Chapter 443: Technology Trade
Seeing the rare spark of enthusiasm on Tyr’s face, Highlord knew he had finally hooked this fish—though he wasn’t entirely sure how he’d managed it. His original plan was to keep Tyr wandering around, gradually piquing her interest with various human-world curiosities. Yet, unexpectedly, it was the rainbow cannon that caught her attention outright.
No matter—the fish was on the line.
“You’re interested in the rainbow cannon?” Highlord asked, looking at Tyr. “Is it considered powerful among your sea-folk?”
“Powerful? Its destructive force is impressive, sure, but we’re not short on weapons…” Tyr shook her head. “What really fascinates me is how you manage to contain such a potent, pure arcane energy… and how you extract that energy from the ordinary magical environment.”
Tyr wasn’t particularly intrigued by the cannon itself. For the once highly advanced sea-folk civilization, the manufacturing and engineering behind this new weapon weren’t especially sophisticated. What piqued her curiosity was the principle behind it—the Cecilans’ approach to controlling magic.
Highlord quickly grasped this. Looking into Tyr’s now fully awake eyes, he didn’t immediately respond to her request. Instead, he asked, “May I be more specific—why are you interested in this part of the technology? Your people often observe land-dwelling races. Haven’t you ever been curious about our magical systems before?”
“Your land magic systems?” Tyr thumped the deck of the Aurora with her tail. “Ha! You mean your ‘skill’ systems? The tiered magic circles? That’s a completely different thing! Your ‘skills’ are useless to us. Haven’t you noticed? This thing called the rainbow cannon… it’s a fundamentally different way of harnessing energy. It draws power from the ley lines, then adjusts, contains, focuses, and finally fires it. What level of magic is it? What skill is it? None of those concepts apply!”
The sea-folk rarely got this animated. Her tail slapped the deck repeatedly. Though her words might sound confusing or jumbled to others, Highlord began to understand what truly mattered to her—
The “universal energy” attribute of the ley lines.
Humans had spent thousands of years building a “skill tree” system, converting mana into various levels and categories of spells, using countless complex and distinct incantations and spell models to shape magic into specific effects. But this “skill” system, comprehensible and usable only by humans, was meaningless to the sea-folk. Their lifeforms seemed incapable of understanding human spells—they couldn’t learn or use them.
What they needed was “universal energy.”
Yet, perhaps due to their biology, they had never found a way to convert mana into such a universal energy form.
The rainbow cannon revealed a new technological path to Tyr. From that devastating beam, she sensed a power that could break through some bottleneck for her people. And this power wasn’t a rigid skill—it was pure energy drawn from the ley lines, modulated by rune arrays, focused through rainbow crystals. This energy could be fired as a weapon, but by altering the control runes, it could be applied elsewhere.
Highlord knew the sea-folk had an ancient lost city whose energy reactors had long since gone cold. They needed a powerful new energy source to reignite those reactors. Though the divine flesh they mined from the seabed was potent, perhaps due to incomplete conversion, it only maintained the reactors’ residual warmth, never fully awakening the city.
After a moment’s thought, Highlord broke the silence. “Could the rainbow cannon ‘ignite’ your reactors?”
“Maybe not yet. It’s not strong enough. Compared to our core fusion towers, it’s just a tiny spark…” Tyr turned her gaze to the cannon on deck, lost in thought. “But you made that spark appear…”
Most world-changing technologies start as crude prototypes—so crude that the ignorant might scoff, “What’s the point of this flashy toy?” To a high-level civilization, this crudeness is even more glaring.
Only a few can see the value behind these “small sparks,” recognizing how far they might grow.
Highlord hadn’t expected the usually drowsy Tyr to have such insight, but he was glad she did.
A fish with a keen eye is a solid catch.
“I’ll get you one,” Highlord smiled and nodded at Tyr. “Of course, you’ll have to give something in return.”
“Just say what you want,” Tyr confidently slapped the deck with her tail. “I’m a war priestess after all. I can be very useful to you. Or if you want wealth and treasures, I can arrange that too—down in the deep sea…”
“I’m not interested in your personal combat skills or savings,” Highlord interrupted. “Technology must be exchanged for technology.”
“Technology for technology?” Tyr blinked. “What do you mean?”
“How much do you know about shipbuilding?”
At this question, Byron’s face lit up with a “finally, we’re here” expression. The knight clearly knew what his lord intended by bringing this sea-folk here. Meanwhile, Rebecca, who had just finished inspecting the rainbow cannon and was strolling over, froze for a moment at Highlord’s words, blinking at him. “My lord, are you planning to have Miss Tyr help us build ships?”
