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Chapter 118 Prologue

After all, Langdon didn't pull Cecil's hair. That straight hair was very obstructive to all the gays. All the gay knights agreed: Cecil's haircut is too ugly!

Black hair and black eyes, what a cute appearance, full of wisdom and stability, why should it be cut like a monk?It should be longer and tie a blue or ruby ​​hair tie, it will be perfect!

After hearing such persuasion, Cecil expressed that under such hygienic conditions, he would rather have his hair long than shave it.

The method of making smoke ink is very simple, roughly it is to use the charcoal ash left over from the burning of wood products. The problem is that it is difficult to obtain stable colloid.Bamboo paper is relatively smooth and tough, but relatively speaking, its water absorption is not so stable, so it is best to get glue with good viscosity to make ink.

Cecil spent several days at the printing workshop, completely forgetting Langdon.

First, the glue was boiled with cowhide. At the beginning, it was either burnt or mushy. After finally mastering the heat, it did not mix well with the tung oil fumes. I don’t know why there were layers. After a long time, it still couldn't fully integrate.In the end, they found a hired worker with the blood of the giant race, held a wooden stick and stirred for a whole day, and it was finally over after confirming that they got a barrel of sticky stuff, and the only thing left was to wait anxiously for the experiment.

"What about the engraving?" a skilled worker from the printing workshop asked, "My lord, I can't do it."

He has heard enough of these words, Cecil will not get angry, calmly asked the reason, or the previous reasons, he pondered for a moment, said: "Otherwise, let's use a stupid way, hand carved Bar."

Hand lettering and engraving are not worth it. Obviously, movable type is more convenient. Engraving blocks cannot be used for changing books, and movable type can be reused.However, it was more suitable to use movable metal type in this way, so Cecil had to switch to the foundry.Before entering the outer ring of the foundry, he saw a very uncomfortable thing lying on the ground before he could scold the flame goblins.

It was a group of naked men holding a lantern in an extremely seductive S posture. It was made of copper and looked quite exquisite. The smiles on the faces of the naked men who were only a dozen centimeters tall were lifelike. Little effort.

Cecil first thought that it was a bad idea made by some knight, but after walking a few steps, he felt that something was wrong. He stepped back and stared at the naked men for a long time, and suddenly realized that the shape of the lantern was not exactly the street light he asked for?

Feelings of doubt and explosion alternated in Cecil's chest. He suppressed his temper and called the person in charge of the flame goblin, a goblin with explosive hairstyle and scars on his face, and asked, "What is this?"

"The oil lamp you ordered." The flame goblin said the death words.

Cecil tried hard not to shout out, and said calmly: "What I want is a beautiful woman, how does this look like a woman?"

"There are women. Didn't you order another batch later? We said we were going to put the Vulcan logo on it. Also, considering that this is the Gay Knights, after discussing it, we agreed that naked men It will be loved by all the lords." The flame goblin said confidently, "What do you think?"

Cecil: "..."

Shit!

Thinking of the naked men holding lamps on both sides of the Yuetuo Expressway, Cecil felt as if he had a heart attack, but he couldn't get angry, because he agreed to this thing, who knew these "Smurfs" were so "considerate" This will "add drama"!

Groundhog screams × ID number.

At this time, it is too late to change, not only a waste of materials but also a waste of time, after all, it needs to consume coal to redo it.

Cecil really wanted to throw these "Smurfs" into the sea. As fanatics of the God of Fire, they were extremely resistant to the ocean, almost to the point of turning pale when talking about the sea. They didn't even dare to talk about the artificial lake in Ebo Closer, I have been here for so long, and I have hardly left Moon City.However, these flame goblins are quick to learn anything related to casting, absorbing all kinds of knowledge like a sponge, and they are cold-hearted. They don't care about taboos or unspoken rules at all, and they don't care about the explicit rules.

Talent is still needed!

"I'm going to make some small rectangles." Cecil pretended to be calm and said, "It's very small, about the size of a little finger."

"What are you going to do?" asked the flame goblin.

"I want to engrave characters on it." Cecil briefly talked about the movable type, and then said, "You have to make sure that this thing can be engraved with ordinary tools."

The flame goblin thought for a while, and said, "Although I don't know what you are doing with this, are you sure that metal can stick to ink?"

Cecil was taken aback for a moment, then hesitated: "It should be... yes."

