Pillars of Ita

"The other party wants us to stop the ship for inspection." The sailors on the three-masted sailing ship Dereban looked at the light signal on the fast three-masted sailing ship from a distance, and shouted to the captain and first mate below from the observation deck.

The chief mate was a young man with thick eyebrows and big eyes. Hearing this, he punched the mast hard and said angrily, "What qualifications do they have to ask us to stop the ship? Do they really think they are the Imperial Navy?"

"Forget it," the captain held a pipe in one hand, with a calm expression, "That is the ship of the Guild of Death, behind them are the people from the Iron Thorn Academy, and behind them is the sly owl. After all, we still have to make a living on this route, so there is no need to make trouble with them."

He raised his head, gestured to the top, and replied: "Reply, listen to them."

The sailor got up immediately, pulled the handle of the hinge of the wind lamp hanging on the observation deck, and sent a message to the other party with a flashing light signal.

The three-masted sailing ship de Gerban was the first to lower its sails, slow down, and the sailors closed the gun ports to show that they were harmless.

The two van airships with huge airbags hanging behind them also slowly stopped.

……

"Wind northeast, wind speed five," Baggins looked up at the bulging sail and reported into the microphone.

Tata's emerald green eyes stared at the main core crystal named 'Fairy Heart', with a calm expression. The crystal was emitting a glimmering blue light, like stars reflected in the depths of her pupils.

But the voice of the bosun came from the upper pipe, Miss Goblin stretched out her hand, causing the ship to tilt, and several sails began to turn under her control, leading the Seven Seas Traveler to one side.

The Seven Seas Traveler is about to fly over the top of a low hill.

There, Fang Plover and his party were waiting for their arrival.

The side hatch of the flying platform opened slowly, and several Lancer-type constructs were waiting there. They opened the air-curtain thrusters behind them, and lit up the azure light representing the wind element.

The Lancer construct slowly slid forward, then leaped out, flying into the sky with a bright cyan light band.

Fang Yan looked up at the cyan meteor in the night sky, and then the Lancer-shaped construct glides and lands under the control of Tata, and stops firmly on the open space on the top of the mountain.

Luo Yu, Jita, and Silvaide boarded three Lancer-type constructs in two batches and returned to the Seven Seas Traveler.

Fang Plover himself stayed behind, projected something from the information crystal, and thrust it into the ground.It was a beacon, obtained from the advance team of the 'Death Comes' guild.

But Fang Plover added a signal amplifier to it.

Since the other party likes to track them so much, let them track them well enough. By the time the other party finds out that they have been fooled, maybe the Seven Seas Traveler has already entered the territory of the empire.

After doing all this, he took out the signal gun and fired a signal flare in the direction of the Seven Seas Traveler.

On the Seven Seas Traveler—

The big cat man threw down a roll of ladders, allowing Fang Plover to climb up from below, and finally stretched out his hand to drag the latter onto the deck.

"It may not be so peaceful in the future," Reid said.

"I know," Fang Plover patted the dust on his sleeves, "The signal amplifier is just to divert the other party's attention and draw them here. The old servant of Lynn's family will be much safer."

He raised his head and looked ahead. There was a dark night in front of the Seven Seas Traveler, and the pine forest was like a sea, spreading to the horizon. "What's the situation ahead?" Fang Plover asked.

"The magic detector shows a fleet of merchant ships ahead."

The big cat man took out a box of matches and struck it twice in the cold wind before lighting it up. While carefully protecting the flame, he lit his pipe and took a deep breath in his mouth. Then the old man answered in awe-inspiring way: "Let's leave Hong Kong!" I checked the flight schedule at the time, and in front of us should be a three-masted armed merchant ship called the Dereban, and the two airship-type cargo ships it escorted were transporting turpentine and bristles to the empire. Miss Tata said that at present They were stopped by a caravel, and if nothing else—"

"A person from the guild who died?" Fang Yan asked.

The big cat man nodded.

