A mage? A spell engineer!

Chapter 249 Wandering Court

Rorschach discovered that the Magic Guild's efficiency was indeed remarkable. Once it was confirmed to be operational, a wired telegraph network was set up throughout the kingdom at an astonishing speed.

It took about a month for all the telegraph lines from Valuwana to the surrounding neighboring regions to be connected. However, they could only rely on the Magic Guild, because apart from the capital city having a power plant, all the electricity in other regions was provided by lightning magic. The telegraph offices and exchange stations were all located in the guild branches.

Some of the staff in the reporting room were drawn from the operators of the teleportation array system. They mentored new staff, training them to handle receiving, sending, and forwarding messages effectively.

Similar to a telegraph system, if a telegram message needs to cross nodes, it needs to be switched and transferred from line one to line two.

At the beginning of the trial operation, the telegraph exchange was riddled with errors. The combination of immature technology and unskilled personnel caused a disaster just as the scale of the line was beginning to improve.

"They can't solve the problem, so they come to us again!" Snow was a little troubled. In his opinion, this was not a problem at all. They just needed to recruit more people and work things out for a while, and things would naturally fall into place.

Rorschach thought that Master Snow was oversimplifying things: "Human energy is limited. Teleportation systems are physical objects. The relay operator only needs to forward the message according to the address on the envelope. Now, telegrams still require someone to record the message and resend it. It's easy for errors to occur in these two stages."

"Then set up redundancy? Send it again." This is typical of the "brute force" mentality: if once isn't enough, send it twice.

Finally, Rorschach found inspiration inside the research building.

That day, Simon was using a mechanical analyzer to process and calculate data. After the apprentice pressed the lever, the machine ejected a perforated paper tape. Simon recorded the results of the intermediate calculations and then used this paper tape as input to a second machine for the next step of the calculation.

"That's it!"

To improve the accuracy of telegraph exchanges, a semi-automatic telegraph exchange system was developed: within the relay station, messages awaiting transfer were converted into punched paper tapes. Operators no longer needed to manually record or resend the messages; they simply tore off the corresponding section of paper tape and inserted it into the relay machine to complete the transfer. The advent of punched paper tape greatly improved accuracy and efficiency.

In short, the telegraph is now more like an appendage to the communication array system within the magic guild. With the advent of new communication methods, all business of non-magicians and apprentices has been transferred to the telegraph.

Then merchants who urgently needed to deliver business messages soon discovered that the previous method of charging by distance and weight had been changed to charging by distance and word count, with each word starting at one silver coin. In the past, it was best to write as many words as possible on the lightest paper when sending a letter; now, it was best to condense all the meaning into just a few words.

When the line reached the coastal autonomous regions, Rorschach also received a message from Mr. Pierre: "Bain, telegram?"

Rorschach understood that Mr. Pierre was inquiring about the possibility of introducing telegraphs into the Kingdom of Bain. However, he was unsure whether Mr. Pierre was asking about the possibility of setting up telegraph lines within Bain's territory or whether he wanted to establish a line connecting the two kingdoms.

"Whether this matter can be done or not is not up to you and me to decide. It is of great importance and I am afraid that the Magic Guild should take the lead. If it is only to be laid within the territory of Bain, it will surely succeed with the approval of the Bain royal family, and we may not even need to rely on the Magic Guild." The Empire has a better condition than the Holy Kingdom - it can ask the dwarves for help instead of having to rely solely on the Magic Guild. The dwarves, who are good at building magic and have the tradition of "electromagnetic shamanism", are a perfect match for the construction of the telegraph.

After finishing the letter and stepping out of the research building, the sun was scorching, but Rorschach still put on his hood. Despite the sweltering summer heat, Rorschach felt remarkably cool. His mage robes were unassuming, appearing as a strange pale purple on the outside, with intricate patterns inside.

It wasn't that Rorschach had put his clothes on backwards; rather, the lining was made of enchanted gold thread stitched into a magical circuit, solidifying the [Elemental Resistance] and [Touch of Ice] spells. The former was constantly active to resist the summer heat of Valuvana, while the latter could be activated by the mage wearing the garment, allowing for instant cooling by actively channeling magic into it. The weather was as pleasant as spring for Rorschach at this moment.

The Magic Guild building was once again bustling with activity due to telegraph business. Merchants waiting at the entrance, seeing people fully armed in the sweltering summer heat, could only categorize them into three possibilities—a heretic from the Sand Kingdom, a madman, or a mage. In short, they were all people they couldn't afford to offend, and those blocking the entrance made way for them.

"Send a letter."

"Okay, the reporting room is on the right."

"No, send it via teleportation array."

Rorschach showed his badge, and the receptionist immediately greeted him with a smile, while the others in the lobby who were still waiting in line to send telegrams looked on with envy.

Rorschach didn't consider the word count and wrote several pages to Monsieur Pierre, which would have been a huge waste if he had sent a telegram.

The letter also included a reminder to Pierre Newsingen to pay attention to the election of delegates to the regional three-tiered conference: "You or your nephew can run for office. Don't worry about being outsiders. At worst, you can send your support to each village and cultivate relationships with influential locals. If the Newsingen family doesn't want to step into the limelight, you can sponsor a promising candidate. This conference should not be underestimated."

Rorschach remembered that in his previous life, when his village elected a leader, all they had to do was deliver rice, flour, and cooking oil to each household; if that wasn't enough, they might throw in a pack of cigarettes. Although Mr. Pierre was a businessman, the Estates-General hadn't been held for centuries, and Rorschach couldn't help but remind him that public opinion also had a price.

Even after they finished mailing the letters, the number of people inside and outside the guild remained the same. Despite being drenched in sweat from the sun, these people all had important messages to send by telegram to some place in the kingdom.

The carriages of these telegraph operators parked along the roadside made the originally wide road somewhat crowded.

"We need to separate the telegraph office as soon as possible." Rorschach doubted whether there were really that many urgent messages to send. It was very likely that some of the people in the long queue were simply following the crowd and trying new things.

"If you have been wronged, please appeal! Uphold justice and fear no power!"

A strange horse-drawn carriage appeared at one end of the road. It was a converted cargo wagon with the canopy of the trailer removed. A lawyer stood on it, his thick wool wig like a suffocating oven. But the lawyer persisted in shouting, repeating his promotional slogans through a tin loudspeaker to "bombard" passersby.

Two of his companions stood on the cart, one waving a flag painted with golden scales surrounded by irises, but the pillars of the scales were replaced with fasces—the symbol of the highest court of royal decree.

No, the "royal decree" can be removed. The third companion was scattering leaflets, and Rorschach used [Mage's Hand] to capture one from the air. The first sentence read, "The King has wrongly issued the royal decree to dissolve the Supreme Court, but the Holy Kingdom's fair trial will not be absent because of anyone's will!"

The judges who should have been fired by Charles XVI actually organized mobile courts in a satellite city of Valuvana, and lawyers in the capital spontaneously encouraged people to file lawsuits in these mobile courts.

This is a complete break with Charles XVI! Rorschach looked at the flyer, never expecting that there would be such a tough nut to crack among the robed nobles this time.

(End of this chapter)