Moving forward, there is always a destination or direction. Unlike land-based carriages, ships can choose to dock at ports and cannot sail to the middle of a desert somewhere. Although airships are relatively free compared to Earth's aircraft, airships are not welcome to dock everywhere. Especially the place where they sail next is the internal territory of the Gwana Empire.
For the convenience of management, including collecting taxes and managing incoming and outgoing people, lords in various places only allow airships to dock in specific cities within their territories. In addition, if it is not an emergency, such as a force majeure plane crash, the goods will be regarded as smuggling and the people will be regarded as entering the country without permission. The former will be confiscated, while the latter will be directly executed if serious.
In addition to those cities designated by nobles, other options for airships are anchored magic towers. Of course, we choose these places to stop not only because of various restrictions, but also because of their convenience.
Among the supplies that an airship needs, food and water are the best, and they are basically available everywhere. However, some airships need to use the energy pool of the magic tower to replenish the small energy pool on the airship. This is not something that can be done everywhere.
Just like the Tower of the Great Sage in the past, with the assistance of magicians from the Leon District Chapter, facilities for airship anchoring piles were added. In addition to being used to tether airships, it can also be used to transmit magical power.
Sometimes some airships also need equipment maintenance and repairs. In addition to the owner and the technicians accompanying the ship, it is best to have a dedicated dock for the operation. Even some larger cities will develop workshops for manufacturing airships. To put it simply, a city similar to the concept of an airport on earth is formed.
In other words, although Midi does not have concepts such as air supremacy and flight routes, it cannot fly wherever it wants. Especially piloting an unarmed airship.
The above was learned from previous chats with the goblin Totokani; some of them are the result of someone's own speculation. But because I was too busy before, I didn’t consider that issue. Now that we are about to set off, that question is right in front of us and we have to consider it. Where to fly? The fuel and the magic stones that can replenish power are limited, so no one is allowed to fly around like a headless fly.
Because someone asked a question that was so shallow that no one could answer it. So Lin took the goblin out again and asked, "How did you navigate the airship before?"
"Navigation? Sir, what does this mean?"
The goblin's rhetorical question made someone feel a little confused. Could it be that their flying depends on their intuition and mood. Lin had no choice but to ask in another way: "When you controlled the airship before, how did you plan to get to Estali?"
"Oh, this. My original flight route was to take the Aberdeen Line after crossing the Jura Mountains. Depending on the situation, I would stop at cities such as Abadan, Hailis, Minab, and Savet. About xx(20 ) day's flight, you can reach the holy city of Estali."
While the goblin was talking, Lin also pulled out the built-in navigation map of the Sid. As Totokani says a name, a city is marked on the map.
Totokani's eyes lit up on the spot as there was such a map on the airship. He, who often travels around the Lost Lands, knows the importance of maps better than anyone else. The picture in front of him was more detailed than anything he had ever seen.
But just having a map and knowing the destination is useless because there is no direction. Lost Earth is not like the Earth that has GPS navigation. You know where you are and where you are, so you can correct your direction. Determining the direction based on the appearance of the terrain is one way, but Lin still asked the goblins: "In the past, how did you determine which city you were flying to?"
Regarding this question, the goblin looked troubled. Totokani asked his daughter to go into the warehouse area to find something, while he himself came to the driver's seat and looked at the map carefully.
After a while, Polly came over with a small wooden box in her arms. Totokani opened the wooden box and showed everyone that it was filled with rags of similar shapes. Lin asked in confusion: "What is this?"
Totokani picked up one of the intact, and possibly the only, intact artifacts. It was slightly smaller than the goblin's fist; the base seemed to have engravings, but Lin hadn't looked carefully yet; the upper part was a glass-like ball cover, and inside was a pointer half painted with color. Goblin said:
"In the past, when we wanted to fly to a city, we had to rely on that city's compass. These compasses could not only indicate the direction of our flight, but also the permission to stop in that city. With this compass, the tax into the city would be cheaper. , but now all the compasses I have are broken. Although they can still serve as a permit to enter the city, the broken ones can be replaced in the city for a small fee; but the ones that still have a guiding function are the only ones left. This guide leads to Yasuj. And Yasuj is too far from here. If we don’t stop for supplies along the way, we won’t be able to reach that city.”
Lin looked at the location of Yasuj City. In terms of straight-line distance, it was about one-third to one-quarter of the way from the Jura Mountains to the holy city of Estali. In other words, it is very close to the terminal. If the goblin's previous airship had to sail for more than twenty days and stop at nearly ten cities to reach it, then it is indeed impossible to reach Yasuj directly.
