Chapter 992 - 991: Miraculous

Chapter 992: Chapter 991: Miraculous

"Sorinburg?" Andresha repeated the name softly, somewhat puzzled—she wasn’t very familiar with these names of the Cecil Clan, but she vaguely remembered this one. After a moment of recollection, she finally found corresponding information about Sorinburg from certain intelligence and memory of documents. "Ah, I’ve heard this name... It’s like it’s in the Plains of the Holy Spirits..."

"Strictly speaking, it’s on the dividing line between the Plains of the Holy Spirits and the Duke of the East—of course, from an administrative division viewpoint, it’s part of the Plains of the Holy Spirits," Sister Marian said with a smile, "It’s a place full of miracles."

"Miracles... I remember the Plains of the Holy Spirits turned into a wasteland during Anzu’s civil war, and Sorinburg was the most heavily damaged area. It..." Andresha couldn’t help but say softly, but her words were soon interrupted by the new scenery appearing outside the train window, and her attention was completely drawn to the wilderness outside.

She saw a massive tall tower appearing in the distance, made of metal and artificial stone, more magnificent than the communication Tower at Winterwolf Fortress, with the brilliance of magic shimmering across its surface. Atop the tower, a huge crystal device slowly rotated on some mechanical structure, and around the tower were a series of auxiliary facilities, resembling a small fortress.

She also saw, further away, what seemed like clusters of village buildings, with many brand-new houses arranged in rows. Their rooftops glittered in the dazzling sunlight, and the well-flattened land lay like a giant brown carpet around the village, with neat, wide roads visible between fields, and streetlights neatly lined on either side of the road.

The train raced across this winter wilderness, which, in turn, welcomed visitors here with a scene of rebirth.

Andresha widened her only remaining eye, staring in shock at everything outside the window. These scenes were clearly very different from the intelligence she had seen and what she had outlined in her mind.

"Are we really heading towards Sorinburg?" she finally couldn’t help but ask, "Wasn’t this place once a battleground tainted by the God’s disaster?"

Sister Marian smiled, "Yes, without a doubt—in fact, we have already passed the last checkpoint of the Duke of the East, and what you see now is land of the Plains of the Holy Spirits. Sorinburg is up ahead, and you will see it at the end of the next mountain pass—you will be even more surprised then."

"...I thought I would see more ruins and wreckage here," Andresha murmured as if to herself, "This is not how I imagined it..."

"We rebuilt it—General Margarita and her construction army, along with the United Reconstruction Group led by the Minister of Agriculture, and the reconstruction volunteers returning from all over to the Plains of the Holy Spirits, tens of thousands of people jointly rebuilding everything you see, and building many other new things. For example, the tower we just passed and the buildings around it. That’s the Sorin Secondary Node, part of the Plains of the Holy Spirits’ Magic Web. It has a high-powered transceiver device that can directly establish a connection with the Sorin Nexus," Sister Marian said proudly, "Additionally, the railway we’re on now is also a part of last year’s construction project."

"Of course, the kind of ruins you mentioned do still exist—after all, the Plains of the Holy Spirits is so vast, and we couldn’t possibly rebuild everything in such a short time. There are still large areas around The White City and the Fertile Woods awaiting revival. The Supreme Administration Office is sending more construction teams and resources to those regions every month. Now about half of those areas have resumed production. But they’re far from here, and we definitely won’t see them on this trip."

Andresha listened to all this in awe, her mind sketching scenes she had never imagined. She seemed to want to ask something more, yet was suddenly interrupted by a whistle sounding from ahead.

The train let out a sharp, high-pitched whistle, the loud sound echoing between the hills and plains. Andresha felt herself swaying slightly, and the train passed through a relatively gentle mountain pass—the small landform obscuring her view was quickly left behind, and the vast plains scene presented itself before Andresha’s eyes.

A patch of green, which shouldn’t appear in winter, quickly caught her attention, dominating her vision.

It was an endless canopy of trees, like a city of greenery floating above the plains, a plant, a miracle challenging human imagination.

"What’s that?!" For a moment, Andresha even forgot the pain of her upper body injuries, instinctively raising her arm to point outside, her face full of astonishment.

"That’s where we’re headed," Sister Marian said, "Sorinburg—you see that ’Sorin Giant Tree.’ It covers the entire Sorin Region, with the original castle now located under its canopy, occupying only a small area on the east side. Our train is going to directly enter the area covered by the canopy, and the station is newly built next to the old castle."

"Sorin Giant Tree..." Andresha murmured in amazement, and then the swirling thoughts in her mind finally calmed somewhat, and certain memories from reports surfaced, "I’ve heard of this name, in some documents... And on your Cecil Clan’s newspapers and magazines. I know about such a ’tree’ emerging from the ground, as vast as a castle... But I always thought that was an exaggeration..."

"That’s an understatement—in fact, she has been larger than any castle since six months ago," Sister Marian shook her head, "However, now her growth has slowed to almost a stop, theoretically she won’t continue to expand any longer, otherwise we would really have to worry about her canopy covering the entire plain... Though in my view, that would be quite grand, but the people of the agricultural department don’t think so."

Andresha looked at the scenes outside the train window continuing to approach with a sense of witnessing a miracle, listening to the narrative of the nun lady. She suddenly noticed a detail in the other party’s vocabulary: "’She’? You mean that tree..."

"Oh, didn’t the intelligence you saw refer to the Sorin Giant Tree as ’she’?" Sister Marian raised an eyebrow, "Well, that’s understandable, after all, not everyone knows about Madam Beltira’s situation... Including those journalists and novelists who wrote numerous articles around the Sorin Giant Tree."

Andresha was still at a loss: "...?"

