Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1302: Chapter 1301: Awakening of the Sky Fortress

"Oh my gosh!"

The last words Sea Demon Korolin left to her comrades and superiors were this exclamation. In the next second, her figure was swept up and engulfed by an unbelievably powerful energy surge, quickly transforming into a stream of light flying far away. Meanwhile, nearby Abyssal Commander and Sentinel Vila couldn’t even react, attempting to reach out to stop her but it was already too late.

Not far away, the Water Elemental Lord, who was floating in the sea attempting to heal his body, happened to witness this scene. The colossal elemental giant swiftly charged toward the "downstream" of that blue vein flow. In this Boundless Sea filled with elemental power, his speed was almost like a flash of lightning—yet still couldn’t match the speed of the Deep Blue surge. The Elemental Lord only managed to reach his arm out when the blue-purple figure representing Korolin had completely vanished from everyone’s sight.

The scene calmed down. The sudden unforeseen event left the sea demons and water elements near the Deep Blue Vein Flow perplexed, not knowing how to react. Finally, it was Vila who spoke first: "...I think she’s already dead in there."

"Not necessarily, she didn’t seem to be ’dissolved’ after jumping in," the Abyssal Commander stroked his chin, analyzing. "Our lifeforms aren’t very active in this world’s magic-pervasive environment, so perhaps she’ll linger in there for a while before perishing..."

Vila shrugged: "It’s bound to happen eventually, I’ll go adjust the rotation for the next shift at the sentinel station."

At this point, the Elemental Lord resembling a liquid giant slowly swam over. This massive lord looked somewhat dazedly at the spot where Korolin had just fallen, and after a long pause, muttered to himself: "She didn’t have to jump in... I really just wanted to ask for an explanation, and if there isn’t one, so be it..."

"...I don’t think she jumped in intentionally either..." Vila said with an awkward expression, then suddenly noticed that the Elemental Lord appeared to have only an upper half floating in the water, and was taken aback, "Ah, where’s your lower body?"

The Water Elemental Lord was startled, turned back to look at the place he’d floated before rushing out, only to see a pure water vortex filled with faint blue light slowly dissipating in the Boundless Sea. A dejected and regretful expression appeared on his hazy face: "Ah...I forgot to bring it when rushing out."

"Don’t be too upset," the Abyssal Commander couldn’t help but move forward to pat the Water Elemental Lord’s arm, "I had actually observed it earlier—the lower half of your body was definitely not going to be preserved, any slight movement would cause it to fall off. We’re going to investigate this incident later, but before that, we can help you treat that ’wound’—if you trust our sea demon technology, there’s an elemental reformation matrix at the station. When we accidentally suffer severe injuries but don’t plan to die and return, we use it for healing—local water elements can use it too..."

Even though a companion was just caught in the Deep Blue Vein Flow, the two sea demons before him were remarkably calm, a reaction that left the young Water Elemental Lord feeling somewhat uneasy. He couldn’t help but recall some records of the ancient "Elemental Wars" and the stories told by the old Elemental Lords, thoughts of awe filled his heart: these visitors from starry space known as "Extractors"... indeed a terrifying species.

He then involuntarily looked up, seeing the shadow floating on the distant sea surface, which was the sentinel station built by the sea demons. Normally, nearby water elements would avoid that place as much as possible, but as an Elemental Lord, he wasn’t particularly afraid of it, merely curious: "Your technology... can also be applied to pure water elements like us? There wouldn’t be any side effects?"

"Of course not," the Abyssal Commander immediately boasted, patting his chest, "We’re just like you all, everyone’s a water element—come, don’t be shy, I’ll introduce our medical technology to you... Oh, Vila, please go to the communication station and report to headquarters, just say that Korolin was swept away by the Deep Blue Vein Flow. We might not know when she’ll pass away, so tell the sisters stationed in Antawen to go to the collection point for recovery when they’re free..."

Vila gestured to indicate she understood and flicked her tail to swim toward the sentinel station’s direction, while the Water Elemental Lord couldn’t help but sigh: "Sigh, although I’ve heard about it before, seeing it with my own eyes, I must say... your lifestyle is really quite unique."

