Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 475 - 474: No One Will Stop

Everyone is developing, and no one will stop.

To avoid waking Aunt Heidi who was asleep, Gawain quietly got up and left the desk. He first draped a piece of clothing over Aunt Heidi, then walked to the large floor-to-ceiling window of the study, gazing at the cityscape outside—under the slowly sinking sunset, Cecil remained bustling and vibrant.

This was a rapidly developing city, and with the end of the war, the development across the southern borders would similarly accelerate.

Yet as Cecil advanced, others also advanced. On this path of progress, no one would stop to wait for the steps of those lagging behind.

The development of Typhon was unexpectedly swift, but Gawain believed that not only Typhon was progressing—even the seemingly outdated Anzu, the inflexible and traditional church, must have its own process of development, especially in the event of war, their progress would only speed up.

However, Gawain was not very concerned about the development within Anzu or the church, because he knew these forces were still trapped within their backward systems, their speed of development had an upper limit, unless they encountered earth-shattering reforms, their pace would always lag behind Cecil and was essentially not worth worrying about.

What was worth worrying about was Typhon—Rosetta Augustus was a more dangerous opponent than Gawain had anticipated.

He started by reforming the system and had already achieved initial success.

That emperor spent over a decade gradually reforming the Empire’s aristocratic system, consolidating his authority, turning Typhon into a more efficient execution machine. In the last few years, his centralization became stable, the Empire’s execution efficiency saw unprecedented improvement, and then he quickly entered the next stage: advancing education, liberating land constraints, reallocating production resources.

He very likely already realized the existence and significance of ”productive forces and production relations,” at least he grasped some insights, and was attempting to dive into deeper reforms, as long as his control over the Empire did not weaken, these reforms would inevitably advance further in the coming years.

To achieve such illustrious feats, Rosetta Augustus alone would not be enough—for such a vast and ancient empire to function, Rosetta Augustus must have around him a large group of advisors and assistants, perhaps a younger generation of aristocratic elites, or enlightened veteran aristocrats; in short, Typhon definitely had more than one extraordinary emperor, but also a group of wise and capable high ministers.

Meanwhile, Typhon also had outstanding technical talents.

Under Gawain, there were Kamel, Pittman, Rebecca, and Jenni Perot, all excellent technical talents, but the world is full of talents, it is impossible for all geniuses to be concentrated in this tiny area of Cecil—do other places not have technical experts?

Surely they did, the difference lied in whether they had the opportunity to shine.

Typhon’s chief alchemist discovered the Pyrostone acidification process, but did Typhon have only one chief alchemist? Did they not have rune experts? Mechanists? Mages? These people... what new things might they research?

Gawain could be certain that there were definitely people more mathematically gifted than Rebecca, more adept with runes than Jenni Perot, more talented in theology and natural sciences than Pittman, and according to the distribution pattern of Transcendents of this era, these people definitely clustered at the upper echelons of each nation, they might achieve astounding accomplishments anytime in the academic field—the influence of their achievements varies according to their nation’s circumstances.

In some places, a new magic technique might only add another form of entertainment for the aristocrats, while in other places, an alchemical achievement could be promoted as a tremendous aid to national grain production.

Typhon’s technical staff clearly encountered a favorable era, with a good emperor.

Cecil’s only advantage was that Gawain could be more inclusive than Rosetta, more visionary, clearer about the next developmental patterns of society, thereby harnessing the dividends of technological development more efficiently.

Gawain carefully analyzed the intelligence obtained from Daniel, while speculating Typhon’s speed of progress and Emperor Rosetta Augustus’s next moves—in this process, he even entertained a sensational thought that ”Rosetta Augustus might also belong to the Transcendent lineage,” but after some analysis, he found no doubts about Typhon’s progress.

Firstly, Rosetta Augustus’s path of reform was not accomplished overnight; he spent decades of his past life ascending to the throne, consolidating power, gradually roping in progressive nobles, fragmenting opponents, and slowly altering Typhon’s aristocratic system, which was both normal and a lengthy accumulation process.

Secondly, Typhon’s social reform was not smooth, many characteristics of Rosetta Augustus’s new policies displayed a lack of experience, some of this inexperience could even be described as ”mistakes”:

He left behind many hidden dangers based on old aristocratic powers, thus had to make more concessions to maintain Typhon’s stability;

In promoting literacy education, he once wasted much effort due to poor motivation measures, and had not established a complete educational system; even now, Typhon’s common folk do not exhibit the same enthusiasm for education as Cecil’s;

The liberation degree of Typhon’s labor force was clearly lagging behind Cecil, they maintained a state of ”doing short-term work in workshops besides farming,” without the emergence of real professional workers, lacking any systematic vocational education and management systems;

Typhon’s ”Pyrostone Acid Workshop” was still based on the old ”alchemy workshop” system, plagued by small production scale, low efficiency, inconsistent systems, inconsistent standards, disordered management, although Rosetta Augustus attempted to establish a large-scale Pyrostone acidification production facility, it was just an enlarged workshop, with severe wastage of manpower and material resources...

