "None of them want to see the Cecil family stand up again, so they will use what they think is a very clever method to desperately try to get rid of the Cecil family. I had to draw blood from the Er family, so I had to draw blood for them, and put a rope around each of their necks."

After pausing for a while, Gao Wen smiled and glanced at Amber: "The shelf life of alchemy potions after mixing with water is very short."

In the large laboratory of the Rune Research Institute, Pittman was invited by Jenny to watch a special magic circle.

This slovenly old druid still looks unreliable, even though he is already in charge of the druid spell and magic alchemy industry, with double-digit apprentices under his command, and himself However, he is still wearing a simple and old gray cotton robe, all kinds of useful and useless amulets are hung everywhere on his body, his white hair is covered in a mess on the top of his head, and he wears a faded cap. The khaki soft hat is pressed down, and a pair of shrewd little eyes are constantly turning around under the cover of the scattered hair on the edge of the soft hat - the first feeling of anyone who sees him is whether the old man will suddenly pull out A deck of cards will be played out to tell your fortune, and he will definitely not be associated with a "magic rune expert" or a "druid mentor".

But he is indeed an expert in this field.

Pittman carefully observed the large base plate on the central experimental platform. On the base plate, various rune blocks and magic power lines that are easy to combine together outline a magic circle full of mystery, and some of them are made of non-magic materials. The finished silk thread is fixed on the surface of the magic circle by fixing pins to divide the functions of different areas of the magic circle.

——These partitions were temporarily divided by Jenny and Kamel, and they are not precise enough, and can only be used as an aid in the research stage.

"These are indeed deformed divine runes," Pittman said while stroking his beard as he looked at the symbols marked with special paint, "Well... this confirms one of my guesses."

"Guess?" Jenny looked at the old druid curiously.

"Whether it is the natural sect that the druids once believed in, or the dream sect that the eternal sleepers believed in, in the process of transforming their divine arts into magic, the pioneers have carried out very careful 'evasion' and 'cover up' operations," Peter said. Man laughed, with a sly light in his eyes, "There is only one message revealed in these deformed runes..."

Kamel's unique voice with arcane echoes came from the side: "Fear."

"That's right, fear," Pittman chuckled, "God's authority has fallen into human hands, but people are still trembling, as if they are always afraid that God will return, and fear that God will punish those blasphemers who stole authority, even though the pioneers Having found the rules and techniques for transforming divine spells into magic, they also tried hard to conceal their actions in the process, as if deceiving themselves to avoid the gods who may no longer be there."

"It's the same in the early days of the Rebellion Project," Kamel buzzed, "until we confirmed the existence of 'Giant Deer Amoen', and confirmed that He is the fallen God of Nature, our fear was not a little less. "

Jenny never thought that she would be exposed to this kind of thing one day, but she has become used to it now, and asked subconsciously: "The god of dreams... will also have fallen like the giant deer Amoen Is it?"

"It's hard to say, the weirdness of the gods is beyond human imagination. The god's corpse of the giant deer Amorn is indeed lying in the Shadow Realm, but God knows what the state of the gods believed by other degenerate sects is," Pittman laughed, shaking He moved his head to the magic circle, "Instead of wondering what the state of those gods are, we should figure out how the magic circle works as soon as possible."

"Regarding this, we have already made some preliminary progress." Kamel said, and at the same time summoned a hand of evocation, and brought over a half-meter-high metal-crystal device next to the test bench.

——It was a small magic obelisk specially prepared for the laboratory environment.

"In the beginning, we tried to drive this magic circle with ordinary magic power, but it failed. This magic circle has a special interface. It will only respond to the dream spell of the eternal sleeper. Whether it is activation or control, it needs to be supplemented by Only special dream magic works. Obviously, this magic circle is incomplete, and it cannot operate independently—it must be completed by the caster to complete the magic path," Kamel said, While starting to debug the magic obelisk, "This situation is not uncommon. Many traditional magic circles have this kind of 'incompleteness' due to insufficient optimization and unreasonable structure, but this has brought us a lot of problems. Trouble……"

The magic obelisk was activated, and a stable magic field began to envelope the entire Rune Research Institute.

