# Chapter 10: Magic Network Information Terminal 0.9 Beta Version 6000
Starfall Year 837, January 21st.
When speaking of the southern district of New Moldavia City, one must mention the enormous factories standing at the city's edge, the flourishing commercial trade districts, and the warrior branch campus of Winterfell Academy—the "Champion Academy."
Because the Moldavia government possessed a complete industrial system including [Mineral Production], [Material Processing], and [Light and Heavy Industry Production Chains], its production costs were extremely low. Large quantities of goods produced in the Mana Factories were directly transported to the southern commercial district. These goods, produced at incredibly low costs, could be sold by enthusiastic merchants at prices nearly ten times higher than their production costs.
Even so, for cities without Mana Factories, these products were absolutely considered good quality at reasonable prices.
However, if one were to ask a random passerby about the most worthwhile location in the southern district to visit, neither the commercial district nor the factories would be recommended. Both locals and foreign merchants would unanimously tell you that a trip to Moldavia without visiting the Winterfell Warrior Branch Campus would make your journey incomplete.
A city that thrives because of a Legendary expert naturally develops in accordance with that Legendary expert's preferences. Aside from the ubiquitous factories and magical machinery, what attracted the most outside attention was Winterfell Academy, rumored to have Count Radcliffe himself personally teaching courses. And as Winterfell Academy's vocational warrior branch, the "Champion Academy" benefited from this reputation.
The Champion Academy was the largest architectural complex in the southern district, covering 110,000 square meters, and even possessed an extensive underground section. Behind the towering academy castle, training grounds and student dormitories were arranged in orderly fashion, interspersed with gardens, fountains, and simple self-service medical stations, ensuring that every student injured during sparring or training could receive prompt treatment. In this truly luxurious academy, over 1,800 rigorously trained vocational warriors were undergoing high-intensity training.
And today, this renowned academy, bathed in the halo of a Legendary expert, welcomed countless young people whose faces showed nervous anticipation. Some were accompanied by parents, some by female companions, and some came alone. But regardless, it was clear that all these people possessed varying degrees of Battle Qi and some Transcendent power.
This was the Champion Academy's first large-scale external enrollment for Starfall Year 837. The enrollment conditions were extremely relaxed—as long as one was under twenty-five years old, passed a political review, or had a recommendation from a specific local Moldavia resident, there was a possibility of passing the test and being admitted. This naturally attracted countless young people eager to study under a Legendary expert.
And Priest was one of them.
Today was the day Priest would participate in the Winterfell test. This rough-featured young man, who looked somewhat fierce at first glance, appeared quite nervous at the moment. He stood alone in the crowd, his hands and knees trembling uncontrollably. This only improved after he took several deep breaths and glanced at the photo of a young woman in the necklace hanging on his chest.
This wasn't Priest's fault, because he had placed too many burdens on himself... To give his sister Brandy a better life, to live up to the factory owner's expectations, to reverse his fate as an ordinary person—most importantly, to forge a path for his own future—this man could not allow himself even the slightest mistake.
"I will definitely succeed."
Ignoring the strange looks from those around him, Priest clenched his fists, closed his eyes, and murmured to himself: "This isn't difficult. Compared to what I've faced before, this is just a small matter."
Don't be nervous, Priest. You've fought against dragon swarms, crossed through plague and death. This is just an ordinary academy test. There's no reason you should lose to these fellows who haven't even seen life and death.
Opening his eyes again, Priest looked at the bustling crowd before him. By now, he had completely calmed down and regained his confidence—not only because of the harsh trials of his past, but also because of his recent efforts. The factory owner, the dwarf Ronald, had specially given him seven days off to rest and recharge at home, allowing him to train and review his lessons every day.
Yes, review his lessons. Unlike vocational academies in other places, Winterfell Academy required all students—whether from the Spellcaster Department, the Vocational Warrior Department, or the specially established Clergy Department—to study a large amount of additional knowledge. Literacy was just the foundation. It was said that any graduate from the academy could easily write a thesis of over six thousand words. Even setting aside their combat abilities, this writing skill alone would make them more than qualified to serve as secretaries for some great noble.
