Chapter 1018: Spread of News
Translator: TransN Editor: TransN
"But my magic capacity can continue to grow through training, so there's no limit to the number of evolutions, right?" Lightning did not seem frustrated at all. "This is good—it makes me so excited thinking about being able to exceed my own limits! I can also be considered as half a combat witch now!"
"Battle coo!" Maggie chipped in.
"I know you're thrilled, but remember not to speed up over the castle and make trouble for His Majesty Roland again." Wendy coughed twice and said, "And you have to conserve your magic power for the next few days until we are finished with all the tests. Understand?"
"Yes, big sis Wendy." Lightning cheekily stuck out her tongue.
On the other hand, Roland had different a different view. Even though flying at supersonic speed could bring unparalleled mobility, once the magic power was exhausted, she could easily be forced into a dangerous situation. Lightning was also much smaller than an airplane, so it was still unclear now how much damage she could deal with a demon when she rams it after breaking the sound barrier. It was obviously not worthwhile to use her as a combat witch.
And those Magic Slayers that could easily disrupt the flow of magic power within a large area will always pose a huge threat to her.
What he was more concerned about was the duration at which she can maintain subsonic speed—the speed of 800 to 900 kilometers per hour was absolutely unprecedented in this era. Whether it was used expand the maps of the unexplored areas, or have her serve as a scout to make up for the battlefield blind spots of Sylvie's discovery area, it would certainly be much more efficient than to have her participate in battles.
When Lightning was about to leave, Roland suddenly stopped her.
"By the way, I have another question that I want to ask you," he said while considering the right words to use. "If... after ten years, the world no longer had any places to explore, what would you do?"
"No places... to explore?" Lightning was slightly surprised.
"Imagine if every continent has already been set foot on, every area of the sea has been recorded in detail on the charts, the entire world was crystal clear, and there are no longer any unknown places. Although that sounds a bit far-fetched, if it did happen, would you still want to become an explorer?"
"I see," the little girl suddenly realized, "what you meant to say was, what would I do if the Fjord explorers already discovered the entire land and sea during the Battle of Divine Will?"
"Uh... I guess you could put it that way." Roland was secretly baffled. He had already tried very hard to be indirect about it, yet she still understood the main point immediately. Peers in the same industry were certainly hard to deceive.
"Unless they are all as powerful as my father, but even so, I will continue to explore," Lightning said without hesitating, "because there are some places that only I can each, not even my father can do it."
"You mean..."
Lightning pointed to the top of her head and said with confidence, "There is still a big gap in the sky!"
Only when she left did Roland burst out laughing.
Should he say "like father like daughter?" Her tone was not only similar to Thunder's but was even stronger than his. He didn't know if the explorer's fate would be as Thunder described, but there was indeed truth in what she had said. In terms of the ability to maneuver the skies, Lightning was certainly well above the rest.
"What're you laughing at?" Nightingale asked curiously.
He stood up, walked to the French window and looked at the cloudy sky. His glance seemed to have penetrated the clouds and reached further into the distance—although it was still elusive and mysterious, some people were already paying attention to it.
"I'm laughing at... how nice being young is," he said with emotion.
...
After dealing with Lightning's matters, Roland asked Wendy to stay behind.
"I intend to add a department in the City Hall." He went straight to the point. "In addition to dealing with emergencies like today, it'd also give the public a credible channel for discussion."
"You mean... it will be mainly used to announce messages?" asked Wendy.
"Yes, this department will be called the Ministry of Public Relations." Roland nodded and said, "However, the way it spreads news will be somewhat different—Firstly, if something is not an emergency, it'll no longer be announced through the bulletin board in the Central Square. Secondly, its content will not be limited to Neverwinter, some novelty events from other lands will also be included."
"If we don't publicize in the square, how do we let others know about it?" Nightingale pursed her lips.
Roland picked up a scrap of paper from the table and unfolded it in front of them. "We need a brand new method of spreading information—and that's the newspaper."
In fact, setting up bulletin boards in the central square and sending people to repeatedly announce the news was done only because Roland had no other choice back then. The literacy rate of people in that era was extremely low. In such circumstances, word of mouth had become the only way to promote a decree.
However, with the rapid expansion of the urban population and the domains, this method could no longer keep up with the actual needs of the subjects—In the past, gathering 3,000 people would be enough to have the news spread to the whole city. But now, at least 80,000 to 90,000 people would be needed to cover the rapidly increasing population.
This not only exceeded the capacity of the central square, but the extraction of such a huge crowd also resulted in the suspension of Neverwinter's industrial operations.
Barov's report made him realize that the so-called "if you don't occupy publicity locations, then enemies will occupy it" was not just talk. If there were no reliable channel for discussion, various rumors would spread in the pub. These rumors would continue to brew, and it would be too late to stop them once they had spread.
Now that the education for primary education had already been carried out for two and a half years, the materials available to Neverwinter had become much richer than in previous years. The introduction of newspapers as a means of communication was then of course inevitable.
If the first step was the foundation for running newspapers, then the second step would be to ensure the efficiency of the channels that would issue these newspapers.
What does an official newspaper need? A large circulation and reporting of current content that would generate discussion. Therefore Neverwinter needed to have a large amount of paper and efficient printing technology.
The problem of paper could be easily solved. In the central and eastern developed commercial cities, paper products had already spread to the middle and upper-class families. He even remembered Lucia's parents, who have passed away, used to run a paper mill in Valencia. According to the statistics of the City Hall, there were many migrated craftsmen from the East who had mastered papermaking. As long as those craftsmen were gathered together, the production capacity could be expanded, and they would soon meet the needs of large-scale distribution.
For Neverwinter, any problem that could be solved with money was not considered a problem.
The printing skill was even more straightforward. The movable metal type plus drum reels were all tried and tested technologies. The ink could be provided by Darkcloud which was theoretically even easier than papermaking.
But it was unnecessary to explain all these details to Wendy. Putting aside the technical aspects, newspapers still had to be written by people, so the most important thing was to find people to gather and record the news.
He asked Wendy to stay behind as he wanted her to pick out a few suitable candidates—whether it was the Witch Union or the Sleeping Spell, she understood the abilities of her sisters the most.
"I roughly understand what you mean..." After listening to Roland's explanation, Wendy pondered for a moment. "So you need a witch to get involved in this matter. She'd need to discover the incident when it's happening and also run faster than anyone else so that the message can be sent as soon as possible to the publicity department?"
"Ahem, she doesn't have to run fast." He almost choked on his own saliva. "As long as she knows where the incident is happening, she could dispatch someone else to send the message."
"In other words, she would be a core member of the Ministry of Public Relations? Well... I do have a suitable candidate in mind." Wendy laughed and said, "Your Majesty, what do you think... about Honey?"