Sword of Daybreaker

Everyone’s eyes were focused on the weird patterns that subsequently emerged, until they occupies a whole line, until a series of evenly distributed dots appeared behind the symbol, until a piece of white noise came from the monitoring channel, which means "signal loss" The prompt sound of "" sounded from a magic net terminal nearby, and many people took a deep breath as if they finally remembered how to breathe.

  "The signal disappeared..." A monitor stood up from a chair, said with a dazed face, and repeated it again, "The signal disappeared..."

The holographic projection in the center of the room is still active, and the clear image is presented in mid-air. Gawain's eyes are fixed on the "symbols" that emerge at the end for a long time. They look like arcs and straight. The line is composed of four to six symbols in a group, separated by dots or short lines in the middle, which makes people involuntarily produce some associations.

   "Your Majesty, do you think these things..." Bud couldn't help breaking the silence with a loud voice, "It looks like..."

   "Text," Gawain whispered, "They look like some kind of text."

   "We have never seen this kind of text," a gray-haired wizard murmured softly not far away, "I bet no one here recognizes this thing...it looks too weird."

Bersetia kept quiet next to Gao Wen. She was still not sure what happened, but according to Lu Gao Wen’s explanation of her and what she had just seen, she already had a vague guess in her heart. Her gaze swept across the faces of everyone on the scene. In these faces, she saw tension, excitement, doubts, guesses, and everybody’s thinking—she finally looked at Gawain, only seeing Those eyes were as deep and calm as water, but there seemed to be something brewing in their depths.

After a few more seconds, Gao Wencai finally spoke again. His voice was calmer than Bersetia had imagined: "Copy these symbols, gather language and writing experts, as well as cryptographers, and try their best to crack... "

Halfway through, he stopped suddenly, as if he was seriously weighing something, and then he continued to say: "In addition, some symbols have been scrambled and released, and clues are collected across the country. Anyone has seen something similar through any means. All can be reported-even if they see something similar on the graffiti of their children or in the wheat fields on their farm."

   Standing by, Bertila nodded immediately: "Understand, I have already notified General Margarita."

  "Distribute all the working status parameters of the antenna group to all monitoring stations across the country," Gao Wen said again, "In addition, what direction is the main antenna pointing when the signal appears?"

  Bad reminded him: "Your Majesty, now the main antenna is replaced by a lattice array, and the reception of the array crystal has no directivity..."

"But the mechanical structure of its base is. The mechanical structure of this array determines that even if the reception of the lattice is omnidirectional, its reception efficiency in a certain direction will exceed that of other directions." Gawain looked at Bud, obviously although He is no longer personally involved in this technical field, but he is not ignorant of certain basic knowledge. "Where did the mechanical disk of the main antenna point?"

A young female magician immediately ran to her workstation. She found the azimuth data of the main antenna, quickly compared it in her mind, and then raised her head: "Your Majesty, the main antenna should be pointed at the Frost Sky at the time. ..."

  "From today, the antenna group of the Thorin monitoring station is responsible for tracking the signal from the direction of Frostsky." Gawain looked at Bertila to the side. "The sites in other areas continue to maintain the original omnidirectional monitoring."

Bertila was aware of Gawain’s thoughts. She reminded: “The Palamel Observatory and the Thorin monitoring station are at the same latitude, and there is a higher level of “window”. Sync here."

Gao Wen thought for a while and nodded immediately: "What you said makes sense. Let the Palamel Observatory also adjust the antenna near the frost constellation and turn on the 24-hour reception mode. I will send a team of technicians over there. There may not be enough manpower."

After a series of arrangements and short discussions, Gawain left the monitoring facility at the bottom of the canopy. They did not return to Bertila’s "rest place", but took the elevator inside the trunk directly back to the top of the canopy—— At this time, the time is approaching evening, and the bright summer sun gradually turns into a golden red afterglow. The brilliant sky shines from afar, passing over the long and thin clouds, and splashing on the vast wooden platform and layer on the top of the giant tree. Above the sea of ​​cascading leaves.

