Chapter 1168 — Intelligentization

Downstream of the Baishui River, in the Ghelan District, a vast newly built factory stood upon what had once been wasteland like a towering fortress. Its main structure, raised from a gray-white synthetic material, was all hard, straight lines, and its relentlessly practical design made it utterly unlike the intricate and exquisite mage-workshops of the old era—yet it carried a certain rough, forceful "industrial beauty."

At the edge of the plant grounds, tall magical-detection towers monitored the ebb and flow of magic across the whole area, lest any unauthorized casting disturb the machines and communication systems within. Security personnel in light equipment patrolled and stood watch at every junction, guarding this critical facility with the Civil Affairs Office behind it. A broad avenue ran straight in from the riverbank and cut clean through the entire plant, and along it a black magitech vehicle drew smoothly to a stop before one of the workshops.

The door opened, and Viscountess Ropney Ghelan stepped out—a tall, spare woman in a dark, trimmed long dress, her hair swept up—and turned her gaze upon the great workshop before her. Behind her another figure stepped down from the carriage as well: the phantom-like "Lantern Saint," Selena Gervin.

"So this is the main production zone of Ghelan Heavy Industries..." Selena lifted her head and saw the fortress-like workshop rearing before her, its hard straight lines cutting against the clear bright sky like keen blades, while the material conduits and the liquid and gas pipes running out from its roof spread like the blood vessels and nerves of some giant beast, connecting to the neighboring workshops and the distant storage silos. The industrial power in it all made her narrow her eyes. "Truly worthy of being one of the largest industrial bases in the south... I think I understand why His Majesty chose this place as the trial site for a 'wetware intelligence workshop.'"

"The Empire has poured enormous funding and policy favors into this place. His Majesty commanded me to use all of it to build an industrial base sufficient to support the whole southeast—what you see is only one part of that great plan. For the larger picture, all of this is merely the beginning; in the future still vaster facilities and more factories will rise across this region," said the Viscountess Ropney, pride on her face as she introduced the guest to the fruits of her years of labor. "Apart from the inhabited urban districts and the farmland, woods, and water-source reserves fixed by law, the wastelands north of Ghelan City are still immense—and now at last all that barren land can be put to use."

As she spoke, the Viscountess could not help glancing at Selena again. Her eyes fell on the other's legs, and she asked curiously, "Forgive me if this is rude, but it seems there was no need for you to ride here with me... As a network resident, couldn't you simply appear before me once I reached the destination?"

"Life needs a bit of ritual—that is something His Majesty once said, and I find it very reasonable," Selena said with a smile, her tone quite relaxed. "Now and then, letting yourself live like a 'living person' in the real world helps keep a clear sense of self, and guards against your mind growing old and dull. That is the experience I have summed up over these few hundred years."

"...Actually I just find it a little strange, especially when I think that you were really just holding a seated posture and flying in sync with the magitech carriage the whole way..." Ropney's expression was somewhat odd.

"...Well, I suppose I did not think that through," Selena said, a little embarrassed, but she quickly waved a hand and changed the subject. "Let us set aside these details for now—is everything ready inside the workshop?"

"Of course," Ropney said with a nod and a smile. "It was all prepared yesterday."

Only then did the plant manager who had come to receive them confirm that the two ladies had finished talking, and he led the technicians forward to greet them. Ropney exchanged a few brief words with them, then gestured in invitation toward Selena—who had long awaited this moment. She lifted her head and saw the heavy mechanical gate before the great hall sliding smoothly open under the drive of a magitech apparatus, a brightly lit workshop slowly revealing itself before her eyes.

To come and inspect Ghelan Heavy Industries' new workshop was itself one of her chief tasks on this visit to the Ghelan District, as important as observing Patty's condition and confirming the effects of the anti-divinity barrier. As for why a "Node Scholar" like her—one whose specialty was the neural and network fields—should be bound up with a heavy-industry workshop, that had to do with the cutting-edge technology about to be brought into service here: wetware mainframes, magitech machinery, neural networks—the three technologies the Cecil Empire was proudest of would be fused together in this place.

With anticipation, she followed behind the Viscountess Ropney and stepped across that alloy gate driven by magitech machinery. After a short connecting bridge, an identity check, and an entry log, she at last found herself amid those vast machines and pipes and cables.

Within the exceptionally spacious and brightly lit hall, processing machines two or three meters tall and a dozen meters long stood in neat rows along both sides of the passage like steel behemoths, thick material conduits slanting down from the upper level to connect to their tops, while transfer mechanisms of every scale and complex structure linked up behind the great processing machines. Together these things wove the arteries and branching veins of this "steel court"—a spectacle unimaginable in the age of the traditional mage-workshop. Yet these alone were not enough to astonish Selena.

For she had visited factories elsewhere, and the factories elsewhere had magitech machinery much like this, only somewhat smaller in scale and fewer in number.

What truly deserved the attention of a technical expert like her here was the "nerve lines" that linked those machines together—

Amid the "arteries" woven from those material conduits and transfer mechanisms, another complex network structure came into her view: pipes and cables wrapped in thick, sturdy composite shielding, running out from the interiors of the machines one by one, some plunging into the ground, others following the beams of the upper level outward, leading beyond the hall or to some region within it. The surfaces of these lines all bore dark red markings, with faintly glowing enchanted coatings over every important junction and inspection point; some glimmer flowed slowly within them, brightening and dimming, so that the things seemed almost alive.

In fact, they were indeed alive—even sentient.

"Every machine here was in fact rebuilt from existing equipment; their main working structures are the original sets, with only new control units added—which cut the cost of upgrading the workshop by at least half," the Viscountess Ropney said as she stepped forward and rapped her knuckles on the metal cover plate at the side of one great processing machine. "This is the new control unit. Note—newly added. The original manual controls are still retained, for manual takeover or emergency shutdown when necessary. Mr. Pluman, if you would open the cover."

The workshop manager, Pluman, stepped forward at once and opened the sturdy-looking steel cover with a special key. Selena leaned in, and the structure beneath the cover came into her view.