"how far?"

"About twenty air miles."

Fang Plover looked ahead.

Rhett asked from the side: "Do you want to go around?"

"No need." Fang Plover shook his head.

The field of view in the sky is too wide, and it takes a long circle to go around. He is not interested in going around with the other party here.It is best to force a breakthrough before the opponent reacts, and then rely on the excellent performance of the Seven Seas Traveler to leave the pursuers far behind.

The opponent is a local snake in Tagli, who has been operating in the local area for some time, and there may be aboriginal forces behind it, Fang Plover does not want to entangle with the other party here for too long.

"That's fine," the big cat man nodded of course. "At least we have an advantage now. You didn't reveal your identity when you fought against each other, and they probably don't know the existence of the Seven Seas Traveler."

Fang Plover actually thought so too.

For the next period of time, the crew of the Seven Seas Traveler took their positions, preparing for the next possible battle.

And Fang Plover also returned to his own room - it was behind the captain's cabin, connected to his alchemy studio, and the room of Miss Ship Officer was on the other side.

Entering the studio, he first adjusted the brightness of the magic lamp, and then lifted the cover of the magic furnace for the experiment.Then Fang Plover took out the box, placed it on the workbench, and took out the crystal made by Ash Lynn from it.

Fang Yan took a closer look at the crystal and inserted it into the slot of the magic furnace after confirming that there was no clue.

This magic stove was eliminated from the Tansnier Craftsman Association. It was about ten years ago. Although it looks a bit old-fashioned, it is better than cheap.With three sizes of jacks on it, this crystal fits right into a standard mini jack.

The things made by craftsmen generally meet the standards. About 30 years ago, Altaria’s alchemy completed the standardization process under the influence of the ideas brought by the callers. Ash Lynn, judging from his age, his It happened to be that era when there were achievements in magic and alchemy.

As for the more ancient alchemy works, special instruments must be used to detect them.In fact, there is a smaller micro-socket on this experimental magic furnace, which is used to experiment with gadgets such as communication crystals and projection crystals.

Fang Plover activated the magic furnace and injected magic power into Ash Lynn's crystal. This process lasted about 5 minutes. Connect to the interface of the furnace.

channeling magic—

But Crystal didn't respond.

Fang Yan was slightly taken aback, and he was taken aback. He subconsciously withdrew his hand and looked at the crystal.

Normally, he should be able to see the unfolding 'starry sky', which is the key node of the magic power circuit, but this crystal can obviously be injected with magic power by the magic furnace, but he cannot connect with it.

This is how the same thing?

Only then did Fang Yan carefully observe the inside of the crystal, and found that after being filled with magic power, the inside of the dark crystal revealed a dark purple color, as if there was a sea of ​​light inside, like countless floating stars.

Fang Plover frowned, vaguely remembering where he had seen the same situation.

He thought about it carefully, then suddenly walked aside, went to the bookshelf and took down a voyage diary from it, and opened it up page by page.

It didn't take long before he found one of the records:
On September 9th, the weather was unknown, there was no wind, the sea of ​​mist——

A shipwreck was found in the Dakong Gorge. The owner of the shipwreck should have been a pirate, an imperial man, with unknown identity and age. According to his own description, he should have a certain reputation. His legacy and will were found in the bilge With a batch of mysterious constructs, and a black key.

(The content of the will is attached below)
(Supplement on September 9: The model of the mysterious construct should be 'Dragon Hunter', produced since 11 years ago by Jed Ham, the production workshop is abbreviated as ER, suspected to be the Imperial Flame Blade Workshop)
(Construct human data attached below)
This record reminded Fang Yan of the impression in his heart.

He remembered that when the Dragon Hunter was disassembled, he did not find the main core crystal and resonance crystal in the usual sense inside those structures, but a small piece of crystal was inlaid on the densely packed piping device on its head.

The appearance of that crystal at that time was exactly the same as Ash Lynn's crystal after being charged at this moment.

