Yuri and Semler were the first to stand up, followed by Venti and several other bishops and archbishops. Finally, the other clerics realized who was standing in front of them. The sound of the bench rubbing against the clothes echoed throughout the hall as every Eternal Sleeper stood up.
It was a magnificent sight.
Gwen looked at the people in front of him, the people who had just been transferred from Typhon and were members of the Dark Church not long ago. Even though he was the one who made it happen, he still felt a little unreal. The Church of the Eternal Sleeper had seven hundred years of accumulation, and more than half of the results now belonged to Cecil.
They were all technicians.
Gawain exhaled softly and said indifferently, "Sit down."
The Children of Storms of the three Dark Church were being corrupted and transformed by the power of the God of the Deep Sea, and the current situation was unknown. The Perish Society finally lived up to its name. Except for a group of survivors who ran into the wasteland to hide, those who stayed in the human kingdom were almost all dead, leaving only a plant on the Solin Plain. The Church of the Eternal Sleeper had collapsed, and the surviving technicians were divided between the two human empires.
The seven hundred years of darkness and chaos had yet to come to an end, but in Gawain's opinion, at least the general trend had been set.
"Yuri, Semler, and … Venti." Gwen's eyes swept across the faces of the archbishops he was familiar with. When he turned to the empty space beside him, two figures suddenly appeared there. "Ah, and Magnum, Selena … I'm glad to see you all safely arrived."
"Your Majesty," Urey took a step forward. When he said the word "Your Majesty", he stumbled a little. Apparently, he was not used to this title. Then, he turned slightly and pointed to the crowd in the hall. "So far, the Eternal Sleepers who have successfully crossed the border are all here. In terms of numbers, they only account for less than 10% of the entire church. But basically, they are all middle-level and high-level members who have mastered the technology, including almost all archbishops, one-third of bishops, and some elite priests with outstanding abilities. They are at your disposal at any time."
In other words, there were actually quite a number of mid-level technicians left in Typhon …
Gawain sighed in his heart, but he didn't show it. He just nodded and said unhurriedly, "There's no rush. You can rest here for a few days and familiarize yourself with the environment, as well as the laws and rules you have to abide by here. There will be specialized personnel and departments in charge of you, as well as food and lodging arrangements.
"In addition, for the next period of time, these clerics of the Holy Light will live with you. They will help you gradually adapt to life here."
When the Eternal Sleepers heard his last sentence, there seemed to be a slight commotion, but in the end, no one stood out to express their opinion. Gwen was quite satisfied with this.
"Then, the rest of you can go and rest. The archbishops, stay. I still have things to tell and arrange."
The White Knight and the combat nuns at the scene immediately stepped forward and led the other clerics to the pre-arranged accommodation area. Yuri, Semler, and the other archbishops stayed as instructed, including Magnum and Selena, who were currently in the state of illusory projections in front of Gwen.
Magnum curiously looked around the place. He was still not very used to the existence of the "psychological projection", so much so that he kept flickering like a malfunctioning magic crystal (reminiscent of Kamel in party mode). After he found that everyone had left, he seemed to have sensed the change in the scene. He immediately looked at Gwen curiously and asked, "Your … Your Majesty, do you have any other arrangements?"
"I'll take you to see your new 'home'." Gwen smiled, then lowered his head and said to Amber, "Let's go to the computing center."
The place Gwen wanted to take them was not far — in fact, it was right next to the gathering place.
Under the protection of a team of white knights, the archbishops walked for less than ten minutes on a road that was completely devoid of pedestrians and was covered by trees and bushes. Then, they felt that the road before them suddenly opened up. An open land that seemed to still be in a state of construction appeared in front of them.
All kinds of arcanotech devices that they had never seen before were operating busily on the open space. The most ordinary workers controlled the extraordinary power and used it on a large scale in the most basic construction projects. In the center of the orderly and surprisingly efficient construction site, the main body of a building that was about five or six stories high and roughly shaped like a pyramid, with a large number of runes and magic materials laid on its surface, had already taken shape and stood there in a grand manner.
Magnum's eyes widened. Almost every archbishop at the scene was more or less surprised.
Some of them were surprised by the "mechanized construction" scene that they had never seen before, and some were surprised by the mysterious pyramid building with a style and structure that they had never heard of before. But no matter why they were surprised, they all had the same reaction: their eyes quickly fell on Gwen.
Magnum stared at the pyramid for a long time before looking at Gwen. He was the first one who could not help but ask, "Is that a prison? Or a 'factory' for us to transform? "
He still remembered the 'reform through labor' that Gwen had mentioned at the meeting of the highest bishops.
The expressions of several archbishops at the scene changed. Yuri even spread his hands helplessly. Ever since Magnum became a projection, it was not so easy to cover his mouth in time.
But Gawain didn't mind. He smiled and shook his head. "Don't worry. At least no one here has reached the point where they need to be thrown into prison. And the knowledge you possess can be exchanged for a brighter future for you. As for this facility … in a sense, it is for you to work in it, but it is not a factory.
"Welcome to the Imperial Computing Center. Although it is not completed yet, part of the main building facilities are ready. Follow me, I will show you the future."
