Chapter 1059: Breaking the Limit

The “Synthetic Brain” created by Beltira… to be honest, even High Lord Gawain himself was taken aback the first time he saw it. After all, this thing carried the unmistakable aesthetic of the Cult of the End of All Things—its principles and design were bizarre and unsettling. Whenever it appeared on the battlefield, both sides would instinctively assume it was sent by the enemy…

But after getting used to the “Synthetic Brain’s” eerie style, Gawain quickly began to consider its practical value.

Dark flesh-regenerating magic could be used for healing wounds, terrifying nightmare spells could be repurposed to build neural networks—technology itself is neither good nor evil, and one shouldn’t judge it solely by its “style.” Since Beltira had successfully created something so safe and reliable, it was worth exploring whether it had a place in the current Cecil industrial system—and clearly, it did.

After carefully analyzing the essence of the “Synthetic Brain,” Gawain realized this technology could fill the largest gap in Cecil’s magical technology tree: automation and intelligence.

He had long sought a breakthrough in this area. He knew automation and intelligence could revolutionize industrial society and would be indispensable for the future development of magical industry. Yet neither he nor the scholars in the Mana Technology Department had any leads.

Technicians had once considered traditional mage’s magical puppets or tower spirit technology, but those were even more inscrutable black boxes than the old communication spells, making them nearly impossible to crack. Those projects had made no progress to this day. What no one expected was that the breakthrough would come from a different direction—wetware hosts.

Gawain had countless exciting ideas about those incredible “Synthetic Brains.” In his vision, their applications went far beyond merely controlling machines or commanding factories.

His thinking was simple: after accepting the strange aesthetic of these synthetic brains, he saw their essence as not much different from Earth’s computers. Although their physical basis was organic, that didn’t mean they were inherently more dangerous than silicon-based chips. The assumption that biologically based data devices are more prone to losing control is a mindset typical of someone who has crossed worlds—and Gawain had long since learned to control such biases.

Of course, getting ordinary people to accept these artificially synthesized “brains” was another challenge. But perhaps it wasn’t as difficult as it seemed: this was a world where supernatural powers existed, and the common folk’s capacity to accept strange things was probably stronger than Gawain’s. In a sense, the “Synthetic Brain” from the Solin region was no more alien to the people than the early automatic water pumps once were. Since they had already accepted the facts that “there are no little demons inside machines” and “the mana network devices don’t consume souls,” they would understand that the wetware hosts in factories were just parts of machines.

Gawain shook his head, pulling his wandering thoughts back. He looked at Veronica, curiosity flickering in his eyes. “I heard you’ve been spending a lot of time in the Rebellion Lab lately, hanging around those war god remnants. Have you made any new discoveries?”

“No new discoveries,” Veronica replied with a gentle smile, shaking her head softly. “But I’ve been pondering a question lately…”

“Pondering a question?” Gawain raised an eyebrow. “About what?”

“Do you remember when Amon once described the concept of the ‘Deep Sea’ to you?” Veronica said quietly. “The Deep Sea is the foundation and underlying layer of the entire world. All tendencies of everything in existence are reflected there, interacting and resonating with the fundamental laws of this world… Mortal thoughts stirring in the Deep Sea eventually gave birth to gods. But even before gods were born, before mortals began to think, the ‘tendencies’ belonging to the gods already existed there.”

Gawain raised his eyebrows, meeting Veronica’s gaze. “You mean…”

“We destroyed a god. The war god’s true form was reduced to ashes on the Winter Fortress battlefield. But according to Amon’s theory, what we actually destroyed was just a tiny projection in the Deep Sea—a projection that only interacted with the current wave of mortal thoughts… The real ‘War God’ might still be sleeping deep in the Deep Sea. Perhaps… it’s not even aware of our mortal actions.”

“Maybe so,” Gawain said, “but for us, the shackles of the war god have indeed been broken. Reports are coming in from all over. At least from the information channels we have, the war god’s influence—both inside and outside the empire, among elves, dwarves, and other races—has vanished. The corresponding psychic seals are gone as well. Maybe after all the sacrifices, we only destroyed ‘our god,’ but what does that matter? Mortals can only comprehend what they can understand. Things beyond our grasp, unreachable and unverifiable, simply don’t exist for us.”

“Things unreachable and incomprehensible to mortals are equivalent to nonexistence? That’s a profound and wise insight,” Veronica sighed, a hint of melancholy in her voice. “Everything is as you say… and I’ve just suddenly realized how insignificant I am as a ‘mortal.’”

Gawain smiled, about to say more, when suddenly a loud, heavy thudding noise echoed down the corridor—like some massive sphere rolling wildly. Then came a loud bang as the study door was forcefully pushed open. Tyr appeared in the doorway, his lower body tangled into a huge serpentine coil. He stormed in, eyes wide, shouting, “Dead! Dead! Dead! I just smashed something and it died on the spot! I mean, this is the imperial capital—do you guys even have law and order here?!”

The dramatic entrance of this salty deep-sea creature startled both Gawain and Veronica so much that neither reacted immediately. Only when Tyr shouted again did Gawain snap out of it, blinking in confusion at the sea monster rolling around the study. “Explain clearly—what died? Who hit you?”

