A new tower-like structure rises on the high ground on the west side of Wintercastle, and the undulating curtain of snow-capped peaks in the north forms a curtain of high towers.

The tower is made of steel and concrete, with a hexagonal base and simple straight lines, and the dense streamer travels between the runic lines and the demonic metal at the bottom of the tower, as if it has a surging vitality, and the large-scale, mechanically structured support device and crystal array formed by multiple crystals are fixed to the top of the tower, in the cold wind of the far north, a translucent magical shield insulates the erosion of wind and frost, and the crystal array at the top of the tower constantly fine-tunes its structure and angle within the shield.

It hadn't activated yet, and at the moment the crystal array was further adapting to the magical environment near Winterhold.

In a gust of wind and snow, Victoria and several high-ranking mages slowly descended from the sky to the high ground that was heavily protected by several military watchtowers and a ring of walls, and she looked up and saw the tower shining in her sight, piercing the sky like a sharp sword, and she couldn't help but smile in her eyes.

This is probably the most beautiful of all the main hubs of the magic web in the entire empire - the white color scheme and simple and powerful lines may look plain, but they perfectly match the surrounding environment, and Victoria even participated in some of the steps when designing this tower, so that the style of the main hub of the north has been synchronized with the equally white Wintercastle next to it, and now, she is very happy with the final appearance of this tower.

And that's not all the tower has to do with Winterhold.

Beneath the high ground next to the castle's main building, within a series of magical web relays that stretch along the mountain, there is a surging magic flowing day and night—the main hub, connected to the magic of Wintercast.

The Wilder family of the North has been the most outstanding magical family in the country for hundreds of years, and Wintercastle has accumulated the family's heritage for centuries, and Victoria did not waste the ready-made and excellent magic foundation here - after carefully studying the knowledge of rune logic and magic technology, she and the technical consultants from the imperial capital jointly designed a huge system, which uses the magic net as the "base", covering the magic structure of Wintercastle itself and the entire city around the castle, and at the same time solving the problem of urban energy supply, The power supply of the Magic Network Hub, the strengthening of the stability of the Magic Network, and the upgrading of the castle's own facilities.

Now, the system is up and running, gathering a surging and steady stream of energy into the tower in front of Victoria's eyes, and soon, it will broadcast the further stabilized and adjusted energy to the entire region through the crystal array on top of the tower, and establish a stable connection with the magic web hubs in other nearby towns.

"After completing the last stage of the stress test, send the news to the imperial capital," the duchess restrained her inadvertent expression and said lightly to the people next to her, "You can start preparing for the final grid connection." ”

The mage beside him immediately took the order to leave, and Victoria looked at the tower quietly for a moment, then lowered her head and whispered, "Mirmina, the goddess of magic...... May you watch all this......"

She actually rarely prays to the goddess of magic, and after learning a lot about the gods in recent years, and even witnessing two "divine disasters" herself, she has reduced the number of times she mentions the name "Mirmina", but at the end of the day she is still a mage, and there are some things that are rooted in habits that are not so easy to change, even if it is just out of simple spiritual sustenance, she also maintains her respect for the legendary "source of all laws" and "master of magic".

There was no reply to the prayer, but a vague attention and psychological response was felt – expected and reasonable.

……

With a slight buzzing sound and the click of a mechanical device, a document slowly spit out from the printing device next to his desk, and Gawain casually took it and looked at it, and couldn't help but smile on his face.

"Byron's contact with the Grey Elves and the Dwarven representatives in White Feather Harbor went very well, and the Curiosity's maiden voyage was a success beyond expectations," he said with a smile to Hetty, who was standing aside and had just finished his work, "It seems that the dwarves who live in the far west of the continent are very interested in Cecil's foreign trade machinery, and they are also very interested in magic technology—they may charge a very high price." ”

"Really? Yes...... I've been waiting for this good news for days," Hetty blinked, his tone becoming very happy, "The dwarves have always had no shortage of gold, silver, and magic materials, but the bow-shaped mountains of the dwarven kingdom facing inland have long affected their trade with the continents. If you can open up the sea trade route from Beigang to Forge City, although the distance seems to be farther, the cost is definitely countless times more cost-effective than land transportation. ”

"I've heard that the Dwarven Kingdom is rich in minerals, and to be honest, most of the reason I restarted the Northern Ring Route was to be able to open trade routes with the Dwarves - it would be too difficult to establish a trade route through the border of the Dwarven Kingdom and the series of mountains and mountains of the Oguray Tribal State," Gawain said with a smile on his face, undisguised joy and relaxation, "That's good...... Although Curiosity only opened the route from North Port to Hakuba Port this time, it is at least a good start and shows that our whole plan is feasible. ”

As he spoke, he sketched a coastline map of the northwest part of the continent in his mind, and corresponded the voyage data sent back by the "Curiosity" with the details on the map.

He could clearly "see" the location of the North Harbor and the White Feather Harbor, as well as the bow-shaped mountains of the Dwarven Kingdom and several natural harbors facing the sea - frankly speaking, for the Grey Elves who had opened up land trade routes and were geographically adjacent to the Cecil Empire, the line from White Feather Harbor to the North Harbor was not very significant, but as long as the route continued to extend and the merchant ships connected the White Feather Harbor with the Forge City, then the Grey Elf merchants would immediately be able to reap huge benefits from it- The short sea trade route was definitely easier than crossing the Bow Mountains.

I believe that the sharp-eyed Lady Wenna Bai Zhi can also see this, otherwise she would not have been so proactive in cooperating with the Cecil Empire's plan to restart the route, and agreed to open the only port into the sea in the Moss Forest to the ships of the North Harbor.

