Chapter 201: The Cold

After Rebecca and Jenny left, Gawain rose from behind his desk and walked over to the large floor-to-ceiling window. He gazed thoughtfully across the square at the new building rising on the opposite side.

That was the headquarters of the “Public Security Bureau.” Some of the trained and ideologically educated former militia would become the territory’s first professional “patrol officers” or “security personnel,” replacing the current situation where soldiers from the combat corps doubled as patrolmen.

But Gawain wasn’t focused on the implementation of this new system. His attention was on the construction process itself.

Wherever the new facility was built, the Hive Magic Network would be extended there. Even before construction began on the Public Security Bureau building, the foundation around it had already been embedded with hive units and output terminals of the magic network. These magical energies played a crucial supporting role on the site: before work started, craftsmen would inscribe simple weight-reduction arrays, heating runes, elemental enhancement runes, and the like around the magic network’s output terminals according to the blueprints they’d been given. Building materials delivered from the cement and brick factories would be treated within these rune-inscribed zones—some heated and solidified, others imbued with elemental magic to extend their durability, and many lightened in weight to ease transport and installation.

Even cheap materials inscribed with low-grade weight-reduction arrays could maintain their effect for about an hour, allowing heavy building components to be moved into place—like beams and roofs—with ease. The skilled craftsmen, drawing on their experience, knew exactly how to install these lightened materials so that when their weight suddenly returned, the impact wouldn’t damage the structure but instead would bind the components even more securely together. The widespread construction activities across the territory had greatly accelerated the integration of new applied magic with traditional craftsmanship. In fact, builders were among the first to adopt and become accustomed to using magical power in their work.

Thanks to these simple spells, construction efficiency in the Cecil territory had reached an almost unbelievable level—far beyond what Gawain and Hetty had initially expected. Both were surprised, though for different reasons: Hetty marveled at how magic’s popularization could bring such change to everyday life, while Gawain found himself reexamining his assumptions about this world…

Was this so-called “medieval” Ansu Kingdom—or this entire world—really “backward”?

Gawain furrowed his brow, recalling the task he’d assigned to Rebecca and Jenny, and everything he’d seen over the past few months.

The communication rings from the Mythril Treasury, Hetty’s levitation and weight-reduction spells, the Sleeper cult’s neural arrays, the End of All Things’ biochemical modifications…

If you judged this world purely by whether certain goals could be achieved, or whether certain technologies existed, it was anything but backward—it was astonishingly advanced.

Here, long-distance, low-latency remote communication existed (via magical transmission or Mythril Treasury devices). On a national scale, there were advanced magical information towers. In the Silver Elves’ realm, there was even a flying city called the “Sanctuary of the Stars,” capable of broadcasting communication signals across the entire Silver Empire—a power station of information unlike anything Gawain had ever heard of.

The scorching beams resembled high-energy lasers or plasma streams with extreme temperature and containment.

The Sleepers had created neural thought networks; their brain-array computers were, in Gawain’s eyes, pure black technology—and this tech also enabled fully immersive virtual reality, even influencing the real world.

The End of All Things’ biotech had long achieved organ transplants and even DNA fusion between species (assuming this world’s life used DNA as genetic material).

The Holy Light Church’s holy water could sterilize almost perfectly, and their healing miracles could instantly regenerate limbs.

Mages could conjure energy shields, focused energy beams, damaging sonic waves, and even small-scale artificial weather…

Gawain watched as a beam, its weight reduced by more than half, was effortlessly hoisted by workers using slings and installed on the roof—essentially a form of anti-gravity technology.

The Sanctuary of the Stars floated above the Silver Empire for thousands, even tens of thousands of years, thanks to powerful anti-gravity devices—if harnessed properly, it was equivalent to countless airborne motherships.

So a world with instant long-distance communication, energy weapons, energy shields, anti-gravity, flight, and advanced biotech—was it really backward?

By all rights, no. It was so advanced it could only be described as science fiction.

Yet in Gawain’s eyes, it still was backward—because the vast majority of people still scratched out a living from the soil, still used crude wooden tools and brute strength to survive, still lived lives barely above subsistence, where minor illnesses or injuries could be fatal. And this wasn’t due to a lack of technology—the technology was there, but it simply hadn’t been popularized.

This was the world’s unique problem: even though advanced magic-based technologies existed, they weren’t widespread, yet individuals could still master and use them.

