Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 444 - 443: Technology Exchange

Looking at the rare look of enthusiasm on Tiel’s face, Gawain knew he finally managed to hook this fish—though he still wasn’t entirely sure how he succeeded. According to his initial plan, he intended to take Tiel out for a while longer, using various things from the human world to gradually pique her interest, but unexpectedly, this fellow was directly intrigued by the Rainbow Cannon.

But it didn’t matter; she took the bait after all.

"Are you interested in the Rainbow Cannon?" Gawain looked at Tiel, "Is this thing also impressive in the eyes of you sea demons?"

"Impressive? The power is indeed good, but we don’t lack weapons..." Tiel shook her head, "I’m just curious... how do you harness such pure, powerful arcane energy... and how do you extract this kind of energy from an ordinary magic-pervasive environment?"

Tiel wasn’t interested in the Rainbow Cannon itself—for the once highly advanced sea demon civilization, the production technology and engineering techniques of this new weapon weren’t particularly sophisticated. However, she became curious about the principles behind the Rainbow Cannon and the Cecil Clan’s approach to controlling Magic Power.

Gawain quickly figured this out. He looked at Tiel, whose gaze was finally awake, and instead of responding to her request immediately, he asked, "May I ask specifically—why are you interested in this part of the technology? You sea demons often observe the terrestrial races; haven’t you ever been interested in our magic skills system before?"

"The terrestrial magic skills system before?" Tiel slapped the deck of the Aurora hard with her tail, "Ha, are you talking about the ’skill’ system you land dwellers invented? Or the level 1, level 2, level 3 magic circle? It’s completely different! Your ’skill’ systems are of no use to us. Haven’t you noticed yourself? This thing called the Rainbow Cannon... it is a more fundamental energy utilization technology. It extracts energy from the Magic Web, then adjusts, harnesses, and focuses it before firing. During this process, what level of magic is it? What skill is it? There are none of these redundant concepts!"

The sea demon was rarely so excited, her tail repeatedly slapping the deck. Although her words sounded confusing and even somewhat incoherent to others, Gawain vaguely understood what this sea demon cared about—

The ’universal energy’ attribute of the Magic Web.

Humans have spent thousands of years creating a ’skill tree’, converting Magic Power into skills of various levels, into various types of spells, converting Magic Power into specific phenomena using countless complex and diverse spells and spell moulds. However, these ’skills’ that only humans can understand and master are meaningless to sea demons; their form of life seems to prevent them from understanding human spells, let alone learning or using them.

What they need is ’universal energy’.

Yet, perhaps due to their form of life, they have never found a way to convert Magic Power into universal energy.

The Rainbow Cannon allowed Tiel to see a brand-new technological path. In that destructive beam, she felt a force powerful enough to break through a certain bottleneck for the sea demons. And this force is not a rigid skill but a pure energy drawn from the Magic Web, adjusted using the array of magic symbols, and focused using Rainbow Light Crystals. This energy can be launched as a weapon, but with a change in control magic symbols, it can also be used elsewhere.

Gawain knew that the sea demons had an ancient lost city whose energy reactor had been extinguished for years. They needed a powerful new energy source to ignite the reactor. The gods’ flesh they dug up from the seabed, although powerful in energy, could perhaps not be fully converted, allowing them only to maintain the reactor’s ’residual warmth’ but not revive the whole city.

After a brief thought, Gawain broke the silence: "Can the Rainbow Cannon ’ignite’ your reactor?"

"Perhaps not now; it’s not strong enough yet. Compared to our Core Fusion Tower, it is still just a small spark..." Tiel turned her head, staring intently at the Rainbow Cannon on the deck, "But you have made this spark appear..."

Most world-changing technologies, when first developed, have prototypes that are crude, so crude that ignorant people might exclaim, "What’s the use of this fancy gadget?" In the eyes of high-level civilizations, this crudeness is even more severe.

Only a few can recognize the value behind these ’small sparks’ at this stage and understand how far they can grow.

Gawain did not expect that Tiel, who usually seemed sleepy, would have such insight. But he was quite glad that she did possess such insight.

Fish with good vision usually bite hard.

"I’ll get you one," Gawain smiled and nodded at Tiel, "But, of course, you’ll have to offer something in return."

"Just say the word," Tiel confidently slapped the deck with her tail, "No matter what, I’m a War Priestess and can be of great use to you here, or if you want wealth and treasure, I can also think of a way, over there in the deep sea..."

"I’m not interested in your personal combat ability or personal savings," Gawain interrupted Tiel, "Technology should be exchanged with technology."

"Exchange with technology?" Tiel blinked, "What do you mean?"

"How much do you know about shipbuilding?"

As soon as Gawain asked this question, Byron next to him showed an expression of ’finally getting to this stage’. Apparently, this knight also knew long ago what intention his leader had in bringing this sea demon over. However, Rebecca, who had just finished checking the Rainbow Cannon and was wandering over, after hearing Gawain’s words, paused for a moment, blinking at Gawain: "Ancestor, are you planning to ask Miss Tiel to help us build ships?"