Gawain took a deep breath, knowing Typhon’s development was indeed ”normal.”

Exploring, hitting walls, improving, then exploring again, hitting walls again, improving again, countless people invested enormous time costs and manpower and material costs (sometimes consuming a generation’s youth) to arduously tackle a field, ultimately their only gain might be verifying ”this path is not viable,” Typhon was doing just that, and that was indeed normal.

The reason Cecil developed so rapidly was largely because Gawain directly used his judgment and experience to avoid these ”dead ends” in advance, he used his knowledge from a previous life and observations as a satellite spirit to plan the southern borders, thus saving massive amounts of time, manpower, and material costs.

At least at the present stage, this was Cecil’s huge advantage over Typhon, but from another perspective, Typhon also had its own advantage, a gap that Cecil temporarily could not compensate:

Typhon was a vast country, with its land area, resource reserves, population count several times that of Cecil Principality!

This meant that it could endure resource depletion in the development process, afford ample error chances, more importantly—it could multiply magnify those development dividends!

Even if its forward efficiency was lower than Cecil, it could use its size to crush Anzu, crush Cecil in the near future.

Then what should Cecil do, and what could it do...

Gawain turned back, looking at a stack of documents on the desk.

Those were the construction and development plans for the next stage of the four new industrial zones in the southern borders.

At the present stage, there was not much Gawain could do within the southern borders—development was the hard truth, only by focusing on development and maximizing Cecil’s advantage in ”efficiency” could the current favorable situation be maintained.

Moreover, this development process must be smooth and controllable.

His territory had already expanded excessively over the past year, he simply could not afford another expansion—unless he intended to revert Cecil Principality to a loose, disorderly feudal lordship system, otherwise what he could do within his realm was only digest, absorb, and focus on tech tree development for infrastructure.

Beyond Anzu, he could not cause any direct harm to Typhon, all he could do was dig a pit.

The massive imperial machine controlled by Emperor Rosetta Augustus has already been set into motion, and stopping it is impossible; it would be better to push it in a seemingly dazzling, but in fact, abyss-like direction...

Gawain must do this—for the survival of the Cecil Clan, Typhon must be neutralized.

But he also has to find a way to preserve Typhon’s development potential during this process because in the future, Typhon could become a force against the chaotic wave.

What Gawain is most grateful for now is that the information about the Magic Web he intentionally released has timely caught the attention of Rosetta Augustus and his think tank. With this opportunity, he can infiltrate his influence into Typhon.

But is Daniel’s ”Magic Web technology” alone enough to plant sufficient toxins inside the body of this Typhon monster?

Gawain thinks not—the Magic Web is significant, but Emperor Rosetta Augustus will surely treat this technology from Anzu with caution. He may restrict the application of the Magic Web, and even if the ”Magic Web poisoning” plan succeeds, the damage to Typhon might not be big enough. At most, it would only waste some manpower and resources, which a large empire like Typhon can afford.

Some bolder and riskier ideas are brewing in Gawain’s mind, which makes his expression change unpredictably.

Aunt Heidi finally woke from her slumber, sat up in a flash, and saw Gawain had already emerged from ”meditation” and was standing not far away, while she had a coat draped over her. She became both nervous and embarrassed: ”My ancestor... I... I didn’t mean to fall asleep...”

Seeing Aunt Heidi awake, Gawain’s expression quickly returned to being gentle, and he smiled lightly, taking the coat Aunt Heidi handed over: ”It’s okay, a nap does good, you’ve been too tired lately.”

”Actually, things have been a bit better recently since the production and construction plans were laid out,” Aunt Heidi said, blushing and lowering her head, ”It’s just that lately, the Administrative Office has been testing the newly installed Magic Web file transmission system, encountering many unexpected problems, which are somewhat... tricky.”

”It’s normal to encounter problems when applying new technology,” Gawain nodded, ”More important is the development conditions of various industrial areas over recent times, the output situation, plus the willingness of local merchants to invest in factories, the attitude of aristocrats transforming into factory owners, as well as the operations of the Production Coordination Committee and Labor Assurance Department. You have all this information, don’t you?”

”Yes, it’s being organized regularly,” Aunt Heidi nodded, then became a little curious, ”Do you need it?”

