Chapter 1096 — The Tarronde Commercial Revitalization Plan
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 5
The intelligence Meitzen relayed made Amber break out in a fine cold sweat at once, while Gao Yang kept his composure. Looking into Meitzen's eyes, he asked, "Had none of you thought about the problem of that tower before?"
"Some of our kin did, but there was nothing we could do about it then," Meitzen sighed — Tarronde's present situation made dragons sigh; there was too much hardship in it that could not be spoken of to outsiders, but Gao Yang counted, more or less, as one of the few "old friends" the dragon race had among the mortal nations, so there were things she no longer bothered to conceal here. "The Tower of the Countercurrent stands in the northwest of the continent, while the safe zones we have recovered so far are mainly concentrated along the Broken Coast in the southeast of Tarronde and the coastal waters and land nearby. Between them lies a vast wasteland, and the environment deep in that wasteland is extremely harsh. Even now we still cannot push very far in, so the only way to confirm the state of that tower is to go around by sea — a great long detour, skirting the main contaminated zones and spatial rifts. For us not long ago, that cost was far too great."
"So now you have finally freed up a hand to pay attention to that tower?" Amber could not help asking from the side. "Is there anyone there now... any dragon watching it?"
"After we barely managed to settle the short-term food supply and the backlash of the enhancement agents afflicting some of our kin, Agondor dispatched a small team to the northwest coast. They found a relatively safe foothold there and set up a forward camp," Meitzen nodded. "They contact Agondor once every two days. It is a pitifully weak level of surveillance, but it is better than nothing."
"Contact once every two days?" Gao Yang's brow furrowed. "Is that gap not far too wide? Two days is enough time for a dragon gone out of control to fly across the Storm Sea."
"There is no other way," Meitzen sighed. "Right now communications across the Tarronde continent are severed; the old Omega Network has collapsed. We dug some old signal stations out of the ruins and started up a factory to produce small communicators, but these can only sustain communications over a small range. For the forward camp team to reach Agondor, they must first fly across a contaminated zone and climb to the top of the atmospheric static boundary layer, and Agondor in turn must send a dragon across a great stretch of contaminated land on the southern coast to reach the vicinity of a recently repaired communications station, and only then, through powerful messaging spells and the station's amplification assistance, can contact be established... Considering the current state of the forward camp, carrying out such a communication once every two days is already the limit."
Gao Yang opened his mouth, but in the end could only swallow his doubts, which after a long while became a sigh. "...It sounds truly hard."
"At least we have succeeded in establishing safe shelter camps near the Broken Coast, and things are moving in a better direction," Meitzen smiled with some effort. "And judging by the reports sent back from the forward camp, at least up to now no dragon has been affected by the 'thing' in the Tower of the Countercurrent. That team monitors the sea and sky near the tower day and night to ensure no intelligent being gets in there."
Listening to Meitzen, Gao Yang fell silent for a moment before saying slowly, "Is this what Hragor said in his letter?"
Meitzen nodded. "Yes."
"Perhaps I am overthinking it," Gao Yang said, frowning. "Often, when your superior tells you 'the market may be looking grim ahead,' the truth is the market has already crashed..."