Tyr struggled to untangle his tail as he shouted, “How should I know?! I was just taking advantage of the warmer weather to nap by the river when I heard a huge crash and then… I died and came back! I swear, for a moment I thought something had slammed me straight into the Elemental Plane…”

“You…” Gawain opened his mouth, but before he could say a word, the mana network terminal beside the desk suddenly buzzed urgently, flashing red—a sign of an emergency communication. Instinctively, Gawain answered. The next second, the image of Solderin appeared above the terminal, his voice hurried:

“Someone just observed a massive flash and explosion near Test Site One on the south bank of the Whitewater River. There’s an anomaly in the low-altitude airspace there—Rebecca’s lab might be in trouble.”

Gawain immediately stood up from behind the desk. Test Site One—that was where Rebecca was currently conducting her ultra-high-speed matter acceleration project!

He strode toward the study door, saying only two words: “Prepare the car.”

“Hey, I’m coming with you!” Tyr, finally catching his breath, didn’t hesitate to follow, coiling his tail quickly as he said, “If there are any casualties, I can help with emergency treatment…”

Gawain glanced sideways at Tyr and nodded slightly. On his other side, a faint dark shadow briefly appeared in the empty air before vanishing—Amber had already gone to prepare the car.

…

In the shortest time, Gawain arrived at Test Site One outside the city. Even before entering, he could see the lingering blue smoke above the large laboratory, and a strange “trace” hovering just a dozen meters above the ground between the lab and the Whitewater River.

The trace was semi-transparent, fading with time but still visible to the naked eye when Gawain arrived.

Before reaching the site, Gawain had already relaxed somewhat: a nearby ranger squad rushing to the scene reported no deaths or serious injuries—only a few minor wounds. Rebecca was safe.

At the parking lot outside the lab, Gawain immediately spotted a huge hole in the side of the white building—calling it a “hole” was an understatement. Nearly three-quarters of the wall had been torn away, along with a large section of the roof, as if some terrifyingly massive beast had taken a single bite out of the structure.

Smoke still billowed near the gaping wound. Scattered debris littered the large clearing outside. Many disheveled technicians were evacuating, some receiving treatment, others engaged in heated discussions.

Gawain found Rebecca—her face blackened by soot, hair wild and messy, her robe torn in several places. She looked as bedraggled as the other technicians.

Seeing her ancestor arrive, the young woman’s face lit up with a brilliant smile, revealing sharp white fangs. “Ancestor! You’re here! Guess what I did this time?”

“Let’s not talk about that yet,” Gawain said, relieved to see her unharmed despite her stern expression. He didn’t answer her question but turned to Tyr. “Clean her up first—she’s barely recognizable.”

Rebecca hesitated, about to refuse, but before she could, a large water sphere condensed midair and, under Tyr’s precise control, splashed directly onto her face. The magical elemental water washed away the soot and soot in seconds, healing some minor injuries in the process.

Still dazed after the water ball dissipated, Rebecca only snapped back to reality when Amber appeared beside her, clapping her hands. She nodded belatedly at Tyr. “Thanks…”

“Now you can tell me about your ‘achievement,’” Gawain cleared his throat, looking at Rebecca. “Of course, if your achievement is blowing a hole this big in your own lab… maybe we should hold off and explain it to Hetty together later.”

But Rebecca seemed not to hear the last part. She was clearly excited, practically glowing with enthusiasm. “We broke the limit! Ancestor! We successfully broke the limit!”

“Broke… the limit?” Gawain frowned, confused. “What limit did you break?”

“Missile limit!” Rebecca exclaimed excitedly. “By using multi-stage orbital acceleration and a new elemental amplification casing, we managed to push the projectile to nearly twice the previous speed limit!”

It took Gawain a couple of seconds to process this, then his eyes slowly widened. “You actually broke the missile speed limit? By brute-force acceleration?”

Rebecca nodded vigorously.

“…But what’s going on here?” Gawain blinked, then couldn’t help but glance toward a nearby building. “Why is there such a huge… ‘hole’ in the wall where you did the acceleration test? Did you basically turn the acceleration track into a giant cannon and fire the projectile like a shell straight at the wall?”

“Well…” Rebecca scratched her head, looking a bit embarrassed. “There was an accident—something I still can’t quite explain. Originally, that wall had a small window for the projectile to fly through. Outside the window, there was a long deceleration zone and multiple layers of steel intercept plates. But for some reason, right after the projectile flew out, it triggered a massive explosion… it blew out almost the entire wall and all the intercept plates outside.”

“Ah, and it wasn’t just the explosion—you’ve seen it, right? There’s a trail left hanging in the air. Actually, that trail was much more visible before, but it’s been fading gradually.”

“We’re currently analyzing the cause of the accident and trying to figure out what that trail actually is, but so far, no leads. And there’s another big problem—the projectile is missing. It flew too fast, and the explosion messed up all tracking. Nobody knows where it ended up.”

Rebecca’s face grew visibly worried as she finished. “This is really dangerous. That’s a metal rod weighing over a hundred kilos, flying at twice the missile speed limit… wherever it lands, it’s going to cause serious damage.”

Before she could finish, Tyr stepped forward a couple of paces and pointed to his own head. “It hit me.”

Rebecca gasped, then stared at Tyr in shock and helplessness. “Are… you okay?”

Tyr said nothing.

(End of chapter)