...

On the northern parts of the Dark Mountain Range, in Western Cecil City, Gawain, personally coming to inspect the situation, stood on a high platform where he could overlook the entire assembly ground, while Rebecca stood not far from him, focused intently on checking the parameters just submitted by her assistants.

Under their feet, the expansive assembly ground was brightly lit by high-power Magic crystal lamps. A massive steel structure lay quietly within countless support modules and construction frames. Most of the main part of this steel structure was almost entirely completed by now, its outline generally resembling a slightly elongated hexagon. The energy arrays, power spines, anti-gravity engine array, and various weapons, controls, living, and defense facilities, previously akin to bones and innards, were now properly enclosed by layers of cabin shells. At this point, one could only see the orderly "deck building" above and the large weapon fortresses located at each sharp angle.

Gawain directed his gaze to the distance, observing bright flashes constantly emanating from the edges of the grand "deck," where construction workers and machines, resembling ants, were bustling about in those areas: mage technicians were welding the final part of the Sky Fortress’s edge plating and installing sturdy alloy shells over the last stretch of exposed biological neural bundles. Once their work was completed, this astounding "fortress" could be considered basically complete.

Yes, basically complete—everything here is just the main structure of the Sky Fortress, only ensuring its basic flight and combat capabilities, while many auxiliary devices like detection arrays, airborne data centers, alchemical synthesis factories, and other facilities were far from completion. According to Rebecca’s original plan, these items would take at least a year or two to fit into the corresponding cabins, but the situation now did not allow it... Gawain could only urge this fortress to complete a prototype quickly.

Those items that can’t be installed in a short time... if necessary, they can be assembled slowly in the sky while the Sky Fortress carries out tasks.

Gawain’s gaze slowly moved over the vast deck below, reflecting on the scale and grandeur of this thing, yet the imposing figure of the "Sentinel Ship" lingered uncontrollably in his mind. After a moment of comparison, he couldn’t help but sigh: there is still quite a gap between the two...

Rebecca noticed Gawain’s sigh but wasn’t aware of what her ancestor was thinking, only curiously tilting her head: "Ancestor, why are you sighing? Are you not satisfied with the current progress?"

"No, I was just thinking of something else... the progress here has exceeded my expectations," Gawain shook his head without explaining in detail to Rebecca. Then, he glanced at the Magic Web Terminal behind her and casually asked, "How’s the control center?"

"We just conducted the final round of awakening tests, the state is really good," a happy and proud expression immediately appeared on Rebecca’s face, her eyes gleaming like a child showing off a perfect test paper, "Do you want to say hello to ’it’?"

"Can we greet it now?" Gawain was somewhat surprised, then he looked up at the sky above the assembly site. The grayish "rock dome" covered everything in sight like a distant sky, but he knew that the giant sun should be at its highest point in the sky now, roughly noon. "Indeed, the time is about right... Rebecca, help me bring the control center’s screen. I want to greet ’it’.

"Okay, ancestor," Rebecca immediately nodded happily and then turned around to quickly operate the Magic Web Terminal. The holographic image floating above the terminal swiftly expanded and brightened, soon becoming a large projection hovering above the platform, with a diameter of about two meters. The scene in the projection trembled twice and then quickly became clear.

Gawain saw a brightly lit hall presented in the projection, where busy technical personnel could be seen moving and recording parameters between various neural nodes, while in the center of the hall lay a particularly enormous device, composed of three hemispherical metal bodies, one large and two small, along with a vast and complex base. Around its base and behind the major body extended a multitude of intricate structures resembling pipes or cables, some merging into the floor below and others into the ceiling above, with faint light flowing internally.

The next second, the upper part of the grand device’s hemispherical shell slowly opened. Accompanying the slow descent of the metal shielding layer was the reveal of crystal containers within Gawain’s view. Each of the three hemispherical crystal containers, one large and two small, was filled with a translucent thin liquid. In the center, the large container immersed a gigantic biogenic brain taller than a person, whereas the two smaller containers were currently empty.

