Chapter 939 — Preparations for the Journey and the Listening Project

"This is... what?" Bai Yu Franklin looked at the contents of the sheet in utter confusion. In his sight was a bizarre drawing: it appeared to be a square formed of a series of small dots, and beside the square there was a short diagonal stroke that seemed left unfinished—that line too was composed of a series of small dots. In the blank space beside the drawing could be seen some examples of tremor waveforms, annotated with tremor periods, tremor categories, and similar explanations.

Not only Bai Yu—Hetty and Victoria were evidently equally bewildered upon seeing this thing.

"This is what Beiyila 'restored' from those signals—an incomplete drawing," Gao Dai said, briefly explaining the "technical approach" mentioned in the documents. "She converted the tremors directly into an image. Using an 'interpretation rule' no one had ever thought of, she treated the tremors and the white noise respectively as dots and blanks, tracing them out in the clock order of the signal itself..."

Beiyila's method was in fact not complicated, and everyone present was a clever person skilled in mathematics and technical deduction (except Amber, who stood by the window with her mind wandering the heavens), so after Gao Yang explained it in a few simple sentences, the three Grand Consuls fully understood the connection between this drawing and that mysterious signal.

Hetty could not help widening her eyes, staring at the drawing with an incredulous gaze: "Just... that simple? The essence of this signal is actually a picture?!"

"Very incredible, and yet this is probably the truth," Bai Yu said thoughtfully from the side. "Random testing could not possibly yield such a neat image; the perfect form of this square shows that Beiyila's reasoning is correct—there is a picture hidden in that signal, and that is truly... interesting."

"But what is the meaning of this picture?" Hetty furrowed her brows. "And who would do such a thing?"

"It is obviously incomplete; there are unfinished lines beside it. Beiyila believes we have only received a small fragment of the complete signal, and that the signals we received on several occasions should all be different 'passages'—it is a pity that the previous two signals were either insufficiently clear or not recorded in time, so the only sample she has for analysis is that little bit received on the 32nd of this month," Gao Lan said. "And based on what has been recorded and analyzed so far, Beiyila conjectures that the complete form of this drawing may be some kind of design blueprint... Of course, this conjecture is for reference only; it contains too much subjective speculation."

"A blueprint... Subjective speculation it may be, but that notion is quite compelling," Bai Yu shook his head. "In any case, whatever this thing is, it is clearly the work of an intelligent being... To send such a signal, the sender must have a purpose; the other party wishes to convey some kind of message to us... or to any unspecified target, a target capable of receiving and translating this information..."

"That is my view as well," Gao Dai said. "I believe this signal is most likely an uninterrupted 'broadcast'—it continues all along, continuously publishing this 'blueprint,' and the reason we only occasionally receive fragments of it is probably that our magical-net crystal arrays are not designed specifically to receive this thing—everything is coincidence.

"What I want to tell you is this: we must find a way to stably reproduce such 'coincidences.'

"These signals are most unusual; I believe you can feel that too. Whether for academic research or to eliminate hidden dangers in the magical-net communication system, it is necessary for us to investigate the secrets behind these signals. To that end, I intend to establish the capture, tracking, and study of these signals as a formal and long-term project, and to carry out planned, sustained listening within the range the magical net can cover.

"This project shall be called the 'Listening' Project.

"So far we still do not know where to begin, so I had Beiyila retrieve all the operating parameters of the Soring main hub at the time it captured the signal, along with the meteorological, magnetic-field, and magical-environment data of that time. There may be many 'coincidental factors' that caused the Soring main hub to receive the signal—it may relate to the orientation or combination mode of the crystal arrays at the time, it may relate to the operating state of the magical net in the Soring region at the time, it may even relate to the weather and wind direction at the time. Since we do not know which data are useful, we can only record everything and try it all.

"Without affecting the daily operation of the empire's magical net, have the hubs and nodes everywhere that have spare capacity adjust their operating states to be as close as possible to the 'Soring standard parameters,' and see whether we can listen to anything. Even if we find nothing by then, we will at least have put the entire magical net through a round of operational testing."

As he spoke, Gao Yang glanced toward Victoria, who was listening with rapt attention.

"Victoria, the Northern Region is a key testing ground—because the very first anomalous signal was received at Winterhold. You only ever picked it up once on your end, and the signal was in wretched condition at that, but we still have reason to suspect that Winterhold's environment may be precisely suited to intercepting this anomalous signal. So keep a close watch on this matter."

Victoria acknowledged the order at once: "Yes, Your Majesty."

Gao Yang nodded. He let out a breath, his gaze passing over the three people before the desk one by one, then he reached out and drew three identical documents from a drawer beneath the desk, setting them before Hettie and the others.

"These are copies of the Sorinhold report. They also contain further details on the Listening Project and the standard parameters compiled by Beira. When you return, gather your technical staff and have them study it thoroughly. While I am away, begin your preparations for this project."

"That will be all for today. If there is nothing else, go and see to your own affairs."

"The main procedure of the Divine Burial is finished, but there is still a great deal of wrap-up work to be done before the sun sets. I leave that to Hettie."

The three Grand Consuls acknowledged the order and turned to leave, but just as Victoria was about to step through the door, Gao Yang suddenly called her back.

"Victoria, wait a moment."