Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 416 - 415: The Technical Issues Behind the Communicator

A cheap, convenient, stable, and reliable means of long-distance communication, its role in the process of social development is beyond doubt. Especially at the current stage when Gawain has destroyed the old aristocratic forces in the southern borders and begun to integrate and establish the New Southern Territory, its significance is as substantial as the cannons that can dismantle the old aristocracy.

There are many factors that constrain social development, and for the rapidly expanding Cecil territory with its fast-growing population, the two biggest challenges in maintaining domination over the southern borders at this stage are transportation and communication. The ability to transport goods and people, construction capacity, the flow of information within the territory, the reaction speed of the entire governance structure, and the effectiveness of those reactions... almost all of these depend on the development of transportation and communication technology.

Excellent transportation allows for the quick movement of goods and people within the territory, securing production and construction, fostering commercial growth, and tightening connections between different regions to prevent looseness. In emergencies, it is also the prerequisite for ensuring that the army can quickly arrive at the battlefield. Excellent communication allows the Administrative Office to be aware of the conditions of the entire territory, ensuring that intelligence is timely and smooth in all regions, and enabling the Administrative Office to react swiftly to emergencies — achieving these two aspects relies on technological and productivity advancements.

In Gawain’s view, Anzu’s aristocratic partition system is a manifestation of backwardness, yet it is an inevitable result of limited transportation and communication technology. Rulers cannot timely grasp the situation beyond their territorial limits, nor can they deploy armies beyond this boundary in the shortest time. The difficulty of transporting a city’s goods to other cities also destined the division of territories by the aristocracy and city-states. In fact, until Anzu 557, aristocrats and scholars still adhered to the following famous maxim:

The area a leader can effectively govern is the furthest extent his knight can reach within three days and nights, and the area he can realize absolute dominion over is the farthest distance his Mage advisor can see using bird’s eye.

This ancient saying was popular in Anzu for hundreds of years until the summer of 557, when a noble Mage from the Plains of the Holy Spirits named "Delta" invented a crystal device capable of amplifying the bird’s eye, and installed it on top of his Mage tower, thereby expanding the leader’s "absolute dominion area."

Ten years later, and under the advice of this visionary noble Mage, Anzu’s royal family commenced the construction of the "King’s Road" (also called the Cross Artery) in 567, with St. Soniel as the center, extending in all directions across the Plains of the Holy Spirits and various degrees into the surrounding territories. This significantly enhanced the royal family’s control over the nation. The aristocrats across the regions then followed suit, building a series of roads within their territories. Coupled with the successful breeding of the new "white feather" gryphon during the same period, and the emergence of the Messenger Passage Act, the transportation and communication situation within Anzu greatly improved, and the aristocrats’ and royal family’s ability to govern advanced forward significantly.

Yet, amidst these developments, the centuries-old aristocratic partition system revealed its strong inertia. Except for the King’s Road, almost all road constructions in Anzu remained fragmented, cut into pieces by each separate domain. Regardless of road standards or specifications for carriages and horses, there was almost no continuity between different aristocratic territories. Gryphon messengers were also seen as symbols of noble pride (and indeed the costs couldn’t be lowered), never reaching a stage of widespread development. The partitioned aristocrats perpetuated their pride, reserve, dignity, and self-seclusion, enjoying the benefits of increased domination over their domains on one hand, while instinctively resisting these developments from continuing to affect their absolute authority over their territories.

If there had been enough time, the breaking point would have eventually come. The old aristocrats could not forever prevent society’s forward progress. But alas, before the King’s Road could be extended to the frontier, Anzu met the Fog Month turmoil.

Thus, today Anzu still has to rely on the King’s granting of feudal vassals and vassals granting sub-vassals to maintain order. Due to the significant depletion of national power from the Fog Month turmoil, the remaining aristocrats across regions are nearly powerless to maintain and repair roads, and the population of "white feather" gryphons sharply decreased during the war. Anzu’s transportation and communication conditions have nearly degenerated back to their state before 557.

What is worse is yet to come: the second dynasty royal family and the aristocrats who experienced the horror of the Allied Army charging through the King’s Road to the Plains of the Holy Spirits during the Fog Month civil war, remember vividly. In the war’s late stages, as local aristocratic powers waned, the roads traversing territories leading directly to castles became lurking threats to the leaders’ peace of mind. Moreover, due to population decline and chaotic situations post-war, the aristocrats had to retreat to protect themselves, and this negative regressive attitude has persisted to this day.

Not until Anzu 735 did an old ancestor rise from the grave, with the authority of the founding ancestor, possessing experience from millions of years on two people’s star, with a dismissive attitude toward the traditional aristocratic system, and began constructing his new Cecil scenario in the most unreasonable way.

