To be honest, when he saw the writing on the table, Gawain was not as calm as he appeared - although he had said a few minutes ago that the goddess of magic had to thank him, he really didn't expect it. The other party actually thanked me...
Is this the "character" of the Magic Goddess? It feels really different from Amorn or Naritiel Duarte...
But even if a lot of random thoughts came into his mind, he still controlled his expression very well. After all, there were several people in the room, and he still had to maintain a dignified persona on such occasions.
"Ancestor," Hetty noticed Gawain's movements on the desk and couldn't help but asked curiously, "What happened... ah? What happened to the table?"
Gawain lowered his head and glanced at the table. The newly replaced desk was first engraved with a thank you by the goddess of magic, and then he wiped off a layer of it, leaving a big hole in the middle. The emperor's desk seemed to be in serious trouble - this made him feel a little pity: "Just now...there were mosquitoes."
The three great consuls present were stunned: "..."
This is obviously not easy for people to believe, but since the ancestors/His Majesty the Emperor said that there are mosquitoes... then there really are mosquitoes.
"Ahem, go back and change this table..." Gawain coughed twice, wanting to end this embarrassing topic as soon as possible, "Well, let's change this table."
< p> "Yes... Ancestor," Heti nodded, and then followed Gawain's intention and quickly ended the current topic abruptly, "As for your plan to go to Tallond...""This is exactly what I want to say," Gawain nodded immediately and followed Hetty's words, "According to the agreement made with the 'representative' of Tallond before, in the presence of the goddess of magic After the Divine Burial' is over, it's almost time for me to leave - of course not immediately, we can still prepare, but after all, it is something that has been promised, and I don't intend to delay it too much."
"You really are. The decision to go to that... mysterious Tallond?" Although Baldwin knew that this was something that had already been decided, he still couldn't help but ask one more question.
"Don't be so nervous - Tallond is not the world of gods or hell, it is just another country on this planet," Gawain said unhurriedly, "Dragon Clan It is indeed a mysterious race, but they are also a civilization that can communicate. We can formally establish diplomatic relations with the Holy Dragon Principality, so it is the correct mentality to regard Tallond as a 'country'."
Victoria, who was standing nearby with no change in expression on her face, broke the silence: "In the North, there have been many legends about 'dragons' since ancient times. Although most of them are nonsense, the legends themselves can reflect a lot of information - —Dragon is a mysterious race, but in fact it has always been active in the Loren continent and at the border of human civilization. They have a mysterious purpose, and weDon't know anything about it... Your trip to Tallond may help humans understand what the dragons are up to, but be prepared to face the risks. "
"Of course," Gawain nodded slightly, and then looked at Victoria's eyes as clear and indifferent as ice crystals, "Regarding this trip to Tallond, the internal affairs of the empire are basically Everything has been arranged, and I believe you will handle the daily state affairs during my temporary absence. But besides that... I have a special task for you. "
Victoria immediately stood up straight, with a trace of solemnity on her face: "Please give me your instructions. "
"Don't be so nervous," Gawain waved his hand, "I just want you to ensure that all the magic network hub towers in the north are in the best condition, and adjust all the crystal arrays on the north coast so that they Listen for signals from the North Pole with the highest sensitivity - at the same time, I will also bring a set of the most advanced magic network terminals to maintain communication with the north coast. ”
“Do you intend to maintain contact with the empire in this way? Victoria frowned slightly, "...With all due respect, this shouldn't be feasible. It completely exceeds the communication distance of the existing magic network hub, and there is also very strong interference in the vast ocean, not to mention There is also a storm in the middle..."
"Of course I know," Gawain interrupted, "I want to take this opportunity to collect data on the magic network hub and the magic interference in the ocean area, especially It's the latter. This part of the data is very useful and what we are in urgent need of now. The offshore route from North Port to the Mossywood Forest has begun trial operation, but the data collection in the open sea is progressing slowly. It is difficult for us to collect the magic parameters outside the Violet Strait with our existing technology. It just so happens that this time the Dragon Clan has provided us with a 'Hitchhiking'. "
"I see...Then I understand," Victoria lowered her head, "I will do as you ask. ”
“Yeah. As for my contact with the country, you don’t have to worry about this," Gawain nodded, and then said, "The Dragon Clan has the technology to maintain communications across the endless sea. I will leave a 'Mythril Ring' when the time comes. Keep it with Hetty, use it to contact me if you have any special circumstances. ”
Then he discussed some preparation details with Hetty and three others. This was the last time to confirm the arrangements for domestic affairs before leaving. After the discussion came to an end, Hetty exhaled slightly. , shook his head helplessly: "No matter how you arrange it, I always feel that this is a hasty trip for you..."
Gawain smiled: "It is indeed a hasty trip, but there is no such thing as a hasty trip in the world." There will be so many things that can develop as we expect.
Hetty nodded helplessly, but quickly asked like an over-worried housekeeper: "So the entourage for this trip... are you really sure you will only bring Amber and Wei?" Ronika? "
"Should I bring an entire Imperial Guard as a 'guest'? "Gawain looked helplessly at Hetty, who was obviously a little too nervous.At a glance, "I was invited to Tallond as a guest, not to attack the dragon kingdom or to explore the dragon cave. Too many entourages will not be useful, so it is enough to bring Amber and Veronica - -Amber is smart and good at investigating, while Veronica is more knowledgeable about God's things, which is just right for me."
Hetty thought for a moment, and finally lowered her head and said: "Since this is you. "It means..."
"We can not talk about this for now," Gawain waved his hand, and then his face became serious, "A report came from Solinburg today, and I plan to go with you. Discuss."
"Tholinburg?" Hetty looked confused, but she reacted almost instantly, vaguely guessing, "Is it about the mysterious signal that was monitored before?"
