Chapter 918 — The Day of Grid Connection
Blade of Dawn · Page 3 of 4
He looked with some surprise at the printing apparatus connected to the magic-net terminal, and saw another document slowly emerging from the output slot—on the half-page already revealed, he could see the snowflake emblem representing the Wilde family.
The paper fell into the tray; Gao Yang reached out and picked it up, while Hedy beside him cast a curious glance over: "A report from somewhere?"
Documents that could be transmitted directly into this study were usually quite out of the ordinary, and it was rare for two reports to arrive in such quick succession.
By then Gao Yang had already scanned the main portion of the document; the brief lines were not long, but their content was a piece of tremendous news.
"The Northern primary hub is ready, a full day ahead of schedule!" he said with exceptional delight, even happier than when he had received the good news from Byron. "A report from Victoria—the hub has completed all acceptance procedures and the final stress test, and can now be connected to the trunk network at any time—awaiting only the word from the imperial capital."
Hedy's eyes went wide at once; she too had waited a long time for this news, and especially of late, as the expected acceptance date drew near, her anticipation had grown day by day. As one of those who had watched magical technology develop with her own eyes, she knew better than most what it meant for the Empire's magic net to be connected across all its lands—after less than a second of stunned silence, she wore an exceptionally happy expression: "Wonderful! We've finally waited for this day!"
"How are the preparations coming along?" Gao Yang asked swiftly.
"All departments finished their preparations the day before yesterday; most of the personnel are standing by at this moment, and we've been waiting all along for word from the north," Hedy said at once. "If we enter the grid-connection preparatory procedure from now, we can formally activate the first primary hub in about four hours—starting with the hub at Tenwoods City."
"Then go," Gao Yang said with a nod to Hedy. "The next few hours will be a great undertaking."
This was absolutely a great undertaking—of that he was utterly certain. Like the activation of the first magic-net prototype, like Ansu's civil war, like the founding of the Empire, what was about to happen in the next few hours would be enough to leave its mark upon an age; even now he could foresee that this event would indisputably be printed in the textbooks and exam papers of students in later days—the kind that had to be studied in history class, studied in politics class, and even studied in magical technology class.
Required memorization for the liberal arts, and a compulsory course for the sciences as well.
At that thought, Gao Yang could not help but twitch the corner of his mouth into a peculiar expression.
The Xuanmai Sect suddenly wore a strange smile, which rather puzzled the Empire's eldest princess—but Hedy soon tossed the little doubt from her mind. At such a joyous moment, the Xuanmai Sect must surely be stirred in his heart as well, and a somewhat complicated smile was only to be expected.
Having explained it to herself thus, she turned and left Gao Song's study. She came out into the corridor, looked at the rows of magic-crystal lamps lining both sides in neat order, and let out a soft breath; then she lowered her head, placed her hands over her chest, and offered a brief prayer she had not made in a long while: "Myrmidna, Goddess of Magic... would you be willing to bear witness to all of this..."
The prayer received no reply, yet she could sense a faint, indistinct attention and a response on some psychological level—within expectation, and entirely reasonable.
……
At the Imperial Academy, in a brand-new classroom, the upper-year students of the magical technology department sat in neat rows behind their desks, listening to the newly added course for this term: "Concepts of Neural Networks."