Chapter 750 — A Great Era
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
The frontier of Xuanyao City.
A massive mana-net relay tower stood at the edge of the snow-covered fields, its metal and crystal surfaces gleaming in the bright sunlight. Atop the tower, an enormous antenna array and crystal lattice rotated quietly under the control of a series of mechanical structures, providing mana-net signal relay service for the city of Xuanque and the vast region surrounding it.
At the very tip of the tower, on the base of the slowly rotating antenna array, a long serpent's tail clung to the cold steel surface.
The tail contracted and swayed, and Tyr poked her head out from beneath the antenna. She tilted her head back against the cold wind, her long hair dancing in it, while a "song" that only a siren could hear and understand rode the ripples of magic, lingering at her ear.
"Naga..." The siren lady frowned, murmuring to herself in puzzlement. "I've been away only this long, and such strange things have already happened?"
So saying, she shook her head slightly, bent forward, released her tail, and prepared to make her way down the tower to the ground.
"Never mind. Strange things always happen in the deep sea. I just wonder whether Gaoyang would be interested... Hm?"
Tyr blinked in confusion and arched her body forward, yet the rear half of her tail did not budge at all.
She looked back and saw that her tail was still firmly wrapped around the antenna base, its scales covered in a layer of crystalline ice, the interior of which had also turned semi-transparent.
"Ah..." The siren lady finally began to panic a little, straining twice as hard to move her tail. "Damn... frozen... Why is it so cold up here... Someone help—"
A faint crack reached her ear, and Tyr's struggling stopped abruptly. She stared somewhat blankly toward the sound and saw the rear half of her tail splitting open with a crisp snap, cracks spreading outward along the transparent ice.
Tyr turned to look back the way she had come, seeing the smooth, frozen slope of the tower's upper section and, far below, the ground.
The tail snapped off with a crack.
"...O gentle deep sea... today is truly a failed day in the life of a fish..."
...
Within Xuanyao City, three young people who had come from far and wide yet gathered here by chance were walking the streets of winter.
The clean streets were spotless, tall handsome buildings lining both sides of the road, with shops, residences, cafes, and all manner of public facilities arranged in harmonious order, interwoven throughout this incredible city. Citizens in warm winter clothing, full of vigor, could be seen everywhere, and in this bitter winter, no one seemed to worry about hunger or cold.
At street intersections, in plazas, wherever crowds gathered, holographic projections cast by mana-net terminals could be seen everywhere, displaying the latest broadcast programs, or short announcements from the administrative hall, or advertisements for certain guilds and companies.
Ferm was like a mana-net terminal running at full power, eyes wide as he took in everything in the city, observing every detail he could observe. In the eyes of this young man from Barlow, the whole of Xuanyao City was like a stage brimming with fantasy, wonders, and incredible people and things; everything performed on that stage seemed to him like a play, every detail so marvelous, so unbelievable—and yet these unbelievable things truly existed here.
Fendil was also observing the city of Xuanque, but in the eyes of this young noble from the mountains of the Northern Region, what he sensed was an entirely different dimension from Ferm's.
This was a city with no division between noble quarter and common quarter; all its urban facilities were open to all lawful citizens; here, survival and comfort came first.
To old-fashioned nobles, it could probably be described as heretical.