Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 340 - 339: History Quietly Advancing

The life of the aristocracy is always accompanied by all-night banquets and socializing. Revelry is their greatest virtue. The ball at Gran Castle continued until dawn, and only then did the guests gradually disperse. Some stayed overnight in the castle, while others left at sunrise in carriages wrapped in furs and equipped with spells for constant warmth, finally bringing a sense of quiet to the once noisy place.

The lady of the castle and the most distinguished guest at the castle disappeared for a long time during the ball, which sparked endless speculation among the aristocrats attending the party. However, only the shallowest people would speculate about a widow’s romantic affairs. The astute southern aristocracy, who always viewed the Cecil Clan with an eye for conspiracy, preferred to guess what secret deal had been struck between the Duke of the southern borders and the lady of the Gran Territory.

That there was a secret deal is beyond doubt—friendship exists nowhere in an aristocratic gathering, especially when a Duke meets with a Viscount. Without a deal behind this, no one would believe it, but the specific content of the deal would not be easy to find out.

However, guests at the banquet have mostly speculated a bit. They know that Gran Territory does not have rich mineral resources, but has fairly abundant farmland and produces many furs and timber. They believe that the trade between the Viscountess of Gran and the Duke of Cecil probably revolves around these products—considering the cheap alchemical potions of the Cecil Clan, perhaps Gran Territory would use its furs and timber to exchange for Druid potions to improve land...

This is the conclusion most guests reached after reasoning.

After all, whatever trade was conducted between the Viscountess of Gran and the Duke of Cecil would not affect the power dynamics in the southern borders. The relationships among aristocrats have always been like this—complex entanglements of interest, mutual spying yet mutual reliance. Just as the roots of trees entwine in the Black Forest, so do land nobility conduct wars while secretly engaging in trade and marriage alliances in civilized society. There’s nothing remarkable about the Viscountess of Gran and the Duke of Cecil signing a trade agreement—who in the southern borders doesn’t buy potions from the Cecil Clan? This doesn’t stop them from also purchasing smuggled Magic Web technologies from Count Hosman...

Gawain stood on an open terrace outside the side door of the banquet hall. The cold night wind blew in from the north and split at a point a few centimeters before him, blowing past on either side. He looked down at the mountain path below the castle and watched the carriages hung with magic crystals leaving one after another in the rising sun—during this cold winter, aristocrats could still travel between lands for one feast after another, bearing any cost. But poor commoners might freeze to death on the mountain path just going into the hills to gather firewood.

After a moment, he slightly turned his head: "Amber."

Amber’s voice came from behind him: "Yes?"

"When did you... uh, when did you get behind me?" Gawain was just about to give instructions when he suddenly paused, noticing that Amber, who had been standing slightly behind him, was now directly behind him without him realizing it.

"Blocking the wind for you," the half-elf lady said assertively, "You’ve got the knight protective aura going, keeping the cold wind at bay, so I might as well stand close and shield from the wind, right?"

Gawain: "... Cough. Go back quickly and bring Kamel and Pittman here."

Amber paused for a moment: "You call Kamel to check Patti’s magical device, right? What’s Pittman for? Are you planning to let him treat Patti?"

"Exactly," Gawain nodded, "Compared to the Holy Light which merely stimulates vitality, Druids are better at restoring damaged flesh and replenishing life energy. His healing methods should be effective for Patti."

"That old man, really?" Amber sounded skeptical, "Viscountess Gran must have already sought all kinds of transcendental healers, surely including Druids—a mid to high-level figure might have been consulted—yet this old man is merely a low-level Druid. If the experts couldn’t cure her, could he be effective?"

"Just call them over," Gawain smiled, "Maybe it will work?"

Amber scratched her head, her figure gradually disappearing into the air, leaving only her voice: "Alright, since you’re the boss..."

Gawain turned his head to look at the empty terrace, waiting quietly. Sure enough, after a while, Amber’s figure popped out from the side once again. The half-elf stood before him, raising her hand high: "Give me money for travel expenses!"

Gawain, with an expression of having anticipated this, smiled slightly and reached inside his garment to slowly fetch some money. Then, taking advantage of Amber’s moment of relaxation, he swiftly withdrew his hand and knocked her on the head: "How dare you ask for money! That enlisting document we received a few days ago had a golden clasp in the morning, and it was gilded by afternoon! You dare ask for money!"

Then Amber turned into a streak of black light and shot straight towards the southwest...

Once Amber was truly gone, Gawain took a final look at the gradually rising giant sun before taking a deep breath of the fresh, cold northern air, invigorating his mind. Then he turned to walk into the castle.

Despite not having rested much last night, as a Beyonder, his mind remained energetic.