Gwen led the Eternal Sleepers to the pyramid-shaped building. Everyone followed with a mixture of curiosity and expectation. Amber also followed closely behind Gwen with her short legs. As they approached the 'pyramid', Yuri noticed that there were many places on the outer edge of the foundation that had not been covered. On the open foundation layer, a large number of neatly arranged hexagonal rune structures could be seen, and there was a faint magical glow flowing between the components.
This was probably Cecil's' Magic Net ', he thought.
From the scale to the precision, it was far better than the various' imitations' made by other forces.
Then, they stepped through the door of the pyramid-shaped building, and a hall illuminated by a large number of lights and still undergoing site cleaning and laying of facilities appeared in front of everyone.
The first thing they saw was a huge pillar in the middle of the hall. The pillar was cuboid, thicker than the main beam of any castle, and its surface seemed to be made of a large number of silver-white metal plates. The precise splicing and the distribution of gaps seemed to have some kind of geometric pattern, revealing an intoxicating 'beauty'. This beauty was difficult to describe in words because no one had seen anything similar anywhere else.
And between the gaps of the metal plates, on the surface of some of the special panels, a light blue magical glow was flowing quietly, and the little lights were flickering as if they were breathing.
This even gave Yuri an illusion. He felt that the pillar was alive, and even had its own thoughts. It was the heart and brain of the building, and the workers and technicians of Cecil were waking it up little by little, and this thing that was gradually waking up … was waiting to communicate with other minds …
Suddenly, Yuri realized that what he had was not an illusion.
He did feel something familiar from the pillar. It was similar to some of the facilities in the headquarters of the Eternal Slumbers!
"This is the Hall of Thought, and the pillar in front of you is called the 'Mind Hub'. It is currently the first and only Mind Hub in the empire." Gwen noticed the change in expression on Yuri and the others' faces. He deliberately waited for a few seconds before explaining, "You may have some familiarity with it, which is normal, because this thing … uses your mental network technology.
"The 'Mind Hub' almost connects the entire building, with four floors above ground and two floors below ground, connecting the various levels of computing, the Hall of Thought, the Redundancy Center, and the deepest layer of the Magic Net medium. Have you noticed the rooms around the hall? There are more rooms above and below ground, and there are thousands of immersion pods in those rooms. There will be more in the future, and more computing centers will appear in the various provinces of the empire, and there will be more 'distribution stations' near each computing center to undertake more computing tasks.
"The immersion pods in each room will be connected to the Mind Hub, and then through the Mind Hub, it will be connected to the Magic Net. After an additional layer of Magic Net conversion and a new security medium, it will be much safer than directly using the human brain to 'connect' to the network.
"By the way, some of you may not know what an immersion pod is. You can ask Selena about this, she has seen it before."
But Semler did not care much about what Gwen said at the end.
He, as well as the rest of the archbishops present, watched all this with their mouths agape, listened to all this, and imagined all this in their minds.
This magnificent building, as well as a large number of large-scale, advanced, and sophisticated equipment inside, were in fact, the technological extension of the Eternal Sleeper's mental network, but its size and application were completely beyond the understanding of all the Eternal Sleepers. Even though they did not get a full view of the building, Semler, Yuri, and the rest could tell that this thing was definitely not just for the priests of the Eternal Sleeper present. The number of 'users' it would accommodate was definitely much more than they had imagined!
What shocked them even more was that there would be more than one such 'computing center' in the future. There would be one in every province, and there would even be 'distribution stations' for additional expansion. How large would it be?
Back then, the Order of the Eternal Slumbers also had what were called 'external nodes'. Apart from the headquarters in Aulandale, they also set up some computing facilities in other places. However, those nodes were pathetically small, and their functions were only equivalent to the auxiliary facilities of the headquarters. It was roughly equivalent to the 'distribution station' that Gawain mentioned. Even so, that was the result of hundreds of years of accumulation by the Order of the Eternal Slumbers …
What Gawain described was a future that was hard for them to imagine.
The scale was so huge that they even felt it was a little unimaginable.
"So many, such a large-scale computing center …" Yuri finally could not help but say, "Do you intend to let everyone establish a connection with it?"
"Why not?" Gwen asked rhetorically. "Immersion pods are a safer connection measure, and ordinary people can also use them. In fact, Cecil has already completed the research in this regard. Currently, the only thing limiting the scale of the computing center is the capacity of the immersion pods.
"As you said, Yuri, I want this network to cover the entire empire. In my opinion, this is a very useful technology."
The archbishops looked at each other.
This was a path they had never thought of, because the direction of this path was once impossible to them!
But just thinking about the prospects described by Gwen and the power that could erupt after the reconstruction of the mental network on the land of the Cecil Empire, they could not help but feel dazzled.
"It can actually be like this …" Magnum could not help but mutter, "We have never even imagined such a thing …"
Gwen smiled and looked at Magnum calmly.
"Because the Eternal Sleep Congregation is just a church, and Cecil is an empire," he said unhurriedly. "What you see are two forces — the power of industry, and … the power of state machinery.
"And your original path of 'saving the world alone' is destined to run counter to these two forces.
"Finally, let me say it again — welcome to Cecil, welcome to the future."
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