"How could this be?"

Fang Plover was full of surprise.How could the mysterious construct on a pirate shipwreck in Colin-Ishurian have anything to do with a great mage active in the Stag Principality 20 years ago?
But it doesn't seem impossible. The dragon-hunting human-shaped construct was also produced 11 years ago. Although Ash Lynn had passed away at that time, he had already completed the work in his hand before that. Basically, it can be said to be a product of the same era.

And also from the Empire.

What happened in the ten years after Ash Lynn passed away, and what was the background of the birth of the dragon-hunting humanoid construct?Who is Jed Ram, the craftsman who made them, and what is his relationship with Holfen College?
Why did these constructs end up on a pirate ship?
Who is the claimed enemy of the pirate captain who claims to be the 'Pirate King'?What is the legacy left in the empire mentioned in his will?
Fang Yan always felt that he seemed to catch something vaguely. I don't know if it was too coincidental, or if there was some kind of fate in the dark, that let him discover the dragon hunter, and let him get this from the old servant of Lin En's family. crystal.

Of course, everything is still based on his own guesses, which may not be accurate.Ash-Lynn's crystal may not be the same as the crystal inside the dragon-hunter construct, but similar in appearance.

But as long as there is this possibility, it is enough.

Because it gave him a new way of thinking.

He has studied the dragon-hunting human-shaped structure for so long, of course, it is not fruitless, otherwise it would be impossible to analyze its internal circuit, and use this to carry out adaptive transformation on the dragon-hunting human-shaped structure.

Fang Plover is already familiar with the next thing.

He turned off the magic furnace, removed the crystal, and walked to another instrument—a backlit projector.Since he could not find the answer from the etheric sea, he looked for the answer from the physical world.

As long as this crystal is still a work of alchemy, the alchemy array engraved on it will naturally tell him how the master Ash Lynn carved its internal structure, and analyze the effective magic power circuit from it.

Of course, it is not an easy task to analyze the circuit from the bottom of the magic circle, and most of the chosen alchemists do not have this ability.But for Fang Plover, this was one of his basic skills before there was a system.

The Seven Seas Traveler sailed for half an hour under the vast darkness.

The boatswain on the mast soon observed two or three flickering fires ahead.

That wasn't a shooting star. If nothing else, it was the taillight of the sailboat, but it was far away.There are no other ships in the vicinity, so the one in front should be the Dereban and the two airship cargo ships it escorted from the port authority's departure list.

Baggins put down the binoculars, the flame hovered motionless in the night, and the results displayed on the magic detector were exactly the same.It looks like the inspection of the Deathfall guild is not complete.

The other party made up their minds to keep them, and checked them very carefully.

And the three ships are not small in size. The Dereban weighs more than 300 tons, and the two van airships are even larger, each requiring nearly a hundred sailors to fully control them.However, it will take a lot of time for the Death Comes Guild to check the entire ship.

The Seven Seas Traveler was still sailing at full speed. During this period, Alisa came to ask for instructions once, but Fang Plover just let everyone maintain the normal sailing state, and no blackout was carried out.

So soon, the lights in this direction were also seen over there, and the fire flashed in the darkness, and the other party in the distance chose to fire a cannon to warn - there were no cannonballs flying, but the meaning was already obvious.

Have them slow down for inspection.

"Don't worry about them," Fang Yan said as he pushed the door out of the captain's room, seeing this scene with a calm expression.At the same time, he said to his Miss Dragon Soul through telepathic communication, "Full sail and move forward at full speed."

"Got it." Miss Tata wrote back immediately.

All the sails were raised, and even the wing-like cross-sails on both sides of the ship were opened one by one. The Seven Seas Traveler was originally a light sailing ship, and at this time, the speed suddenly increased by a section.

The distance between the two parties was at least five air miles away, so the other party hadn't noticed the speed increase of the Seven Seas Traveler at first.But when the lights on the Seven Seas Traveler suddenly got a lot closer, the members of the Death Comes Guild calculated the speed and realized something was wrong.

