Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 602 - 601: Snowy Days

After a simple yet elegant dinner, the visitors from the Cecil Clan toured the Typhon camp, admiring the barracks, towers, and walls sculpted by magic, as well as the impressive "Sub-Tower" under construction and the large Mage District. With the tour concluded, the sunlight behind the murky clouds was nearing the horizon, and before the night descended, Gawain and his entourage were escorted to the "guest rooms" within Rosetta’s Traveling Palace.

The so-called guest rooms were also constructed with magically-shaped stone blocks, with the same grayish material as the other buildings of the Pinnacle Base, yet the hosts here obviously endeavored to enhance the rooms’ taste and comfort with additional decorations. Tapestries rich with Typhon flair, shaggy carpets, and large oil paintings offset the cold sensation of the "artificial stone house." In his own room, Gawain even spotted a full set of exquisite wooden furniture, gold-trimmed porcelain, silver chandeliers, and a collection of books sufficient to pass the time — for a pinnacle base near a Gondor wasteland, such a room was considered luxurious.

After the servant informed him of the dinner time and location, Gawain closed the door and moved to the bookshelf on the west side of the room, where Amber’s figure emerged beside him.

The half-elf lady at least was doing her job diligently at the moment: "No surveillance items detected, and the shadow magic nearby is very calm."

"Of course there aren’t, Rosetta Augustus wouldn’t be so rash and reckless — secretly monitoring a legendary figure isn’t that simple," Gawain said casually, his gaze sweeping across the bookshelf, "....’A Brief History of the Northern Continent Heraldry’.... if I have to pass the time with this kind of thing, I’ll probably only get more bored."

Amber scrutinized Gawain, pondering for a while before finally speaking up: "To be honest, today I kind of don’t understand you..."

"In what way don’t you understand?" Gawain, long expecting this half-elf to harbor a multitude of questions, also anticipated she couldn’t hold them in, and so he said with a composed smile.

Amber opened her mouth as if to ask, but at the last second before speaking, she bit her lip hard, glanced around quickly, and finally puffed her cheeks: "I’m not asking!"

Gawain was taken aback, a hint of relief in his smile: "Good."

One must never underestimate others, never lose vigilance in unfamiliar surroundings. No matter how many checks you do, you must always keep the final secret, and this proves that if this half-elf chooses to use her brain, she is anything but foolish.

And after casually praising Amber, Gawain shifted his attention away from the uninteresting books and asked nonchalantly: "What’s your take on this camp?"

He knew that Amber must have already viewed most areas of the camp, whether accompanied by the Typhon people or not, and she must have noted many more details than others — this person wasn’t strong in direct confrontation, but was very competent as a scout princess.

From here on, what he discussed with Amber wouldn’t involve long-term plans or secrets, and he wasn’t worried about eavesdropping.

Amber thought for a moment, then said straightforwardly: "In my view, the Typhon people are really, really wealthy, too wealthy!!"

"Oh?"

"You should have noticed too, this camp is almost entirely shaped by magic power. I’ve checked the conditions of their camp and the Mage District, and I confirmed that they have gathered at least eight hundred low to middle-ranked Mages here. These transcendent individuals are tasked here with ’building houses,’" Amber said seriously, "With these Mages, the construction speed of this base shouldn’t be slower than ours, its efficiency in all aspects shouldn’t be less than ours, and might even be more efficient."

"Typhon began promoting the systematic and professional management of transcendents a dozen years ago, applying various extraordinary powers to production development. They also modeled the Gondor Empire’s neonate screening system, actively nurturing transcendents from the entire populace starting from infancy. This leads them to have almost double the number of transcendents as we have in Anzu, along with an extremely advanced management system to match, ensuring every transcendent is registered and accounted for," Gawain said unhurriedly, "The majority of mages you see here should be called ’engineering mages,’ trained from the onset of their exposure to magic power with a focus on construction-related spells, and there are tens of thousands of similar ’full-time mages’ within Typhon."

Amber widened her eyes, momentarily speechless: "..."

Gawain found her expression amusing and glanced at her: "What are you thinking?"

"Do you think they’d accept me if I defected now?"

"Why don’t you give it a try?"

Amber shrank back: "No, I’m afraid I’d get beaten to death."

Gawain chuckled, unfazed by the joking remark, and casually remarked: "As you can see, Typhon is indeed very strong, but on the other hand... they aren’t very clever."

Amber blinked, having somewhat guessed Gawain’s meaning: "You think they’re wasting resources, don’t you..."

"Yes, a gigantic waste — they’re using researchers on construction sites," Gawain shook his head, a look of regret on his face. "Mages are researchers, inventors, creators, how can they squander them on construction sites?! In my opinion, they shouldn’t be used as forces on the battlefield or as manual labor in production but should all be sent to laboratories!

"The eight hundred mages you see here, their speed in constructing a base in no way lags behind our mechanization, and may even exceed it. But if it were up to me, I’d make all eight hundred mages researchers, let them study more advanced magic-conducting machinery, more advanced alchemy materials, develop technology to widely replicate their efficient spells, then I’d be able to spread these technologies to eight hundred thousand ordinary workers, allowing each of those workers to be as efficient as an ’engineering mage.’ That is the correct usage of knowledge."

Amber blinked, and through Gawain’s short outlook and description, she finally felt directly where the true strength of "magical industry" lay.

