Soul of Burning Steel

Starfall 837, January 21st.

If we talk about the southern city of New Moldavia, we have to talk about the huge factories that stand on the edge of the city, the bustling commercial and trade district, and the branch campus of the Warrior Department of Cold Winter Castle, the 'Champion Academy'. .

Because Moldavia officially has a complete industrial system such as [mineral production] [material processing] [light and heavy industry production chain], its production cost is extremely low, and a large number of commodities produced in the mana factory are directly transported to In the commercial district of Nancheng, these commodities produced at extremely low prices can be sold at a sky-high price of nearly ten times their cost in the hands of enthusiastic merchants.

Even so, for those cities without mana factories, these products can definitely be regarded as high-quality and cheap.

However, if you ask a random passer-by about the most worth seeing places in Nancheng District, then no one will recommend the commercial districts and factories. No trip to Davia is complete without a visit to the 'Champions Academy'.

A city that prospers due to the legendary powerhouse will naturally develop in favor of the legendary powerhouse. Apart from the factories and magic equipment everywhere, the most interesting thing for outsiders is the rumored Earl Radcliffe himself. Winter Castle College, which teaches courses in person, and as the warrior branch of Winter Castle College, the 'Champion College' has become one of the local landmarks second only to the giant lord statue because of this.

Champion Academy is the largest building complex in Nancheng District, covering an area of ​​110,000 square meters, and even has a huge underground part. The training ground and student dormitories behind the towering academy castle are arranged in an orderly manner, mixed with gardens, fountains and simple The self-help medical center can guarantee that every student who is injured due to sparring and training will be treated quickly, and in this luxurious academy, there are more than 1,800 fighters who have received strict training and are receiving advanced medical treatment. Intensive training.

But today, in this well-known academy that is shrouded in the halo of legendary strong men, countless young people with expressions of nervous anticipation are ushered in. They are either accompanied by their parents, or accompanied by female companions, or He is alone, but no matter what, it can be seen that these people are more or less full of fighting spirit and possess some extraordinary power.

This is the first large-scale foreign enrollment of the Champion Academy in Starfall 837. The enrollment conditions are extremely loose. As long as they are younger than 25 years old, pass political review, or have a recommendation from a specific local person in Moldavia, they will be eligible. They all have the possibility of passing the test and enrolling, which naturally attracts countless young people who are eager to study under the hands of the legendary powerhouse.

Priest is one of them.

Today is the time for Priest to participate in the Winter Castle test. This rough-faced young man with a vaguely vicious look looks quite nervous at this time. He stands alone in the crowd, his hands and knees are uncontrollable He was trembling slightly, and the situation didn't get better until he took a few deep breaths and then looked at the photo of the girl in the necklace on his chest.

This is not to blame Priest, because he put too much burden on himself... In order to let his younger sister Britney live a better life, in order to live up to the expectations of the factory boss, in order to reverse his status as an ordinary person Destiny—the most important thing is that in order to open up his own future path, this man will never allow himself to make the slightest mistake.

"I will succeed."

Regardless of the strange eyes of the people around him, Priest clenched his fists, closed his eyes, and whispered to himself: "It's nothing difficult, compared to the beginning, it's just a small scene."

Take it easy, Priest, you've fought dragons, crossed plague and death, it's just an ordinary academy test, there's no reason you'd lose to these guys who haven't even seen life or death.

Opening his eyes again, Priest looked at the bustling crowd in front of him. At this time, he had completely calmed down, and he was full of confidence again—not only because of the hard training in the past, but also because of Priest Sturt's latest effort, you know, the factory owner, the dwarf Lund, specially gave him seven days off, allowing him to recharge his batteries at home, exercise and review his homework every day.

Yes, review your homework. Different from professional academies in other places, in the Academy of Winterhold, whether it is the caster department, the warrior department, or the additional clergy department, you must learn a lot of additional knowledge. Literacy is only the foundation. It is said that any Anyone who can graduate from the academy can easily write a dissertation of more than 6,000 words. This skill is more than enough to be a clerk to a great nobleman, even if he doesn't talk about his own combat effectiveness.

And all of this is because of what Joshua van Radcliffe, the legendary powerhouse and lord of Moldavia, said in his New Year speech in 837 Starfall.

"—Wisdom must not be underestimated, and combat must not be underestimated. The two complement each other and are the essence of human progress."