And all of this was because of a single sentence spoken by the Legendary expert, the Lord of Moldavia, Joshua van Radcliffe, during his New Year's speech in Starfall Year 837.
"—Never underestimate wisdom, and never underestimate combat. The two complement each other; this is the essence of human progress."
That majestic man stood on the high platform of the inner city square, with a terrifying black dragon lying at his side. The warrior spoke in a calm, low voice that could be clearly heard everywhere, addressing all his people: "A nation that separates scholars from warriors will only have the souls of cowards and the struggles of fools."
Clang, clang. Just as Priest was still recalling that scene which had silenced the entire city, the bell tower of the academy castle rang out. The test had begun.
The first part of the test was a written examination. The content was not difficult, but it was very broad. The first section tested basic knowledge, including common monster weaknesses, the basic principles of Battle Qi operation, the classification of various Transcendent powers, and the general history of the Mycroft Continent. The second section was a subjective essay asking participants why they wanted to join Winterfell Academy and what their purpose was. The final section was a major essay question asking participants how they would use their power if they became Transcendent beings, and what they understood to be the essence of this Transcendent power.
Undoubtedly, many people had not prepared for this. Priest was the same. But unlike others who didn't know where to start, he only thought for a moment before smoothly continuing to write.
The man was not stupid. He naturally knew the purpose of these questions—the first section tested the participant's basic knowledge and common sense. Those who couldn't pass this were simply fools. The second section observed the participant's character and purpose. Those with abnormalities would be eliminated. The final section was another way to observe the participant's psychological state from a different angle. So Priest didn't write anything fancy. He simply wrote down his ideals and the insights he had distilled from his past experiences in plain, straightforward language.
"To become a strong person who can protect my family and lead them to a better life. Transcendent power is my tool. It is no different from the machinery I use to produce goods or the knowledge in my mind. There is no need to treat it specially."
But this was, after all, a vocational warrior academy. So after the written exam, Priest entered an illusion realm and underwent a continuous six-hour combat test. During this time, he used various mists provided in the illusion to fight all kinds of magical beasts in swamps, dense forests, deserts, coastal areas, and lake islands. For Priest, who had actually fought against green dragons on the empire's southern border, this was just a piece of cake. After finishing, aside from some mental fatigue, his body even felt like it wanted more.
But the test was over.
After the test, Priest returned home and ate and drank heartily with friends who had been waiting for his test to end, celebrating his efforts during this period. Then, Priest continued his ordinary life—working at the factory in the morning, and picking up his sister Brandy from the general education school in the evening. He waited like this for the academy test notification to arrive.
"Priest, come here quickly!"
Time flew by. A week later, while Priest was working at the factory, he suddenly heard the factory owner Ronald excitedly calling his name. He temporarily stopped his work and followed the sound to the factory entrance. Then, still wearing his work clothes, the man stared in astonishment at the tall gray Mana Armor knight before him and the package in his hand.
"Congratulations, Mr. Omeny. You have passed the Winterfell 'Champion Academy' test with excellent results. This 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, Priest instinctively followed the gray-armored knight's instructions and opened the package handed to him. What appeared in his palm was a crystal, entirely cyan-blue, like a pure sapphire. The crystal was roughly diamond-shaped, with a surface of complex cut facets. Inside the crystal, fluorescence could be seen flickering, as if a runic formation shaped like a Mobius strip was rapidly spinning and emitting light.
"Relax your mind, focus your will to contact it, and imprint your own mark."
The gray-armored knight slowly guided Priest. A trace of envy flickered in his eyes, but quickly returned to normal. The knight spoke methodically: "This is the latest general-purpose magical device developed by Winterfell Academy. You can call it the Information Terminal 0.9 Beta Version. The official version hasn't completed testing and gone online yet, but the academy has already set up a basic network."
"Praise the Lord, and feel honored. You and the others 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 reinforce it!"
"Tch, Nostradamus! Why are you telling me this? Aren't you and William supposed to be maintaining the stability of the Mind Network? And where did Baniel go? Why hasn't he finished writing his runic program yet?"