"Cold stuff like metal doesn't go well with anything watery."

The flame goblin's reminder came very timely. Cecil was not sure, so he finally took a small piece of copper to test it. Fortunately, the smoke ink almost covered the paper. Although there were some omissions in some places, the problem was not serious.

"No problem at all." Cecil turned to look for the flame goblin, "Do it."

"Oh, but we haven't finished the previous order yet." The flame goblin said regretfully.

"What else do you order?" Cecil asked cautiously.

"Oil lamp."

"Male oil lamp or female oil lamp?"

"male……"

"Don't be a male oil lamp anymore!" Cecil roared, "Make me a female oil lamp! The male oil lamp is just a lantern, and you are not allowed to be a naked man!"

The flame goblin was yelled and moved back a few steps, and said cautiously: "I'm thinking of you."

"If you think about me like that again, I'll put you on fire on the side of the road!" Cecil threatened viciously.

The flame goblin first looked terrified, and then slowly revealed a perverted smile...

Cecil: "..."

Nima, why can't I hire normal people?

During the meal, Cecil kept complaining to Langdon about the incident.

Langdon has always been an excellent listener, always able to give the right advice at the right time, listening to nonsense without being wordy, and it is still the same today: "About movable type, what kind of characters are you going to engrave?"

Cecil was taken aback: "What kind of text?"

"It's the words printed with movable type, isn't it meant to make the words one by one?" Langdon said.

"Of course it's Chinese." Cecil blurted out almost without thinking, "The coded characters are too wasteful, and the total demand for pictographs is even less." Other opinions, or there are any special words in this world.

Fortunately, Langdon immediately accepted the opinion: "It is possible, but you are the only one who understands your mother tongue, so you won't be going to engrave it then?"

"Uh..." Cecil didn't expect this, "I don't need to engrave it myself, I just write it down."

Langdon asked, "How much do you estimate to be writing?"

Cecil is a little confused. It is best to read more than 3000 characters in Chinese. If you add some uncommon or professional words, more are possible.It is easy to write a thousand characters, but it is not easy to write more than 3000 non-repetitive characters.

"How about I take a book that everyone reads and translate first?" Cecil said, "Which book is the most widely read in the world?"

"Interpreting magic," Langdon said.

Cecil suddenly died, and Tongyi Magic couldn't translate magic-related information into Chinese, at least he couldn't understand it!How can this be done?

"Langdon, what is your native language?" Cecil asked curiously.

"It's like this." Langdon dipped some soup and drew a strange symbol on the wooden table, probably a lot of earthworms arranged in various S shapes and some symbols of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, "This is not the mother tongue of the ancient remnants , this is my parents, the mother tongue of the ancient survivors is not suitable for written expression."

Having said that, Cecil became even more curious: "Are you born with it?"

"It's a bit similar to the natural inheritance of dragons." Langdon didn't seem to mind, "When we grow up to a certain age, we will naturally learn some knowledge of the ancient remnants, such as language, appearance, and some... things." He dipped Tang drew a circle on the table, and then extended several lines from the circle. These lines have subtle and special curvatures, each of which is different, and finally formed a pattern of various circles. There is a box.

"Is this a word?" Cecil was super curious, "It looks like an ideogram, what does it mean?"

"I think a little idiot is cute, but sometimes it can be too idiotic," Langdon said.

"Fuck, such a long sentence?" Cecil said in surprise, "You are all round!"

"The plane can't represent the characters of the ancient survivors, it's just for you to read." Langdon said.

Langdon wrote a few more characters, and Cecil saw that each character was a square shape, but the position where the circles intersected was different.

I always feel like the words of aliens in the film "Arrival", or do aliens like to use circles?

"Actually, this word should be three-dimensional." Langdon put his hand up in the air, and after chanting, the words originally written on the table appeared in his palm in a faint light, and the circle turned into a sphere. The spheres are inlaid with each other, moving slowly, like a celestial body.

Wow--

It was only at this time that Cecil had the real feeling of living in the magical world. The peerless handsome man held the "star" in his hand. This scene was really dreamy.

[I think a little idiot is cute, but sometimes it's too idiotic. 】

Cecil suddenly realized that he understood this sentence, but he didn't understand it just now: "Wait a minute, why do I understand this sentence by myself now?"