"That's right - that mysterious signal," Gawain said with a serious look on his face, and reached out to pull out a document from some organized documents next to him. "Many scholars in the field of cryptography and writing have studied it for a long time. For a long time, I couldn't find clues from those tremors of unknown meaning. However, Bertila found another way. She seemed to have discovered a certain pattern in those tremors..."
As soon as he finished speaking, the people at the scene The three chief consuls came closer, and even Victoria, who had almost no expression, had a faint look of curiosity on her face. Obviously, it was not just the experts and scholars who were disturbed by the mysterious signal.
Gawain did not deliberately titillate people. He simply unfolded the organized document, took out the most important page from the folder, turned it around and put it on the table. , pushed in front of Hetty and others.
“What is this?” Baldwin Franklin looked at the content on the piece of paper in confusion. In his sight was a strange picture, which seemed to be a series of A square composed of small dots, and next to the square there is a short diagonal line that seems to be unfinished - that line is also composed of a series of small dots. In the blank space next to the picture, you can see some tremor ripple legends, marked with instructions such as tremor period and tremor category.
Not only Baldwin, Hetty and Victoria were obviously equally confused after seeing this thing.
"This is what Bertila 'restored' from those signals, an incomplete picture," Gawain said, briefly explaining the "technical ideas" mentioned in the document, "She transformed the tremors directly into images, using a 'rule of interpretation' that no one had ever thought of. She treated the tremors and white noise as dots and blanks respectively, outlining them with the clock sequence of the signal itself. …”
Bertila’s method is actually not complicated, and the people at the scene are all smart people who are good at mathematics and technical deductions (except for Amber who is standing by the window and wandering around), so Gawain just After a few simple explanations, the three archons fully understood the connection between this picture and the mysterious signal.
Hetty couldn't help but widen her eyes with an incredible look.Just looking at the picture: "It's... that simple? The essence of this signal is actually a picture?!"
"It's incredible, but I'm afraid this is the truth," said Bai Dewenruo on the side He said thoughtfully, "It is impossible to get such a neat picture through random testing. The perfect shape of this square shows that Bertila's idea is correct - there is a picture hidden in the signal, which is really... interesting." "
"But what is the meaning of this painting?" Hetty frowned, "Who did this?"
"It is obviously incomplete. There are unfinished lines next to it. Bertila believes that we have only received a small section of the complete signal, and believes that the signals we received several times should be different 'sections' - it is a pity that the previous two signals They are not clear enough or were not recorded in time, so the samples she can use for analysis are only the content received on the 32nd of this month," Gawain said casually, "And based on the things currently recorded and analyzed, Bertila It is speculated that the complete form of this picture may be some kind of design drawing... Of course, this guess is only for reference, and there are too many subjective assumptions in it."
"The drawing...although subjective, this statement is subjective. It's quite attractive." Baldwin shook his head. "Anyway, no matter what this thing is, it is obviously made by intelligent creatures... To send such a signal, the sender must have a purpose, and the other party must have a purpose. It wants to convey some kind of information to us...or to any unspecified target, a target that has the ability to receive and translate this information..."
"This is also my opinion," Gao Wen Said, "I think this signal is most likely to be 'broadcasting' continuously. It continues to publish this 'drawing'. The reason why we can occasionally receive some fragments of it is probably because of our The Magic Network Crystal Array is not specifically designed to receive this thing - everything is just a coincidence
"This is what I want to tell you: we must find a way to reproduce this 'coincidence' stably. .
“These signals are very unusual, and I believe you can feel this too. Whether it is for academic research or to eliminate hidden dangers in the Magic Network communication system, we need to investigate clearly what is behind these signals. Secret, for this reason, I plan to list the capture, tracking and research of these signals as a formal and long-term project, and carry out planned continuous listening within the range that the magic network can cover.
"This project is called the 'Listening' project.
“So far we don’t know where to start, so I asked Bertila to collect all the operating parameters when Sorin’s main hub captured the signal, as well as the weather, magnetic field, magic environment and other data at that time. Found it out. There may be many 'coincidence factors' that caused Thorin's main hub to receive the signal. It may be related to the orientation or combination mode of the crystal array at that time, it may be related to the working status of the magic network in Thorin's area at that time, or it may even be related to the current situation. It is related to the weather and wind direction. Since we don’t knowIf you don't know which data is useful, then you can only record it all and try them all.
“Without affecting the daily operation of the Imperial Magic Network, let the hubs and nodes with spare capacity in various places adjust to an operating state as close as possible to the 'Thorin Standard Parameters' and see if we can intercept it. Even if nothing is discovered by then, we have at least conducted an operational test on the entire magic network." Gawain said while looking at Victoria who was listening carefully.
"Victoria, the North is a key testing area - because the first abnormal signal was received in Winterfort. Although you only received it once, and the signal condition was extremely poor, But we still have reason to suspect that the environment in Winter Castle may be suitable for listening to this abnormal signal, so you should pay more attention to this matter."
Victoria immediately responded: "Yes, Your Majesty."
p>Gawain nodded. He exhaled and glanced at the three people in front of the desk one by one. Then he reached out and took out three identical documents from the drawer under the desk. In front of Hetty et al.
"This is a copy of Solinburgh's report. It also includes more details of the 'Listening Plan' and the 'standard parameters' compiled by Bertila. You can call in the technical staff when you go back. Take a look. During my temporary absence, you can start making preparations for this plan.
"Let's talk about it today. If there is nothing else, everyone can go about their own business. Bar.
"The main process of the 'divine burial' has ended, but there is still a lot of finishing work before the sun sets. This aspect is left to Heti."
The three grand consuls They all accepted the order and turned to leave, but when Victoria was about to walk out of the room, Gawain suddenly stopped her again.
"Victoria, wait a moment."