Above the mage

Chapter 805 Heading North

Gao De withdrew his gaze from the square.

He wrote the entire script for "Anivia," and he also directed and edited the film.

Objectively speaking, this is a story that couldn't be more clichéd than the last.

The core plot is entirely based on the ancient official history narrated by Sunefa, with only basic artistic expansion.

Goddard emphasized the hardships faced by the Iceborn ancestors when they first entered the North, adding elements such as:

In a desperate situation of starvation, a mother bites her fingertip and feeds her newborn baby with her own blood; a husband saves the last bit of food and gives it all to his wife and children, while he himself freezes and starves to death—a scene that is supposed to be tear-jerking but is actually a common, overused plot.

Finally, at the critical moment when the Iceborn ancestors were on the verge of extinction, Anivia appeared like a divine intervention, saving the Iceborn ancestors from the brink of annihilation.

And it led humanity through the process of settling down, multiplying, and thriving, a stark contrast to the previous hardships of survival.

In this dark fantasy, there is almost no noteworthy value output, profound metaphors, or complex power struggles.

The plot is not complicated, nor is it particularly interesting; it simply tells a straightforward story.

It's even a bit too simple.

Those actors hired on short notice had never acted before, and their performances were mostly very obvious, with stiff movements and deliberate expressions.

The best performance was even given to a child named Moss.

But of course, this doesn't apply to those who have never seen a moving video course before. Please, who would bother to appreciate the course content?

For the people of Phoenix who had never experienced storytelling with sound and light, or ever seen a play, this was a completely different experience.

This kind of dynamic light and shadow, with sound, color, plot, and visuals, and a complete narrative, is not some poorly made bad film.

It is not just a novel and unprecedented experience, but a vibrant, dynamic, and complete world with both joy and sorrow.

"But what is the prototype for Anivia's image? I've never seen it before."

Sunafa's gaze was fixed on the strange bird soaring in the picture, which was actually formed by Gaode using ice crystals through his ice-controlling techniques. She asked curiously.

"You can call it a phoenix. It is often referred to as the king of birds and is considered an auspicious omen, symbolizing good fortune, prosperity, harmony, and beauty," Gao Dedao said.

The phoenix formed from condensed ice crystals, or perhaps it should be more accurately called the ice crystal phoenix.

He thought to himself, "A phoenix?" Sunefa raised an eyebrow.

Despite its prestigious title as the king of birds, she had never heard of it.

"These are creatures unique to my hometown."

Faced with Sunefa's confusion, Gao De explained, "If we choose birds that are commonplace, such as eagles and snow sparrows, no matter how we describe them, they will lack a sense of transcendence and mystery, which does not fit the bird design and high-class style of Anivia."

Ultimately, what people are most likely to feel awe for is always the things they have never seen before.

"Pretentious?" Sunafa raised an eyebrow again, puzzled by the Gaode-style vocabulary.

"More importantly, unfamiliar cultural images naturally have an appeal, so after thinking about it, I decided to use the phoenix, an unfamiliar image, as the official image of Anivia," Gao De waved his hand and changed the subject.

Elsa watched silently from the crowd.

The story is not complicated.

And in Elsa's opinion—it wasn't particularly exciting either.

The main problem is that the actors' acting skills are really quite poor.

As a former princess of a duchy, she had witnessed the elaborate dramas staged by the court, and the professional actors displayed full emotion and natural demeanor.

The dialogue and physical control far surpassed those of the group of temporarily recruited, reserved civilian actors.

But as Gao De explained, she didn't come here simply to see the demonic shadow.

So Elsa watched the entire hour and a half of "Anivia" very attentively.

Furthermore, I could clearly sense that everyone around me was completely immersed in the story of the demon, and their emotions were changing with the plot.

As the story nears its end.

Hundreds of years have passed since the beginning of the story, and the Iceborn people have finally settled down in the North, where their people have multiplied peacefully.

The years of hardship seemed to have come to a happy ending.

Just when everyone thought the story was heading towards a long period of peace, a hazy, enormous shadow slowly emerged from the depths of the distant snowstorm.

The deep, resonant narration echoed across the square at just the right moment.

"Beyond the tranquility, an unknown threat lurks silently on the edge of the snowfield. Where does that shadow come from, and what malice does it harbor?"

"Can the ancient inhabitants, rooted in the permafrost, weather this new crisis under the protection of Aeneas?"

Why did the name Anivia disappear into the annals of history?

The brightness of the screen gradually decreased until it finally sank into complete darkness.