Gawain exhaled and, despite his righteous tone, couldn’t help but shake his head and say: "However, there’s one problem, a very real problem troubling us..."

"What problem?"

"As you just said, Typhon is really too wealthy, too wealthy... they have the money, the people, the resources..." Gawain sighed, "We can indeed ’arm’ eight hundred thousand workers with the technological achievements of eight hundred mages, while Typhon... they could probably really pull out eighty thousand engineering mages..."

Amber: "..."

Gawain sighed: "This is what’s called monetary power."

Amber looked blank: "Monetary power...who would describe it that way..."

In this world, there was no term for "banknote", so Gawain directly used the word "currency" to creatively coin the term "money power", and it was clear that Amber understood its meaning.

Thus, after understanding the true source of power behind magical industry, Amber also grasped why, even with such a formidable tool, Gawain still viewed Typhon as the strongest, most terrifying enemy.

She glanced at Gawain, vaguely realizing something.

No matter what business this man risen from the coffin was going to do with the Typhon Emperor, whether accepting Typhon’s cotton surplus or helping Typhons build railways, his sole purpose going forward...

was to counter Typhon’s "money power".

...

The winter snow was flying; the coldest season of the year had descended upon this land.

Plains of the Holy Spirits, in an unnamed village half a day’s ride from White Pine Town. The snow had already covered the feet, but this snowfall was only the beginning, and the snowflakes continued to fall down.

This divine gift blanketed everything indiscriminately, blurring the boundaries between fields and ditches, roads and wasteland, and even the divisions between heaven and earth. The nameless village seemed like a pile of stones in this snowy land, with man-made structures gradually being cloaked in silver white. During these perilously cold days, households sealed their doors and windows, patched every hole in their rundown walls to prevent the precious heat from escaping. People hid indoors, where they could shelter from wind and snow, conserving their strength and warmth while hoping for a safe passage through winter, all the while worrying each time they heard a strange creak from above.

The village in the snow was silent.

Yet beneath the snow, in the cellar of a long house, a secret gathering was taking place.

Cheap, poor-quality candles were arranged on a worn-out, old long table. Flickering candlelight cast shadows across the cellar. On the table were clay pots, daggers, stone shards, and other items, along with some red pigment scratched onto the surface in eerie, sinister magical symbols and unsettling twisted images. Around the long table, more than a dozen ragged figures solemnly sat in the candlelight, with a dozen fervent eyes watching the two figures beside the long table.

The two figures were quite tall, wearing shabby gray-black robes, with iron reaper talismans hanging around their necks, reminiscent of corpse pullers.

"Brothers and sisters, the day to escape hardship is near..."

One of the corpse pullers spread his arms, speaking as if preaching.

"Accept this grace, ye who suffer,"

The other corpse puller bent down, praying devoutly while picking up a clay pot with some liquid from the table.

The people around the long table all stood up in anticipation and fervor, approaching the table one by one, allowing the gray-black-robed individual with the pot to apply the dark red liquid from the pot onto their foreheads.

"Once you receive this grace... you’ll escape this day of hardship, not waiting till after death, not waiting for another life. The earthly kingdom, attainable soon..."

"The day to escape hardship..."

"The earthly kingdom..."

"Attainable soon..."

The chanting and prayers echoed in the secret cellar, while above it, in the long house standing amidst wind and snow, several pairs of indifferent yet vigilant eyes were tightly fixed on narrow window gaps, watching the world amidst the snow.

In the surrounding houses, nearly every building in the village had similar indifferent yet watchful eyes peering from every window.

...

Eastern Plains of the Holy Spirits, Sorinburg.

The snowflakes were similarly falling on this land.

A knight squad entered the city in the afternoon. Their armor was polished and their equipment excellent, even their warhorses wore high-quality steel chainmail, with talisman collars that could soothe the mind and enhance endurance. They rode along the widest main gate avenue in the city, and everyone along the way — including patrolling soldiers — chose to defer with reverence upon seeing the knights’ insignia.

The insignia depicted a black crossed longsword, marking them as belonging to Duke Silas Loland of the Eastern Duke.

At the front of the team, young Marquis Belk Loren, fully armored, controlled the pace of his beloved horse and the entire team, preventing his somewhat coarse subordinates from bumping into pedestrians along the street (though on such a snowy day, there were scarcely any pedestrians), all the while raising his head to look at the majestic castle on the distant high ground.

After staying safely at the rear for so long, dealing day by day either with annoying local aristocrats or watching the Cecil Clan gradually blow up the White Sand Dunes (now he suspects that those Cecil Clan people might even plan to blast the place into a white sand quarry), Belk felt that sooner or later his patience and vigor would be completely worn down. But, fortunately, he finally received orders to return to Sorinburg.

The young Marquis straightened his back, meeting all gazes with the most impeccable knightly demeanor — even if there were no crowds around at the moment. He looked at the wintry street, contemplating what he needed to report upon seeing his father and Prince Edmund.

The situation in the White Sand Dunes certainly needed constant reporting; the Cecil Clan wanted to build a new type of road, which must be notified to His Highness the Prince promptly. Besides that, he also needed to report the suppression of banditry in two territories, and additionally, the non-performance of the "serf freedom decree" and the "land replacement law" by lower-level aristocrats.