That majestic man stood on a high platform in the inner city square, with a ferocious and terrifying black dragon lying on his side. The warrior said to all his subjects in a calm and low voice that could be clearly heard no matter where they were: "A nation that separates the scholar from the warrior, there are only cowardly souls and foolish struggles."

Ding dong, ding dong, just as Priest was still recalling the scene that made the whole city silent at that time, the bell on the top of the academy castle rang, and a group of tall knights in gray magic armor opened the gate of the castle, When he began to check the review documents and recommendation letters of each prospective applicant one by one, Prest knew that the test he had been waiting for for a long time had officially begun.

"Name, age, occupation, place of birth."

"Priest Omni, twenty-one years old, factory worker, southern border province of the empire."

After a rather long queuing time, Priest finally came to the review office, led by a gray armored knight with scars on his face. After simple questioning and answering, he took the letter of introduction handed over, and then seriously read it again.

"It's a letter of recommendation from Langde... let's go in."

After confirming the identities of the workers in the Priest factory, the gray armor knight in charge of the inspection showed a slight smile, and he patted the other party's shoulder with his heavy steel gauntlet: "Come on, I look forward to your support for Moldavi. Contribute to the prosperity of Asia!"

"certainly!"

Priest clenched the necklace on his chest. This action seemed to give him infinite motivation. The next moment, he strode towards the examination room inside the castle.

——After half a day.

The tired Priest walked out of the gate of the castle with a slightly confused expression.

Success or failure? Is what I experienced just now an illusion or reality?

Priest didn't know all this, but he had done the best he could.

This test is very new to most of the participants. In the beginning, it is a two-hour written test. In the first half, participants need to answer questions about the basic history and geography of the Mycroft continent, as well as some There are simple questions about Warcraft. This part, Priest, who has reviewed it in detail, wrote like a wind and completed it quickly.

But the next question is a bit beyond the outline. It requires the participants to write down their ideals, and state why they want to join Winter Castle College and what their purpose is. And the big question in the last paragraph is to ask the participants how they will use this power if they become superhumans, and what is the essence of their understanding of this superhuman power.

Undoubtedly, there are definitely many people who are not prepared for this, and Priest is the same, but unlike other people who don't know where to start, he just thought for a moment, and then continued to write smoothly.

The man is not stupid, of course he knows the purpose of these questions - the first part is to check the basic knowledge and common sense of the participants, this aspect is not good enough, it can only be called a fool, and the second part is to observe the character of the participants And the purpose, people with abnormalities will be eliminated, and the last part is to observe the psychological conditions of the participants again from the other side, so Priest didn't write many fancy words, just put his ideals from The understanding extracted from the past experience is written in plain language.

"Become a strong person who can protect his family and lead his family to live a better life. Extraordinary power is my tool. It is no different from the equipment I use to produce goods and the knowledge in my mind. No special treatment is required."

But this is Warrior Academy after all, so after the written test, Priest entered the illusion and conducted a six-hour continuous combat test. During this period, he used various fogs provided in the illusion to Swamps, dense forests, deserts, coastal areas, islands in the lake and various monsters fight, these are just a piece of cake for Priest who once really fought against the green dragon on the southern border of the empire. Afterwards, apart from being mentally exhausted, his body even felt unfinished.

But the test is over.

After the test, Priest went home to eat and drink with friends who were waiting for his test to finish, a celebration of the effort. Then, Priest continued his ordinary life, working in the factory in the morning, and picking up his younger sister Britney, who was studying in a popular school, at night, waiting for the notification of the college test.

"Priest, come here!"

Time flies, and a week later, when Priest was working in the factory, he suddenly heard the owner of the factory, Ron De, calling his name excitedly. Then, the man who was still wearing overalls looked in astonishment at the tall gray knight in magic armor and the package in his hand.

"Congratulations, Mr. Omni, you have passed the test of Winterhold's "Champion Academy" with honors, here is your package, please open it now, and I will teach you how to use it."

- I passed the test? !

Immersed in the surprise of passing the test, Priest subconsciously obeyed the order of the gray armored knight and opened the package handed over by the other party. What appeared in his palm was a whole body of blue, like a pure sapphire. The crystal is roughly rhombus-shaped, and the surface is an extremely complex cut surface. You can see that there is a fluorescent light in the center of the crystal, as if there is a rune array like a Mobius ring that is spinning rapidly, releasing light.

"Relax your mind, concentrate on touching it, and make your own brand."

