Chapter 337: Bad News

After giving instructions to Uther and William and other subordinates who would stay behind to guard the territory, Donald went to place the portal in the teleportation chamber of the mage tower in the Twilight Forest. From the beginning of its construction, space had been reserved for a magic teleportation array, and the area was large enough to accommodate the large teleportation array they had disassembled earlier.

Many mages, led by Moray, Russell, and Dina, witnessed this historic moment with excitement inside the mage tower. When the portal glowed and Donald’s figure stepped through before disappearing in the light, the mages erupted in cheers.

At first, a few mages advised their lord to catch a small animal first for testing, to avoid any problems with the first use of the portal. But Donald knew that the buildings and equipment produced by the Book of Truth would never have flaws, so he reassured them that he would be the first to use the portal to return to Siren.

At the location of the magic portal, everyone knew Donald wouldn’t be gone for long, so they parked their magic ships nearby and waited outside the portal for the miracle to happen.

When the portal began to glow, the young mage Merlin was the first to jump up. “It’s here! It’s here!”

Everyone stared up at the 15-foot-high portal. When Donald’s figure emerged as if passing through a layer of water, they all breathed a sigh of relief before cheering.

“How was it?” asked Chris, the most inquisitive one.

“The effect is good. For such a long distance, only three standard units of elementary elemental crystals were used. If pure magic crystals without impurities were used, the consumption would likely be even lower!”

The energy to power the portal was pre-charged into its base, allowing it to function for a long time without frequent replacement of energy crystals. In contrast, the magic arrays set up by modern mages still required space to embed elemental crystals. Even the teleportation array they obtained from the Arcane Scholar’s ruins merely placed the crystal slots near the control panel—far less convenient than the portal built by the Book of Truth.

The difference was like that between the integrated circuit era and the transistor era, something these mages could not overcome in a short time.

After confirming the portal’s excellent performance, everyone present couldn’t resist the urge to use it to teleport to Dalaran in the Northlands, just to experience spatial teleportation.

Unlike the space-transference method of teleportation arrays, which involves instant movement through space, the portal enabled a smooth transition as if passing through a door. All those present were strong warriors at the Bronze level or above; they hardly sensed any change in space, let alone any discomfort!
Donald watched with a smile as the group of people teleported back and forth like curious children, unconcerned about the minimal energy consumption. In fact, he only needed to input a drop of divine power into each portal to power their teleportations hundreds of times.
After some playful antics, Donald urged most of them to get down to business—building the mage tower.
Donald and the others didn’t need to worry about materials or design; the blueprints provided by the Ansel family specified an intermediate-level arcane mage tower, perfect for construction here. Although its functions were somewhat reduced compared to the one in Dalaran, it was still comparable to the advanced mage towers modified by later mages.
Besides transporting materials, they also used magic portals to bring back the original craftsmen and architects. Since there were war puppets available as free labor during construction, they didn’t need to work themselves or rush to employ large numbers of ordinary people. However, since these people were amateurs in construction, they still needed professionals to oversee the alchemical puppets.
They also planned to ask Grand Duke Theron to send people to the capital to bring in several master architects—more hands meant faster construction. After all, the true core of a mage tower lay in the subsequent spell array setup, so it didn’t matter much if outsiders knew its structure. As one of the greatest magical architectural structures, it couldn’t be built just by looking at it.
To his surprise, the two scholars who had followed from Dragonfang Fortress to the Swordhorn Peninsula to observe things on their own volunteered to participate in the construction.
Only then did Donald realize he had been too busy riding around looking for horses and had neglected these two scholars!
Since the elderly scholar Albarno claimed to have some knowledge in architecture and magical construction, he must surely be a top-tier master in that field. As a mage, Donald naturally understood the humble claims of such scholars. From his conversations with them, he could tell they were rare all-round talents, and the followers of the God of Knowledge were always of extremely high caliber—after all, those with any pretense wouldn’t be recognized by the god who regarded knowledge as truth.

As for the chance of encountering those master deceivers in human kingdoms, it’s probably even lower than finding a dragon in the sea! A few days after Donald and the others began building the mage tower with great enthusiasm, Jack, the leader of the Dark Knights, rode alone for hundreds of miles from Dariq back to Dragon’s Tooth Fortress, then crossed several mountains to reach the Swordhorn Bay Peninsula. When the weary Jack met his lord, Donald, he brought some bad news. Jack had used his spies in Siren to discover a concerning situation and had also asked his adoptive father, Commander Mark, to investigate secretly. They found that a group of mysterious people of unknown origin had appeared in eastern Siren and stayed for a considerable time along the route from the capital Dariq to Gardrel. Although those people disappeared later, Jack, who had spent years operating in the shadows, instinctively felt that they might soon be targeting them. Combined with intelligence from Peaceport, this led him to consider a dire possibility. “How could outsiders be plotting against me at this time?” After hearing Jack’s account, Donald quickly thought of Andrew and then of the forces of the Land of Dawn, which were somewhat entangled with Andrew.