Chapter 560 — The Proposal

In the lord's residence of Xuanyao City, Gao Cen stared in astonishment at Rebecca, who had come running to him in high spirits, and at the great pile of sketches and scribbled-over plans she had brought: "Your... new train proposal?"

"Yes, yes!" Rebecca set the pile of things excitedly before the Xuanyao Sect's patriarch. "Take a look, take a look—the first simulation test was a success! These are all the relevant materials!!"

Thanks to the immersion-pod technology, the human brain could now be linked directly to magic-net devices. After the researchers ran their experiments in the Origin Laboratory, the data could be compiled automatically and printed out by a press connected directly to the immersion pod. That was how Rebecca had managed to assemble such a mountain of material in so short a time; then she had revised it according to her own ideas and carried the whole lot over in a flurry of excitement.

One glance at the sketch on the very top of the stack was enough for Gao Yang to realize that this was genuinely a brand-new proposal.

What it depicted... apart from the carriage still being a carriage, he could barely recognize any of the other structures.

It did not even have wheels anymore...

"This is... a repulsion structure?" Gao Yang's attention was caught by the strange sketch. He immediately opened the detailed explanation beneath it, and the more he read, the more astonished he grew. "You've done away with the engine entirely... and lift the whole train above the track? Using directional repulsion generators to drive it forward and back?! The power... most of the power is in the track?!"

"That's right," Rebecca said smugly. "The mechanical structure is simpler than ever before; the load is borne by the entire track system, so stability is extremely high, and even if a single repulsion point fails it won't affect the train's movement... Of course, this is only a preliminary proposal—it will certainly be adjusted for actual application."

Rebecca laid out the advantages of the new approach one by one, while Gao Yang had already become completely absorbed in a proposal that went far beyond his original conception.

Rebecca and her technical team had simply overturned the fundamental architecture of the original magic-energy train. They had abolished the engine, radically reworked the power supply, and turned this train... into a hovering one.

She had designed a track roughly V-shaped in cross-section, with a recessed center and, along the inner slopes of both sides, a series of repulsion points opening outward at obtuse angles. The undercarriage of the train consisted entirely of neat continuous steel "load-bearing surfaces," and the whole train hovered on these repulsion structures some dozen centimeters above the track, requiring no contact with it at all. At the same time, the special V-shaped track provided an initial guarantee of the train's hovering stability, preventing the carriages from tipping over or leaving the track while in motion.

Along both sides of the track she had installed a series of neatly spaced "relay posts"—equilateral triangular columns of metal or concrete fixed upright beside the track, their height matching that of the hovering carriages, with one edge of each post facing directly toward the train. On the outer shell of the carriages, meanwhile, a series of angle-adjustable repulsion generators was mounted vertically, corresponding to the relay posts alongside the track. When these generators faced backward, the train accelerated forward; when they faced forward, the train decelerated and braked, and could even reverse.

Besides propelling the train, the relay posts flanking the track served as a second safeguard against derailment—whether moving forward or backward, the train was subject to reaction forces from the posts on either side, and the closer it came to one side, the stronger the opposing force, which kept the hovering carriages from "flying" off the track.

To regulate the hover height while the train was running, she had also installed a number of additional repulsion units beneath the undercarriage. These could be controlled individually to balance the load of each carriage; and when the overall load was too heavy and the undercarriage risked sinking, or when the entire track system suffered an accident and most of the repulsion points failed at once, the train could rely on its own repulsion units to maintain its hover, or at least to return fairly smoothly to the track.

"...Quite... beyond what I expected..."

Gao Yang could not help murmuring in admiration.

The hovering-train proposal reminded him of the "maglev" technology he had known in his previous life, yet the two were fundamentally very different. At the same time, the driving force in Rebecca's new design reminded him of the magic-crystal railgun—a railgun propelled its projectiles forward with the same kind of angled repulsion runes. The difference was that in Rebecca's proposal, the source of propulsion was no longer the "rail," but the repulsion units built into the projectile—the carriage—itself...

Seeing the Xuanyao Sect's patriarch wear a satisfied expression, Rebecca could not help but grow smug. "Because the thrust needed for hovering comes from the track, adding more carriages also yields more thrust. So long as the output limit per unit length of track isn't exceeded, the train can keep floating stably even with more carriages. And since a great many repulsion points work simultaneously, even if some of them suddenly fail, the train will at most lose a little height or speed rather than scrape the track and be destroyed."

She paused, then went on: "Based on the current magic-net output and the interference threshold of the repulsion units, I've divided the track into 'sections,' each about one point three two kilometers long. Within each section there is a complete repulsion array, and the power supply of each section is independent, so damage to one won't affect the others. Also, roughly thirty percent of the repulsion units in each section are 'safety margin'...

"The power for the train's operation is split in two: one part is in the track zone, used to keep the carriages hovering; the other is aboard the train, used to sustain forward motion. Because the power is divided and a more efficient propulsion scheme is used, and the carriages themselves have been lightened, the load capacity is actually much higher than in the earliest design..."

Gao Yi nodded slightly, listening carefully to each of Rebecca's explanations, then offered a reminder: "A carriage in a hovering state won't be easy to control."

"Of course—a hovering carriage has to be handled with some care when turning or climbing," Rebecca nodded; clearly she had already considered this. "Mr. Camille is often floating about, and it was he who reminded me. A hovering carriage must take turns very gently to prevent inertia from causing it to scrape the track or strike a relay post. So the route can't have so many sharp curves, and the same goes for climbs—to keep the undercarriage from touching the track, the gradient must be limited. Also, the train has to slow down when turning or crossing a slope, and correspondingly the density of relay posts along slopes and curves must be increased to provide enough thrust at low speeds."

For a while Gao Cen could think of no further questions, so he lowered his head and continued to examine the remarkable proposal in careful detail.

A magic-energy train hovering in midair... without question, it was bold.

But bold did not necessarily mean unsafe. So long as the technical means kept pace, a bold proposal could still be highly practical—especially in a world where magical power existed.