The pale golden interactive interface and the trembling ring symbolizing Oga’s artificial intellect appeared before Balogar, accompanied by Oga’s emotionless synthetic voice: "Good morning, Balogar. Glad to see you are still healthy."
Balogar ignored Oga’s routine greeting and simply asked in a calm tone: "Is the line secure?"
"The line is secure."
"Inform Elder Duke More and Speaker Andar that the Sacred Dragon Kingdom’s envoy has already departed—to make contact with the Cecil Clan in the south."
"Understood," the trembling ring representing Oga responded, its voice indifferent and calm, "The ssage has been transmitted to the recipient."
Balogar breathed out softly, remained silent for two seconds, then suddenly asked in a low voice: "Has anything happened in Talronde?"
Oga’s ring provided a chanical response: "Nothing has happened in Talronde; the Dragonkin still remain loyal."
After more than ten seconds of silence, Oga’s voice again echoed through the hall: "For safety reasons, unless there is more information, this line will close."
Balogar did not speak, rely waved his right hand, and the pale golden communication interface in midair imdiately dissipated, leaving only faint golden particles gradually dissolving into the air.
In the vast throne hall, everything fell into silence; the Grand Duke of Dragonblood sat quietly on his hard, cold stone throne, and along with the entire hall, fell into a stillness, as if ti had co to a halt.
...
In an extraordinarily magnificent hall, supported by pale golden alloy columns arching the do, with the do and four walls covered with countless intricate and beautiful reliefs, low humming resonated from an ancient equipnt room. The various indicator lights embedded among the reliefs flowed gently like breaths, countless cables and pipes stretched down from the do and pillars, weaving into ring-like structures, drooping with nurous plugs and connection terminals, connecting to the massive body in the center of the hall.
It was an aged dragon, looking even more ancient than Speaker Andar; its scales had turned gray and faded, and the marks of its cybernetic transformation covered almost its entire body. The alloy shell and composite material wrapped the body weathered through countless ages, and faint lights wandered between the gaps of its scales—even by dragon standards, this level of modification seed excessively extre, making it difficult to determine whether this was a living flesh-and-blood creature, or a machine composed of steel, crystals, polyrs, and biochemical circulation fluid.
Accompanied by a low rumble, the enormous "machine" moved.
Duke More raised the head covered with an alloy shell, the dark red electronic eyes in the eye sockets lightly turned, then he looked to one side of the hall—where a crystal-clear curtain had silently draped, its light points flickering, soon condensing into the projection of Speaker Andar.
"The exiles have stepped out of the mountains," Speaker Andar’s low voice transmitted, "I do not know what changes this will bring to the dragon’s destiny..."
The highest ruler of the Senate, Elder Duke More, emitted a hoarse and low voice: "Any change is better than stagnation... not to ntion the event that occurred recently even exceeded Oga’s predictions... such situations wouldn’t happen once in a million years."
"The event occurred recently..." Speaker Andar’s only biological eye showed a contemplative expression, "Has it been confird as a divine descent?"
"Confirmation has been received; a new god attempted to descend but was intercepted at the reality border by mortals. Sufficient evidence indicates the matter is actually unrelated to Typhon—instead, it might be related to Cecil," Elder Duke More said solemnly, "The only pity is, even when such a thing happened..."
"An unidentified new god, a divine descent intercepted at its early stages, to mortals this might count as a catastrophic disaster, but to the gods, it’s just a small ripple," Speaker Andar shook his head, "Clearly, this is not enough to divert ’Its’ attention..."
"Be careful, even we, even using Oga, our conversation might be overheard by ’It’," Elder Duke More promptly cautioned, "Even though we spent hundreds of thousands of years constructing these security channels, they are not absolutely secure."
Speaker Andar fell into silence but after a few seconds he suddenly shook his head: "Actually, I’ve always been curious about one thing, Elder Duke More..."
"What are you curious about?"
"When we do these things right under ’Its’ nose, has ’It’ really not noticed at all?"
In the grand and magnificent hall, the air fell completely silent.
...
The dim yellow daylight spilled from the distant horizon, casting a golden glow upon the polar ice sea at the north pole, shining upon the edge of the temple’s towering terrace, where a figure with golden hair in a flowing dress stood high above, gazing with tiless eyes down at the dragon’s realm.
Dragon Priest Heragor stood respectfully behind the golden-haired woman: "My Lord, the long daylight has begun."
"Indeed, the daylight..." Dragon God Enya said softly, her eyes traversing the distant mountains and the fragnted sea further away, her gaze extended to the edge of heaven and sea, in a place far from Talronde, a vague tower reflected in her golden pupils.
Her pupils contracted imperceptibly, then she redirected her gaze with slight disgust and reluctance.
"Heragor, has anything interesting happened in Talronde lately?"
Heragor imdiately replied: "My Lord, the daylight celebration will start in three days, and there’s also the extre battleground competition held by the Omudal Heavy Industries Group—the latter has been very popular over the last century."
"The celebration has long lost its novelty and isn’t considered interesting," the Dragon God snorted softly, "Extre battleground... Watching young dragons with their entire bodies modified inject themselves with enhancers as they dash into the field, only to scatter parts and circulation fluid across the field in less than half a day before being carried back to the repair point—you think I’d find this amusing?"
Heragor bowed his head: "...It seems this entertainnt won’t be popular for long."
