NOVEL NEXT Chapter 155: Maglev Train?
"You're the Northern Duke, so many things other people don't dare communicate with you, but they dare tell me. These sources of information come from group chats created online by heirs of various territories... Not necessarily 100% reliable, but I think it's extremely likely to be true."
The Northern Grand Duke usually seemed pretty imposing. Even though his heir wanted to tell him what he wanted to know, he didn't dare say it directly. Instead, he hedged heavily. After hedging for a while and seeing the Northern Grand Duke's expression changing, he finally hurried to speak. "Many of the children of War God-believing generals I know are saying that the atmosphere at home has been extremely strange lately. The more deeply their families believe in the War God, the more high-ranking they are, the stranger things have been recently—whether it's natural behavior or how they interact with people. Even... even some of them frequently mumble languages that don't match War God faith types... Anyway, quite a few people have been scared by their family elders' conditions lately, which is why they're confiding in us familiar friends in group chats."
Hearing this, the Northern Grand Duke's expression became even more grave.
Compared to his heir, he actually knew more secrets. His Majesty's shadow had recently told him quite a few things, including matters related to... that divine being, as well as some guesses. If those guesses were correct, these affected generals...
The Northern Grand Duke didn't dare think further. Originally, when the Church of War was causing trouble in the Kingdom of Dawn's southern region, he'd been thinking whether this was a good opportunity to annex them, expand his territory, and go down in history. But now it seemed like this might become a huge crisis instead.
"Father, you..." The heir watched his father's expression change again and again, his heart tightening. Was there really going to be a major problem?
"Do you know how many generals in our Gray Fort Empire believe in the War God?" The Northern Grand Duke took a deep breath, calmed his emotions, sighed, and spoke slowly.
"His Majesty has been reforming the entire country these past years. Large numbers of noble generals were replaced, with generals promoted through military merit. Although these generals are mostly supernatural beings who were originally nobles, fallen nobles, or from the knight class—not major nobles like us—most of them have faiths. And in our empire, the Church of War is already the strongest faction, highly aligned with what they do. I'm afraid... it exceeds half?"
The heir analyzed, his expression becoming more and more frightened. Things seemed to be getting wrong.
"It's eighty percent. Among lower-ranking generals, over ninety percent believe in the War God. Most of the rest believe in gods like the God of Blood. There are fewer believers among the former noble military, but they ultimately can't compare to the lower-ranking generals."
They didn't care about the lower soldiers. In their view, ordinary soldiers were just consumables—if lost, they could just conscript more from various territories. But even so, the proportion of mid and low-ranking generals who believed in the God of War was enough to make them feel despair. Once something went wrong with these people... They just didn't know what the Church of War planned to do with them!
"You keep watch here. I'm heading back!" The Northern Grand Duke suddenly took a deep breath and walked down from the city wall. The moment he reached his room, he locked the door, pulled out his Magic Net, sent a message—all in one smooth motion—then stood quietly waiting.
Only after seeing the reply "His Majesty knows all this information, the Grand Duke need not worry" did the Northern Grand Duke breathe a sigh of relief. He quickly typed on the Magic Net: "I wonder what His Majesty plans to do? Is there anything you need me to cooperate with?"
"Arrangements will be made when the time comes."
Even facing a grand duke like him, the other side showed no courtesy whatsoever. But the more this was the case, the more relieved the Northern Grand Duke felt. Only this way could it prove that the capital really was prepared. He just didn't know exactly what they planned to do... And should he also make some preparations?
Over the years, much of the power these regional nobles held had been taken back by the emperor. Even someone like him, a duke who once controlled an entire duchy, had to compromise and hand over many authorities. But even so, he still couldn't relax. What if, while solving the Church of War crisis this time, the emperor also targeted him...
And those damn magician legions—they wouldn't be dispatched here too, would they?
This grand duke with overwhelming power in the Gray Fort's northern region—his face probably had enough wrinkles to dock a ship right now!
In the divine realm.
A mech that didn't look much bigger than an ordinary person—only about two and a half meters tall—was under Ren's control, launching magic attack after magic attack at a distant target. Who knows if he was doing stress testing or function testing... Suddenly, a ray seemed to shoot off course, heading straight for Betty, who was recording data on the entire process not far away.
The next instant, Betty appeared beside Ren. An attack like that obviously couldn't hit this magic creation who was even more legendary than legendary beings.
However, Betty's face was now full of anger, her neck seemingly starting to loosen, looking like it might fall off any moment. "What are you doing?! Trying to commit murder?! Don't think just because you became a god you can bully me however you want. I... Look at him, deliberately attacking me."
"Maybe he sensed something just now?" The Goddess of Magic looked at Betty seeking her help with a slight smile, then turned her gaze back to Ren. "What happened?"
Ren, who'd been outputting steadily, seemed to suddenly sense something and flinched, then controlled the mech to stop. This made him a bit curious too.
"It's just... how should I put it? You guys should just see for yourselves." Ren didn't know how to describe the scene he'd seen for a moment. So with a wave of his hand, a mirror-like image instantly appeared before them.
In front of two humans, there was a rail about a hundred meters long, less than five centimeters wide, winding up and down with a metallic luster. Moreover, this rail connected end to end—it was a closed loop.
And on this rail, there was something like a "toy" version of the mining trains already in use in Roster territory, actually floating on the rail.
The vehicle itself didn't seem to have anything special about it. As the apprentice pressed a button beside the rail, instantly, runes on the rail began to light up. With the input of magic power, the train floating on the rail actually began moving forward at an extremely fast speed.
Basically, it only took five seconds to complete the entire 100-meter track. Throughout the entire process, it never deviated from the rail even slightly. As for vertical fluctuation—there was none. It just kept racing along the rail the whole time, with no variation in height whatsoever. The height between it and the rail was constant. Both precision and stability looked pretty darn good.
A maglev train?!
This was the first thought that popped into Ren's mind the moment he saw this experiment.
He'd thought Roster territory would soon develop trains for use outside mining areas, but he never expected they'd bypassed all the intermediate steps and go straight down the maglev path... Taking shortcuts—this really was impressive!