Chapter 598 — A Visit to the Typhon Encampment
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 4
"I've long wished to meet that Typhon emperor, and I've prepared for it a long while," Gaolan said, then added offhandedly, "By the way, your queen has sent word—the Silver Empire has formally entered deep technological cooperation with the Cecil Empire. You and your courier corps will remain at my side for the time being as exchange ambassadors; since you were away, Magister Banner accepted the queen's orders on your behalf."
Soryu blinked, momentarily taken aback.
So soon?
The news itself did not surprise her. Ever since she learned that the Duchy of Cecil intended to establish technological exchange with the Silver Empire, she had expected the Silver Queen to agree—the queen had never been a rigid traditionalist, and more than half of the court advisors she trusted most were progressive reformers. She simply had not thought word would come so early.
Setting aside the necessary drafting of official documents, coordination between departments, and other steps in the empire's internal process, the proposal itself had most likely been approved within two or three days!
The high-tier courier lowered her eyelids slightly, thoughts stirring in her heart.
...This was not a normal speed for settling a proposal.
The queen and the "Iron-Willed Prime Minister," Lord Valendian, had pushed this through directly.
It seemed... the troubles the astromancers had run into were greater than outsiders imagined.
...
Somber, turbid clouds shrouded the wasteland sky, and the outline of the giant sun was blocked beyond them as well; only the hazy radiance that drifted slowly across the sky, ever rising and setting, proved to the people that the sun existed, marking the alternation of day and night.
At the Typhon Peak Base, within a stone palace that rose straight from the ground, Luoyan Augustus sat before his desk, head lowered as he reviewed the documents his chief attendant had just transcribed.
The contents of these documents were all the most vital intelligence from within the realm and matters urgently requiring the emperor's personal orders. Relayed through relay mage-towers along the route, they were transmitted to the Peak Base at almost no regard for cost—the money spent on each letter could match two years' income for a common household.
There was not much content in the documents, and only a small portion required his personal instruction; most were detailed reports on the domestic situation, the nobles' council, and the various legions. Luoyan Augustus quickly finished them all, and on that cold, slightly sinister face hid a faint, barely perceptible smile of satisfaction.
Grand Duke Pei Yi Wendell, supervising the realm at home, had done well; the empire ran in good order.
The emperor rose, handed the processed documents to the chief attendant who had long waited at his side, then breathed out softly and strode to the floor-to-ceiling window at one side of the room.
A third of the Peak Base lay spread before him.
The empire's engineering mages had shaped this base through the miracles of magic. Before winter came, hundreds of mages had, by such spells as transmuting stone to mud, mud to stone, wall-building, and rock-shaping, turned this rotting, twisted land into an encampment, and on that foundation had drawn the fortress arrays and set a magic shield capable of protecting the entire Peak Base. Now the craftsmen and engineering mages within the base worked in shifts under the shield's protection, raising that all-important "secondary tower."
He could see that on the south side of the Peak Base, a haze of magic radiance was shining; several mages floating in the air were using mage hands to stack massive boulders onto the platform, and in the portion already stacked, the outline of the first and second stories of an octagonal tower body could already be discerned.