Chapter 581 — The High Tower
Blade of Dawn · Page 3 of 4
"Do you really need to ask something so simple?" Gao Lan tapped Amber on the head. "A jammer, plainly put, is just a spellcasting device, and not even high-level magic — teams without jammers just station a few mages in the camp. Stand at a fixed spot and cast aura concealment and mana obscurity all day; when they get tired, swap them out, or give them a chair to sit on."
Amber blinked, and once it sank in she could not help muttering, "Gods, thinking about that picture suddenly makes it seem so stupid..."
"Stupid? But before magical devices that pursue 'generalization' and 'civilian application' appeared, that's how every mage did it," Gao Yang shrugged. "They took pride in their ability to grasp and unleash extraordinary power, and to this day, extraordinary beings in most lands outside Cecil still think that way."
Hearing Gao Song's words, even Amber — who normally did not care much for thinking — could not help falling into thought. Gao Yang, meanwhile, shook his head, turned, and fixed his gaze toward the Sentinel Tower.
The immense gray-white tower body hung suspended in the anti-gravity field, quietly releasing its vast energies amid the foul, twisted world; the tower's hill-like foundation was set atop Thunder Hill, part of it merged with the hill itself, a great mass of complex structures hidden deep in rock and soil. Several raised "ridges" extended from where foundation and hill met, stretching out far across the land like the aerial roots of a tree — some of them reaching toward the Black Forest, and the camp the Cecil engineering corps had established stood near one of these "ridges."
Gao Yu said that these aerial-root-like "ridges" were in fact the Sentinel Tower's integrated sensor and engineering conduit hubs. Each foundation extended six of them in symmetry: three outside the barrier and three within. They continuously sampled contamination readings inside and outside the barrier and uploaded them to the tower's artificial intelligence for reference, ensuring the barrier could adjust in real time to changes in pressure within and without. The Sentinel Tower's wondrous "adaptive shielding" technology was in fact realized through these complex, enormous sensor arrays.
Here, so close to the human kingdoms, stood a product of such advanced technology — and yet, merely because of the barrier of a Black Forest and a Dark Mountain Range, and on top of that seven hundred years of decline and decay, Anzu's regression was already beyond imagining... Civilization truly was a fragile thing.
What had the elves who once built the Sentinel Towers thought, when they saw the human kingdoms — and Anzu's present state of decay in particular?
Would they sneer? Or would they marvel, as the people of Earth marveled at the great regression of European technology after the fall of the Roman Empire, at barbarism replacing civilization? Or... had they no leisure even to sigh over humanity's decline, because even they could no longer build the core devices of those towers?
A nimble figure leaped onto the boulder, and Suo Jilin appeared before Gao Yang, short bow in hand.
"Sentinel posts have been arranged around the perimeter. No corrupted monsters have been spotted approaching so far."
"Good. Have the ranger warriors tighten their watch," Gao Yi nodded slightly, then said abruptly, "Organize a squad of elite soldiers, and bring Suo You as well. Come see me together."
Suo Jilin was taken aback. "Bring my mother? What for?"
"I'm going into the Sentinel Tower," Gao Dai said. "To check on the situation inside."
Before Suo Jilin could respond, Amber beside them had already cried out, "Gods — old Zongzi, you're joking, right?"