  The sunset in this season is like water.

The main antenna stands on the top of the platform. The complex and exquisite mechanical frame supports hundreds of crystal clear hexagonal crystal sheets. The runes are shining between the chip and the magic metal, echoing the sky, and the wind blowing through the sky. The antenna array brought a whining sound between the crystal and metal gaps, as if this industrial product condensed with the wisdom of scholars from all over the empire was whispering something.

Gawain stood under the antenna, retracted his head to look at the crystal array, and looked at its exquisite mechanical base: In order to get the best resonance effect in the magic field and reduce interference, its mechanical disk will automatically track the atmosphere The “high-clarity window” in the media is self-adjusting, perhaps because this small variable has brought unexpected effects today.

But the variable may also come from the material of the main antenna: as far as he knows, the crystal here was updated not long ago. Because the old monitoring device failed after a strong wind, the mechanics and wizard technicians redesigned the entire system. , And used a new high-quality crystal to replace the old broken crystal. These crystals were cast by the Pompeii crystal melting and foundry. The raw material is the high-purity original crystal dust from the peak of the ancestors of Ogure. The new and old crystals have significant differences in performance... Could this be the reason?

  Maybe the next time another monitoring station catches the signal, everyone will get the answer.

"It seems that the mechanical scholars are going to work overtime recently," Bertila's voice came from the side, interrupting Gawain's thoughts. The "giant tree avatar" stood beside the antenna base, looking up at the same time. Those crystals and wooden mimics had a little smile on their faces, "We must continue to maintain the resonance strength and interference resistance of the antenna itself under the premise that the crystal array is locked in a specific direction. This may require the entire mechanical disk structure to be overturned and redone. ...But fortunately, this is not an unsolvable technical problem. There seems to be a corresponding design idea in the initial transformation plan, but...the cost will probably be a little higher."

Gao Wen did not respond, but just stared at the direction the antenna array was pointing. There was only a golden-red glow and a cloud slowly moving north. There was no star in the sky, but he knew that during the day. The stars are still shining, the Frostsky constellation is in that direction at the moment, and the huge monitoring device in front of him is slowly tracking the ancient constellation at an imperceptible extent to the naked eye.

  "The tracking accuracy is not enough right now?" He suddenly whispered.

"Of course not enough. This mechanical structure was not originally used to track celestial bodies. I now use a servo brain to take over the control of the mechanical disk of this antenna. The calculation accuracy of the servo brain is sufficient, but the mechanical accuracy of the mechanical disk is flawed. "Bertila said, "This problem should be solved after the mechanical disk is rebuilt, but we still need some astrology experts here-I don’t think about the level of astrology masters at the Palamel Observatory, the Empire Just a few graduates from the academy, at least they know how to construct antenna tracking trajectories based on the laws of the celestial sphere."

   "I will arrange the best astrologer for you, as well as sufficient funds," Gawain glanced at Bertila. "Who learned this way of talking about pretending to be pitiful and cheating funds?"

  Bertti Ramen doesn't change the color, no response.

Then the whole platform fell silent. Gawain, Bertila, and Bercetia were silent under the antenna. This tacit silence lasted for a full minute before they suddenly said in unison: "It Does it really come from the stars?"

After the words fell, the three looked at each other, and after a brief silence, they laughed in unison, and then Bersetia took a deep breath as if her tense nerves suddenly relaxed: "But I still can't believe it... although I do This thought came up, but is it really possible? The mysterious signal you are talking about, it..."

"This is not a whimsical idea, although many people really haven't thought about it in this direction," Gawain interrupted Bersetia, his expression serious, "I guessed that when this signal first appeared. , But I never told anyone, because this idea is too advanced and does not fit the thinking habits of many people. You should know that I...have a different view of the starry sky from yours."