"But later, we discovered that we don't actually need to make the entire magic circle work. There is a part of it that is very important. As long as this part can be activated, then with the help of the diffusion of the magic field, it can exert incredible effects. "

Kamel raised his arm full of arcane energy, and a small spark hit the magic circle on the test bench. A part of the runes in the magic circle immediately lit up, and injected magic power with Kamel. The change starts to float brightly and darkly.

Almost immediately, Pittman looked at the wall on the other side of the laboratory with a feeling.

On that wall, there is another large substrate hanging. There is no complete "Eternal Sleeper's Array" on that large substrate, but only the most basic set of rune arrays, but it is the basic rune array. The array is flickering and flickering with Kamel's actions at this moment.

"Currently we can only transmit such a simple change, and the transmission is extremely susceptible to interference, and the distance is also very problematic, but at least we have proved one thing in the process:

"The 'black box' of the communication spell is not unbreakable, and its principle may be simpler than all of us imagined."

Chapter 0316 Tire's impression of the gods

A report from the Rune Research Institute was sent to Gao Wen. He looked at the report for a long time, and finally exhaled slightly, got up, opened the door to the terrace, and walked outside the room.

The cold wind blows in the face of the cold winter season, but the cold winter air can not make the Cecil Territory fall into silence. Under the bright sunshine after the snow, the citizens of the Cecil Territory are walking back and forth through the streets and alleys, rushing to various places. jobs, or go to the government affairs office to find new job opportunities.

"Did you successfully achieve a certain level of signal transmission within the coverage of the magic field..." Looking at the still prosperous territory in winter, what Gao Wen thought of was what he saw in the report, "In the magic field , the oscillating magic power of a specific frequency can be transmitted wirelessly, and the 'black box' part of the communication spell seems to only allow the frequency of the magic power to change over a wide area... Could it be said that the whole world is shrouded in a magic field In it? The original magic power is not the disordered energy traveling in nature, but a large field with complex structure?"

Gao Wen's thoughts were scattered, and his eyes randomly scanned the courtyard downstairs, but he couldn't help but stop when he was halfway through.

He saw a long, beautiful girl carefully poking her head out of the mansion gate like a thief. It was Tyre, who stayed in the room all day and hardly ever went out. This strange sea monster didn't know either. Wanting to do something, I saw that she hesitated and arched to the gate of the courtyard, and then poked the tip of her tail out very carefully - poked the snow outside the gate of the courtyard that hadn't had time to be cleaned.

In the next second, Gawain saw that Tire's whole body stretched straight, and his tail quickly retracted.

The two guards standing at the gate of the yard looked at this strange sea caterpillar in bewilderment the whole time.

Gawain couldn't help but greeted curiously: "Tyl, what are you doing?"

Miss Siren was startled by the sudden sound from above, and almost jumped out of the door with her tail twitching. Then she looked up and saw Gawain standing on the balcony on the second floor, she raised her tail and shook: "I think Go out! But the winter in your human world is too cold..."

"You actually have time to go out?" Govent was surprised, "Is this the end of hibernation?"

"Haven't I been swimming in the river for a long time? I saw the sun was very bright today, and I wanted to go for a swim to relax, but I didn't expect... 噫——the snow is so cold! I still don't go ..."

Hearing what Tire said, Gawain couldn't help but looked up at the huge sun disk that could almost cover half of the sky, and thought that what Siren girl said was right, the sun is indeed quite big...

Till spoke again at this time, and she waved her arms and the tip of her tail vigorously: "Human lord, are you basking in the sun up there?"

Gao Wen casually replied, "Yes."

"Then I'll hang out with you too!"

Miss Siren yelled from a distance, then flicked her tail and arched towards this side. Gawain thought at first that the girl was going to enter the house and climb up the stairs to the second floor, so he wanted to turn around and open the balcony door. But before he had time to take action, he realized that something was wrong—the sea monster stopped in the middle of the yard, then circled its long tail twice in place, propped up its upper body tremblingly like a spring, and stretched itself tightly. Then she began to push hard, and the whole body was pressed tighter and tighter - at this point, Gao Wen guessed what this clever guy was trying to do, and quickly stopped him: "You wait..."

However, it was half a beat too late to say this, and when the words fell, he had already seen that the salted fish essence completely pressed himself into a flat spring, followed by a "boom", and Tyre's whole body twitched. Flying straight towards the terrace...

