Chapter 428 - 416: Another Ten Years
Aiselan Royal Alchemy University, College of Mechanical Body Design.
A young man named Leo was nervously adjusting a half-human-sized, spider-shaped Mechanical Body. He carefully inserted a silver chip, the size of a fingernail, into a slot on the Mechanical Body’s back. Instantly, the blue energy patterns on its eight jointed legs lit up.
"Professor, the self-check for the ’Constant-Pressure Servo System’ is complete!" Leo shouted excitedly.
The old, white-haired professor beside him pushed up the Alchemy Glasses on his nose and nodded in satisfaction. "Not bad, Leo. Your understanding of the ’Wesley Circuit’ has already surpassed most graduates. To think, this was once just problem number 79 of the ’One Hundred Great Problems,’ but now it’s a required course for every new student."
The old professor’s gaze drifted out the window. In the distance, a pure white spire, nearly a hundred meters tall, pierced the clouds. It was the holy land of the kingdom’s Alchemy—the Wesley Memorial Tower.
"Ten years ago, who could have imagined that we Alchemists, who just fiddled with flasks and beakers, could build a world like this with gears and Runes?"
The old professor was filled with emotion. "The seeds planted by the Guardian back then have now grown into a towering tree."
Leo’s eyes were filled with fanatical adoration. "Professor, I heard the theme for the highest prize of this year’s Wesley Award, the ’Creator’s Medal,’ is ’A New Path for Alchemy Technology’? And the prize money... it’s one hundred thousand Magic Stones!"
"That is the next path forward that the Guardian has pointed out for us."
The old professor said gravely, "Child, you must remember that every step we take is under the watch of that great person. Our individual wisdom is insignificant, but when the wisdom of thirty-five million people flows into that invisible net, we are thinking on behalf of the gods."
Leo nodded, only half-understanding, his eyes returning to his own creation.
In the first year after the Alchemy University was established, it only enrolled three hundred and seventy-two students.
More than half were cast-offs from the Spiritual Arts Academy. The rest were apprentices from workshops, children of miners, and seven down-on-their-luck scions of nobility who had been disowned by their families. The high society of Golden Stone City called this place the "Blacksmith School."
No one cared.
Ten years later, this once-mocked school had an enrollment of twelve thousand students, seven faculties, thirty-one fields of research, and over four hundred faculty members.
Every graduation season, the directors of industrial zones from every province would personally line up at the school gates with employment offers.
As for the name "Blacksmith School," no one dared to use it anymore.
Its name now was the Aiselan Royal Alchemy University.
So much had happened in those ten years.
Of the one hundred problems Allen had posted for the "Wesley Refining Gold Award," only four were solved in the first three years, all of them low-difficulty tests of material composition.
The solver of each problem went from being a complete unknown to a national celebrity. A Golem dispatched by Allen himself would deliver the prize money directly to their door—not a single coin short. The very real reward they held in their hands allowed them to leap across social classes overnight.
The turning point came in the fourth year.
The son of a miner named Harod, after studying in the university’s materials science department for two years, solved problem number thirty-seven—"The Denaturation of Spiritual-Energy-Conducting Silver in High-Temperature Environments"—using a "cross-sintering method" no one had ever seen before.
The prize: twenty thousand Low-Level Magic Stones.
The news spread throughout the kingdom faster than a Beast Tide.
On the Spirit Communication Network, the number of discussions about the event surpassed twenty million within three days.
A miner’s son, using just his brain, had earned the equivalent of twenty years of tax revenue from an Earl’s fiefdom.
The old nobility fell silent, while the young people went wild.
In the fifth year, the university’s enrollment exploded tenfold, forcing the kingdom to establish new branch campuses in the north and east. The competition ratio for the entrance exam soared from five-to-one to ninety-seven-to-one.
In the sixth year, problem number eleven was conquered. The solvers were a team consisting of three university professors and eleven senior students. The lead professor was named Carl, one of the very same apprentices who had created the "Constant-Pressure Valve" years ago.
The prize: fifty thousand.
Carl didn’t pocket the money. He used the prize to build a laboratory at the university, officially named the "Precision Magic Circuits Research Center."
In the following four years, this laboratory went on to solve another three problems.
By the tenth year since Allen announced the hundred problems, twenty-three of them had been solved.
Of the remaining seventy-seven, thirty-one were in a state of "viable approach identified, currently undergoing verification."
The total prize money awarded reached 7,830,000 Low-Level Magic Stones.
This prize money flowed into the kingdom’s economy, giving rise to a middle class of technical elites.
They were not tied to land, nor did they swear fealty to Lords; they believed only in knowledge and technology.
The conservative nobility completely gave up their resistance in the seventh year. They weren’t suppressed—they were made obsolete.
When the most talented young people in their territories all flocked to the universities and industrial zones, when their tenant farmers began using Alchemy Farming Tools to triple their yields and no longer needed the "benevolent" charity of their Lords, the foundations of the old order had already rotted away.
William formally ascended the throne in the eighth year, and Alexander retired from public life.
The first edict issued by the new king after his coronation was to integrate Alchemy Engineers into the kingdom’s system of nobility—technical contributions could now earn a title.