Looking at the communication device still in the testing phase before him, Gawain envisioned not only the communication device but also the orderly roads connecting the southern borders and even every place in Anzu.

Transportation and communication, for the former, he had concrete and the rapidly advancing various types of magic-conducting machinery. For the latter, he finally saw the results of Kamel and Rebecca’s efforts to date. The solutions to these two problems, which trouble all rulers, seem to have appeared.

"The current communication device uses a hybrid rune combination—most rune groups are based on the Eternal Sleepers’ technology, but the signal transmission and control parts still utilize traditional communication spells," Kamel explained next to the communication device, detailing some of its technical intricacies to Gawain. "Unfortunately, we still haven’t figured out how the Eternal Sleepers network transmits signals in the natural ’primitive magical power field’, so this device can only function within the coverage of a standard magical power field."

Gawain was quite interested in these technical details: "Standard magical power field... within the range of the Magic Obelisks?"

"Yes, the standard magical power field produced by the Magic Obelisks is like the ’surface of a lake’ you described. The ripples generated by the communicator spread throughout the field, reaching from one Magic Obelisk to another, allowing us to call this communication method ’Magic Web Communication’," Kamel explained. "I’ve found a method to use Magic Obelisks as ’relays’ to continuously transmit signals, and have achieved success in a small area, but the specific effects as the transmission distance increases still need to be verified..."

"How do these communication devices pair or identify each other?" Gawain asked again, "If I have a hundred of these devices distributed everywhere, how can I use one device to accurately contact another specific device?"

Gawain was also very curious about this question—Kamel’s communicator was vastly different from traditional communication spells or the elf’s great walls. It was a product of combining communication spells with the Eternal Sleepers technology, and its communication medium is the "standard magical power field" created by the Magic Obelisks, which is currently considered quite advanced technology. From a working principle perspective, it resembles a non-selective "broadcasting" device broadcasting signals in the magical power field, allowing all similar devices to listen. Without a matching pairing or identification mechanism, all signals would be publicly transmitted unencrypted, making the entire magical field a chaotic mix, difficult to realize Gawain’s desired "communication network" function.

"We referenced technology from Gondor’s time," Kamel seemed to have anticipated Gawain’s questions. He immediately responded, sounding quite proud, "You’re also an Empire citizen, you should know about the Empire’s General Information Network back in the Meteoric Era—it was already running back then."

Gawain nodded, recalling the knowledge from his memory: "Oh, I remember this. I used to often listen to opera broadcasts from the imperial capital at my mentor’s house during my knight apprentice days. That device could not only receive broadcasts but also communicate with people far away in the imperial capital. Back then, only noble or big merchant families had a ’dark blue terminal’, but compared to this era, it was considered a remarkable level of popularity."

Before Kamel could speak, Rebecca’s voice came through the communicator (she hadn’t hung up and was making funny faces while Gawain and Kamel chatted): "Wow! Was that type of communication device really so widespread back then?"

"Comparing the number of communication spells and devices now... Gondor’s communication technology back then was indeed miraculous," Kamel sighed softly before continuing, "I’ve added a ’resonance’ structure to this device, allowing only signals meeting resonance criteria to transmit between devices. To achieve this resonance, I used four basic symbols from the wind element and four basic symbols from non-elemental, randomly arranging these eight symbols on a three-by-three grid base. They don’t form any rune knot, nor do they have any spell effect, but based on the principle of mana resonance, when another similarly arranged symbol group triggers a magical shock, this ’resonance base’ will produce the same reaction..."

At this point, Kamel paused, seemingly giving Gawain and Aunt Heidi some time to calculate and ponder, then continued: "There are numerous arrangement combinations for the eight symbols on the three-by-three base. When one device calls another, only a symbol trigger group similar to an ’experiment palette’ is needed to easily combine the target symbol structure for calling. I just controlled this process directly with my magic power, but if ordinary people use it, the symbol trigger group is here, on the side of the device..."

"Dialing, we can call this process dialing," Gawain felt Kamel used too many ancient Gondor and modern magic terms to explain this simple process, so he boldly spoke up, "Additionally, we can give numbers from zero to seven to the eight symbols, providing each communication device with a specific string of numbers for identification, making it easier for users of the communication device to ’dial’. After all, it’s easier to remember numbers than symbols, and numbers are more suitable for registration in charts."

Whether it was Kamel, Aunt Heidi, or Rebecca on the other end of the communicator, everyone seemed accustomed to Gawain’s behavior of instantly appearing seasoned whenever something new emerged, and they all accepted the suggestion calmly.

Honestly, Gawain still wasn’t quite used to it...