Chapter 339 — History Advances in Silence

The life of the nobility was one long round of banquets and soirées that lasted till dawn; revelry was their greatest virtue. The ball at Glan Castle went on until daybreak, and only then did the guests begin to disperse—some staying the night within the castle, others departing at sunrise in fur-lined carriages enchanted with temperature-regulating spells. The place that had clamored all night long finally fell quiet.

The castle's mistress and its most distinguished guest had vanished for a long stretch in the middle of the ball, and this gave the assembled nobles endless room for speculation. But only the shallowest of them would stoop to gossiping about a widow's love affairs; for those keen-nosed southern nobles who viewed the Cecil Domain through the lens of conspiracy, it was far more satisfying to guess what secret bargain the Grand Duke of the South had struck with the lady ruler of the Glan Domain.

There had to be a secret deal—of that there was no doubt. Gatherings of nobles never ran on simple friendship, and when a duke went to meet a viscount, no one would believe there was nothing traded behind it. As for the specifics of that trade, well, that would hardly be so easy to pry out.

Still, the guests at the banquet had more or less made their guesses. They knew the Glan Domain had no great mineral wealth, but its farmland was passable, and it produced a good deal of fur and timber. So they concluded that whatever the Viscountess of Glan had traded with Duke Cecil must revolve around such goods—and given the cheap alchemical potions of the Cecil Domain, perhaps Glan would trade its furs and timber for the druidic potions that improved the land...

Such was the conclusion most of the guests reached after their deductions.

In any case, whatever deal the Viscountess of Glan and Duke Cecil had made would not upset the balance of the South. That was how relations among nobles had always been: tangled, intricate webs of interest, each eyeing the other while depending on the other. As many roots as were knotted together in the Black Forest, so many landed nobles in civilized society waged war while privately carrying on trade and marriage alliances. That the Viscountess of Glan had signed a trade agreement with Duke Cecil was nothing remarkable—who in the South did not buy the potions of the Cecil Domain? And that did not stop them from also buying the magic-net technology stolen by Count Horsman...

Gaoyang stood on an open terrace outside the side door of the banquet hall. The cold night wind blew down from the north and split in two a few centimeters before his face, sweeping past to either side and back. He looked down at the mountain road below the castle, at the carriages hung with magic crystals departing one after another in the rising sunlight. In this bitter winter, the nobles could still travel between domains at any cost, rushing from one banquet to the next—while the poor could be frozen to death on the mountain roads just for leaving their houses to gather a little firewood.

After a moment, he turned his head slightly. "Amber."

Amber's voice came from behind him. "Here."

"You... er, when did you get behind me?" Gaoyang had been about to give an order, but broke off in surprise, turning to find that Amber, who had been standing at his side and slightly behind, had somehow moved to stand directly at his back.

"Standing behind you to block the wind, obviously," the half-elf lady said with perfect self-assurance. "You've got your protective aura up, so the cold wind splits around you—but standing next to you, I'm getting blown to bits!"

Gaoyang: "...Ahem. Go back, and bring Kamael and Piyun here as fast as you can."

Amber blinked. "Bringing Kamael over is to examine that magic device of Patty's, right? What's Piyun for? Don't tell me you're planning to have him treat Patty?"

"That's right," Gaoyang nodded. "Compared to holy light, which merely stimulates vitality, druids are better at restoring damaged flesh and replenishing life force. His methods of healing should work on Patty."

"Can that old man really do it?" Amber's voice sounded anything but reassured. "The Viscountess of Glan has already sought out all kinds of extraordinary healers—surely druids among them, maybe even mid- and high-rank ones. That old fellow is only a low-rank druid. If the experts couldn't cure her, what good is he?"

"Just bring him," Gaoyang said with a smile. "Maybe he'll be useful?"

Amber scratched her hair, her figure gradually fading from the air, until only her voice remained. "Fine, fine—you're the boss..."

Gaoyang turned back to face the empty terrace and waited there without a word. Sure enough, after a short while, he saw Amber's figure pop out again from the side. The half-elf planted herself before him and stretched her hand up high. "Give me money—travel expenses!"

Gaoyang smiled with the look of one who had expected this. He reached slowly into his robe for money, and then, seizing the instant Amber let down her guard, he whipped his hand out and rapped her on the head. "You dare ask for money! That investiture document I got a few days ago—this morning I saw the clasp was still gold, and by the afternoon it had turned gold-plated! And you still dare ask for money!"

And so Amber became a streak of black light and shot straight off to the southwest...

Only after Amber had truly gone did Gaoyang take one last look at the giant sun slowly rising. He drew a deep breath of the clean, cold air from the north, letting it clear his head, then turned and walked back into the castle.

Though he had rested little the night before, as an extraordinary class being his spirit was still abundant.

He decided to go see Patty, wish the little girl a good morning, and tell her the rest of the tale he had left unfinished yesterday—about Charlie and the three golden crowns.

At that same moment, in a hidden underground palace somewhere within the territory of the Typhon Empire, the light of magic crystal lamps suddenly flared to life in a stone hall.

The bright radiance, driven by magical power, illuminated that dark place, revealing the circular platform in the center of the hall, the neat rows of seats around it, and the artificial neural network behind those seats—while figures in black or white robes, like nightmares surfacing from the darkness, stood silently before the seats.

They were the high-ranking Nightmare Bishops of the Long Dusk Sect.

A purple-black shadow flickering with starlight appeared above the round platform at the center of the hall, and the shadow's voice resounded in the mind of every bishop: "All are present. Let us begin."

The bishops took their seats one after another. One of them glanced around, then at the platform before him, and broke the silence with a soft laugh. "After growing used to that magnificent hall in the Illusory Pivot City, the assembly places of the real world feel more and more shabby."

The shadow floating above the platform spoke into the bishops' minds: "There are always things the dream cannot accomplish—which is why the assembly places of the real world must be kept."

"Your Eminence, we have achieved a key advance on 'Project Zero,'" said a white-robed bishop with a woman's voice. "Within Sandbox No. 166, the 'Sanctuary' achieved a relatively long period of stability, successfully running through its first millennium."

"This is currently the sandbox that has been maintained the longest internally," said a black-robed bishop across the round table. "Moreover, we achieved sustained mental stability for the sanctuary's inhabitants—all one hundred test subjects in Sandbox 166 survived a thousand years without mental collapse, and even as the sandbox disintegrated they could still answer our questions clearly. Naturally, to prevent contamination, after Sandbox 166 collapsed we still performed memory erasure on all one hundred test subjects."