Around this wet equipment, many immersion capsules were in standby mode, which were also empty at the moment.

Gawain looked at the assortment of things revealed in the holographic projection, subconsciously glancing at the fortress below the platform silently lying in wait—it was the very scene from the fortress’s core control hall.

The fortress was alive, possessing a living brain, and had a neural system stretching over a hundred kilometers throughout its body. Each engine and turret within it was entwined with nerve endings, it could even feel the breeze sweeping across the deck when flying in the air and the footsteps of crew members walking on the deck. And while the command team could operate the fortress, they could even lie in the immersion capsules (if the battle situation required) to exchange opinions and convey instructions accurately and swiftly with the "host" of the fortress through neural synchronization.

This technology partly hails from the legacy of the Oblivion Association, partly from centuries of accumulation by the Eternal Sleepers, and partly from the silver elves’ "Sovereignty Chair."

"Hello, respected Emperor," a neutral synthetic voice emerged from the Magic Web Terminal, while Gawain witnessed a string of rumbling bubbles rise around the synthetic brain soaking in the hemispherical container. "I’m pleased—this is the first time I’ve met you, I’m pleased to meet you for the first time."

"Hello, Dawn of the mortal world," Gawain nodded and said, feeling a bit of novelty—he knew these synthetic brains cultivated in the Sorin Giant Tree or biochemical factories had certain thinking abilities and virtual personalities, and that Psychic Singers and wetware technicians could interact with these brains. Yet, for him personally, it was his first time conversing with a synthetic brain; the experience felt somewhat intriguing. "How does it feel to wake up?"

"Good," the synthetic brain in the holographic projection promptly replied, "I can already sense all my engines and deck structures, perceive the temperature in various compartments and the functioning of the lower mechanical area, and the technicians have connected my nerves perfectly—plus, the biogenic solution here is very comfortable."

The synthetic brain’s response was fluent and natural, exceeding Gawain’s expectations—although not comparable to the Gondor Empire’s almost human-like Iron Man intelligence technology of the past, Beltira’s creation of these "synthetic brains" was evidently at the top tier amidst the diverse "artificial intelligence" technologies of the current era Loren Countries.

Rebecca beside him had been curiously eyeing the two vacant containers on either side of the wetware host in the holographic projection, suddenly asking, "Where are your two sub-brains? I remember your two sub-brains were installed a long time ago..."

As soon as she spoke, the synthetic brain’s voice emerged from the Magic Web Terminal: "The left sub-brain is assisting in the kitchen, the right sub-brain is lifting weights in the gym—the system load is very low while in docking mode, to prevent structural degradation of the synthetic brain, we take turns on duty."

Gawain: "...There’s nothing wrong with that."

He had interacted with Beltira’s "synthetic brains" before, and had learned from various channels about the synthetic brain systems’ trial operation reports submitted from factories, labs, and data management departments. He was familiar with the peculiar operation and maintenance methods of these "biocomputers," so although he found the situation a bit odd, he accepted it quite smoothly.

Overclocking relies on jelly beans, maintenance on the gym—that’s apparently the normal usage procedure for otherworldly featured biocomputers, and must be savored.

He shook his head, dispelling the nitpicking thoughts from his mind, then looked up at the grayish "rock" canopy.

"Dawn of the mortal world, your main body is complete, and although it’s not time for official flight yet, do you want to sunbathe?"

"Sunbathe?" the synthetic brain asked with almost no emotional fluctuation in its tone. "Is that possible?"

"Certainly," Gawain grinned, "it’s part of the process."

"Understood, I want to sunbathe," the synthetic brain promptly replied, "the ’Mother Tree’ engraved the ’joy of photosynthesis’ in the deep memory of every ’brain,’ she told us that sunbathing brings beneficial stimulation—I want to experience the feeling of sunlight spreading over the deck."

"...Beltira engraves anything into your memories..." Gawain couldn’t help but twitch a corner of his mouth, then turned towards Rebecca, "Alright then, turn off the projection and open the canopy. Let the sunlight pour in here."