The high-power magic crystal lamp illuminates the vast cave as bright as day, the sound of mixers, hoists and various magic matrices when they are running is intertwined, and there are construction workers and technicians in uniform who are busy walking between the machine and the support frame, and the construction site of the South Gate Fortress is busy.

Gawain, Hetty, and Amber arrive at the former Shadow Laboratory, and in the center of the cavern, they find Gordon, the person in charge of the place.

"Lord, the supporting structure and the underside of the foundation have been laid, the construction of the main wall is more than halfway through, and the southern gate, the ramparts, the exterior wall cladding, and the extended fire platform have been completed by sixty percent," Gordon reported on the construction of the fort, "The military station and the energy station have been activated, and as of yesterday, this place has a preliminary garrison capacity. ”

"Yes, well done." Gawain watched with satisfaction the progress made by Gordon's engineering team, and he saw that the workers were reinforcing the walls of the cave boundary, and between the southern gate and the inner cavern, an additional layer of cement-steel armor had begun to take shape, a huge support frame lay across the cavern, a magic engine-driven lifting device was fixed to the top of the frame, and a winch pulled the cable, lifting the huge cargo pallets to the second floor of the fortress, and around each cargo pallet, a faint runic light could be seen— That's the weight loss rune matrix is working.

At this stage, weight loss is still a spell that has not been fully resolved, and runemasters have not been able to solve the problem of interference when several weight loss effects are applied to a target at the same time, so it is difficult to use on larger objects (such as large vehicles), but weight loss has always been a great tool for handling smaller volumes of materials.

At the edge of the cave, you can also see that a technician with a magic guide terminal is using "fossil to mud" and "mud to stone" to quickly adjust the rock wall to prepare for the subsequent installation of wall cladding, and another engineering team not far away is inlaying the magic net unit on the wall cladding that has been installed, and the flash of plasma welding beam (hot melt welding gun) is constantly shining, showing the efficiency and coordination ability of each team.

Treating supernatural strength as productivity, rather than simply "a weapon for the strong to fight", brings this incredible efficiency.

Of course, Gordon's command was also an important factor in the rapid progress of the project.

Gawain retracted his gaze and looked at the circular pit on the ground in the center of the cave, looking at the ancient arcane rune array at the bottom of the pit and the ancient devices arranged in a ring, and asked casually, "Has this shadow portal had any unusual reactions recently?" ”

Gordon shook his head, "No—we have mana sensors around us, and we haven't found any signs of activation from this magic door. ”

"Very well," Gawain nodded, then looked at the brand new gate at the end of the cavern, "Open the gate, I'm going to go to the base and have a look." ”

"Yes - open the floodgates!!"

The rune array hummed, the gears and the winch head creaked at the same time, and the steel chains and bearings pulled the heavy steel gate, and with a slight tremor that even the ground trembled, the gate of the South Gate fortress slowly opened in front of Gawain......

To get to the borders of the wasteland and start the wall-building project, you must first open a path from civilization to the wasteland, which is blocked by the entire Black Forest, which humans have not set foot in hundreds of years.

After deciding to build the wall, Gawain considered two options to open the way, one was to cross the mountain directly from the South Gate Fortress, and then build an advance base in front of the fortress, violently open the way in the Black Forest, and build a straight road to the wasteland; The second option was to bypass the entire fortress of disobedience, exit through the mountain pass on the west side of Cecil, and finally build a road through the Black Forest, also through the Black Forest.

The first plan was obviously more time-saving and labor-saving, but the second plan was to keep the secret of the Fortress of Disobedience and the South Gate Fortress - he didn't want too many outsiders to know that Cecil had such a special portal in his hands, such a complete ancient fortress in his hands. Although there are many rumors that "Duke Cecil has the relics of Gondor in his hands", it is ...... to rebel against the fortress There are so many secrets.

But now Gawain chose the first option, because he had determined that neither the royal family nor the eastern realm would send people to participate in the project - they were trying to preserve their strength and continue the confrontation, but for Gawain, he was happy to let the whole project be in his own hands.

Bringing in a bunch of noble overseers and slave craftsmen from the north will only drag Cecil down the engineering corps.

Paving improvised roads is not a difficult task in this world due to the convenient elemental manipulation spells, and from the South Gate fortress to the border of the Black Forest, a wide road that has been temporarily hardened with "mud to stone" has connected the Fortress of Disobedience to the forward base, and shortly after the car set off, Gawain saw the towering Magic Net Relay Tower and the rising smoke and dust - the temporary base built by the "Pioneer" was ahead.

More than a dozen large and small slab houses were built on the edge of the Black Forest, and the outer perimeter of the house was a protective barrier made of a mixture of wooden fences, wire fences, chest-length low walls and watchtowers, from which the guards responsible for protecting the advancing base watched vigilantly in the direction of the Black Forest, and in front of the gate at the entrance to the base, stood two strong white knights like iron towers.

As Gawain had previously emphasized, beyond the borders of civilization, there were dangers everywhere, and this forward base for the wasteland naturally needed to be heavily guarded.

"Salute!!"

The two white knights noticed Gawain sitting in the car, and they immediately straightened up, a deep and powerful sound came from under the full-covered steel helmet, and the gate of the base opened to both sides, and the magic guide car in which Gawain and his party rode smoothly drove into the forward base.

As soon as he got out of the car, Gawain saw a sturdy figure walking briskly towards him.