The gray armored knight guided Priest slowly. His eyes showed a little envy, but he quickly returned to normal. The knight said sternly, "This is the latest general-purpose magic device developed by the Academy of Wintercastle. You can call it an information device. Terminal 0.9 beta version, the official version has not yet been tested and launched, but the basic network has been set up within the college."

"Praise the lord, and be honored. You and other people who have joined the academy are the first users of this terminal."

...

"Joshua! What are you doing, the server is about to crash, hurry up and strengthen it!"

"Tsk, Nostradamus! Why are you telling me this? Aren't you and William responsible for maintaining the stability of the mental network? And where is Barnier? Why hasn't he finished writing the rune program?"

"Yesterday he said that he found a program error, and worked overtime to correct it all night, it seems that it has not been modified yet!"

"I said that it is unreliable for you to make a batch of information terminals in such a hurry, can't you wait until the experiment has made more progress?"

Northern Empire, Moldavia, Nissier Snow Mountain Winter Castle Academy.

In a huge steel laboratory located on the top of the snow mountain, the tense voices of several legendary powerhouses echoed.

At this time, Joshua strode up to a huge 25-meter-long blue-blue rune crystal core, and the magic power projection of No. 3 floated beside him, and the soldier frowned at this moment. Wrinkled tightly, he asked in a low voice: "No. 3, check where the server is overloaded, and I'll modify it."

"It's here."

No. 3 raised her head, glanced at the rune crystal, which was quite similar to her body, and then pointed to a place where the light gathered: "This place is seriously entangled with runes, and the load is heavy."

Hearing that, Joshua didn't have any nonsense, so he directed a little bit of steel force at the place pointed by No. 3, and fine-tuned the material structure. Soon, Nostradamus's relieved voice could be heard: "Okay, the link between the mental network and the magic net is back to stable, just wait for Barnier to finish writing the program."

"You guys..."

Joshua, who felt that he had become a repairman, said quite annoyed, but then he sighed again: "It's my fault too, I said too much at once... The knowledge of the two worlds is blended, it's no wonder these legendary mages are so excited."

Things started more than a month ago.

Starfall 836, on December 15th, the free legendary powerhouse, Barnir the master of runes, William the mind master, and the three legendary powerhouses of the Northern Empire, Israel, Nostradamus and Joe Xiuya contributed an incomparably important piece of news, that is the existence of the 'magic net' located above the Mycroft Continent.

This is an extremely ancient network that has existed for thousands of years. It is rooted in the energy cycle of the entire world. If Barnier and others did not backtrack through the link of the giant soldier, even the legendary powerhouse would hardly be able to Discovering it, this may be because the network of the legacy of the Glorious Era is very well preserved. It is a huge database in itself, which stores many secrets, but with the current research of the legendary powerhouses, there is no way to dig out these secrets.

However, Joshua said that even if it is impossible to dig out the secrets, this network alone has countless possibilities. The warrior used the Star Sea World, the spiritual network of the people in the courtyard and the mother tree as examples, and even used the development of the Internet in his previous life to carry out the investigation. Deduction, he showed the future he knew to the four legendary powerhouses present: the development of the Internet means the sharing of information, which will undoubtedly bring about an era of information explosion, and the information explosion brings The most basic benefit is the popularization of knowledge.

On the Internet, there may be many false things, there may be many lies and bragging, among them, there are many worthless spam information, but as long as anyone has the heart, anyone can learn extremely rich knowledge from them.

This immediately attracted the interest of Israel and Nostradamus, who wanted to popularize supernatural power. Barnir and William, who always liked to find all kinds of ancient books and secret information, were also impressed. Quickly found other ways to use the network, that is, real-time communication between various places. Under the magical power of transmitting information at the speed of light, almost no delay in communication within the Mycroft continent is possible. Communication and sharing between teams, asking for help and rescue can all play a huge role.

In addition, there are many other benefits of the Internet. Joshua did not describe them all, but only gave a rough outline—probably because when opening a martial arts gym before, the problem of being a teacher made another mistake, and the fighters accidentally talked about it. There are too many, and even put forward a new concept: since we don't have enough materials to use the magic net on a large scale, we can build a large server based on the creeping forest in Moldavia as a signal Transit, use the power of the magic net in a small range.

