Chapter 790 — Change

"Imperial Navy Commander, is it..." A faint smile on his face, the mercenary knight could not help murmuring softly to himself. "It does sound rather stirring."

With that, he shook his head slightly and walked at an unhurried pace toward the arcane vehicle waiting for him at the edge of the plaza.

The holiday was over. Time to go back and tell Pea.

A pleasant, crisp ringing suddenly came from nearby, interrupting Byron's thoughts.

He raised his head with some curiosity toward the source of the sound, and saw, in the open space among the flower beds not far off, Rebecca—dressed in winter hunting clothes suited for easy movement—riding some strange two-wheeled "machine," wobbling her way toward him.

That strange "machine" resembled no arcane mechanism he had seen before. It plainly did not use any magical apparatus as a power source; it was simply assembled from iron wheels, frame, chains, and the like, driven by human pedaling, and the crisp, pleasant ringing came from a small device hanging beside its handlebars—

Rebecca was vigorously fiddling with that little device, making it ring ding-a-ling, her face full of excitement. Yet Byron could see that Her Highness's situation was not promising—she clearly could not yet control that two-wheeled "contraption," and swayed dangerously atop it. Though she seemed to be riding toward the open road beside them, her course grew more and more crooked, and before his eyes she bore down on Byron.

"Ah, Byron!" Rebecca had noticed the person in her path and cried out at once. "Don't move, don't move!"

Byron thought about it, stood where he was without moving, and then watched helplessly as Rebecca, still a dozen or so meters away, went clatter—and tumbled off the two-wheeled vehicle, sprawling every which way in a sorry heap.

And still grinning from ear to ear.

Guards quickly came running, scrambling to help the princess up from the ground. Byron strode over as well, watching with a look three parts doting upon this girl he had all but watched grow up, and said with a helpless smile, "I thought you telling me not to move meant you were taking aim to run me down—I'd already raised my protective aura."

"Hey, I meant for you to stay put while I figured out how to dodge, but then things turned out a bit different from what I imagined... But no matter what, in the end I didn't hit you, and isn't that just fine," Rebecca rattled on while rubbing her head, then turned to glance at the "two-wheeled vehicle" that the attendants had just righted, and could not help showing a look of distress. "Oh dear, I hope it isn't broken... they only sent over a few of them..."

Only then did Byron have the leisure to observe that odd-looking "vehicle." He found that its style differed greatly from the many other mechanical creations of Cecil, and could not help his curiosity. "Your Highness, this thing... don't tell me you invented it just now as well?"

As he saw it, whenever some strange new gadget appeared in Xuanyao City, and it happened to be near Rebecca, it was most likely the work of this ingenious princess or the research team about her—and the former accounted for fully half of all new things.

Though with the recent refinement of various research facilities, more and more intellectuals were devoting themselves to technological development, and Rebecca's "creations" were steadily shrinking as a share of all new things, long habit still led Byron, upon seeing some novelty, to subconsciously connect it with Rebecca.

But Rebecca shook her head. "No, it's not that. This came along with the merchants the last time we imported textiles from Typhon—a gift the Typhonians sent. I think it's called a 'two-wheeler'..."

"Typhon?" Byron echoed, a trace of surprise in his voice, and could not help stealing a few more glances at the peculiar-looking vehicle. "Hm... no wonder it felt a bit strange in style, though it does look quite ingenious. But the Typhonians really are an odd bunch—a vehicle with only two wheels... it can't be easy to master, surely."

"That's where you're wrong. Once you've learned it, the thing is actually terribly convenient," Rebecca said at once, planting her hands on her hips. "When I watched the demonstration it looked effortless—handy and fast. The reason I fell just now is simply that I'm not practiced yet."

Listening to Rebecca's excited chatter, Byron looked at the "two-wheeler" from Typhon before him, and a thoughtful expression crept unbidden onto his face.

The Typhonians had gotten off to a very late start in magitech, and in this field that might well stand as the emblem of the new age, they were indeed far behind Cecil. Yet in other respects they had always led the way—a telling example being the "mechanical clock." This timekeeping device, once the exclusive preserve of nobles and the Church, had in the past two years spread gradually throughout the country with the "punctuality requirements" brought on by factory construction and railway operation; yet it had first been invented by Typhon's artisans some half a century earlier.

Like many technologies of the old era, its original purpose had been theological ritual—to let the churches fix the hour of Mass, summoning the faithful to prayer by ringing the great mechanical bell. Later it had found use in the castles and estates of the nobility, but it still had little bearing on the daily life of common folk.

The world's finest clockmakers were in Aldernan, and the world's finest crystal glasswork was in Aldernan as well.

The key techniques of the latter, of course, had by now leaked to Cecil through certain channels best left unspoken, and the "floor-to-ceiling windows" gradually coming into fashion in southern Cecil were one of their "downstream results."

Now the clever men of Typhon had invented this "two-wheeler," and in one very obvious respect it differed from the mechanical clock and crystal glass at their inception:

It was not elegant enough, and not luxurious enough.

From the very moment of its birth, this thing had seemingly been aimed at the common classes...

Byron frowned. He was not like Gao Yang or Hedi, skilled at reading shifts in the situation from such intelligence; he only had an instinctive sense of something to ponder, an instinctive feeling that...

The knowledge-holders of Typhon seemed to have undergone some change in their way of thinking.