"This has something to do with interpreting magic." Langdon folded his palms together and said with a smile, "You must have heard this saying. Interpreting magic is to understand what the other party wants to express rather than the language itself, right? Have you ever thought about it? , Written language has no speakers, why can it be understood? Sometimes, someone speaks a language that has never been used, and the magic of interpretation cannot translate it. If he explains the word or the meaning of the word to others once, then , the translation magic all over the world can be translated correctly. In fact, not only translation magic, but also some magics with a long history have similar characteristics. We call this 'cluster'. Do you understand what it means? "

The first word that popped into Cecil's mind was: Are these magics connected to a host computer?

It was just a flash of inspiration, but it really made sense when he thought about it carefully, and he couldn't help thinking: Is there a huge machine or magic circle somewhere in this world that monitors people who use the same magic all over the world, such as Interpretation magic collects every information obtained and aggregates it before sending it to other people who use interpretation magic, just like a global magic computer server.

Speaking of which, isn't the parchment scroll of the Gay Knights a similar product?

"What were you thinking?" Langdon asked.

"I was wondering which star you came from." Cecil mumbled before realizing what he had said, and looked at Langdon in panic, only to be relieved when he found that the smiling and gentle god was still in his eyes, "I miss you all from where."

"I want to know too." Langdon smiled and said, "Many magics that have been handed down from the time of the ancient remnants have 'cluster properties', so if you see a certain word or words, the translation magic doesn't work, then That means no one in the world has ever spoken that language. But don’t worry, it’s rare.”

Cecil echoed: "That's right, it's been so many years since Interpreting Magic, I've collected everything that needs to be collected."

Langdon smiled and said, "In other words, all the damned are dead."

Cecil: "..."

Movable type printing finally chose Tambunita's characters, according to Langdon, this is for "foreign style" and to appear taller.Although Cecil is a bit regretful, Chinese cannot correspond to magic words. If Chinese is used, careless people may not notice it, but smart people will definitely be able to see the connection at a glance.

Insurance first.

Movable type printing progressed very quickly, and each copper character was made into a small strip, with a word at the top and a hole at the bottom.Before printing, first make a box full of small squares, each small grid is fixed with a thin column, the thin column is covered with glue, the movable type is inserted on the thin column and fixed, and a flat plate is used to ensure that the movable type The top and bottom are even, and the soot after burning tung oil is mixed with the glue boiled from biological skin to get smoke ink, which is painted on the characters, and then printed on the paper.

The description is just a few lines of writing, but to really achieve this step requires countless craftsmen to carve movable type day and night, paper workshops to get the best ratio of paper through thousands of experiments, and smoke and ink workers to adjust the glue and soot again and again. In order to improve the proportion, the printer has to repeatedly test the use of glue, so as not to be unable to remove the movable type later or to prevent the movable type from falling off during printing.

Every detail and work has condensed the painstaking efforts of countless people. Cecil only contributed one idea. It is those ordinary people in this world who really reach the other side of success. They don't know that they are creating legends, but they are became part of history.

When he saw the world's first paper book, Cecil was of course very excited. He stroked the smooth and smooth pages, and opened it gently. What came into his eyes was a huge title: A Moment of Spring Night is Worth Thousands of Gold.

The main content of this world's first paper book is as follows: A young man from the countryside who went to Arge to study at the University of Magic accidentally rescued the only daughter of a legendary mage, gained favor and learned ancient legendary magic, became a legendary mage and saved the world story.

This is really not a deliberate spoof by Cecil, but a conclusion drawn after investigations by the leadership of the Gay Knights and people from all walks of life in the city. Children of magic, regardless of male or female race, will take a look at the story once or twice.

In short, gossip is better than gossip in terms of simply attracting attention. On this point, Carroll also contributed a lot. The magic elks surrounded Cecil day and night and told various stories. As soon as he closed his eyes, he saw countless talents and beauties forming a dragon hunting team walking in the dark forest and meeting gods...

Next, is the prologue before the war of gods: the propaganda war.

The weather gradually became less hot, and before the potatoes ripened again, Cecil began to prepare for a large-scale publicity campaign.In the past six months, he has been paying attention to the news of the carriage firm. Not only is it open for refitting, price reduction and discounts, but also carried out various activities such as buy one and get a free stool. This of course triggered a wave of sales, but it did not go as expected. crazy shopping.

