Chapter 844 — The Computation Center
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 4
Magnum looked curiously this way and that at the place; he was still not quite used to existing as a "psychological projection," so much so that he flickered ceaselessly like a magic crystal with a bad contact (reminding one of Kamael in party mode). Only after he noticed that everyone had left did he seem to belatedly register the change in the hall, and he turned curiously to Gao Yang: "Your... Your Majesty, what else have you arranged?"
"To show you your new 'home' for what comes next," Gao Yang said with a faint smile, then lowered his head to Amber beside him. "To the computation center."
The place Gao Yang meant to take them was not far—in fact, it stood right next to this assembly hall.
Escorted by a squad of White Knights, the Daystar Cultists walked less than ten minutes along a road entirely devoid of pedestrians, screened by shade trees and shrubbery, before the view before them suddenly opened up, and a broad clearing that appeared still to be under construction spread out before everyone.
All manner of arcane machinery such as they had never seen worked busily and intently across the open ground; transcendent power was held in the hands of the most ordinary laborers and applied on a massive scale to the most basic construction work; and at the center of this orderly, astonishingly efficient construction site, the main body of a building some five or six stories tall, roughly pyramidal in shape, its surface being laid over with quantities of runes and arcane materials, had already taken shape and stood there in imposing grandeur.
Magnum's eyes went wide at once—and almost every Daystar Cultist present was surprised to some degree or other.
Some were astonished by the never-before-seen spectacle of "mechanized cluster construction," others by that mysterious pyramid structure whose style and architecture were utterly unheard of; but whatever the cause of their astonishment, their reaction was remarkably uniform: every gaze soon came to rest on Gao Yang.
Magnum stared at the pyramid for a long while before looking to Gao Yang, and he was the first who could not keep himself from speaking: "Is that a prison? Or a 'factory' for our reeducation?"
He still kept firmly in mind the matter of "labor reform" that Gao Yang had mentioned earlier at the council of the Mystic Axis Cult.
A few of the Daystar Cultists present turned somewhat delicate expressions, and Yuri even spread his hands in helplessness—ever since Magnum had become a projection, it was no longer so easy to clap a hand over that loud mouth in time.
Gao Yang, however, paid it no mind; he shook his head with a smile. "Rest assured—among those present, at least, no one has yet reached the point of deserving prison, and the knowledge you possess can earn you a relatively bright future to the greatest extent possible. As for this facility... in a sense it is indeed somewhere you will labor inside, but it is not a factory.
"Welcome to the Imperial Computation Center—though it is not yet complete, part of the main building's facilities are already in order. Come with me, and I will show you the future."
Gao Yang strode with the Sleepers toward the pyramid-shaped building, and everyone followed with feelings of curiosity and anticipation mingled together; Amber too set her short little legs trotting briskly along at Gao Yang's side. As they drew near the "pyramid," Yuri noticed that many places along the outer edge of its foundation had not yet been covered over, and on the exposed foundation level one could see great numbers of neatly arranged hexagonal rune structures, with a faint magical radiance flowing among those components.
This was probably Cecil's "magic net," he thought.
In scale and in precision alike, it truly far surpassed the various "imitations" produced by other powers.