Lin took the compass from the goblin and held it in his hand. He changed several directions. The compass was indeed pointing in the same direction, and it was not the magnetic north and south poles. The effect looked like a prop in a certain comic—— Record pointer. It's just that in that comic, the record pointer relied on magnetism, but what about in Lost Land? There is always a principle to it.
Ask Kaya to move out the coffin and related analysis equipment, and begin to analyze the compass as a magic prop. Soon, he found the magic circle carved on it and studied its effectiveness, such as a guidance magic circle that could track specific powers from a long distance.
This is inferred because the magic circle with the same effect is one of the topics that Lin has been researching recently. One of the results is a magic circle that can be used on the box cutter to remotely locate and serve as a reference coordinate for the flash technique.
The difference is that the compass is more like a receiver, receiving a signal source from a specific band. And this signal source is a specific arrangement and combination of power messages sent from a certain magic sending device, such as a combination of a radio station and a radio.
Since it was something he had explored, Lin quickly wrote a program that could search for these bands, and asked Fen to integrate it into the Sid's control system. The multi-functional reconnaissance device external to the airship quickly found special signal sources scattered throughout the space, and reversely searched for their source location and distance, which was displayed on the airship's map.
However, it seems that the search effect is too good, and the locations highlighted on the navigation map far exceed the known places Totokani has visited. There are even cities or magic towers that do not exist in someone's map information. The number of places that can be used as navigation guides far exceeds Lin's original estimate. Lin even used this information to correct the locations of some cities on the map.
The one who was most surprised by this was of course the goblin Totokani. He spent most of his life on an airship. It is very troublesome to open a channel to reach a new place every time. In addition to the cost of purchasing a local compass, there is also the trial voyage of the airship, confirming supply points on the way, and contacting local managers to obtain permission.
Sometimes, for the sake of safety, they would choose to travel overland to a new location, and only then drive the airship to get the compass. In addition to the cost of travel, there is also a lot of time. In short, it is not easy to light up a certain city or a certain magic tower on the map like someone else.
The goblin's original expectation was that when the collection of compasses was almost completely destroyed, he could only fly slowly in a certain direction. In addition to observing the terrain and features, he also had to gamble on luck. If you are unlucky, you may not be able to find a city that can be used to replenish supplies other than airship food before the supplies are exhausted. But unexpectedly, the problem seemed to be solved in one fell swoop.
Lin Yuan was also surprised by such results. But when I think about it carefully, it feels natural. The Magic Tower is like a computer on Earth that is connected to the Internet but has no firewall. In the eyes of top hackers, they are nothing more than chickens ready to be slaughtered.
Of course, the Magic Tower is still quite primitive to computers, and it may not really be possible to use hacking methods to make it work. But as long as it is an external broadcast type function, it is like being defenseless to him.
The deeper this level of feeling, honestly speaking, the more regret someone will feel for releasing the knowledge of p language. If someone really discovered some evil ways, the harm would be no less than the natural disasters of the undead.
But what is done is done, and the immediate focus is on getting out of trouble. To be on the safe side, Lin's first destination was the first stop planned by Totokani, the city of the Gwana Empire - Abadan, because it was the closest.
Because at this stage, there is only an estimate of the various consumption of the airship, and the actual situation has yet to be verified. Arrive in the city early. If there is a problem with the airship, at least you can buy resources to repair it. Instead of just staring in the snow like now.
All function switches on the Sid are already in a preheated state. Lin grasped the rudder with both hands, and various instruments and data immediately appeared directly in front of the driver's seat along with the unfolded water mirror screen. I once thought about using a mechanical instrument, but the reading itself came from magic detection. It would consume more power to drive the mechanical watch after conversion, so I gave up.
The cockpit layout was modeled after that of an Earth airliner, with the pilot on the left and Fen sitting in the co-pilot's seat on the right. She and Kaya behind her were monitoring the various records fed back by the program so that they could fix them as soon as possible if an error message occurred.
Totokani, who was sitting in the third driver's seat, and Polly, who was further behind, were both masters of the operating manual, imitating Lin's driving movements. If they want to control this brand-new airship, the father and daughter will have to work hard.
Lin pushed the first throttle to control power, and the magic-side energy that was different from the earth began to flow into every corner of the magic circle. Those mysterious and wonderful effects that were difficult to explain scientifically gradually increased and began to affect reality. At the same time, all functions are launched one by one.
The Sid is officially launched!
wxya