After Highlord’s affirmative nod, Rebecca scratched her head, looking doubtful. “But can she really do it?”
Before Tyr could answer, she heard Rebecca’s skepticism and frowned. “Why would you think I can’t?”
Rebecca was probably still dizzy from the cannon’s runes and mechanical structure, and casually said, “Do you sea-folk even need ships? You can swim, after all…”
Tyr gave Rebecca a once-over. “You humans walk on land, right? So why do you build cars?”
Rebecca’s expression froze, and after a long pause, she muttered, “Oh, right…”
Putting this scatterbrained girl aside, Tyr turned back to Highlord. “You want me to help build ships, right? Fine, I have no problem with that, but I need to clarify a few points first.
“First, the ‘ships’ I understand are very different from your current human shipbuilding technology. Most of the time, we don’t need a vessel that always floats on the surface and stays sealed and dry. But that’s not a big problem. With our underwater transport technology, even in unfamiliar areas, surpassing you won’t be hard—not an insult, just a fact.
“Second, I can teach your craftsmen a lot of knowledge—fluid dynamics, materials science, special coatings, even propulsion technologies. But many of these might be too advanced to implement right now, as they require a whole suite of prerequisite technologies and industrial infrastructure. I don’t know how to build those step by step either. So it’s quite possible I’ll be your consultant for years, drawing up excellent blueprints, but your craftsmen still won’t be able to build anything. Don’t blame anyone for that.
“Finally, although I agree to this tech exchange, it’s on my personal authority. I currently can’t contact the Deep Sea Court, so all my promises are limited to my own power. I can help you build ships, but I won’t assist with weapons or war technologies. If in the future our sea-folk establish longer-term relations with Cecile, I’ll help you build good ties with my people.”
When Tyr finished these three points, Highlord looked at her and confirmed, “That’s all?”
She thought for a moment. “Yeah… Oh, and make the pool in my room a bit bigger, add more salt regularly, and that’s it.”
“Of course,” Highlord chuckled. “I can agree to all that. In exchange, you can follow Kamail and Rebecca to learn about the universal energy technology behind the rainbow cannon. When you understand enough and conditions are right, you can choose to bring this technology back to the deep sea. I also welcome you to bring other sea-folk here. Of course, if you leave early, you’ll have to leave us enough shipbuilding technical data.”
The sea-folk lady agreed readily.
The deal Highlord had been mulling over for so long was finally sealed.
He had finally gained a piece of this lost, advanced civilization’s technology—albeit a small piece.
As for the conditions Tyr proposed, he had anticipated them from the start.
The sea-folk were a civilization utterly different from any land race, and their technology came from a “lost era” before countless magical cataclysms. This meant their tech path couldn’t be the same as humans’. Even just in “shipbuilding,” Highlord could think of more than one major divergence:
The sea-folk’s first ship was very likely a submarine—because they developed underwater.
Their first submarine probably had no concept of sealing; it was filled with seawater just like the outside, much like a human open carriage. This was dictated by their lifeform.
Even surface ships probably never considered lifeboats or escape pods. They might not even build watertight compartments. What if the ship sinks? Just dive! What if the submarine sinks? Push it back up on the seabed! What if the whole ship breaks apart? Swim back! This was probably the most reasonable approach for a sea-folk naval engineer…
Still, Highlord believed Tyr could greatly advance shipbuilding technology in his domain.
For one, her casual mention of “fluid dynamics” proved his point—it was a coined term, awkwardly combining the human words for “flow” and “law.” Tyr stumbled over it, and Byron and Rebecca looked utterly confused, but Highlord immediately understood its significance.
Also, he wasn’t worried about whether the sea-folk’s current ships had sealing technology. He remembered Tyr mentioning their city was originally a giant flying ship. Given their salty-water biology, that ship must have simulated a “marine ecosystem,” so they must have astonishing sealing tech now—
Sealing water out or sealing it in is basically the same thing (Highlord’s ramblings).
Of course, considering the huge differences between sea-folk and human shipbuilding, Highlord would have to rethink how the Cecile Shipbuilding Bureau operated, to prevent the ships from being too “sea-folk style” and impractical. Also, since Tyr wasn’t a professional technician but more like a “keyboard warrior” (a theoretical expert), it would be best to keep her as a special consultant rather than the project lead…
(End of chapter)