Chapter 205 — A Door?
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
The long years spent hanging in the sky as a surveillance satellite had not changed the essence of Gao Song's personality, but they had given him a special vantage point from which to view all things in the world. When necessary, he could analyze the shifts of this world with the detachment of a bystander, and from changes that spanned thousands or even tens of thousands of years, he could distill certain likely patterns—patterns that the species living on the ground, including even those elves who might live for several thousand years, would find impossible to summarize.
It was precisely because he had witnessed the repeated rise and fall of civilizations across the surface that Gao Yang could infer the magic tides had occurred more than once. Even if he had not captured any single one of them, the surveillance footage from before and after was enough to guess at what had happened in between.
In another of Gao Song's speculations, he held that the scale of a magic tide ought to be indeterminate.
A large-scale magic tide might reshape the civilization of an entire planet, whereas a small-scale one—the catastrophe that destroyed Gondor seven hundred years ago was likely nothing more than a "minor magic tide."
Though it had destroyed the mightiest empire in human history, the Empire of Gondor, its range had covered only the central region of the continent. To say nothing else, the Silver Empire of the elves and the dwarven kingdom in the west had been entirely unaffected.
Or perhaps... what happened seven hundred years ago was not a formal magic tide at all, but merely some kind of "prelude"?
Speculations and associations rose unbidden in Gao Yang's mind, many of them conjured out of thin air. Beside him, Amber watched Gao Yang stand motionless for a long while, and at last could not resist poking his arm: "Hey, hey, what are you thinking about?"
"Just something that crossed my mind," Gao Yang said, snapping back to himself, and asked casually, "Tell me—if one day all the resources humans are familiar with on this earth changed, say the properties of every kind of magical conductive material shifted, what would happen?"
Amber blinked: "How does your mind jump around like that..."
Gao Yang rapped her on the skull: "Just tell me what would happen."
"Everyone would be thrown into utter chaos, obviously," Amber answered offhandedly. "The mages especially—they'd probably find themselves without casting materials all at once, and a lot of spell components would have to be re-catalogued..."
Hearing Amber's answer, Gao Yang fell silent for a long while, then let out a soft sigh: "The civilization of mortals really is fragile... isn't it."
Amber's ears twitched: "You say the strangest things."
Gao Yang rose to his feet and turned to look at Hom and the other members of the exploration team waiting nearby. None of them had dared approach while their lord was deep in thought; now that they saw Gao Yang stand, they edged a little closer.
"This ore needs a name," Gao Yang said with a slight nod to Hom. "I name it Hom Ore."
"My... my lord?" Hom, who had been a serf not long ago, was greatly startled by Gao Song's words. Eyes wide with disbelief, he repeated, "Hom Ore? That... that hardly suits my station! How could I deserve such an honor..."
"In the exploration of the unknown, the discoverer is always the great one. No need to decline," Gao Yang said with a wave of his hand. "In the days to come we may find many more valuable things on this land. Naming them after their discoverers will be a simple and practical method—and it will do a great deal to fire the explorers' enthusiasm for their work."
"Yes... thank you!" Hom snapped his spine straight. For all these years, his back, bowed early by crushing labor, had been straightened for the first time; the motion even drew a sharp crack from his vertebrae, and pain lanced through his entire back, yet he still strained to hold himself upright. "I... I..."