  Bertila and Bersetia also thought of Gawain’s identity as an "outer-territorial wanderer". They glanced at each other and nodded slightly, but did not pick out anything.

"Over the past two years, we have done a lot of research on this signal," Gawain continued, "Bertila should be very clear about this-we have set up monitoring stations throughout the country, even in the Ogure tribe. An overseas site was also set up. We tried to lock the source of this signal in various ways, but nothing was found on the ground. Of course, we also tried to point the antenna to the sky, but maybe it was bad luck, or the old crystal was not sensitive enough. , None of the antennas pointing to the sky received any useful information...except this time.

"Of course, it cannot be ruled out that this signal comes from other places, such as the shadow world or a certain elemental world that overlaps with the real world, or even... the gods. But we currently do not have the ability to establish large-scale strongholds in these places, so this The speculation can only be a guess. The only clue that can be reliable so far... is this time."

Bersetia did not say a word, but raised her head in a daze. She looked up at the sky. When the glow dimmed with time and a faint twilight spread from a distance, her keen eyes caught a few points. Starlight—In the past ten centuries, she seemed to have never noticed that these stars were so attractive to her.

  In a trance, she heard Gawain’s voice coming from the side: “In fact, we should have known long ago that we are not the only intelligent individuals in this universe-in this world, ‘outsiders’ are not rare guests.”

"Yes, I know that there is a sea monster kingdom in the far eastern deep sea. They claim to come to this planet on a huge ship that can fly between stars. Some sea monster allies are even active in the empire," Berti La nodded slightly, "I have seen stories about these sea monsters in newspapers and radio shows."

"But this is the first time we have heard voices from outside the planet with our'ears'...Although it is only possible," Bersetia retracted her gaze towards the sky and looked at Bertila and Gawain. "A distant and unknown world sent us a mysterious and unknown voice... This is not the same as listening to a story. I never thought I would experience such a thing."

   "I didn't think about it either," Gawain smiled, with mixed emotions in his smile, "This... even makes me feel a little at a loss."

"You don't seem to be so happy?" Bersetia keenly noticed Gawain's emotions. "I thought you would be a little happier about it-this is an exciting discovery, and it's also related to the "starry sky". related."

"But this is not necessarily a good thing," Gawain was indeed very excited for a while, but now the excitement is gradually fading, and more thoughts are spreading from the bottom of his heart. "Don't forget that in our world,'step forward' is always It is accompanied by great risks."

Hearing these words, Bersetia also calmed down instantly. She suddenly thought of the documents from the Theocracy Council, the few words revealed by the Dragon Clan, and her solemn expression appeared in her eyes: "You mean... Lost control because of our act of looking up at the stars..."

"It's not so bad," Gawain shook his head. "According to reliable information, just'looking up at the starry sky' itself will not cause the gods to lose control. Only the act of stepping on the starry sky will drive them crazy, so at least at this stage, this It was discovered that there would be no risk of a divine disaster."

   "Reliable information?" Bertila couldn't help frowning, "Is this information really credible?"

   "Believable," Gawain nodded, "The Dragon God told me before he went crazy."

  Bercetia & Bertila: "...then this is indeed credible."

  "But the risk does not just come from looking up at the stars," Gawain shook his head, and couldn't help but glanced at the sky again, "The source of this signal itself...maybe dangerous."

  The Silver Queen suddenly showed a thoughtful look. At the same time, the stars in the distance that were gradually beginning to twinkle seemed to have a different meaning in her eyes.

Maybe... there really are a group of supposed "senders" among the stars, maybe the signal heard by the Thorin monitoring station today really comes from that distant direction, if all of this is true, then "they" "It should be there, at an unimaginable distance between humans and elves, looking out over here on the other side of the starry sky.

  This distance far exceeds the barrier between the mortal kingdoms and the Gondor Wasteland.

  A magnificent wall has turned the mortals outside the wall and the cultists inside the wall into two completely different “ethnic groups”. Those “senders” far away from the starry sky... are they friendly?