Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 355 - 354: New Features of the Satellite Spirit

After Amber left, Gawain quietly contemplated the information he heard in the second piece of the Eternal Stone Slate.

He could feel that the second Eternal Stone Slate brought not only a poem with seemingly deep meaning and a view resembling surveillance information of space facilities, but also a subtle change to his mental world. This change was somewhat similar to the feeling he experienced after contacting those mysterious crystals left by Gawain Cecil.

Perhaps this frequent contact with "relics" is reinforcing some kind of information linkage channel. He felt that his connection to the surveillance satellite in space became even closer, and this didn’t seem to be an illusion...

After slightly calming his turbulent mental power, Gawain focused his attention and started calling the satellite signal.

An image appeared out of thin air in his mind and unfolded. It was a familiar surveillance view from the space perspective, and the image still covered with hazy color blocks, like a thermal imaging map (a map of magical energy distribution). At the top of the view was a recent report on the activities of the gas giant.

Gawain ignored those surveillance reports he had already seen and concentrated on trying to adjust that overhead view.

Slowly, he felt that the perspective seemed to "loosen" slightly...

In the distant space, in the boundless darkness, on an orbit hidden by the optical mask system, an extremely ancient orbital space facility was faintly glimmering.

It was shaped like an inverted flat-topped pyramid, with a gray-white metallic exterior imprinted with large black symbols. Between the overlapping layers of the inverted pyramid, a faint milky white light stream was slowly flowing, indicating that sufficient energy for operation still lingered in this ancient device, though the light stream was intermittent—its energy core was clearly in a rather unfavorable state.

At some moment, a slight change occurred at the end of the inverted pyramid pointing toward the earth.

On that small plane, a set of extremely complex optical sensors formed a precise observation array, and at that special moment, its observation array suddenly jittered—then again.

One after another, the optical sensors were striving to adjust their angles, causing the observation array’s mounting base to tremble incessantly—if sound could be transmitted here, it would certainly be rattling. This process lasted for several seconds, then a jammed mechanical structure seemed suddenly released—the sensors became active, and the innumerable lenses and elements trembled almost wildly, until two seconds later, they recalibrated, and everything returned to calm.

During those two seconds, Gawain felt like his world was spinning.

It turned out that suddenly dividing a perspective into a dozen views and having them frantically sweep over a range spanning thousands of kilometers brought extremely frightening consequences. The resulting mental pollution was unbearable even for the satellite spirit that had become significant over millions of years...

Once everything finally stabilized, Gawain steadied himself by holding onto the table and was immensely grateful he had sent Amber away. Otherwise, his spectacle of stumbling would surely be mocked by the half-elf for more than half a year, and worse, she might immediately rush to Aunt Heidi and Rebecca and say, "Your forefather had a stroke in the brain"...

Such a thing she would definitely do—she’d enjoy it even knowing that Gawain would smack her into the wall for it.

After steadying himself, Gawain began to slowly adjust the image in his mind, and a smile gradually appeared on his face.

In his mind, the overhead image, originally obscured by large patches of color that made it impossible to see, finally became clear—he found a way to turn off the "magical energy distribution map filter." Now, he could freely and clearly look at the world!

Although it still wasn’t as clear as what he saw during his satellite era, he was quite satisfied—this was, after all, an old satellite, and being able to turn off the filter had already greatly exceeded his expectations. The slightly blurred image was entirely acceptable.

That was likely due to the aging of the lens group.

Moreover, he tried turning the magical energy distribution map back on again—after a brief delay, the magical energy distribution map, covered with shifting color blocks, reappeared in his mind, much to Gawain’s relief.

The fact that the filter could be freely toggled was the best, after all, even though the magical energy distribution map was unclear, it was an essential reliance for chaotic wave warnings. All things considered, Gawain felt it was even more valuable than the clear image currently at his disposal.

Besides the freely toggling magical energy distribution map, Gawain also discovered that he could finally move the perspective and zoom the image!

In his mind, the vast land was slowly moving. He saw the Cecil territory’s southern mountains, the pioneering land on the northern banks of the White River, the Kant and Gran territories, and he had even seen the Plains of the Holy Spirits and the Northern Lands still covered in snow...

After scanning over the Anzu Kingdom, Gawain began to shift his perspective southward.

His view returned to the Cecil territory and slowly moved south, crossing the Dark Mountain Range, over the Black Forest that once devoured tens of thousands of warriors from the pioneer expeditionary army, beyond the banded flatlands once crucial to Goron’s grain production... He saw the great walls.

These were bright arcs of light, with one giant sentinel tower (Barrier Generator) standing at each node of the light arcs. The energy they emitted formed a curved barrier so enormous that even if he pulled his view back and looked down from a more distant space angle, the striking barrier was visible.

