Chapter 1038 — Far-Reaching Consequences

Amber blinked, staring at the words Gao Yang had seemingly written on the paper without thinking. She understood each one individually, but strung together they formed something she had never seen before — the half-elf's mind churned and rumbled for a while, and at last she confirmed that this thing was beyond her grasp, so she simply pulled her gaze away and began staring blankly out the window at the scenery.

Gao Yang lifted his eyelids and glanced at her. "I thought you'd ask."

Amber immediately looked smug. "I knew you'd say that."

"Then I won't say it — it's all still up in the air anyway." Gao Yang waved a hand with no trace of self-reproach, then, just as expected, saw the half-elf before him puff out her cheeks — which only delighted him further, and he promptly changed the subject. "Have we received any responses to the invitations we sent to the neighboring countries?"

"It's barely been any time since we sent them out — how could they possibly have replied so fast? Even you only just got back to the imperial capital," Amber had meant to keep pressing him about what those words meant, but since he had changed the subject she had no choice but to follow along. "They'll definitely need to confer, discuss, and probably spin a few conspiracy theories about whether the two human empires are plotting to carve up the interests of the whole continent..."

"True, they'll want to weigh things carefully — after all, no one has ever done this before." Gao Yang laughed, his expression rather calm. "But in the end most of them will probably agree, or at least send representatives to take a look and confirm what this is really about. Cecil and Typhon are the 'leading powers' of the two great settlement zones on the continent today; no kingdom with trade ties to either empire can afford to ignore this invitation. Even if they paid no attention to the previous war, they will have to pay attention to the economic workings of the settlement zones now... The real headache is the countries outside those zones."

"The Violet Kingdom, the Dwarven Kingdom, and those city-state leagues in the southeastern corner of the continent, right..." Amber's eyes flickered, and the corresponding files surfaced in her mind. "They're all fairly closed-off countries, or ones separated from the continent's interior by natural geographic barriers. Actually, the Dwarven Kingdom and those fringe city-state leagues are manageable — the maritime trade routes will drag them into the two empires' settlement zones sooner or later. It's only that hermit-like Violet Kingdom that's... difficult."

"A hermit-like kingdom..." Hearing Amber's muttering, Gao Yang's expression could not help but turn somewhat complicated: when so many countries on this continent were gradually opening their doors to this new era, one nation remained as if frozen in another world, maintaining a posture of mysterious seclusion — that was bound to stir a person's curiosity. "This country, built upon a vast island, forever keeps the countries of the continent at arm's length... yet quite a few mages from the Violet Kingdom have come to the continent to travel, and there are merchants in the northern regions doing business with the far shore. They don't seem to be completely closed off..."

"Yes, at the popular level they're not entirely closed. The Violet Kingdom doesn't forbid its citizens from traveling to the countries of the continent, nor does it forbid its coastal cities from engaging in foreign trade — but their capital, Cinderfall, is never open to anyone, and their royal family has no contact with the people of the Loren Continent. To this day, all our exchanges with them have been conducted indirectly, through the Violet Council or second-tier envoys."

"...That only makes me more curious," Gao Yang murmured, rubbing his chin. "So close to us, yet more mysterious than the dragon race — even the Holy Dragon Duchy has opened its doors to us now."

"Should we adopt some more proactive approach to exchange? Hmm... or rather, an investigation?" Amber thought for a moment, then raised her hand and gestured. "I mean, send in some spies or something..."

Gao Yang glanced at the half-elf, and she stared back at him with an utterly justified air, as though she were an intelligence chief who had thrown herself fully into her work, diligent and eager to stir up trouble.

"You really have become a competent Minister of Intelligence," Gao Yang said with a sigh. "But haven't you tried sending people to infiltrate the Violet Kingdom before? Did it work?"

"Well... all right, the Military Intelligence Bureau did send some people before. We tried using merchants or adventurers as cover to investigate conditions in the Violet Kingdom, but progress was very poor — we could basically only operate in their coastal cities. Pushing further inland was extremely difficult, and those coastal cities look no different from anywhere else on the Loren Continent. But if you give the order, I can draw up some new plans..."

"No need — that's enough as it is," Gao Yang said, shaking his head. "We can't treat every country unwilling to open its doors as our enemy. Probing beyond what is necessary is a form of offense — they have their own way of surviving, and closing their borders is their right. We cannot demand that everyone in the world adhere to Cecil's values."

Amber shrugged. "Fine, you're the boss."

Gao Yang gave a sound of assent and was about to ask about something else, but before he could speak, the magic-net terminal beside the desk suddenly rang.

Once the terminal connected, the holographic projection in midair trembled twice, and Verodai's figure appeared in the air. Her expression looked somewhat strange. "Your Majesty, we've been analyzing the War God's remains recovered from the battlefield, and we've made some discoveries."

Gao Yang immediately put the previous topic out of his mind, his expression turning serious at once. "Wait a moment — I'll be right there!"

...

Deep in the Dark Mountains, the Fortress of Defiance.

The Empire's continual development and the refinements made to Xuan Yao City's various facilities had not led to this ancient fortress being abandoned. On the contrary, with the restart of the Defiance Project and the deepening of various research programs concerning the gods, this facility — once devoted specifically to the study of the gods and the magic tides — had been put to use once again.

The spaces within the mountain, weathered by a thousand years, were reinforced anew; the ancient, timeworn corridors and chambers were cleaned and repainted; new experimental equipment and personnel moved in, and many of the laboratories and storehouses were now put to use. Under Verodai's and Kamael's leadership and with Gao Yang's approval, the middle and lower levels of the Fortress of Defiance had become the Cecil Empire's new "Divinity Research Base," dedicated to unraveling those mysteries connected with the gods.

To that end, Gao Yang had even established a neural-network computation node in the Dark Mountains specifically to channel Naretiel's power into the Fortress of Defiance — the former "Upper Narrator" could herself provide the necessary data-analysis services for the laboratories here, and at the same time served as a powerful security barrier, protecting the fragile ordinary people within the facility from harm at the hands of divine relics.

At this very moment, in one of the large laboratories on the deepest level of the Fortress of Defiance, a group of technicians was analyzing the dangerous remains collected from the Winterhold battlefield.