The blonde woman didn’t continue on this topic but instead ntioned casually, "Speaking of interesting things... on the other side of the Eternal Storm, in that mortal world, it appears sothing interesting has happened recently?"
Heragor’s response seed to be a breath slow: "...The affairs of the mortal world aren’t worth your attention, my Lord."
"Not worth my attention?" The blonde woman slightly turned her head, with a faint smile on her face, "Do you all really not want to seriously ’look’ over there?"
Heragor kept his head down, repeating once again: "The affairs of the mortal world aren’t worth your attention, my Lord."
The blonde woman glanced at her chief priest and said lightly, "Heragor, there’s no need to deliberately control your heartbeat, we’re just having a casual conversation, aren’t we?"
The dragon priest kept his head down, silent.
"Boring," the blonde woman whispered, then turned back and continued to gaze at the land of Talronde. In the dim twilight, she narrowed her eyes slightly, "Such a group of boring children..."
...
"Let tell you, this is absolutely super interesting!!"
In a special experintal facility on the outskirts of Cecil Castle, Rebecca grabbed Maji’s arm, exclaiming with great enthusiasm, then turned sideways to proudly showcase her recent ’research achievent’: "This took us a lot of effort! Although there were no technical issues, custom designing suitable joints and connection chanisms for ’dragons’ truly tested everyone’s imagination, especially since the Origin Laboratory is temporarily unavailable, we’ve made tons of models..."
The Pearl (Steel Bead) of Cecil was chattering beside her, while Maji, who was dragged over early in the morning, slowly ca to understand what was happening. This ’Dragonborn’ living in the human world slowly raised her head, looking at the ’technological achievent’ that Rebecca proudly displayed, her expression complex for a mont.
Inside the large workshop constructed from lightweight tal panels and steel fras, the bright light of magic crystal lamps showered down from the ceiling, focusing on a massive setup fixed together by chains, hooks, and supports—
It was made up of several parts and had an imposing shape. Its main components were a pair of ’wings’ over ten ters long, made of tal and magic symbols. The frawork crafted from lightweight magic symbols shimred with a faint glow. The structure was rugged yet robust enough to be durable, and its chanical design seed it could unfold effortlessly. These wings seed incomplete, resembling more an ’auxiliary frawork’ attached outside. Besides these wings, there were also so things that looked like magic symbol armor plates and belts, all extraordinarily large.
Large enough to serve as armor for dragons.
Indeed, they were armor prepared for dragons.
Maji gazed at this set of rugged yet striking, steel costus filled with the style of Cecil Magic Industry. After a long mont, she softly remarked, "You actually managed to create this thing..."
"Originally, progress was not supposed to be this fast," Rebecca said, crossing her arms, proudly looking up at the work crafted by her technical team while casually explaining to Maji, "You know there are standards for project initiation, limited ti and cost prioritize high value projects. We only have you as a ’Dragonborn,’ tailored equipnt exclusively for you obviously doesn’t et initiation standards, but—"
Rebecca deliberately elongated her voice, keeping suspense, and Maji had already guessed: "...Because of the diplomatic progress with the Sacred Dragon Kingdom?"
"...You figured it out right away?"
"It wasn’t hard to guess."
"Alright, that’s indeed the reason," Rebecca scratched her head, "The ancestor seems to want more bargaining chips when dealing with Dragonborn, so approved my application—after all, this counts as a by-product of ’Dragon Cavalry’ technology, and its scale isn’t large."
Saying this, Rebecca suddenly looked at Maji: "In your view, do you think this thing will interest the Dragonborn?"
Maji raised her head, her gaze settling on those steel wings, seemingly lost in reminiscence and contemplation, she slowly said, "Many young Dragonborn long to fly, they’d certainly be interested in this, but... in the Sacred Dragon Kingdom, the ones with more say are the Councilors and elders.
"The Sacred Dragon Kingdom is a stubbornly cold place like ice and stone, there, the power of ’tradition’ and ’taboo’ is beyond your imagination, and ’flying’ unfortunately is an act challenging taboos. Actually, in my view, genetic deformities are not the main reason limiting Dragonborn from taking to the skies—tradition and taboo are.
"So don’t bla for being pessimistic, Princess Rebecca, I can assure you, even if a significant number of Dragonborn are interested in what you created, it will be hard to beco an ’official link’ between the Sacred Dragon Kingdom and the Cecil Empire."
Maji earnestly advised, then watched Rebecca consider briefly, this Princess full of ideas clapped her hands: "Then it seems we can only resort to smuggling!"
Maji: "Are you serious?"
"It’s just a thought, and I reckon the ancestor would scold upon hearing, but after scolding, nine out of ten tis he’d end up considering it too..." Rebecca said carelessly as if she hadn’t been reprimanded for three days straight, then waved her hand, "It’s not important, the ancestor and aunt will consider these things, I’ll just focus on the technical side, as long as it piques the interest of so Dragonborn, its value is realized."
She then beckoned to Maji, showcasing a bright smile: "Want to give it a try? Though we’ve done lots of model tests and lab tests, whether it’s functional still needs you to personally test it."
Maji looked at Rebecca’s bright, clean smile, inexplicably infected, her mood brightening up.
She gave a strong nod with a hint of a smile: "Of course, I’d be delighted. But... does this thing have a na yet?"
"It’s called ’Wings of Steel,’" Rebecca said proudly, "It’s a na I ca up with—simple and straightforward, right?"
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