He decided to check on Patti, greet the little girl with a good morning, and continue telling her about the story of Charlie and the three gold crowns, which had been left unfinished the day before.

At the same time, in a secret underground palace located within the Typhon Empire, the light of Magic crystal lamps suddenly illuminated a stone hall.

The bright glow powered by magic illuminated the dark place, revealing the circular platform in the hall, the neatly arranged seats around it, and the artificial neural network behind the seats in the light, while figures in black or white robes seemed to emerge from the darkness like nightmares, standing silently before the seats.

They were the high-level nightmare bishops of the Eternal Dreamers sect.

A purple-black shadow, twinkling with starlight, appeared above the central round platform of the hall, and its voice echoed in every bishop’s mind: "Everyone is here, let’s begin."

The bishops took their seats, and one of them glanced around before looking at the platform in front of him, breaking the silence with a light laugh: "After getting used to the luxurious hall in the dream city, the meeting place in the real world feels increasingly shabby."

The shadow floating above the platform voiced in the bishops’ minds: "There are always things in dreams that cannot be achieved, hence the need to retain a meeting place in the real world."

"Your Eminence, we have made a crucial progress on ’Project Zero’," said a white-robed bishop with a female voice, "In Sandbox Number 166, the ’sanctuary’ achieved prolonged stability and successfully operated until the first millennium."

"This is currently the longest period maintained by any sandbox," said a black-robed bishop across the round table, "Moreover, we have achieved mental maintenance of the sanctuary’s residents, and none of the hundred testers in Sandbox 166 experienced a mental breakdown in a thousand years. When the sandbox collapsed, they could still answer our questions clearly—of course, to prevent contamination, we still performed memory cleansing on those hundred testers after the disbandment of Sandbox 166."

"Very good," the shadow above the platform expressed approval, and the starlight on its surface seemed to surge, "What is the current level of time iteration?"

"The ’one thousand years’ in Sandbox 166 took twenty-six days in the real world," a black-robed female bishop bowed and responded, "Currently, we’re encountering a bottleneck in time iteration. Higher levels of iteration require immense computational power, and the deeper into acceleration we go, the harder it is to ensure sandbox stability—previously, Sandbox Number 132 successfully reached the highest level of iteration state, operating 378 years in a day, but the information from the sandbox was only chaotic and mad, and all testers turned into nightmare derivatives after disconnecting from the network..."

"We need to strike a balance between the level of time iteration and stability," the shadow above the platform, the Pope of the Eternal Dreamers, calmly spoke, "Do not rush, there is still hope for humanity before this world is consumed—many talented individuals among our compatriots are waiting to be discovered, we are not alone."

Talented individuals—the bishops on site first thought of the "Nightmare Mentor" level Eternal Dreamers believer who suddenly emerged and demonstrated extraordinary talent in the new psychic network.

"The emergence of the psychic network is significantly advancing our plan, some originally unknown individuals may reveal their unique talents in front of this new phenomenon," the Pope’s wise voice echoed in the bishops’ minds, "The database concept has already been proven to have extraordinary effects in managing sandbox systems, and according to my preview, optimizing the network architecture will further improve the efficiency of the psychic network—you must focus on such talents, do not let them be wasted."

The bishops stood up together, bowing respectfully: "Yes, Your Eminence, we heed your will."

...

In the snow-covered mountains of the Anzu Northern Territory, the Northern Duchess Victoria Wilder stood in a study with a huge map of the northern territory hanging in it, quietly observing what the map depicted across all of Anzu.

The study window was tightly shut, and the howling northern wind and snow were kept outside, but around the duchess, flickering snowflakes still occasionally appeared out of thin air, as if she was the incarnation of winter itself.

The door to the study was pushed open at this moment, and a maid with ordinary black hair and black eyes, Maji, walked into the study, holding a wax-sealed cylinder with the pale gold emblem of the Moen Royal Family printed on it.

"Vickie, a sealed message from St. Soniel City."

The duchess turned around and glanced at the black-haired woman, who was a maid on the surface but actually a friend and advisor: "Was the gryphon wearing a white or gold ribbon around its neck?"

"Gold."

"Then it seems this is the will of ’the King’," the duchess said faintly. With a slight wave of her hand, the wax-sealed cylinder automatically opened, and the secret letter inside flew out and landed in her hand.

Victoria unfolded the secret letter, carefully reading every word on it, then showed a faint smile.

"The magic communication towers at the border between Anzu and Typhon have been restarted."

(Ladies and gentlemen, here’s something: in a couple of days, I’ll be heading to Shenzhen to attend a sci-fi conference, so I’ll be away for several days. The updates during this time will be affected... but there should still be one update every morning.)