Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 776 - 775: Gazing at the Sea

What opened the stubborn gates of the Sacred Dragon Kingdom?

Gawain indeed was quite curious about this.

The Sacred Dragon Kingdom is located in the extreme north of the continent, with half of its area being ice-bound rugged mountains, lacking much fertile land, making living conditions extremely harsh for ordinary humans. Yet, such a nation, forever calling itself a "principality," was always a cause of great wariness for Anzu in its strongest era. Even the establishment of the Northern Mountain Corps was half for the purpose of caution against this principality within the frozen mountain range, which certainly has its reasons.

The citizens of the Sacred Dragon Kingdom claim to be Dragonborn, and the higher the aristocracy, the more they assert to have pure dragon kin bloodline. Outsiders do not completely believe this assertion because the Sacred Dragon Kingdom hardly interacts with other kingdoms, thus no one has witnessed the "Dragonborn" exhibiting dragon power, but at least one thing is certain: the people of the Sacred Dragon Kingdom are absolutely not ordinary humans. Although they look much like humans in appearance, their children can run bare-chested chasing monsters in the sub-zero temperatures of the Arctic Mountains—this does not seem like an average human physical constitution...

And now Gawain obtained proof from Maji: the Sacred Dragon Kingdom’s claimed "Dragonborn" identity is real, at least their upper class citizens truly are dragonkin, albeit with genetic defects, smaller than ordinary dragons.

A nation built by the Dragonborn, even if small in size, is exceptionally powerful.

Besides powerful combat prowess, the mountains of the Sacred Dragon Kingdom house the best quality magic metal veins in the northern mainland, and the metal ingots trickling out to the wider world are highly sought after in the northern states.

Such a nation that is both powerful and possesses valuable strategic resources, yet remains in a neutral stance, naturally draws the attention of surrounding nations. Since the Anzu Era, the northern aristocratic forces represented by Victoria Wilder have consistently attempted to establish more definite, stable ties with the Sacred Dragon Kingdom, though with little success.

The Dragonborn seemed generally uninterested in the "outside world," other than maintaining the most basic material exchanges, they did not establish diplomatic relations with any kingdom, nor had they ever sent envoys.

"Perhaps our Mage creations have piqued their interest, or it could be the situation changes in the Empire have reached the ears of that Grand Duke of Dragonblood," Victoria could only offer her speculations in response to Gawain’s words, "It’s even possible that the frequent activities of Cecil Clan merchants in the northern region over the past half year have altered those ’Dragonborn’s’ perspective of us..."

"What do you mean by this?"

"Those ’Dragonborn’ have always respected warriors who challenge the mountains and brave the winter. As long as they meet this standard, even ordinary human merchants would be highly esteemed over there—though such ’warriors’ were few and far between. But since the wholesale price of Frost Resistance Potion dropped to one and a half Gold Pounds per ton, every Cecil merchant active in the northern region became a ’warrior’..."

Gawain was astounded and amused: "Really?"

Victoria spoke calmly: "The people of the Sacred Dragon Kingdom do not care whether the challengers of winter and mountains depend on equipment and potions—in their view, external objects are part of one’s strength. Anyone walking into the mountains braving the cold winds is their friend."

"...Looks like I will have to find more time to understand more about the Sacred Dragon Kingdom from Maji." Gawain said with a smile.

Of course, he did not genuinely believe that relying on a crowd of potion-gulping, song-singing merchants racing across the ice would truly open the gates of the Sacred Dragon Kingdom. Victoria mentioned it as a joke when speaking about this matter, but in any case, that closed-off and intricately dragon-connected nation opened its gates to Cecil, and this matter itself is worth celebrating—

The exiled "Dragonborn," despite excelling humans in many aspects, should not have an easy life in the icy mountainous lands, and the various creations of the magical industry undoubtedly improve their quality of life. Certainly, that Grand Duke of Dragonblood would not refuse the Magic Web and machinery—no refusal means easier progress.

The Cecil Clan is once again getting ready to help allied nations build railroads...

And when relaxing joyfully, Gawain’s thoughts turned northward, remembering the plans he recently surveyed for.

"In the previous correspondence, I mentioned to you about the plans to develop the northern coast, set up ports, and explore the oceans," he looked at Victoria, "What are your thoughts on this."

Victoria’s pale eyes remained as still as ice and snow, pondering as she spoke: "Some northern aristocrats are somewhat concerned, mainly worried about the massive investment, meager returns, and ocean dangers, but they no longer hold real power, so there’s no need to pay them much mind.

"I understand your port-setting vision, from the perspective of establishing the ’Cecil Settlement,’ current land transportation is greatly limited, and within the Augari Tribal Borders, the terrain is complex, road construction takes long periods, while the western and southern areas of the continent are blocked by mountain forest, lacking continuous river pathways. Solely relying on the trading gateways that border Moss Woods and the western region accommodates very limited trade scope—if we could establish ports on the northern coast and resume the northern continental circuit, it would undoubtedly solve these issues significantly.

"The initial investment would indeed be immense, but subsequent returns would also be beyond imagination.

"During Anzu’s time, the disparate northern mountain line leaders could not undertake this engineering, but now the Empire has the capability to concentrate national power for deployment, establishing northern coastal ports and even resuming the northern continental circuit is achievable."

Victoria Wilder, not usually fond of speaking, was generous with words when discussing these matters, and hearing this systematic explanation, Gawain gradually revealed a satisfied expression.

Just as he previously assessed, Victoria is insightful.