”Yes, but it’s not urgent. Summarize a comprehensive report for me in the next few days.”

”Understood.”

Gawain nodded slightly and then, as if speaking to himself, said softly: ”It’s own strength that matters the most...”

...

Typhon, Imperial Capital Oldennan, inside the reception hall of the Obsidian Palace.

Duke Ferdinand looked at Emperor Rosetta Augustus, seated on the opposite chair, and felt a bit complicated inside.

The war between Typhon and Anzu was finally postponed, yet everyone with discernment could see this had nothing to do with peace.

After the peace agreement was signed, Anzu almost immediately plunged into catastrophic civil war. Meanwhile, the Typhon Empire closed the border and began to observe, while Emperor Rosetta began reorganizing domestic forces, frequently meeting with various aristocrats, and furthering professional army reform... All of this has been in Duke Ferdinand Wendell’s sight.

He knows that this brilliant Emperor never gave up on Anzu, that juicy piece of meat; the current temporary ceasefire is just to make that piece of meat more tender and easy to swallow.

He is delighted that Rosetta Augustus successfully rid himself of hereditary madness and relieved that the Empire possesses such a wise and powerful emperor, but he also regrets the disappearance of aristocratic spirit and laments the reliance on crafty conspiracies to push new-style warfare.

Anzu’s civil war undoubtedly has a share of Emperor Rosetta’s involvement.

But Duke Ferdinand Wendell also knows this disgraceful method is necessary—for the Empire’s interests, sacrifices must be made by Anzu.

Moreover, not only must sacrifices be made, but Anzu must also become nourishment for the Empire’s growth.

A middle-aged woman in a mage’s robe respectfully stood beside the Typhon Emperor, pointing at the blueprints spread on the table while explaining: ”This is the so-called ’Magic Web,’ but it’s the first generation, considered outdated. The second-generation Magic Web is more compact, but the blueprints we obtained are incomplete, and neither have we found specific processing methods.”

Duke Ferdinand looked at the blueprint in front of the Typhon Emperor—he could see the complex magic symbols and Magic Power lines drawn on it. Although all the symbols were elementary, the whole array conveyed a strange sense of harmony. Despite not being a Mage himself, he could judge the optimization of this magic circle as excellent based on his decent magic knowledge.

This was the key to the rapid rise of the ancient Cecil Clan from Anzu, brought by the resurrected ancient hero as ”lost technology.”

Rosetta Augustus’s voice came from across the table: ”Ferdinand, I heard the second-generation Magic Web is composed of ’Units.’”

”Yes, Your Majesy,” Duke Ferdinand replied, ”Andresha caught some fleeing Anzu mercenaries, who had seen the second-generation Magic Web. Apparently, these Magic Web Units are hexagonal arrays of magic symbols, requiring extremely high processing precision, and in enormous quantities, unlike blacksmiths and rune craftsmen hammering them out individually...”

At this, the Duke couldn’t help but frown and sigh: ”Unfortunately, we don’t have the blueprints... nor the physical specimens.”

Another royal minister in the reception room responded: ”The south of Anzu is already blocked, and the Cecil Clan tightly controls there, making intelligence gathering difficult. But that’s temporary—the Cecil Clan hasn’t completely blocked the spread of the Magic Web, reportedly, some local aristocrats have already secretly obtained Magic Web blueprints in the Plains of the Holy Spirits and some areas in the eastern region of Anzu. As long as there is enough patience and cost, it’s easy to buy off those Anzu aristocrats.”

Emperor Rosetta glanced at the minister named Goering and asked lightly: ”Goering, even if you got the blueprints and specimens, would you dare to use them directly?”

The royal minister named Goering paused, showing a thoughtful expression.

”According to what we know, before the war broke out in the south of Anzu, the Cecil Clan had actively spread the Magic Web on a large scale, and then what happened? Those foolish Anzu aristocrats covered the area with the Magic Web everywhere, so that the Cecil Clan’s army had sufficient magic power supply everywhere they attacked—this lesson is rather profound.”

The southern war in Anzu ended quickly, and after the war ended, the whole south was swiftly sealed off, but no wall is air-tight, and before the south was thoroughly locked down, some exiled knights and mercenaries managed to escape—they carried all kinds of credible and incredible information with them; some ended up in Typhon’s hands.

This intelligence made Emperor Rosetta aware of Cecil’s rise and more cautious about the ”Magic Web” from the Cecil Clan.

However... the Magic Web is still a good thing.

”We need Magic Web technology, and more importantly, we need the technology to apply the Magic Web, and these technologies must be held in our own hands,” Rosetta Augustus pressed the blueprints on the table with his hand and said in a deep voice, ”Typhon needs its own Magic Web.”