With further support from the Grey Elves, his route relaunch plans will undoubtedly become smoother......

At this moment, the hum of the machine and the click of the printing device suddenly sounded again, interrupting Gawain's thoughts.

With some surprise, he looked at the printing device connected to the magic web terminal, and saw another document slowly spit out from the paper outlet—on the half page that had been exposed, the snowflake emblem representing the Wilder family could be seen.

The paper fell into the tray, Gawain reached out to pick it up, and Hettie on the side looked curiously: "Where is the report?" ”

The documents that can be sent directly to this study are usually unusual, and it is rare for two reports to come in a row in such a short period of time.

At this time, Gawain had already swept the main part of the document at a glance, the short words were not much space, but the content was full of big news.

"The main hub in the north is ready, a day earlier than expected!" He was particularly pleased, even happier than when he received the good news from Byron, "The report from Victoria that the Hub has completed all the acceptance processes and final stress tests, and is now ready to be integrated into the backbone network, is just waiting for the Imperial Capital's orders." ”

Hetty's eyes widened suddenly, she had also been waiting for this news for a long time, especially recently as the estimated acceptance date approached, her expectations were also increasing day by day, as one of the people who watched the development of magic guide technology, she knew very well what it meant to connect the magic network to the whole territory of the empire - after staying for less than a second, she showed an extremely happy expression: "Great! We've finally waited for this day! ”

"How's the preparations?" Gawain asked quickly.

"The preparations for all departments were completed the day before yesterday, and most of the personnel are on standby at the moment, and we have been waiting for news from the north," Hetty said immediately, "If you start the preparatory process for grid connection from now, you can officially launch the first main hub in about four hours, starting from the hub in Shilin City." ”

"Then go," Gawain nodded to Hetty, "the next few hours will be a big deal. ”

It was definitely a big deal, and he was so sure of it in his heart - just like the launch of the first prototype of the magic web, like the civil war of Ansu, like the establishment of the empire, what would happen in the next few hours would be enough to leave a mark on the times, and he could even now foresee that it would be indisputably imprinted on the textbooks and examination papers of the students of the future, history classes, politics classes, and even magic technology classes.

Liberal arts must be memorized, and science must also be compulsory.

Thinking of this, Gawain couldn't help but tug at the corners of his mouth, revealing a strange expression.

The eldest princess of the empire was a little confused by the strange smile of the old ancestor, but soon Hetty threw the doubts in her heart behind her - such a happy moment, the old ancestor must also be in a mood, and it is reasonable for the smile to be more complicated.

She explained to herself like this, and then turned and left Gawain's study. She came to the hallway, looked at the neat magic crystal lamps on both sides of the hallway, exhaled softly, then lowered her head, put her hands on her chest and said a short prayer that she hadn't done for a long time: "O Mirmina, the goddess of magic...... Would you like to witness it all......"

There was no reply to the prayer, but a vague attention and psychological response was felt – expected and reasonable.

……

Imperial College, in a brand new classroom, senior Phantom students are sitting neatly behind their desks, listening to this semester's new "Neural Network Concepts Course".

Eleven, dressed in a magic uniform, was looking intently in the direction of the podium, while beside him, a large boy with short brown hair and a few freckles on his face was writing with his head down.

"Storm," Eleven, reluctantly touching his new acquaintance, reminded him in a low voice, "Don't just write notes—the teacher is talking about key theoretical knowledge." ”

The big boy named Storm seemed startled, the tip of the pen left a crooked ink mark on the paper, he looked up and glanced at Elivan quickly, his face showing a little nervous and a little timid: "I...... Good, good ......"

Seeing the other party's reaction, Elivan wanted to say something more, but in the next second, a thunderous voice suddenly came from the direction of the podium: "No conversation in class!" Mr. Eliven Franklin! ”

This loud voice swept through the classroom like a storm, and all the students were instantly shocked, and Eliven Franklin broke out in a fine sweat: even if he was the son of the Duke, he would be extremely nervous when facing this loud voice, in fact, even in the entire Imperial Academy, there was no student who was not afraid of this loud voice.

He immediately sat up straight, made a gesture that he had recognized his mistake, and glanced cautiously at the figure on the podium.

A middle-aged man of short stature with bursting hair standing on top was standing there, he was floating in mid-air, and there was a set of magic net projection crystals corresponding to his feet, which was making a very slight buzzing sound.

Magnum finished training the students, shook his head, turned to look at the schematic diagram he had just sketched in midair, and prepared to continue the next lesson: "Okay, everyone is in good spirits, let's move on to the next part, how to ensure that there will be no interference with each other after multiple brainwave signals are transmitted to a node at the same time." Listen carefully, because the forerunners who summarized this knowledge have spent ten years trying to solve this problem, and you lucky guys now need less than half a class! First ......"

Magnum's voice was halfway through when he suddenly stopped.

In the brief silence, there was inevitably a slight commotion among the students, and Elevenn heard someone whispering behind him:

"Why did Mr. Magnum suddenly stop talking?"

"Will Ms. Selena turn off the talkative again......"

"Shhhh

"Quiet!!" Suddenly, Magnum's voice exploded again, he glared at the class, and then waved his hand, "Okay, it looks like today's class is going to end early, there is a task on the neural network, I want to shift my attention to other work, and save the rest of this class for next time." ”

Then he added in a loud voice: "But don't be lazy - I have already prepared the test papers for the previous part of the course!" After a while, the teaching assistant will be sent here, and the rest of the class and the next self-study class will be left here to write papers! ”

As soon as he finished speaking, Magnum's figure disappeared from the podium in an instant, leaving only a pile of formula symbols and schematic diagrams floating in the air, and only a group of students looking at each other in the classroom.