Chapter 700 — On Currency
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 5
With a mix of trepidation and a trace of curiosity, Maggie followed Rebecca to the large building known as the "Arcane Technology Research Institute."
It was said that this was the highest research center for Cecil arcane technology.
It was said that more than half of those wondrous arcane devices—the ones capable of exerting immense power and effect, which the members of the former Royal Capital Mage Association had called "perfect runes whose workings luck cannot explain"—had been born within this research center and its affiliated facilities.
Maggie had once accompanied Victoria on a visit to the Southern Region, but at the time she had had no chance to tour this temple of technology; and now she had been invited here, made a member of some great project—surely this was a curious arrangement of fate. Driven by intense curiosity, Maggie could not help but take in everything in her field of view: everything here was utterly fresh to her.
The Arcane Technology Research Institute was not so magnificent or lavishly ornamented as the Royal Capital Mage Association she knew so well (that being the facility she could think of whose nature came closest to this temple before her), yet this large multi-story building possessed a beauty and solemnity all its own. It consisted of a main hall and three annexes; the base of the main hall was supported by neatly arrayed columns, while the rooftops of the annexes each bore a single, terse, forceful word:
Curiosity; Rigor; Perseverance.
Perhaps this said something about the attitude of Cecil's scholars toward research.
"Master Camille proposed these three words—they're said to be the code the scholars of the old Gondor Empire held to. The Ancestral Inkstone found them very sensible, so he had us hang them on the roofs of the Institute," Rebecca said cheerfully from beside her. "Stay curious about the world, and discover the unknown through curiosity; face the unknown with rigor, and find the direction of research through rigor; persevere in research, and verify results through perseverance..."
The Imperial Princess's tone was light, and a smile never left her face. She had finally found the chance to cast off those gorgeous yet cumbersome court gowns and change back into simple clothes that allowed her to move freely. Maggie noticed that she had only truly become happy after leaving Silver Castle and coming to this research facility.
This "Her Highness the Princess" belonged here.
A faint smile on her face, Maggie walked beside the chattering Rebecca, and together with a crowd of men and women who worked at the Institute, entered that mysterious building.
Stepping through the main doors, the first thing to meet the eye was a spacious, brightly lit hall. Magic-crystal lamps illuminated the space; corridors and stairways led off to every part of the Institute; and the most eye-catching thing in the hall was a statue at its center.
It was not any hero or god familiar to Maggie, nor the reigning Emperor of the Cecil Empire. It was simply a middle-aged man of unremarkable appearance, dressed in a plain mage's robe, holding the hand of a thin, small girl. They stood at the heart of this temple of knowledge and technology, lit by a dedicated magic-crystal lamp. The man's gaze was gentle and calm, as though watching over everyone who entered, and every arcane technician or rune-master who came into the Institute would first come before that statue, bow deeply, and only then depart.
Maggie stared at the statue in astonishment and could not help asking, "Who are they?"
"The founder of modern arcane technology, and his daughter, Annie." All the levity drained from Rebecca's face; she spoke with the earnest expression Maggie was seeing for the first time, and then she too came before the statue and bowed deeply.
Maggie, somewhat at a loss, followed suit and made her obeisance. Then she saw the words carved on the pedestal beneath the statue: To the Pioneer.