Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 544 - 543: Each in Their Own Quagmire

When Victoria returned to her room on the upper floors of Silver Castle, snowflakes were drifting down outside the window.

This winter’s snowfall... one after another, especially following the late stages of Cold Month, the snow nearly never stopped.

Appropriate snowfall can bring a good harvest for the coming year, but it also makes Cold Month even harder to endure. After this snowfall, it’s likely that more people will die in the villages and towns surrounding the royal capital...

The chilling wind from the north swirled above the ancient royal capital, stirring the snowflakes descending from the sky into a hazy curtain. The black-haired maid Maji closed the wooden shutter inside the window, isolating the bleak scenery outside, while the fireplace in one corner of the room burned fiercely, keeping this luxurious room warm and comfortable — the icy world outside the castle seemed to become another realm.

"Your complexion doesn’t look good," Maji said softly, looking at Victoria as she entered the room, helping the duchess to remove her cloak while speaking, "Today’s meeting was still unsuccessful?"

"Too many mediocre people are sitting in those chairs — everyone’s vision is as short-sighted as a snow mouse," Victoria shook her head, "What’s worse is that I can’t kick them out."

Maji hung the cloak on a nearby rack, speaking softly, "After all, this country still relies on them to function."

Victoria glanced at this maid who was both servant and friend. She knew that although Maji was nominally her maid, she possessed remarkable insight and the power of a Transcendent. This "Northern Butler" was one of the most trusted people in her life, and when they were alone, most topics were open for discussion.

"The country doesn’t necessarily have to rely on those decaying aristocratic factions to function," the duchess said calmly, "You’ve seen it with your own eyes."

Maji raised her eyelids and glanced at Victoria: "Yes, but the cost is substantial, and there’s another important thing — you are part of them, and an inseparable one at that."

Victoria was momentarily silent.

Indeed, she couldn’t go down that path.

"Don’t dwell on those thoughts anymore, there’s something more important," Maji’s words startled Victoria from her brief contemplation. The black-haired maid retrieved a fire-sealed letter tube from a nearby table and handed it to the duchess, "A letter for you, from the duke of the southern borders, delivered by a White Feather Gryphon."

Victoria widened her eyes in surprise, as she took the letter tube and said, "Duke Cecil?"

She instinctively sensed an unsettling feeling from this letter — she had only just returned to the royal capital, yet the duke of the southern borders had hurriedly written her a personal letter and sent it during the coldest Cold Month by gryphon messenger. What matter was so urgent?

She quickly tore open the letter tube, took out the handwritten letter inside, and unfolded it. Her brows furrowed upon seeing its contents.

Maji stood quietly by her side, not asking about the letter’s contents: though she shared a close relationship with Victoria, it wasn’t intimate enough for such liberties.

"Maji," Victoria quickly asked after quickly scanning through the letter’s contents, "When did the astrologers at the Royal Mage Association report the red shift at the bottom of the sun?"

The black-haired maid thought for a moment: "It should be Cold Month 10th."

"Cold Month 10th... Same day..." Victoria lowered her head, staring at the letter’s contents, "It can’t be a coincidence..."

She then noticed Maji’s slightly curious gaze and took a breath, initiating the discussion about the letter’s contents: "Duke Cecil has sent a warning. On Cold Month 10th, a major disturbance occurred at the great walls, an extensive overload that lasted for three days. The walls had returned to calm by the time the letter was sent, but Duke Cecil believes that the barrier has suffered permanent damage during the overload..."

The black-haired maid’s eyes widened, full of unreserved astonishment.

"It seems I need to summon the royal mages and royal family scholars," the duchess said solemnly, "Moreover... another round of aristocratic meetings."

When mentioning "aristocratic meetings," Victoria couldn’t help but let a hint of exhaustion slip into her voice.

However, being well-versed in the Anzu system, she knew full well that whatever she planned to do — even if she were the Queen of Anzu — she couldn’t circumvent the aristocrats.

"It’s truly a mire."

...

Pale blue rune lights flickered amidst layers of overlapping rune triggers, surging arcane energy struck out crackling arcs that burst forth between energy contacts and gears. On an experimental platform built for testing large equipment, the heavy and complex power mechanisms slowly began to operate under the propulsion of Magic Power. The sound of grinding and rotating steel felt like a weak growing roar, causing the entire platform to tremble slightly.