After receiving a positive answer from Gawain, Rebecca couldn’t help but scratch her head, giving Tiel a doubtful look: "But, is she actually capable?"

Tiel hadn’t yet answered Gawain’s question but heard Rebecca’s skepticism, and she looked puzzled: "Why do you think I can’t do this?"

Rebecca, likely still wrapped up in the magic circle and mechanical structure of the Rainbow Cannon, said offhandedly in a daze: "Do you sea demons even need to build ships? You can swim..."

Tiel couldn’t resist giving Rebecca a once-over: "Humans can walk, so why do you make cars?"

Rebecca’s expression froze, and after a long pause she managed to say: "Oh, yeah..."

After putting this girl whose mind was clearly off the channel aside, Tiel turned back to Gawain, "You want me to help you build a ship, right? — Sure, I have no problem. But I need to clarify a few points first.

"Firstly, my understanding of building a ’ship’ is definitely different from your current human shipbuilding techniques. Most of the time, we don’t need a means of water transport that stays afloat on the surface and remains sealed and dry, but this isn’t a major issue; surpassing you isn’t difficult even in fields we’re not adept at — not to offend, just stating facts.

"Secondly, I can inform your craftsmen of many principles, such as fluid mechanics, materials science, special coating technology, and even propulsion technology, but it’s very likely these technologies will be so advanced they can’t be realized as they require a lot of preliminary technology and industrial base, which I’m not sure how to develop step-by-step. So, it’s possible I’ve spent years advising you, drawing excellent plans, but your craftsmen still can’t build a thing, and you shouldn’t blame anyone for that.

"Lastly, even though I agreed to the technology exchange, this is in my personal capacity. I can’t contact the Deep Sea Court right now, so all my assurances are limited to my personal authority. I can only help you with shipbuilding, but I won’t spare any effort with warfare technology like weapons. However, should we sea demons establish a long-term relationship with the Cecil Clan, I’ll help you foster good relations with my kin."

After Tiel finished going through these three points, Gawain confirmed with her once more: "Is that all?"

Tiel thought for a moment: "Hmm... and make the pool in my room bigger, sprinkle more salt regularly, that’s all I ask."

"There’s no problem with that, of course," Gawain couldn’t help but laugh, "I can fulfill all of these requests, and in exchange, you can accompany Kamel and Rebecca to learn the universal energy technology behind the Rainbow Cannon — once you feel you’ve learned enough and believe conditions are mature, you can choose to send these technologies back to the deep sea. I’d welcome you bringing other sea demons over too. Of course, if you decide to leave early, you’ll have to leave us with ample ship technology documentation."

The sea demon lady agreed readily.

This deal that Gawain had been mulling over for a long time was finally sealed.

He finally acquired technology from this advanced lost civilization — albeit just a fraction.

As for the situations Tiel raised, Gawain had actually considered them from the start.

Sea demons are a civilization entirely distinct from any land-based race, and their technology originates from the "Lost Era" several chaotic waves ago, meaning their technical path couldn’t possibly align with humans. Just in the realm of "shipbuilding," Gawain could think of several major "points of divergence":

The first ship sea demons might likely use is a submarine — as they evolved underwater.

The first sea demon submarine likely lacks the concept of sealing, filled with sea water the same inside as outside, much like a human-built open carriage — dictated by their life form.

Even when they build crafts to sail on the surface, sea demons probably never considered any escape pods or lifesaving facilities; they might not even construct enclosed compartments. When the ship sinks, how about making it the submarine? When the submarine itself sinks, they could just push it off the sea floor! When the whole ship breaks apart into pieces, everyone swims back — this could very well be a sea demon ship engineer’s most reasonable idea...

Yet despite this, Gawain believes Sea Demon Tiel can greatly advance the territory’s shipbuilding technology.

Never mind everything else, just Tiel’s casual mention of "fluid mechanics" proves his judgment — it’s a coined term, forcibly pieced together from "flow" and "law" in human language, spoken hesitantly by Tiel, with Byron and Rebecca showing complete confusion when they heard it, but Gawain instantly recognized what it signifies.

Moreover, regarding whether current sea demon-built ships have sealing technology, Gawain isn’t worried at all, because he recalled Tiel mentioning, sea demon cities were originally giant ships capable of flight, simulating a "marine ecosystem" for the salty fish to survive in, so they surely possess astounding sealing technology now —

Sealing water outside the ship and sealing it inside is pretty much the same (random musings).

Naturally, considering the massive disparity between sea demon "shipbuilding" technology and human practices, Gawain needs to carefully review the workings of the "Cecil Shipbuilding Bureau" after returning to prevent overly "sea demon-featured" vessels that would be unsuited for practical use. Additionally, taking into account Tiel isn’t necessarily a professional technical person among sea demons, she might well be akin to a "keyboard warrior" (theory-obsessed expert), it would be best to employ her solely as a special advisor and not as the project commander...