The difference between a feudal kingdom and a centralized empire, the significance of opening ports—she could easily see the reasoning.

But her limitations are also evident: she only focused on the economic profits of resuming the northern continental circuit and did not realize that Gawain’s "ocean exploration" perspective is far more expansive.

But that’s not her fault, it’s the restriction of the era and societal context—after humans have distanced themselves from the ocean for seven hundred years, how many can perceive how constrained this seemingly vast continent truly is?

"Besides the northern continental circuit, what I truly care about... is the entire ocean," Gawain said slowly, "Victoria, I mean the open sea."

Sure enough, after hearing this, Victoria’s usually expressionless demeanor slowly furrowed.

"The open sea... filled with storms and magic turbulence, Your Majesty, the Church of Storms is no longer around," she said with concern, "Exploring the open sea and resuming nearshore routes are vastly different undertakings."

"I understand, but we cannot always retreat within this narrow continent," Gawain responded, "The ocean depths hold even broader worlds—sea demons, dragonkin, you know of these powerful races. They originated across the ocean and can freely traverse between their realms and this continent, yet humans take not one step beyond, this status quo is hardly reassuring."

This continent... is it really so cramped?

Victoria felt puzzled for a moment, but she agreed with the latter half of Gawain’s statement to some extent.

Those ancient and powerful races can come and go freely in the human world, while humans cannot take a step in front of the ocean. They know there might be a wider world beyond the sea, yet they can only hide on land and speculate what’s out there. This situation... is indeed somewhat frustrating.

Of course, an empire, especially one that still needs development, cannot just launch a costly maritime action simply to avoid being "frustrated." Without sufficient incentives, even if the emperor and the Supreme Administration Office have high prestige, forcing a venture without a visible future would shake the empire’s foundation. However, carrying out exploration to a certain extent and accumulating technology to a certain degree... that would still be feasible.

She understood that Gawain likely meant the same.

Based on this, she seriously considered how the current national power of the Cecil Empire could enable such maritime exploration.

While contemplating, she slowly spoke: "Your Majesty, if you wish to explore the distant seas, then the northern coastline might not be a very good ’starting point’..."

Gawain frowned: "Why do you say that?"

"According to numerous records, after setting off from the northern coastline and crossing the Violet Kingdom and the Sacred Dragon Kingdom’s maritime route, there exists an exceptionally large permanent storm circle on the sea. This storm circle seemingly doesn’t weaken or shift throughout the year, and there are no safe routes inside. Artificial ships should be utterly incapable of breaching its blockade..."

Gawain widened his eyes in slight surprise: "There’s such a storm circle?"

Beyond the extreme north of the continent, past the ’Peninsula’ of the Violet Kingdom and the Sacred Dragon Kingdom, that area is a blind spot for his satellite surveillance!

"Yes," Victoria nodded, "In fact, not only is it recorded in ancient texts, but on clear days and when the magical environment over the sea is relatively stable, one can sometimes see a misty ’cloud wall’ moving over the sea from the high places of the northern mountain range. That indirectly proves the storm circle’s existence."

"A cloud wall visible to the naked eye from the north?!" This time, Gawain was truly shocked. "How large is that thing?"

"If the records in ancient texts are correct, if the observations and calculations by the Wilder Clan over hundreds of years are accurate, its effective range is larger than the entire northern region, even larger than the whole Violet Kingdom. It’s enough to cover half of the Cecil Empire!"

Gawain: "..."

After a moment of astonishment, he couldn’t help but mutter to himself: "How did this thing form..."

"Nobody knows. Existing magical and meteorological theories cannot explain it. There are many legendary tales about the eternal storm on the ocean among the northerners, but most are contradictory absurdities or baseless attributions to divine power, lacking any reference value."

"Is this storm circle permanent?" Gawain couldn’t help but confirm once again.

"Yes, at least for the past seven hundred years, the Wilder Clan hasn’t observed it fading even slightly."

"Can we go around it?"

"It’s impossible to bypass it from due north—it completely blocks the northern maritime route. If the northern continental circular route is successfully utilized, there might be a chance to depart from the western strait, going around the near seas of the Violet Kingdom, and officially entering the ocean—but that is very challenging."

"Indeed, quite challenging," Gawain couldn’t help but sigh, "Not to mention the added length of the journey, whether the Violet Kingdom would be willing to let our exploration ships circle their near seas remains unknown..."

As he spoke, another question emerged in his mind:

To the north of the continent... there is a massive, incessantly raging storm structure, so what else is in that direction?

The dragons were supposedly from that direction...

Could that massive storm be related to the dragons? Or rather... was it created by the dragons to guard their domain?

If that’s truly the case, then exploring the ocean from the north is indeed the worst choice.

Victoria suddenly spoke again at this moment: "Your Majesty, if the northern route is not an option, we actually have another choice..."

Gawain raised an eyebrow: "Another choice?"

Victoria nodded slightly: "We don’t have to rely solely on the northern coast as a gateway. At the northeastern corner of the Duke of the East, near the border point with the Sacred Dragon Kingdom, at the cliff and highland’s edge, there’s another small outlet to the sea..."

The "Ice Duchess" spoke slowly, and in Gawain’s mind, the satellite map also gradually adjusted.

He saw that outlet to the sea, one that he had subconsciously ignored because it was near the Sacred Dragon Kingdom’s border and lacked clear landmarks nearby.

Suddenly, he felt the images in his mind tremble.

Some scattered and disordered memory fragments surfaced from deep within his mind!

Those were memories belonging to Gawain Cecil!