This place, Cecil... There are just too many incomprehensible things.

...

At the top of the giant tree, a cluster of vibrant flower vines grew from the branches and leaves, and amidst a mass of flowers and vines, the figure of a young woman slowly formed.

Beltira controlled her humanoid form to the edge of the flat area of the canopy, on the highest observation platform in the Plains of the Holy Spirits, she gazed far, looking towards the direction where the mountains and plains met.

In reality, her gazing was meaningless: since becoming a plant, her perception no longer belonged to human beings. She perceived the world through a vast root system and branches stretching towards the sky, and the humanoid form she molded for herself actually had no vision, but often, Beltira still habitually did such "gazing"—this gave her a "sense of fulfillment."

In the hidden chamber within the canopy, the artificial brain was operating powerfully, and the simulated neural signals maintained Beltira’s personality stability. She took a deep breath with her humanoid body—the vibrant photosynthesis of the entire canopy put her in a good mood.

She "saw" a Magic Train coming from the east, already entering the edge area covered by the canopy. The vines set up near the station received the signal and were transmitting the scene from there.

Footsteps approached from behind the mimic body, shoes making a tapping sound on the hard leaves like stepping on concrete. Beltira didn’t turn around, knowing who stood behind her.

"She’s here," came the slightly hoarse voice from Beltira’s body essentially made of wood, "aren’t you going to take a look?"

The middle-aged man standing behind Beltira remained silent for two seconds before breaking the silence with mixed emotions: "I don’t know how to face her."

"You’ll have to face it eventually," Beltira said slowly, "She’ll be here for a long time, and you can’t avoid this forever."

Bard pulled at his mouth: "And who got me into this situation?"

"We agreed not to bring that up."

Bard smiled silently, shaking his head gently: "No matter what, the generals at the front line and the Grand Governors at the Administrative Office really gave me a tough problem... When I first got the news, I was completely clueless, and even now, I still feel like I’m dreaming."

"I can imagine—you were halfway through your monitoring work, someone suddenly called you out, telling you your daughter became one of the first prisoners of war and would be sent to Sorinburg in a few days. Just imagining it, I understand your chaotic mood," said Beltira with a slightly stiff and rigid tone, surprisingly with a touch of teasing, "Aren’t you worried? I heard she was seriously injured."

Bard fell silent for a moment before speaking softly: "She’s a soldier; some things are her duty."

"She’s a soldier, but you’re a father. Her duty and your worries don’t conflict," Beltira shook her head, turning to face Bard Wendell, "Once you’re done with your tasks, go and see her; you have to face it. I believe with several days to prepare, you’ve considered how to meet your daughter."

"...This really doesn’t sound like you," Bard glanced at the former "Archdruid of Oblivion" before him, "In the ten-plus years I’ve known ’Madam Beltira,’ she’s always been an embodiment of harshness, cunning, and danger."

Beltira didn’t respond, nor did Bard mind. He just shook his head before bringing up another matter: "I came to report a situation."

"Situation? What situation?"

"These are records left by the monitoring team recently," Bard handed over a stack of documents, "We still haven’t traced the signal, but we’ve found some other traces that might be valuable."

While Beltira didn’t need to "see" to read the materials Bard brought, she reached out and took the papers seriously, placing them before her eyes—life needs ceremony, and a plant is no exception. Her "gaze" scanned the tables and records, her expression gradually becoming serious.

She wasn’t an expert in Magic Web communication, signal studies, or cryptography, but since last successfully decoding geometric shapes from a mysterious signal, her value in this area received upper-level attention. If the monitoring team found valuable leads, they’d submit them to higher research departments and certainly give her a copy too.

"These randomly appearing weak noise waves aren’t normal fluctuations in the Magic Web... is that what it means?" Beltira shook the document, looking at Bard.

"Exactly—we’ve compared all the waveforms; those noise waves shouldn’t appear in the Magic Web."

"These noise waves are very weak and chaotic, completely undecipherable—even my previous ’point solution’ method doesn’t work," Beltira stroked her chin, "What do you think?"

"We now suspect the signal has been continuously broadcasting, covering our receiving devices every minute, every second. These noise waves are its traces—but for some reason, the signal is severely interfered with and weakened most of the time, rendering us unable to decode its content. We didn’t even notice its existence until we increased our device sensitivity," Bard slowly shared his and colleagues’ thoughts, "Based on this idea, the times we’ve suddenly received signals before weren’t signals suddenly ’appearing,’ but rather something causing interference, a shielding effect had temporary breaches..."

Beltira’s face couldn’t create overly vivid expressions, but a slight seriousness emerged in her subtle facial change: "This sounds... a bit unsettling. Have the documents been submitted to the imperial capital?"

"It’s been sent; Master Kamel personally responded that they’d treat it seriously. He’ll also coordinate the workgroups at Sherlin City, Bitter Winter Castle, and Lu’an listening stations to try finding evidence of these noise waves in various places," Bard nodded, "If all locations discover these noise waves, then our conjecture can be further confirmed."

Beltira didn’t speak for a moment, after ten seconds of thought, she slightly nodded.

"If there’s nothing else here, I’ll take my leave," Bard told Beltira, "The monitoring workstation is waiting for my response."

Beltira uttered a sound, and Bard turned to walk towards the nearby elevator. But just as he walked a few steps, Beltira suddenly called him: "Wait a moment."

"Anything else?"

"Andresha Wendell has been moved to the old castle’s west wing," Beltira said to Bard’s back, "That will be her exclusive ’rehabilitation area.’ If you want to visit, Margarita and I can help arrange it."

Bard didn’t reply nor did he leave, just standing there for a long time before he lightly nodded, continuing towards the elevator.