Another voiceover followed: "Anivia II, stay tuned."

As soon as the words were spoken, the mages who had been waiting simultaneously activated the Light Spell, and a soft glow once again covered the entire square.

The premiere has officially ended.

The screening of "Anivia" has ended.

Yet countless people still stood there, their gazes fixed on the now-extinguished array of memory stones on the high platform.

They were still engrossed in the story they had just heard and were reluctant to leave.

The vast majority of people in the square were Ace people.

The ancestors who endured hardships within the light screen are their bloodline ancestors.

Therefore, without any obstacles, they all poured their emotions into the story.

Before this, all the Ace people only knew that their ancestors had settled in the North, but they never knew that the beginning of their tribe was so difficult.

For the first time, they glimpsed how insignificant and helpless their ancestors were when they set foot on this bitterly cold frozen land, and how they struggled to survive in the icy wilderness.

This was the first time they had ever heard of the name "Anivia" or that she existed.

Without Anivia, they wouldn't be where they are today.

Whispers of discussion spread like a tide.

Some people still had tears in their eyes, feeling sorrow for the suffering their ancestors had endured; others were filled with piety and awe, grateful for and subdued by Aeneas's protection.

Some people were puzzled as to why Anivia protected the Ace race, yet they had never heard of this name:

Many people silently recite the name Anivia, engraving it firmly in their hearts.

Elsa listened to the discussion among the people around her.

She was looking down, deep in thought.

To be honest, Elsa didn't really appreciate Anivia.

It wasn't just because the actors were visibly nervous and awkward, but also because she couldn't quite connect with the characters in the play.

Those early inhabitants who struggled to survive were the ancestors of the Ais people, not her ancestors.

For her, it was just an ancient past that belonged to someone else.

This was Elsa's most immediate thought.

But she was still amazed by Anivia.

Because she had begun to understand why Gao De valued something like Shadow Demon so much, even though it seemed like just a pastime.

They even established the Shadow Division and incorporated it into the administrative system.

In just ninety minutes, a poorly acted and straightforwardly plotted film, without relying on any other means, deeply imprinted the name Anivia in the hearts of so many people in the square, and in an absolutely positive way.

What's even more remarkable is that it's not a cold, force-instilled understanding, but rather something that resonates with the public from the bottom of their hearts.

What kind of "method" is this?

Masters of enchanting spells can manipulate the emotions of a group through complex ritual spells.

High-level charm can cause a large number of targets to develop similar cognitive biases at the same time.

However, these are all spell effects, which have time limits, countermeasures, and casting range limitations. Furthermore, traces of "tampering" can be discerned through magical traces.

Everything that happens here is completely independent of magic.

What's even more frightening is that its potential reach has no upper limit, and it can be constantly innovated and repeatedly replicated.

The premiere has ended, but there will be more than one screening.

The photo stone can be used repeatedly, and the Shadow Division will continue to screen it at appropriate times, even taking it to Valar Bay and Ironforge.

Until everyone remembered Anivia's name and knew of her existence.

Since the Shadow could be used to promote Anivia, it could certainly be used to promote anything the City Hall wanted to promote. Elsa's thoughts were already wandering.

Another month has passed since the premiere of "Anivia".

During these thirty days, relying on Canglan's aerial reconnaissance, Sunafa once again accurately captured two foreign mercenary teams that had infiltrated the northern border.

The captured mercenaries were all assigned to the Ministry of Construction's labor force, adding more than ten skilled laborers to Phoenix's infrastructure.

After taking down these two mercenary squads, Cang Lan made no new discoveries for quite some time.

.

The potential hazards have been largely eliminated.

Gaode is no longer willing to waste time on the trivial task of cleaning up.

He immediately set the schedule, instructing Sunefa to leave Canglan in Phoenix to guard against any potential follow-up foreign mercenary groups.

He and Sunefa prepared to head north together to find Viking Wolf Harbor.

Viking Wolf Harbor is actually extremely well hidden.

The Vikings made a living by raiding the high seas, which is equivalent to the pirates in this area.

For tribes that rely on roaming borders and plundering for survival, the geographical location of their lair is fundamental to their existence and their key to survival.

For thousands of years, they have deliberately concealed the port sites, erased navigational markers, and fabricated ocean current routes, never revealing a single piece of information to the outside world.

Aside from the Vikings, very few people across the entire continent truly know the exact location of Wolf Harbor.

Even though she was a native of the North, Sunefa was just like anyone else from the outside world, only knowing the name "Viking Wolf Harbor" but not its location.