Instead of slowing down, the opponent accelerated.

Under the command of the captain, the sailors on the mast of the fast dhow quickly signaled the Seven Seas Traveler with flashing lights:
"You must stop immediately, or my ship will open fire!"

Sylvaide read out the signal and glanced back at her captain.

Fang Plover acted as if he had never heard of it.

"How far is it from here to the territory of Oshu?" he asked.

"There's a canyon in front of it, and beyond that is the territory of the empire." Miss Ship Officer replied after imagining it.

Fang Plover nodded.

Three minutes later, the siren sounded on the dhow.

The selectors were returning from the Degerban and the two van airships in sampans, back to their own ship, and then the dhow raised its sails in the shortest time, slowly from the Degerban three-masted sailboat. leave.

The sailors of the De Gréban were huddling on the side of the ship.

They watched this scene as if they were watching a scene.At this time, the fast dhow of the Guild of Death had already opened its gun port, exposing its black muzzle—although it was only a speedboat at best, and it was generally only responsible for miscellaneous tasks in the imperial navy array, and it was not a low-level miscellaneous ship.

However, this speedboat is still stuffed with four small-caliber magic guns, and there is a rotatable ballista on the bow, which can be regarded as armed to the teeth.

Packing cannons with small boats is also the Chosen's favorite thing to do, because generally speaking, the Chosen Guild has few ships, but human lives are worthless.

The Seven Seas Traveler was a little closer at this time, and people could already see its outline—a light sailing ship, which was more than a circle larger than the dhow of the Deathfall Guild.Once this kind of boat runs at full speed, ordinary sailboats can't catch up at all.

It's a favorite of adventurers.

At this time, except for the inexperienced novices, most of the old fritters on the Dereban can see that the sailboat that came up from behind not only did not furl the sails and slow down, but increased the speed further.

The lights on the boat got closer almost in the blink of an eye.

There was a good show.

people thought.

"It's a light sailing ship, it doesn't look like an imperial ship," said the first mate on the Dereban, who was also looking in that direction. "It seems that the other party is planning to force their way in. The people the callers are looking for are probably on that ship. ?”

The old captain also looked over there and nodded.

Then he turned around and asked, "Do you think that side can win?"

"I really hope that side can win. These guys rely on the relationship of the Haierfa family and stop us for inspection at every turn," the first officer replied, "But there doesn't seem to be any weapons on that boat. We must seize the upper hand, it depends on the skills of the captain and sailors on the ship..."

Before he could finish his sentence, death came to the guild. After several warnings to no avail, they finally couldn't bear it anymore and chose to open fire.

The flames flashed, and the loud noises of the front and rear magic cannons were almost indistinct. The flames ejected from the cannon muzzles formed a beam of golden-red rays—but that was just a visual residue in the dark night, about ten seconds An hour later, two groups of flames exploded in the sky.

Seeing this, the first mate gave a slight 'chick', showing considerable disdain for this. As he expected, the level of these people was as bad as ever.Not only was the shot missed, but the timing of the firing was also wrong.

"They fired too early," he commented mercilessly. "The opponent didn't enter the range at all, and then they had to recharge and reload, and missed the best time to fire. Now the opponent is no more than In the three airs, if I were in command, I could shoot at least twelve rounds, and it would be good if they could shoot eight rounds like this."

Fang Plover stood on the deck, his dark eyes reflected the flames that exploded far away, and he also thought so in his heart.

The cooling and warm-up time of magic cannons is quite long, especially for small magic cannons without cooling devices. It can fire a round in two to three minutes, which is considered to be relatively excellent performance.

But the large magic cannon was too bulky. They removed one from the sunken pirate ship before, and after a period of trial, they removed it again, which seriously affected the balance of the Seven Seas Traveler.

Worse than a ballista.

"Can you tell which type of artillery the opponent is using?" Luo Hao held up his shield, looking eager to try.