Though their development was limited by this lack of popularization, the “high starting point” of magic meant that even primitive applications were enough for those who wielded power to live comfortably.

The upper class held extraordinary power, using it to enjoy extreme comfort and convenience, with plenty of “lower-class” people to serve them. Naturally, they had no interest in spreading these powers to maintain their rule. And even if a few gifted or lucky individuals from the lower classes mastered these powers, they would be absorbed into the social structure, transformed into a new nobility, and become part of the system maintaining the status quo. More importantly, before the advent of the Hive Magic Network and rune logic—and before Gawain, the “third-party observer,” arrived—no one had even conceived how to popularize these technologies or what the consequences might be.

So this world remained backward, despite its remote communication, energy weapons, biotech, virtual reality, and anti-gravity. For centuries, it stayed stuck.

But Gawain believed that even without his presence, this world would eventually break free from this stagnation. As long as humans kept thinking, change would come. If one wild mage was lost to history, another would discover rune laws and the magic network concept. Someone gifted—or just incredibly lucky—would bring it all to life.

There was no need to worry about whether the world’s technological foundation was sufficient—it wasn’t lacking in technology, only in popularization and the power to ensure it.

And since he was here now, and no one else seemed to grasp the importance of popularizing all this, Gawain was more than willing to do it himself…

His thoughts stirred, his fighting spirit reignited by the realization of the countless advanced technologies waiting to be unleashed. But just then, he saw a shadow dart across the square below and fly toward him.

He quickly shut the window.

“Gawain, I have to tell you something about the Mechanical Workshop—” thwack!

Only after the half-elf lady was suddenly flung backward did Gawain realize he’d just heard the words “Mechanical Workshop”—was this “shame of all things” here to report something serious?

He hurriedly reopened the window, and almost immediately, a shadow shot up from below and slammed into him. “Are you trying to get yourself killed? How can you close the window when you see me coming?”

Gawain grabbed the clawing Amber. “How can you keep sneaking in through the window every day? Next time I’m putting mouse traps on the window, I’m warning you! So, what’s going on at the Mechanical Workshop?”

Amber clawed a few more times, then gave up and said seriously, “That Nicholas Egg seems to have had some kind of accident. He fell to the ground just now, and everything’s a mess over there!”

The main work machine broke down?!

Gawain broke out in a cold sweat. Without hesitation, he grabbed Amber by the belt, pinched her under the arms, and jumped straight out the window without even opening the door. “Hold on tight!”

“You’re jumping out the window too!”

“Shut up!”

Gawain dashed in a straight line to the new Mechanical Workshop building. The townsfolk barely noticed what had happened—only feeling a sudden gust of wind sweep through the street. Within minutes, he arrived at the place where Nicholas Egg was kept.

The new workshop’s main hall was brightly lit, filled with nearly all the craftsmen and apprentices. Nicholas Egg lay quietly in the center—a huge silver-white sphere painted with a ridiculous grin, looking utterly comical…

Gawain’s lips twitched. The garish paint job on the giant metal ball was so distracting that even in this situation, it was hard to take seriously. But he quickly composed himself and stepped forward. “What happened? Egg—can you hear me?”

“How many times do I have to say it? At least call me Director Egg!” The sphere buzzed, wobbling slightly but showing no sign of floating. “I don’t get why you humans make such a fuss… I’m not dead…”

Relieved to hear a response from the iron ball alien, Gawain narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Then what’s going on?”

“Looks like I caught a cold,” Nicholas Egg buzzed gloomily. “A sudden cold.”

“A cold?”

“Yeah, a cold. When I catch a cold, I can’t float. Isn’t that common sense?”

“That’s not common sense for humans!” Gawain glared, deeply feeling the difference between species. Then, worried, he asked, “Why do you get colds? Did you catch a chill? Or were you infected?”

“Probably came into contact with some irritant,” Nicholas Egg muttered. “I’m prone to colds when exposed to certain energy fields or substances… Today I tried processing some new materials, and I think one of them was the trigger.”

Gawain immediately turned to the craftsmen and apprentices nearby. “What did he work with today?”

A rune craftsman hesitated. “My lord, the most unusual thing the director processed today was this…”

He motioned for the apprentices to wheel over a large chunk of “raw ore” on a cart.

“This is a new mineral the exploration team found in the Dark Mountains. Lady Hetty said she sensed it has very high magical activity.”

(End of chapter)