Immediately, a light blue light curtain lit up above the terrace, completely covering all angles leading to the terrace. Gawain watched helplessly as Tyre hit the shield with his head, followed by a "slap" from his tail. In front of the light curtain.

The bewildered Miss Mermaid (Sea Snake and Salted Fish) just slipped off the shield in front of Gawain's eyes.

A few seconds later, the shield automatically disappeared, and Gawain looked under the terrace, and saw Tire wrapping his tail around the pillars below the terrace, struggling to climb up there, although due to her The unique control method made her climb very difficult, but fortunately the second floor is not very high, basically put her tail on the ground and it will come up...

After a while, Miss Kraken who climbed out of the railing stretched out her hand: "Hey, don't just look at it, give me a hand."

Gao Wen stretched out his hand expressionlessly and dragged the salted fish essence to the terrace: "Oh."

After finally climbing up, the first thing Tyr did was to put his hands on his hips and complain: "Speaking of which, why are you installing a shield on the terrace when you have nothing to do? Didn't you not have it a few days ago?!"

Gawain spread his hands: "It's mainly to protect against Amber—now there are shields outside every window, balcony, and terrace in this house. If you approach quickly, you will definitely hit your head on the barrier."

Tyre gave Gawain a sideways look: "Will it work?"

Gawain sighed: "It doesn't matter, Huber came in with just one shadow step, it's not as good as a mousetrap."

Tier was full of helplessness, and he tucked himself into a ball very seriously while muttering: "I also live in this house more or less, why didn't anyone tell me about such a big renovation..."

"Nonsense, you sleep most of the day, and occasionally you just eat when you wake up. I doubt that even if the entire Cecil collar is blown up one day, you will have to wait until the next meal to find out..."

Tire looked Gawain up and down, and suddenly said: "Usually you always look dignified and unsmiling in front of people. I didn't expect you to be quite funny when you talk."

Gao Wen was stunned for a moment, and couldn't help but sighed with a smile: "Actually, my personality is not that serious, but you must know that as a lord, and a lord who has stepped out of the history books, I have to think about myself. image of."

"You human beings are really strange, there are too many self-restricting rules," Tire shook his head, his long sea-blue hair made waves like water in the sun, "We sea monsters never pay attention to these illusory things— —We are a very straightforward race, all thoughts and actions are undisguised. Well, most of the time..."

Due to Tyre's wonderful schedule and lazy attitude, Gawain didn't have many opportunities to learn about the deep sea with this siren lady. What do you do in your clan?"

"Me? I'm a tide master," Tyr shrugged, "combatants."

"Tide Master?" Gawain blinked, feeling that he heard a rather remarkable title, "What kind of position is this?"

Tyr folded his hands on his chest, and put the tip of his tail against his chin, thinking: "According to your human understanding... probably a battle priest? A relatively advanced battle priest is responsible for creating strategic magic effects on the battlefield. If it becomes your military position, it should be equivalent to a commander in chief."

Gao Wen was really surprised this time: "So you are so good?"

He originally thought that a guy like Tyre, who is just waiting to die and can swim from the endless sea to the human kingdom when he returns home, can't be a powerful guy. He was a type of character, but he never expected that the other party would reveal such a great identity when he opened his mouth—although he didn't know exactly where the Kraken's battle priests were in their entire army system, but there was no doubt that mentioning Er is in the upper middle class in her group!

emmmmm... suddenly I'm a little curious about the social promotion mechanism of those sea monsters... I'm afraid they don't select commanders based on their appetite and walking posture.

"I always feel that some bad thoughts are going on in your mind." Tire stared into Gawain's eyes for a long time, "Let me tell you, don't look at me usually lazy, but it's nothing wrong , if you are really in danger and there is a water environment around you, most of you will run...you can't beat me!"

Gao Wen always felt that the other party seemed to have accidentally popped out some weird words just now, but he felt that what he pointed out directly might cause the lady siren to end the conversation immediately, so he simply changed the subject: "You mentioned that you are fighting Priest—is the word priest also a religious word in your language? You siren also have your own religion and belief system?"

He remembered that Tyre had mentioned before that sea monsters do not believe in gods.

"If the religion and belief in your mouth is to worship a specific god like you humans, then we sea monsters don't believe in gods, but we also have our own worship objects," Till explained, "What we worship is all sea monsters. The 'spirit' of the demon is the 'pan-consciousness' of our race and the whole ocean, we call it 'Eva'. I don't know if you can understand the 'idol worship' in this symbolic sense, for us As far as the sea monster is concerned, Eva is not a god, but she has a status similar to your human gods in our society."