But for the two of them, this was actually not a difficult task.

Both of them possess the Pure Ice bloodline and have awakened the Pure Ice spell [Ice Butterfly].

A cold wind swept over us.

The two walked side by side, their figures swiftly passing through the sky.

Although Gaode is only a third-tier city, thanks to its Boeing connection, its flight speed is not much slower than Sunefa's.

In Sunafa's eyes, a delicate, translucent ice crystal butterfly with thin wings was moving rapidly towards the due north-southwest direction, maintaining a constant distance of one and a half meters from her.

Guided by the faint light of the ice butterfly, her journey north with Gaode became clear and certain.

The two gradually moved further and further away from the area that the Ace people could effectively explore, and entered the far north.

This is frozen land untouched by the Ace people, with no trace of human habitation to be seen, and not even hunter teams have ventured here.

Because it is sparsely populated and the weather is far more extreme and changeable than in the central region, there are more and more species of ley line creatures here, and they are more ferocious.

As they traveled, they encountered numerous traces of strange beasts.

This includes many ley line creatures that have never been seen before in the Phoenix area.

Such as icefield burrowing spiders and ice beetles.

Although the purpose of this trip was to reach Wolf Harbor, with Sunefa, a top-tier combatant, by his side, God didn't mind dealing with a few leyline creatures along the way to accumulate some of his already depleted Origin Points.

However, the most common creatures are second or third ley line creatures, so most of the time, God can easily deal with them without Sunefa having to lift a finger.

While sweeping along the way, Gao De unexpectedly gained two more Tier 3 Origin Points, a rather unexpected reward.

"We should be there soon." The snowstorm had subsided slightly today, and Sunafa looked up into the distance and spoke softly.

Gao De nodded slightly, already sensing something amiss.

All the way north, there was a dry, biting wind, fierce and dry.

The breeze that was blowing in our faces at that moment had a faint, moist, salty scent, the unique aroma of sea salt, which must have been coming from the direction of the sea.

He opened his Mandora's Eye and gazed into the distance.

A faint light flickers in the depths of the eyes, dispelling the fog and snow, and penetrating the farthest horizon.

At the end of the vast gray-white snowfield, a narrow, dark strip of land appears below the horizon, stretching across the sky and earth.

Unlike a mountain ridge with its clearly defined undulating edges, that strip of land was more like a single, evenly painted, darker patch of surface.

As the two walked, the dark area widened and its outline became clearer.

Relying on Mandora's Eyes' extraordinary far-sightedness, God's vision far surpassed Sunefa's, allowing him to see the true appearance of that landscape first.

The tall trees stand closely connected, layer upon layer, resembling a giant, verdant wall stretching across the far northern snowfield.

In the desolate, barren, and sparsely populated far north, such a lush and dense forest is a unique spectacle.

Apart from Flora Forest, only Norse cedars can take root and grow in this extremely cold and desolate place in the entire North, forming a forest.

These are hardy trees unique to the North, unafraid of the harsh environment of the far north.

It was thanks to the Tono cedars that the Viking wolf descendants, who had suffered a devastating blow when they were wiped out, were able to rebuild their foundations, recuperate, and transform into a raiding tribe of the sea, making the sea their home and raiding their profession, and have survived to this day.

Gao De quickly gathered his thoughts.

He and Sunafa exchanged a glance, and both of them quickened their pace slightly, their figures cutting through the cold wind as they sped towards the distant forest.

However, when they were still some distance from the Norscedony Forest, Gao De frowned.

He looked in another direction.

The next moment, in his field of vision, nearly a hundred huge dark shadows rushed out from the side of the Norx Pine Forest and sped towards the Norx Pine Forest.

Those were giant birds of prey, each with an extremely wide wingspan, the shortest being no less than two zhang (approximately 6.6 meters).

It has a lithe and fierce build, and its wings, when spread out, resemble a giant black blade floating in the sky.

Its flight posture is swift and domineering, exuding the ferocious aura of a predator.

These giant birds are not common ley line creatures and do not exist around Phoenix.

Gao De had not seen it in the list of ley line creatures of the Sea Sentinels, so Gao De did not recognize it.

However, the impact was minimal. Gaode locked onto these unfamiliar ley line creatures with his vision, and with a slight thought, activated the [Know Yourself and Your Enemy [Rare]+] spell model within the spell star sea.

A glimmer of light flickered in his eyes, and he felt a momentary suffocation as a flood of fragmented information rushed into Gaode's mind.

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