However, as he focused his attention on the interior of the barrier within the Gondor wasteland, the smile on Gawain’s face gradually disappeared.

Large swathes of interference patterns suddenly appeared on the screen, with layers of distorted color blocks and continuously flickering pixels nearly occupying the entire view. He could barely see anything within the Gondor wasteland!

Gawain could, of course, guess what that was—that powerful energy interference was the remnants of chaotic wave energy still entrenched in the wasteland!

The interference energy is actually so strong? So much so that even the surveillance satellites of Zenith can’t see through the internal situation of the interference zone?

Gawain furrowed his brow, then speculated that the satellite might have various sensors and observation modes, perhaps even ones that could handle such interference, so he immediately activated the magical surge observation—this was currently the only observation mode he had access to besides high-definition imaging.

Sure enough, Gawain saw something different: it was magical color blocks, nearly purple-black, spread all over the screen.

This indicated that the magical intensity within the observation range was extremely high.

Gawain silently turned off the magical surge mode, feeling that it was utterly useless, even less useful than the high-definition view.

He didn’t immediately shift his "gaze" away but obstinately lingered within the Gondor wasteland, trying hard to concentrate and applying advanced techniques like blinking for frame compensation and mental removal of mosaics to make up for the picture’s shortcomings. During this process, he painstakingly distinguished some terrain within the Gondor wasteland through those flickering interference lines and dislocated images, comparing them with things in his memory.

He thought he found the magic scorch mark, saw the Great Wasteland, and even saw some vague, seemingly writhing images near the magic scorch mark... What is that? Could it be a migrating aberration cluster?

Gawain frowned, trying to track those writhing images, but soon they became too blurred to distinguish.

While Gawain was attempting to find other aberration clusters, a very faint flash suddenly appeared in the central region of the Gondor wasteland, catching his attention.

He immediately focused all his energy (including blinking for frame compensation and mental mosaic removal) on that area. After patiently waiting for dozens of seconds, he indeed observed another flash at that location.

Was it lightning in the clouds? Unlikely... Though many areas of the Gondor wasteland are covered by thick radiative clouds, the wasteland’s center and most of the northern region currently lack clouds, there is only an exceptionally high-density magic environment there...

Gawain hypothesized possible answers—he knew what place that was.

That was the imperial capital of the Gondor Empire, where the Well of Deep Blue once was...

So it was very likely that the flash was emitted from the remnants of the Well of Deep Blue!

Gawain was startled by his own guess—after so many years, could it be that part of the Well of Deep Blue is still operating?! Wasn’t it completely destroyed by the chaotic wave?!

But that slightly blue flash was clearly the kind of glow that only the normal operation of the Well of Deep Blue could produce! It’s the arc that forms when the reaction tower releases energy!

Gawain, propelled by intense curiosity, wanted to discern more things from that monitoring image, but it was utterly impossible—the interference was far too severe, and the limits of blinking for frame compensation and mental mosaic removal had been reached.

Feeling the rapid depletion of his mental power, Gawain could only reluctantly abandon the thought of observing more from the Gondor wasteland, trying instead to extend his vision to the farthest reach—he wanted to see if he could observe beyond this continent.

After making a valiant attempt, the result was as he expected: he couldn’t.

He realized this limitation was likely determined by the satellite’s position and mechanical structure of its sensors—the observation range of this satellite was really only this continent. Unless, one day, he gained the authority to change the satellite’s orbit (assuming this satellite even had such a function), he probably wouldn’t be able to see beyond the continent.

Of course, there was another idea, which was to connect to satellites in other regions... But Gawain always thought the odds of that were even lower than changing the satellite’s orbit... he surely couldn’t die on the spot and traverse back to the sky, could he?

Next, like a child who got a new toy, Gawain began to eagerly fiddle with the viewing permissions he had just unlocked. Although the images he saw when zoomed in were far less clear than in the past, it still made him extremely happy. At times he glanced at St. Soniel, other times at Aldernon, occasionally at the direction of the Elven Empire, and in the process tried to deduce the reality beneath the blurred mosaics.

He fiddled for quite a while, until he was about to throw up.

Gawain leaned on the table, sat back in his chair, thinking that he shouldn’t play any longer—any more and he would really throw up... if Amber happened to return just then, he wouldn’t be able to maintain his dignity.

And not long after he sat down, footsteps came from outside the study room door.

Gawain knew this certainly wasn’t Amber—after all, Amber rarely entered through the door, much less made any footstep sounds.

Hearing the heavy and powerful steps outside, he suspected it was the fully armed Byron or some burly guard coming to report something.

A moment later, the knock on the door echoed, he responded, and the study door opened, with Priest Wright standing at the door, locking eyes.

Gawain: "..."

No wonder the footsteps were heavy and powerful!