The summer wind hovered between the buildings of the city, and the clear and open sky seemed high and far away, Amber sat on the outer edge of the bell tower, looking at the visitors from the deep sea next to her with curious eyes: "I heard that you are not the natives of this world - what are you called 'foreign visitors' in the language ......of magicians, you are all foreign visitors in your whole race?" ”

"It's not a secret, at least we Krakens themselves have never hidden this, we will calmly inform every race or civilization we deal with, but the civilization on land is short-lived, and it is always difficult for them to pass on things that are too old for a long time, and we only deal with land civilizations for a very few years, so you scholars on land always think that we are too mysterious, and even a little dangerous."

Tyr said unhurriedly, the tip of his tail dangling unconsciously in circles in mid-air, looking leisurely and relaxed.

"It's true that we are not natives of this planet, but we have been on this planet for many, many years...... To put it mildly, we 'outsiders' have lived on this planet longer than the vast majority of your so-called 'natives' on land, but that doesn't mean much to us Krakens.

"We come from a far, far away place, and in fact even we don't know how far away our homeland is from here - we landed on this world in ancient times with a crashed spaceship, and there were so many strange and bizarre phenomena during that disastrous voyage that we have some scholars who have survived from that era, and they have not yet been able to decipher the root causes of those phenomena and find the location of their homeland.

"I'm telling you this...... Isn't it a little too far away? ”

Tyr stopped abruptly and glanced at Amber with a look of embarrassment on his face.

"To be honest, it sounds like a lot of work...... But not to the point where I don't understand it completely," Amber blinked, "I know that mages are fascinated by the stars, and have been like this since ancient times, but I haven't heard of a powerful mage who can actually 'throw' himself out of this planet. No matter how powerful the flying technique is, there is a limit, and it is said that the higher you go, the more chaotic and dangerous the magical environment becomes—Rebecca is trying to create a flying machine that flies at a very, very high altitude, and it is said that she wants to try to see if she can break through the limits of flying with magic technology, and take a look at the world under our feet......"

As she spoke, she couldn't help but look Tyr up and down, and her tone was incredulous: "You said that you crashed into this world on a 'spaceship', so at least your existence proves that there are indeed other worlds in the starry sky, and there are also - at least there was once technology that could travel in the starry sky?" ”

"Of course there are, there are other worlds, and there is technology to get there," Tyr laughed, but she quickly put away her smile and couldn't help but sigh, "It's a pity that after all these years, we have neither succeeded in repairing the ship, nor have we seen any other race in this world successfully leave this planet...... This second point is especially strange, as if there is an invisible barrier on this planet, which has never stopped anyone, but everyone died before touching it. ”

Amber's pointed ears trembled subconsciously, and her expression became a little subtle: "These words...... You and the old ...... Has Your Majesty also talked about it? ”

"Of course, he's even more curious than you are," said Tyr casually, "and he's been asking me all about the Kraken long before you've been interested. ”

“…… Would you mind telling me what your 'ship' looks like? Amber asked curiously, "What did it fly on?" ”

"I'm afraid this doesn't have any reference value for your technical system - and I know it myself, after all, I'm not a professional technician."

"It's okay, I'm just curious anyway - if you don't want to say it......"

Tyr glanced at Amber and saw that there was indeed a curious light in those big amber eyes, she couldn't help laughing, stretched hard, and said in a lazy tone, "Well, anyway, I've just slept enough, and I'm still a little bit away from sleeping...... If you don't have anything to do, then I'll tell you about how we live in Antavian. ”

……

Kamel drifted into the assembly room, and the sounds of machinery running and personnel responding to commands were immediately heard from all directions.

He looked not far away and saw a large group of people busy around a large device with a long acceleration track - and judging by the interfaces at both ends of the track, it had more acceleration structures waiting to be connected - a large number of mana capacitors and overload devices were fixed around the track, and a large number of dazzling devices were being connected to the main body of the device one by one.

A middle-aged man with a somewhat bowed head was directing the staff at the scene, with a serious and focused expression on his face, the only remaining ring of hair on his head was wet with sweat, and he was reflecting the light with his scalp in the light, but he obviously didn't notice these trivial problems: the work in front of him was very important, and it was worth a man who was responsible for forgetting his fur problem for a while.

Kamel drifted over to him and said hello only after the other party noticed him, "Marin, how's it going?" ”

Marin Leslie saluted Kamal and then raised his hand to the accelerator next to him: "As you can see, our previous design has been reversed, the meltdown of the continuous acceleration rails is a big problem, and we are redesigning the balance between these rails. This time it's going well, and maybe in a few days we'll be ready for the next accelerated test. ”

Kamel nodded slightly.

The middle-aged man named Marin Leslie in front of him had a noble surname, and in fact he was indeed from a noble background - Viscount Leslie, the consul of Tanzanian City, was his uncle, but Marin, as a member of the nobility, was clearly more willing to deal with knowledge and technology.

As a member of the Magic Guiding Technology Research Institute, he leads a second-level team, and their task this time is to find a way to get the "Extreme Acceleration Device".

This device is a key part of the "high-speed aircraft project", which was established by Rebecca, the head of the Magic Energy Technology Department, and handed over to Marin and his technical team to complete the project.