"He said yesterday he found a program error and worked overtime all night to fix it. It seems he hasn't finished yet!"
"I told you it was unreliable to rush out a batch of information terminals like this. Couldn't you wait until the experiments had more progress?"
Northern Empire, Moldavia, Nissier Snow Mountain, Winterfell Academy.
In a huge steel laboratory at the mountain's summit, the tense voices of several Legendary experts echoed back and forth.
At this moment, Joshua strode over to a massive cyan-blue runic crystal core, twenty-five meters long. Beside him floated the wavering magical projection of Number 3. The warrior frowned deeply and asked in a low voice: "Number 3, check where the server is overloaded. I'll modify it."
"It's here."
Number 3 looked up, glanced at this runic crystal that was quite similar to her own main body, and pointed to a spot where light was gathering: "The runes are entangled quite severely here. The load is very heavy."
Hearing this, Joshua didn't waste any words. He input some Steel Force into the spot Number 3 had indicated, finely adjusting the material structure. Soon, Nostradamus's relieved voice could be heard: "Good, the connection between the Mind Network and the Magic Network has stabilized. We just need to wait for Baniel to finish writing the program."
"You people..."
Joshua, feeling like he had become a maintenance worker, said somewhat irritably. But then he sighed: "It's also my fault for saying too much at once... The fusion of knowledge from two worlds—no wonder these Legendary mages are so excited."
The matter began over a month ago.
Starfall Year 836, December 15th. The free Legendary expert and Rune Master Baniel, along with the Mind Dominator William, contributed an extremely important piece of information to the Northern Empire's three Legendary experts—Israel, Nostradamus, and Joshua: the existence of the 'Magic Network' hovering above the Mycroft Continent.
This was an ancient network that had existed for thousands of years, rooted in the energy circulation of the entire world. If not for Baniel and the others tracing back through the connection of the Giant Divine Mechanism, even Legendary experts would have been almost unable to discover it. This network, perhaps a legacy from the Era of Radiance, was very well preserved. It was itself a stage of a database, storing many secrets. But with the current research of the Legendary experts, they were completely unable to dig out these secrets.
However, Joshua stated that even if they couldn't dig out the secrets within, the network itself had countless possibilities. The warrior used the Star Sea World, the Midgardians, and the Mother Tree's Mind Network as examples, and even used the development of the internet from his previous life for extrapolation. He presented the future he knew to the four Legendary experts present: The development of networks meant the sharing of information. This would undoubtedly bring an era of information explosion. And the most basic benefit brought by information explosion was the popularization of knowledge.
On the network, there might be many false things, many lies and exaggerations, and much worthless garbage information. But as long as one had the intention, anyone could absorb extremely rich knowledge from it.
This immediately captured the interest of Israel and Nostradamus, who were dedicated to popularizing Transcendent power. Baniel and William, who always enjoyed searching for various ancient texts and hidden information, also had their eyes light up. With their rich experience, they quickly found other uses for the network—real-time communication between different locations. Under the effect of magic transmitting information at the speed of light, almost delay-free communication could be achieved within the Mycroft Continent. This would play a huge role in military command, communication and information sharing between adventure teams, and requesting help and rescue.
Besides this, the network had many other benefits. Joshua didn't elaborate on each one, only giving a rough overview—perhaps it was his old habit of enjoying teaching others from when he used to run a martial arts school. The warrior accidentally said too much and even proposed a new concept: Since they currently didn't have enough materials to utilize the Magic Network on a large scale, they could completely build a large server based on the Writhing Forest locally in Moldavia as a signal relay, using the Magic Network's power within a small range.
This was indeed a correct concept. Joshua's only mistake was misjudging the leisure level and action capability of the others present—whether it was His Majesty the Emperor, the old mage, or the Legendary mage duo, they had all been extremely bored recently and had action capabilities far beyond ordinary people. Joshua proposed the possibility, and they immediately wanted to start working on it. And Joshua, who had just finished building the empire's Void Warship production line, was once again dragged away to build the super server connecting to the Magic Network.