Set twenty meters away from the experimental platform, separated by two layers of magic shields, Rebecca and Kamel stood amidst technical personnel, focusing intensively on the operations of the distant machine and the surrounding magical devices, while each Mage Technician around them monitored their respective control units.

A dazzling spark suddenly appeared at the peak of a tower-like device on the corner of the experimental platform.

"Amplifier No. 1 overloaded!!"

"Amplifiers No. 2 and No. 3 unbalanced — the protective tiles might have melted!"

"Core temperature rising, all amplifier groups are interfering with each other—"

"Shut it down immediately!" Rebecca widened her eyes and shouted urgently, "Shut it down immediately, shut it down!!"

A Mage Technician quickly stood up to pull a lever located on the side of the control panel, but due to excessive force, the lever was stuck between the operating and emergency shutdown position. A strange humming arose from beneath the control panel, and twenty meters away on the experimental platform, the electrical light condensed from arcane energy began to burst out from the surfaces of various rune devices.

"Let me do it!!" At this critical moment, Rebecca shouted out, promptly grabbing her ever-present metal staff. With a swing, she struck the control panel. Having designed the entire panel herself, she knew exactly where to hit — although in normal procedures, there shouldn’t be any "hitting" involved — with a loud bang, part of the control panel caved in entirely, and the Magic-Powered Engine below immediately ceased to connect.

Arcane sparks bursting all around the experimental platform quickly lessened, vanished. The entire module gradually came to a halt after a sustained low hum, albeit one corner of the platform — atop a two-meter-high tower-like device — was emitting thick smoke, the majority of the apparatus saved, the remainder evidently severely damaged.

As soon as the equipment stopped, the waiting personnel rushed forward, pointing at the still steaming hot alloy tower. Engineering Magic Transmission Terminals promptly released a large area of weakened Ice Cone Spell, causing the magic-infused icy snow impact to rapidly lower the tower’s temperature.

Rebecca stretched her neck to watch the situation near the experimental table, while from behind her came Kamel’s voice: "How are things going?"

"Don’t even think about it, just build a new one..." Rebecca said with a mournful face, "Aunt Heidi will kill me... Last time I submitted the lab repair budget to her, her eyes turned red..."

"...I’ll go report it," Kamel said after a brief silence, "Accidents and failures are situations that inevitably arise in research."

"But burning out eight amplifiers and two large Magic-Powered Engines in six days is different..." Rebecca still looked distressed as she looked up at the large "laboratory" hastily constructed with a steel frame and prefab boards, feeling a headache coming on.

This is a newly built laboratory as ordered by the ancestors, located on the outskirts of the city, far from residential areas, implementing a security isolation system and new operating procedures. In fact, this arrangement has significantly increased the safety coefficient of experiments, but the success rate... doesn’t seem to have changed at all.

"Why on earth," Rebecca muttered to herself, "do we always get stuck with overload and interference..."

A senior Mage Technician, looking at the data recorded over the recent period, spoke up: "According to the tests, densely arranging and layering the Magic Web Units can indeed greatly increase output, and the volume can also be fitted into the engine compartment. Still, it concomitantly causes the amplifiers and repulsion mechanisms to frequently overload and interfere with each other—the stability and purity of the magic output from the multi-layered Magic Web are problematic."

"It seems that to make the multi-layered Magic Web practical, we first need to address the interference between each layer of the web," Kamel added, "Additionally, the start-up pressure of the power mechanism is also a problem. We need to find a way to redesign the transmission and speed-changing mechanisms to reduce the start-up speed and simultaneously reduce the instantaneous pressure of the Magic-Powered Engine—the last two magic engines broke down due to excessive instantaneous pressure."

"Mechanical transmission doesn’t seem suitable for such a behemoth as the ’Magic Train’. The speed-changing device simply can’t withstand such a massive impact," Rebecca shook her head, "If it doesn’t work out... we could try the ’fluid transmission’ that the ancestor mentioned once."

She said this while furrowing her brows, for she thought of another issue: "But merely reducing the instantaneous pressure of the magic engine isn’t enough... Mechanical pressure can be reduced, but the magic pressure on the amplifier and Magic Web still can’t be resolved."

"The magic power of the rune array is rigid... It’s indeed quite difficult," Kamel buzzed, "Even if the load is reduced at the start of the magic engine, maintaining its operation remains a major challenge for the amplifiers."