This is how many projects of the Magic Technology Research Institute operate now - as the top person in charge of the Magic Technology Department, Rebecca's energy is limited after all, even if there are more whimsical ideas, there are a number of things she can pay attention to at one time, so as the R&D projects become more and more complex and numerous, and as the technical staff is gradually enriched, she began to split many projects into various secondary laboratories or independent research groups, and now, Almost all of the more basic or short-term R&D tasks are completed by teams led by senior researchers like Marin (and the accolades and awards will of course belong to these teams), while Rebecca and Kamel are responsible for less than half of all R&D tasks under the entire Magic Technology Department.

These two percent are really long-term, cutting-edge content.

On top of that, Carmel and Rebecca regularly visit the teams to check on the progress of the tasks – just as they do today.

"Her Highness Rebecca is having a remote meeting with the Silver Empire's technical exchange representatives, and she will be over when the meeting is over," Carmel said casually to Marin Leslie while paying attention to the work of the field technicians, "I read the report from the last time you activated the acceleration device, although the device melted down at that time, according to the records left by the monitoring circle, the accelerator should have been infinitely close to the 'missile limit' before losing power?" ”

"But we still haven't been able to break through," Marin shook his head regretfully, "and we also found out afterwards that there was a very serious elemental erosion damage on the surface of the accelerator, which was probably caused by the lack of time to release waste energy from inside the guide rail - at extremely high speeds, many things have developed beyond our expectations, and there are still many things that need to be adjusted and improved." ”

"Take your time," Carmel said in a low voice, with a reassuring tremor, "success always takes such failures to accumulate. ”

Listening to the ancient archmage's trusty words, Marin nodded solemnly, and then he wiped the sweat from his head—he seemed to be momentarily frustrated at the touch of his smooth scalp, but soon regained his spirits and threw himself back into calibrating and assembling the accelerator.

……

Gawain put down the grading work at hand, moved his slightly stiff shoulders for a moment, and then let out a sigh of relief, got up and went to the window.

The sun shines just right outside the window, and the bustling scene of the city is in full view.

With the establishment of a series of diplomatic relations, the smooth progress of foreign commercial activities, and the gradual recognition of the new name "Cecil" in the surrounding countries, more and more merchants, students, and sojourners are coming here from afar, and Cecil's merchants and emissaries are slowly spreading to the Oguray tribes, the northern states, and even the Typhon Empire.

Magic technology broke down the barriers created by the old order of production, liberated the productive forces from the land in large numbers, and with it came the prosperity of commerce and the circulation of "people", all of which brought about the exchange of cultures and the inevitable impact on relations between countries. The original distant and strange country will fade with the injection of goods, and the strangers who appear with the goods will further broaden people's horizons - whether people want to or not, the barriers between countries, races and races, civilizations and civilizations are being impacted, and the once idyllic seemingly beautiful and peaceful situation is actually isolated and closed is being challenged.

The civilians of Cecil's hinterland have also begun to come into contact with the gray elves, the Red Valley people, the dwarves, orcs and even goblins, and more and more humans are appearing in the homeland of these races, of course, this is only the beginning, the exchange is only taking place on a small scale, but there is no doubt that this is the situation that Gawain wants to see.

If he could, he hoped that such a period of steady development would last longer.

A soft knock suddenly came from the door of the study, interrupting Gawain's reverie, and he heard Betty's voice coming from outside the door: "Your Majesty! There's a visitor! ”

Compared with a few years ago, the little maid's voice is now much more mature and calm, but it is only her voice that is mature and calm, and when choosing words, Betty still has a hint of recklessness and lack of "solemnity" from time to time.

Gawain smiled, turned around to let Betty in, and said casually, "There shouldn't be any visitor appointments today - what kind of person is it?" ”

Betty, who was wearing a royal maid's dress and was a little taller than a few years ago, thought for a moment, nodded and said, "It's the guest you said you could make a special announcement, Miss Melita, and the ...... who came last time Another young lady! ”

Obviously, she had forgotten the name of "the other young lady" - but after a few years of growth, she finally stopped shouting the word "forget" with all her confidence.

"Melita and Noretta? The two came together? Betty's forgetfulness did not prevent Gawain from extracting useful information, and after learning that it was two high-ranking agents from the Mithril Treasury who visited together, he subconsciously frowned, "And he took the initiative to come to the door......"

Then he put aside some doubts in his heart for a while, and nodded slightly to Betty: "Let them in first." ”

"Yes, Your Majesty!"

Betty bowed vigorously and trotted away, and it wasn't long before Gawain heard two rhythmic footsteps coming from outside the hallway.

Moments later, Melita and Noretta appeared together in front of Gawain.

"Sorry to interrupt," Melita said with the same politeness as ever, taking a step forward, "I hope this doesn't bother you." ”

"It's okay, I'm always welcome friends," Gawain nodded, "I just didn't expect two high-ranking agents from the Mithril Treasury to visit at the same time...... Did you bring anything with you? ”

He suddenly noticed that Noretta was carrying a large box that looked rather heavy, and couldn't help but ask curiously.

The sudden arrival of two agents at the same time, with such a large box, made him vaguely aware of some unusual signals.

And...... Whether it was an illusion or not, he sensed a hint of familiarity in the tightly closed box that looked like it was made of some high-grade magical material.

"Then we'll make a long story short," Noretta stepped forward, placing the box on the ground, "and our first task here is to return you something—something you've lost for years. ”

As she spoke, she activated the locking mechanism on the suitcase, and with a slight click, the lid made of precious magical metal rose automatically, revealing the contents inside.

A shield that has been battered and scarred.