The customers seemed to be waiting for something, silently watching with cold eyes.

Not only Tambunita, but even the residents of Great Glory Kingdom, which is some distance away from Tambunita, have noticed something, paper, food, unsightly rammed earth, exquisite soap, and the ordinary Weird, yet refreshing teas all bearing the same brand.

Recently, a bunch of four-wheeled carriages have appeared in the streets and alleys of Tambuneta. They are very tall and have undergone obvious modifications. These carriages can even spread out the walls of the carriages completely. The stage, the actors can perform directly on it, and go along with the singing, which is very convenient.

This is the propaganda team of Moon City.

Cecil asked Langdon in detail to understand the key points of sales.

Publicly promoting a certain item is not acceptable. Selling food at a magic expo is another matter. It is a kind of fringe behavior, but going directly to a magic country to advertise a product of an obviously foreign civilization is a face-to-face behavior. Absolutely not.

Drama, meanwhile, is okay.There are bards in this world, just as Cecil imagined, running around the world with musical instruments, singing various stories and songs.A choir-like group, mostly serving a deity, such as the priests of Ebo, would fall into this category.There are singers who will spread the story in the form of singing, and there are also operas, like "Les Miserables" and Chinese dramas, where all the lyrics appear in the form of singing.

These are entertainments that are popular among noble mages and ordinary people. Of course, there will definitely be advertisements inserted in them, such as the heroine singing "I have never seen a rose dress, like the stars falling into the mortal world". kind of thing.

However, there is no stage play that restores reality in this world.

Naked-eye 3D, which is difficult to achieve on earth, is just a cheap illusion here. It doesn't need to be seen from all angles, and it doesn't need everyone to be immersed in it. It only needs to paste a background in a small area of ​​the stage. Simple Let's just understand it.

In this way, the carriage theater troupe of Yuecheng appeared on the streets of Tanbunita, and with the book story "A Moment of Spring Evening is Worth a Thousand Gold", they secretly sold the four-wheeled carriage.

The hero appears in a four-wheeled carriage, dressed in ordinary people's clothes, and sings ordinary people's ditties.When he stopped, the carriage unfolded and formed a stage with the other three carriages. The male protagonist jumped on it and met the female protagonist who came out of another carriage. The baby is in charge - the male protagonist beats away the monsters, helps the female protagonist, and takes out the smoked beef jerky and fried potato chips, as well as the kettle made of bamboo tubes.They knew each other, fell in love, and supported each other to face life together, and finally became a couple of gods and gods, leaving behind a legend through the ages.

If possible, Cecil really wanted to get rid of all the magical elements in this story, but the preferences of the masses did not allow him to do so. In desperation, he could only compromise with the market.

The carriage performs a short section every day, leaving a suspense, and sells beef jerky, fried skewers, milk tea and grilled oysters at the same time. cheap goods.There is also a strange lamp hanging on the carriage, and a beautiful woman is holding a "bowl". On the "bowl" is a bean-sized flame, which will not be extinguished even if there is a little wind, and there will be no unpleasant black smoke and influence. The scream of the human heart.

After moving bricks for a day, call relatives and friends, go to the small square where the carriages are located in groups of three or four, order dinner, sit in the countless dotted oil lamps, talking and laughing, waiting for the opening of today’s drama. The trend of the bunita nationals.

The commoners looked at the four-wheeled carriage, ate ordinary food, bought oil lamps to light their way home, and listened to "the hero and heroine from Moon City talk to each other". Everything was so pleasant.They don't think about the meaning of these things, but someone does.

When someone discovered that the carriage was still selling books, the waves in the darkness accelerated in an instant. Even Cecil was aware of the dead silence before the storm. It seems that something is brewing.

The Gay Knights have a well-developed news channel and communication method. When Cecil got the news, what came out of his heart was not anger but surprise.

Langdon broke the news at the leadership dinner that night: "Somebody knocked off the paper book."

This will happen sooner or later, as Cecil expected. After all, it is too easy to use magic to analyze the raw materials of paper.

"Their paper books sell for ten nita, and the price increases or decreases according to the content." Langdon continued.

Hearing this, Cecil's tone became abnormal: "There is a saying in my hometown, there is a way to heaven if you don't go, but there is no way to hell to come in. These pirates seem to be not very smart. ah……"