This edict caused no unrest whatsoever.
Because everyone knew it was merely an acknowledgment of an already existing reality.
In ten years, six Earth Vein Magic Furnaces were built across the kingdom’s core towns. The total length of the Alchemy Highway network exceeded five thousand kilometers, connecting all major cities.
Industrial output increased elevenfold.
The population grew from thirty-five million to fifty-two million. The increase in the infant survival rate was more effective than any policy.
The Beast Tides of the Heart Eaters did not cease; on the contrary, they intensified year after year.
But every time a Beast Tide struck, the garrisoned Golem Legions had already finished wiping them out before the Royal Army even arrived.
The kingdom’s first self-trained "Alchemy Warrior Camp" was officially equipped in the ninth year. Outfitted with standard-issue light mechanical battle armor produced by the royal workshops, they saw their first battle during the autumn Beast Tide of that year.
The results weren’t outstanding, but casualties were very low.
King William—no, it was King William now—wrote two words on the after-action report: "Continue expansion."
「Inside Cybertron.」
Allen stood silently before a massive holographic Star Map. It was an exceedingly complex, dynamic neural network model composed of billions of points of light.
The voice of [Commander] Jarvis rang out.
[Over the past ten years, the ’Wesley Refining Gold Award’ has awarded a total of 7,830,000 Low-Level Magic Stones, the impact of which has led to the resolution of one hundred and fourteen technical problems and the creation of over one thousand two hundred patents.]
[The total number of first and second-generation Alchemy Engineers in the Aiselan Kingdom is one hundred and seventy thousand. The new generation of technical workers exceeds five million. The social structure has completed its initial industrial transformation.]
[The data pool for the Core Witchcraft model ’Allen Network’ has fully matured, having completed nine thousand seven hundred and twenty-six full-process simulations. It has undergone one million two hundred thousand cross-validations and optimizations using 4.36 zettabytes (ZB) of valid data generated by the Aiselan Kingdom over the ten-year period.]
[Current model completion: 99.87%.]
[Lethality assessment: Reduced to 0.001%.]
[Final inscription can be initiated at any time.]
Allen pulled his gaze away from the brilliant "nebula." Ten years of planning, all for this day.
He alone had limited processing power.
But a civilization did not.
This land was his testing ground. This civilization was his petri dish.
Over the course of a decade, using knowledge as bait and wealth as fuel, he had harnessed the intellect of the entire Aiselan Kingdom for his own service, forcibly dragging this semi-feudal civilization over the threshold of the information age.
The joys and sorrows, the sparks of ingenuity, the desires and conflicts of tens of millions of people... all of it had become the nutrients that fed his growth.
The greatest result of this was his second Core Witchcraft.
He slowly closed his eyes, his consciousness sinking into his Sea of Spirit.
A virtual network model, constructed from billions of Runes and as brilliantly complex as a galaxy, was slowly rotating.
Each of its nodes corresponded to a Spirit Communication Tower, a terminal, or even an Alchemy Creation in the real world of the Aiselan Kingdom.
He could "hear" every newborn’s cry in Golden Stone City, "see" the trajectory of every cannonball on the Northern Defense Line, and "feel" the emotional fluctuations of the entire civilization at any given moment.
This was the [Allen Network].
Once the inscription was successful, his Spiritual Power would no longer be confined to this physical body.
The very pulse of the Aiselan civilization would become an extension of his senses.
His every thought could reach any corner of the continent in 0.01 seconds through this invisible web.
During these ten years, his cultivation progress had not fallen behind either. After pouring in immense resources, his hard power had steadily increased.
Thanks to the help of strange artifacts like the Deep-Sleep Star Core, a continuous supply of custom-made Magic Potions, and the temporary halt in the division of his thought sub-threads, his cultivation efficiency had increased dramatically.
He had already completed half of the eight Core Matrixes required for the Second-level Wizard stage. His current progress was on the fifth Core Matrix: 2/36.
This also meant he was now qualified to inscribe his second Core Witchcraft for the Second-level Wizard stage.
Allen opened his eyes. They were unfathomably deep, as if reflecting the entire starry sky.
He walked step by step toward the newly built golden throne in the center of the main control room and slowly sat down.
A conduit shimmering with blue light extended from behind the throne, pressing against the back of his head.
"Jarvis."
His voice was calm, yet it carried an unquestionable resolve.
"Initiate the highest-level energy supply. Devote all of Cybertron’s processing power to assist me."
"Prepare for... the final inscription."
[Warning, Commander.]
[Warning: This Witchcraft will permanently alter your soul structure.]
[The inscription process is irreversible and cannot be interrupted. Failure means your soul will be burned to nothing.]
"Execute the order."
[...As you command, Commander.]
[Second Core Witchcraft—"Allen Network" inscription sequence initiated.]
BZZZT—
At that moment, the entirety of Cybertron, a city of steel thirty kilometers in diameter, seemed to transform into a single, beating heart.
Endless energy and processing power surged toward the figure on the throne, like a hundred rivers flowing into the sea.
Allen’s body began to emit a deep blue glow.