Gao Wen stroked his chin: "Worshiping the spirit of the race, and part of the symbolism of the natural environment... It's nothing, I can understand, in fact, this kind of belief also exists on land. They have "pan-belief" in all things in nature and natural phenomena. Some of them worship their own ancestors, some worship lightning, wind, rocks and plants in nature, and some even worship the "life wheel" of life, old age, sickness and death. This is similar to their domestic It is related to the situation of mixed races. In addition, today's druids also have a tendency of pan-belief, they worship 'nature' and 'life' rather than exact gods."

"I do know that—that chewy big white deer is dead," Tyre nodded, "But having said that, I think your land people's beliefs and religions are really weird... Your church is really weird. Wave after wave, and even the entire civilization changed wave after wave. Every time the tide of magic comes, the civilization of the land people will be cut off once, but no matter how complete the cut off, as long as the civilization reappears, you will still be the same. Belief in those gods...it is obviously just a group of powerful creatures that are chewy, so why are they so attractive to you land people?"

Tire just said it unintentionally, but when Gawain heard her last few words, his heart skipped a beat——

Every time the magic tide reshuffles the world, will the new mortal civilization establish similar belief and religious systems?

Chapter 0317 God's Mystery

Tyre said a few words casually, but Gao Wen's heart stirred up waves, because he heard a huge amount of information from those few short words!

The Siren is an ancient and mysterious civilization. This deep-sea race living outside his "satellite monitoring area" has been a fairly developed civilization since tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years ago. Although due to the influence of the magic tide, The technological development of this race seems to have stagnated and bottlenecked, but they have at least continued in this long period of time - and in the process left a large number of observation records of land civilizations.

Compared with the situation of "waiting for a frame in a thousand years" in Gao Wen's later period, Siren's observations are obviously more continuous, more detailed, and more reliable.

Then Tyre's words should also be credible.

That is to say... Every time civilization restarts in this world, every time everything is reshaped, mortal races will always establish similar religions, and always believe in similar gods?

When the inheritance of civilization has been completely interrupted, and even the world has been reshaped, the beliefs of those gods have continued? !

The gods can ignore the influence of the demon tide, Gao Wen thought of this a long time ago, but how did their beliefs appear in the mortal world again and again? The mortal civilization in "this season" got the knowledge about the gods through the "eternal slate", so will the eternal slate also appear in every season of mortal civilization in the past?

According to Gao Wen's guess, the so-called Eternal Slate is most likely some kind of storage medium left behind by the "God Slaughter Fleet" in ancient times. Has this storage medium become a medium for the gods to constantly recover and re-distribute their own information?Or... all of this is simply the method of the "God Slaughter Fleet" in ancient times, did they do it deliberately?

He felt that he seemed to smell a conspiracy from it...

Seeing Gawain's ever-changing expressions, Tire couldn't help becoming curious: "What are you thinking? Could it be that you are not happy when I mention those 'gods'? Don't you not believe in God?"

"No, it's not because of this," Gawain quickly waved his hand, "I just thought of something else...By the way, in the records of your sea monsters, every civilization on land has the same god system, right? ? Then they are..."

"Wait, you probably misunderstood," Tyr interrupted him directly, and explained earnestly with the tip of his tail, "I mean that you land people believe in 'similar' gods in every season of civilization, not the same gods. Spirits—that's a big difference."

"Big difference?" Gao Wen frowned, "What kind of difference?"

"The objects believed by several generations of sects seem to have something in common, but they don't actually feel like the same god," Tire thought hard, trying to find the most accurate words to describe the history she knew, "Let me give you an example. For example, the civilizations on your land in the ancient times all had a tendency to worship the concepts of 'light, protection, and justice', and in the process, a belief in the Holy Light was produced, but the actual The 'god of light' is different in every generation of civilization. I remember the oldest god of light in the Kraken records was a powerful male giant, but the light of the next generation of civilizations after that The God of Holy Light is a dragon, a giant crystal dragon... Well, in your previous generation or the previous season of civilization, the image of the God of Holy Light seemed to be a woman, and she was still called the Goddess of Light at that time..."