Wright Aviken, Chief of the White Knights and Patriarch of Protestantism.

Instead of staying in his church, the herd, who had become a "big man", volunteered to come to the front after hearing that he was going to march into the wasteland, where he commanded the escort of the "Pioneers". Since the White Knight himself was good at guarding the body, and the Holy Light Power had the convenient property of healing pollution and expelling monsters, Gawain agreed to his application.

And behind Wright, Gawain saw several special figures-

It was Sonia Frostleaf and the elven messengers she had brought.

The elves were clearly particularly interested in repairing the barrier, and while the bustling and novel city of Cecil did arouse their curiosity and interest, they were more concerned about the progress of the work in the southern part of the Dark Mountains, where Sonia and her companions had spent only a third of their time these days, and almost all of the rest on the Black Forest.

"I'll take a look at the progress," Gawain greeted Wright first, then looked at Sonya, "You're here again today?" ”

"Watching the progress of the project will make us more grounded," Sonia said with a smile, "and not being in the city will prevent some embarrassing ...... Mother and son conflict. ”

What Sonia said was obviously a joke, in fact, her relationship with Sölderling was quite good in Gawain's opinion, but Gawain still somewhat understood the elf mother's tangled state of mind after seeing Sölderlin-

In all fairness, if he also had a son who didn't come home for 700 years, had no partner, didn't write letters, was bald and wore wigs, and liked women's clothes......

Halfway through it, he didn't dare to assume any more.

He felt that he might choose to lie back in the coffin and ask someone to help nail the lid on.

“…… As you can see, we are doing our best to speed up the paving of the road and try to clear the road to the Corrupt Plains before the harvest festival," Gawain disguised his embarrassment for a moment by diverting the subject, "At the moment, it seems that the project can be completed as scheduled, as long as there are no major accidents." ”

"We've seen it—and it's made me feel a lot more grounded," Sonia exhaled softly, "Frankly, I didn't even expect you to be so fast that you've started paving the way in the Black Forest in such a short period of time." I can see how much effort you've put into this – but your royal family, on the other hand, haven't delivered the first supplies yet! To put it mildly, the same Ansu people, how can your efficiency be so much worse? ”

"Not everyone will turn magic into productivity," Gawain shook his head helplessly, "What's more, the nobles of the north may not all be aware of how terrifying the threat of the wasteland is. The demon tide of 700 years ago may still be a matter of purpose for elves, but for humans...... That's an ancient legend dozens of generations ago. ”

It was not the first time that Sonia had dealt with humans, of course she knew that what Gawain said made sense, so she didn't say much, but looked in the direction of the Dark Mountain Range, looked in the direction of the South Gate Fortress, and sighed leisurely: "The fortress of the ancient Gondor period...... Seven hundred years ago, I had heard that the Northern Pioneer Army had discovered an ancient relic while crossing the Dark Mountains, but I didn't expect it to play such a role in your hands today, seven hundred years later. ”

"We didn't expect that," said Gawain with a smile, "just as I never imagined that I would see a magnificent wall built before I fell, and that I would have to rebuild it after waking up from a long sleep—fate has always been unreasonable." ”

"You're unlucky enough," Sonia couldn't help but shake her head, "You fell in the hardest of times and woke up in the next, fate seems to have deliberately arranged for you to fight against disaster without giving you a chance to rest." We had seven centuries of peace, and you didn't enjoy a single day. ”

Gawain didn't speak, because he wasn't really Gawain Cecil, so he didn't have any regrets, but Hetty, who was beside him, suddenly raised his head, and the big butler of Cecil seemed to be greatly touched by Sonya's words, and she looked at her ancestor fixedly, and suddenly felt ashamed of her usual smoky makeup.

Gawain didn't know why Hetty was blushing all of a sudden.

……

At the same time, in the north of the Duchy of Cecil, the port square of the city of Rock.

Sir Wald Perridge, the Commander of the Rock, stood in the square with his guards and guard of honour, ready to bid farewell to the envoys from the royal capital, who had been in the gateway city for a long time, and now they were about to board the ship and set out for Cecil.

"This city is impressive, sir," said Cohen Loren, the leader of the emissaries and deputy head of the Knights of the Ansu royal family, to Wald, "I came to this land two years ago, but it was not at all like that then, and I must admit that it was truly incredible. ”

Sir Wald looked at the deputy head of the knights in front of him - this deputy head has the special surname "Loren", but he is also a member of the royal faction, and the envoys he leads also have envoys from the east and envoys from the royal capital, which makes people have to think about it, but Wald himself is not a person who is interested in court intrigue and aristocratic balance, he just smiled and shook his head: "Rock City is just a portal, you haven't seen the truly incredible side of this land yet." ”

"Oh, I'm a calm man," Cohen Loren smiled politely, "I only look at new things here with an eye of appreciation, after all, no matter how magical, they are man-made." ”

"Then please." Walder raised his hand and pointed to the docks, and at about the same time, a melodious whistle came from within the bay.

A large ship without sails and oars, to the consternation of Cohen Loren, was approaching the harbor from the distant river, accompanied by the sound of breaking waves and the roar of machinery.

The ship looked as if it had been cast of metal.

"For the sake of efficiency, the lord has ordered the river fast passenger ship 'Wave Breaker' to fetch the envoys," said Wald Perridge with a pleasant smile, "please come aboard." ”