There is indeed nothing wrong with this idea. The only thing Joshua was wrong about was that he misjudged the leisure and mobility of the other people present—whether it was His Majesty the Emperor and the old mage, or the legendary mage duo, they have all been in trouble recently. Idle and panicked, and their ability to act far surpassed ordinary people, Joshua raised the possibility, and they planned to do it directly at that time, and Joshua was once again pulled to build the empire's void battleship production line just after finishing the production line The super server of China Unicom Magic Network.

"This time I really trouble you, No. 3."

Thinking of this, Joshua couldn't help but turned his head and glanced at the artificial intelligence girl beside him, and said softly, "I'm pulling you to work with me all the time."

"No trouble, no trouble!"

Does this kind of work still exist? I'll have some more! Number 3 shook his head hastily, with a smile on the corner of his mouth.

The establishment of the magic net server this time is really thanks to No. 3's blessing. As an artificial intelligence, No. 3's own rune crystal body is actually a large-scale information management center. It only needs to be slightly improved and loaded with some detection magic nets. The signal equipment can successfully build an information processing matrix, so if Joshua wants to make changes to this rune crystal server, he needs to check it with No. 3.

It's just that the workload of this "slightly" improvement is beyond the imagination of many legendary powerhouses. It is just a network for the students of Winter Castle, which makes Barnir who is in charge of writing the rune program exhausted. He and Black Mist It didn't seem so tiring when fighting for the control of the fog, and Joshua, who had to fine-tune the system at least a hundred times a day, seemed to be in a normal state of mind, but was actually already irritated and wanted to find someone to compete with.

"It's actually fine now."

On the side, William, who was observing the spiritual network situation of the students of Cold Winter Castle and the magic net link in real time, seemed to want to comfort everyone, he said with relief: "Think about the future of the White Tower, the Holy Mountain of the Far Sea, the entire Northern Empire official, and even The scenario where all humans, elves, and dwarves join this network, the server load at that time... right? We are quite relaxed now."

"Shut up." "Shut up, please."

Although he reprimanded William so much, in fact, Joshua is looking forward to the future growth of this network-now it is the beginning of its creation, and it is natural that they, the legendary powerhouses, should be on the front line to perceive the link magic net and set up servers , but in the future, more mages and technicians will replace their jobs, and even go further than they expected.

Just like now, in version 0.9 of the information terminal, there are only task sections and forums within the Academy of Winterhold, and the task section is designed by himself with a little information from the system to replace the credit tasks within the Academy of Winterhold System, the current college students don’t need to go to the central halls of the major colleges to accept tasks, they only need to click on the task section, and the credits don’t need to be calculated by many tutors one by one, the rune program written by Barnier will naturally accumulate automatically .

The forum section is an information exchange center proposed by the soldiers. The specific usage is to post ordinary posts for many students to exchange information. Although the server has only been opened for more than ten days, the number of various posts has already reached a staggering number.

Although most of them are ordinary mission completion commemorative posts, there are also quite a few elite posts that introduce in detail how they completed this mission, and the characteristics and key points of the monsters are all clearly written. It is the original intention of soldiers to establish this forum-knowledge is something that can only be valuable if it spreads, and civilization can only develop rapidly if it communicates with each other.

——In the foreseeable future, Western psykers will be able to communicate directly with the Eastern Mage Association, the ancient psychic power will usher in new blood, and the emerging magic will also be supplemented by ancient knowledge. And some battle qi and combat skills that have gradually fallen behind will also be revitalized after being supplemented with other knowledge. It will be a feast for everyone in the world. As long as everyone is willing to share, then everyone can get what they want. everything you want.

Perhaps, Israel, Barnier and others don't know what changes their actions will bring to the world, but Joshua is different. He knows that the network he advocated and created by himself, How much value does it have.

"I'm really looking forward to it. This is completely different from the previous life, the future of the brand new Mycroft world."

And at the same time.

In the boundless heaven, the starlight of the stars in the multiverse world began to flicker in the dark void here, and the brilliance of the great demon tide became thicker and thicker, and finally penetrated into this semi-independent plane suspended above the world of Mycroft.

"The time is coming, the light of the magic tide has begun to shake the foundation of the plane."

A long sigh echoed, faintly appearing in the center of this world.

"The gears are returning to their place, the legacy is being revived...although it is hundreds of years late, the brilliance of the Era of Glory finally shines on the Era of Starfall."

"Tell Igor that the time for the gods to descend is approaching."

"We will be back soon."

Originally, the plot of setting up the college server could be written in several chapters, but I felt that it was a bit watery, so I condensed it, so it can be regarded as a merger of two chapters