This is a common problem faced by most magic-conducting machinery: no matter how precise a piece of magic machinery is, nor how complex its functions are, its core nature remains each "magic circle."

Since it is each "magic circle," the magic consumed by each activation of a magic circle is fixed. The "effectiveness" of this spell might be influenced by the casting materials and environment, but the Mana it consumes is a constant value.

Even if the start-up pressure of the magic engine is reduced to a minimum, the magic required for its operation will be one hundred percent faithfully reflected in the amplifiers and Magic Web units supplying it; as many repulsion symbols as there are, that much Mana must be consumed, without any discount.

The result is that, while the mechanical structure of the Magic-Powered Engine might withstand the pressure, the rune that supplies power burns out if it is meant to burn out, just like today.

Problems one after another, and it seems that each problem sprouts a slew of new difficulties before being resolved—mechanical structure, material strength, magic interference, load on each device... All the obstacles pile up, and it’s almost impossible to make heads or tails of it.

It’s practically a quagmire.

Looking at the Arcane Master in front of her, Rebecca couldn’t help but suddenly ask: "Master Kamel, speaking of which, what were the means of transportation like in the Gondor Empire back then? Logically... such a vast empire must have required large-scale transportation tools similar to the Magic Train, right?"

Hearing Rebecca’s question, Kamel couldn’t help but show a nostalgic look: "Back in those days... we didn’t use mechanical-type magic vehicles. Instead, we borrowed the power of large elemental creatures to transport goods, like summoning Hurricane Envoys and Wave Envoys; their power was mighty enough to move mountains and transport seas..."

Rebecca listened in astonishment: "Wait... could you even summon and control such high-level elemental creatures? How did you get them to help?"

"Quite simple, just sign a summoning contract and give them half a ton of deep blue demon crystals..."

"Okay, you don’t need to say any more."

Deep blue demon crystals! Half a ton!! Never mind the Hurricane Envoy; perhaps even a wind elemental lord would kneel to deliver goods to you Gondors?

Rebecca marveled at the ostentatious ways of the bygone Gondor Empire, but soon her mind was once again filled with all the problems the current Magic Train project faced.

The Marchioness covered her forehead, "My head hurts..."

Kamel looked at this talented yet somewhat immature girl, feeling an urge to offer some comfort. But before he could speak, Rebecca suddenly lifted her head: "Actually, I think... maybe our current approach is somewhat wrong? Or... we could try another direction?"

"What do you mean..."

"Concentrating the power in the engine car seems straightforward yet simple, but it’s too challenging to actually achieve. These powerful things forced together are inherently unstable," Rebecca said as she thought, her wonderful mind racing quickly, "Master Kamel, do you remember, we had another plan, one where if a high-power engine car couldn’t be made, we would distribute several smaller magic engines across several carriages of the train to make it a power carriage..."

"I recall that this plan encountered the problem of synchronization and coordination between the power carriages," Kamel mused as he spoke, "Do you think... that synchronizing coordination would be simpler than the issues we’re facing with the engine car right now?"

"Who knows?" Rebecca said, "In any case, we’ve mapped out plans for both schemes, and now the crucial parts of the apparatus in the engine car are burned out and have to be reworked. Why not simply set up another experimental platform and try out the distributed power scheme as well? Of course, we won’t abandon the concentrated power plan in the engine car; we can keep pushing it, and maybe the two schemes can complement each other and a breakthrough can be found!"

Speaking, as she pondered: "Additionally... I’d been thinking recently, about whether we could use a continuously running Weight-Reduction Array to lighten the load of the entire train. However, Weight-Reduction is a spell affecting a range, and exactly how to control its effective area and prevent imbalance when the train turns still needs careful consideration... But I think these might be breakthrough directions."

This was truly an optimistic idea.

However, looking at Rebecca’s eyes full of enthusiasm, Kamel found himself infected too—perhaps there was some sense to it?

"Alright," the ancient Arcane Master nodded, "Let’s finalize the plans tonight, and tomorrow we’ll go together to Lady Heidi to apply for funding."

"...Huh? Weren’t you going?"

"Let’s go together," Kamel buzzed, "You’re in charge of the entire Magical Technology Department, so a major project change requires you to go personally."

The Master Mage spoke logically and righteously.

Rebecca had no choice but to believe.