"In the 31st year of the Empire, it was produced under the order of Stuart IV when he was alive," Fang Plover replied casually, "an ultra-small caliber magic cannon, which was originally used as an auxiliary gun on the fourth-class battleship of the Oshurians." The weapon, which was later carried by the chosen ones onto the speedboat, has a rate of fire of about 3 minutes."

"I probably think so too."

"Are you still interested in this?" Fang Yan was a little surprised.

"Hey, before I became a military recruiter, I was actually very interested in craftsmen and magic technology," Luo Hao replied, "especially the sailboat's armament."

The two chatted one after another while silently counting the time - a little later than they expected, about three and a half minutes later, the other party opened fire for the second round.

The magic barrage exploded on the port side of the Seven Seas Traveler, far away, and even the wind element shield of the Seven Seas Traveler failed to activate.

Except for Tian Lan who shivered in fright, the others didn't even blink their eyes. Luo Hao was even talking to Fang Plover: "It seems that the opponent's technique is very bad. Before the ballista enters the range, the opponent can only shoot for three rounds." Not bad, it's our turn to fight back."

After experiencing such a large-scale fleet battle over the northern border, it is difficult for this little wind and waves to cause any waves in everyone's hearts.

Fang Plover just nodded.

The speed of the Seven Seas Traveler with full sail is no small matter. Now the two sides are approaching rapidly. Although the opponent's dhow is also a type of fast sailing ship, it takes quite a while to fully start from a standstill.

It is almost difficult for the opponent to gain the upper hand with the Seven Seas Traveler, and it is expected that the Seven Seas Traveler will catch up with the opponent soon.

Then the people from the death beckoning guild fired two more rounds, but they all missed one by one. The night was not too windy, but it would still cause the sailboat to roll. Without modern computers, it would have a great impact on the landing point of the shells. Uncertainties.

However, the battle between sailboats in Altalia is still much crueler than the age of sails on Earth. After all, there are magic cannons, ammunition that can set the detonation time, magicians, and flexible constructs.

In the third round of shooting, the shock wave generated by the explosion finally entered the damage range of the Seven Seas Traveler, but before the air waves and debris arrived, a blue halo suddenly lit up around the sailboat.

The halo was roughly spherical in shape, and after a few flashes, it completely offset the shock wave of the explosion.

"Elemental shield, how is this possible?!"

On the dhow, the guild members couldn't help being surprised when death came.

Even the chief mate on the Degreban showed a look of surprise.

Wind element shields are almost standard equipment for large ships, and generally only capital ships of a certain level and above have them. Even the Dereban, a three-masted armed merchant ship of more than 300 tons, is not equipped with such a device.

On the one hand, it is extremely expensive, on the other hand, it needs the core magic furnace on the ship to provide matching magic power output, and it is difficult to install a magic furnace of this level on a small boat.

But the Seven Seas Traveler, as one of the most advanced sailboats of this era, was the crystallization of technology left by Rozen, Sir Mawei, and many generations of Colin-Ishurian craftsmen. Its birth itself was a miracle.

Under the cyan halo, the tall and graceful ship of the Seven Seas Traveler broke through the waves from the flames, and its figure was so shocking for a moment that the members of the Guild of Death on the dhow forgot to refill it.

"Mr. Knight."

At this time, Miss Tata's voice sounded on the Seven Seas Traveler: "It's in range."

Fang Yan turned his head, and Luo Hao was the first to run to the ballista. The ballista had already been loaded. At this moment, the other party was turning the wheel hard to make the ballista turn, and at the same time shouted: "Miss Tata, help me!" I'll fix it to shoot Zhu Yuan!"

The ballista and the gear below it clicked and turned by themselves.

Luo Hao raised his head, held his hand on the handle out of breath, watched the flashing crossbow arrow pointing in the direction of the dhow, then pulled it down hard, and shouted:
"The ballista shoots the first round, launch!"

……