"This time, I've really troubled you, Number 3."
Thinking of this, Joshua couldn't help but turn his head to look at the Artificial Intelligence Girl beside him, who was in high spirits, and said softly: "Dragging you along to work with me all the time."
"No trouble, no trouble!"
Is there more of this kind of work? I'd like several more! Number 3 quickly shook her head, a slight smile at the corner of her mouth.
The setup of this Magic Network server was really thanks to Number 3. As an artificial intelligence, Number 3's own runic crystal main body was actually a large information management hub. With just a little modification and the addition of some equipment to detect Magic Network signals, an information processing matrix could be successfully built. So Joshua needed to bring Number 3 along to check whenever he wanted to modify this runic crystal server.
But the workload of this 'little' modification truly exceeded the imagination of the many Legendary experts. Just a network for internal use by Winterfell students had exhausted Baniel, who was responsible for writing the runic programs. He didn't seem this tired even when fighting for control of the mist with the Black Mist. And Joshua, who performed at least a hundred system micro-adjustments on the server every day, although he still appeared mentally normal, was actually irritable enough to want to find someone to spar with.
"It's actually not that bad right now."
Nearby, William, who was observing in real-time the mental network situation of Winterfell students connected to the Magic Network, seemed to want to comfort everyone. He said reassuringly: "Think about the future, when the Sky-Piercing White Tower, the Far Sea Holy Mountain, the entire Northern Empire government, and even all of humanity, elves, and dwarves join this network. The server load at that time... right? We're still quite relaxed now."
"Shut up." "Please be quiet."
Although they verbally rebuked William like this, Joshua was actually quite looking forward to the future growth of this network. Now was the beginning, so naturally they, as Legendary experts, needed to be on the front lines sensing the connection to the Magic Network and setting up servers. But in the future, more mages and technical personnel would replace their work, and even go further than they had envisioned.
For example, right now, the Information Terminal 0.9 version only had the task board and forum sections for internal Winterfell Academy use. The task board was designed by him using some information from his system, used to replace the credit task system within Winterfell Academy. Now, students wanting to accept tasks no longer needed to go to the central hall of each academy; they only needed to click on the task board. Credits also didn't need to be calculated one by one by numerous instructors; the runic program written by Baniel would automatically accumulate them.
As for the forum section, it was an information exchange center proposed by the warrior. Its specific use was just ordinary posting, allowing students to exchange information. Although it had only been online for a little over ten days, the number of various posts had already reached an astonishing figure.
Although most of these were ordinary commemorative posts about completing tasks, there were also a considerable number of high-quality posts that detailed how the poster had completed their task, clearly writing out the monster's characteristics and key points. This was the original intention of the warrior in establishing this forum—knowledge only has value when it is spread. Only through mutual exchange can civilization develop rapidly.
—In the foreseeable future, psychics from the West would be able to communicate directly with the Mage Association from the East. Ancient mental psychic power would receive fresh blood, and emerging magic would gain supplementation from ancient knowledge. Certain Battle Qi and combat techniques that had gradually fallen behind would also regain vitality after being supplemented by other knowledge. This would be a feast for everyone in the world. As long as everyone was willing to share, then everyone could obtain everything they desired.
Perhaps Israel and Baniel and the others didn't know what changes their actions would bring to this world. But Joshua was different. He deeply understood the value of this network that he had advocated for and personally created.
"I really look forward to it. This is already completely different from my previous life—a brand new future for the Mycroft World."
And at the same time.
Boundless Heaven. The starlight of the multiverse's stars began to flicker in the dark void of this place. The radiance of the Great Magic Tide grew increasingly thick, and now it finally penetrated into this semi-independent plane hovering above the Mycroft World.
"The time is near."
A long sigh, carrying echoes, appeared faintly at the center of this world.
"The gears are returning to their positions. The legacy is awakening. Although it is several hundred years late, the radiance of the Era of Radiance is finally shining upon the Era of Falling Stars."
"Inform Israel. The time of the gods' descent is approaching."
"We are about to return."