Chapter 1011: Chapter 1009: Stable Core
The location of the volcano has drastically changed.
It has been transford into a flat area, with a deep grey flat building standing on it, resembling a shell with nurous patterns, or like a flattened hat. On top of the building, there are dozens of gaps over thirty centiters wide, intermittently spewing white steam and a pungent sll of sulfur, mixed with a rotten egg odor of hydrogen sulfide.
Silver-white tal bands from the mountain extend in here, converging and stretching in different directions into the building. From above, it looks like a blooming giant silver flower.
Long i’er pointed at the building, introducing, “This is the core. You can view it as the human heart, the energy source, responsible for transporting energy through the channels to various nodes. Let’s go inside and take a look.”
“Alright,” Richard nodded, walking with Long i’er on the scorching ground, roughly fifty degrees Celsius.
Soon, the two entered through the door.
Upon touching the ground inside the building, Richard felt the heat through his boots, with the exposed skin quickly losing moisture, becoming dry and slightly painful. Simultaneously, the sulfur and hydrogen sulfide odors intensified, adding an acidic sll.
Richard guessed it might be sulfur dioxide emitted from the volcano, dissolving in the nasal cavity and producing sulfurous acid.
Frowning, he activated the Free Energy Elents to form a pale grey Energy Film on the surface of his body, isolating himself from the external environnt, before starting to seriously examine the interior of the building.
The place was like a hall, with the floor paved with two-ter square cyan stone slabs, and a tal platform in the center, over ten ters in diater and more than one ter high.
All the silver-white tal bands that entered the building connected into the platform. Additionally, there were several funnel-shaped chimneys on the top of the platform, constantly emitting smoke, which dispersed through the gaps at the top of the hall.
The original volcano should be underneath the platform, but now it has been partially sealed after the transformation. The specific situation inside is unknown… Richard pondered.
He then noticed rubble and scattered tal plates left during the construction in the corners of the hall, not yet cleared, indicating the building was hastily made, possibly in less than a month.
“It’s a new structure…” Richard thought, lingering his gaze on the silver-white tal bands for a mont.
“Judging by this, Pompeii’s energy transmission topology is a star-shaped structure, which is sowhat interesting…” Richard raised his eyebrows, considering, “I wonder if whoever designed this realized the drawbacks of such a structure…”
“Wizard Richard, we are now at the actual core,” Long i’er began, “This is the place that provides endless energy to all of Pompeii, converting it to be useful in various ways, granting Pompeii incredible vitality. In the foreseeable future, Pompeii will beco a spell city, a place of wonder.
Then, most of Pompeii’s issues will be solved by energy, with impressive efficiency, able to rapidly produce a large amount of goods or food. Just one city could support people across hundreds of miles.
As the Energy Core continues to operate stably, Pompeii’s effectiveness and influence will keep increasing, eventually becoming a…”
Long i’er’s words were interrupted as a loud noise ca from inside the tal platform in the hall. Black smoke billowed out, followed by a surge of chaotic energy sweeping through the hall like a storm.
Long i’er’s expression shifted slightly, reacting swiftly, and almost as soon as the energy storm appeared, he reached into the air, forcefully gathering the chaotic energy into his palm. Then he clenched his fist and released, with all the chaotic energy vanishing entirely.
The hall returned to calm, though not everything was back to normal.
Inside the tal platform seed to have suffered irreversible damage, expelling more and more black smoke. Additionally, it was clear that about half of the silver-white tal bands connected to the tal platform had dimd Magic Runes, while the other half remained normal.
“Swish! Swish! Swish!”
Three figures appeared almost simultaneously from outside, rushing into the hall, two tall and one short, all in dark black robes—a typical wizard’s attire.
Upon arriving in the hall, the three quickly looked towards Long i’er.
Long i’er addressed them, “Nothing was done, yet an accident occurred. Seems there are still so unrefined areas that need urgent repair.”
“Yes, Supervisor,” the three nodded, activated Energy Film to protect themselves, and approached the tal platform. Upon reaching it, they pressed their hands on the surface, opening a door and entering one by one, then closing the door behind them as they headed further inside.
“It seems there are many complex devices inside the tal platform,” Richard thought.
Long i’er made a slight gesture with his hands with a sowhat helpless expression, saying, “To be honest, the Energy Core’s ongoing stable operation is still just a goal. As of now, it isn’t very stable. On one hand, it’s still in the initial stages of construction, so small issues are inevitable. On the other hand, it connects all of Pompeii’s nodes, requiring constant managent of various energy flows and intensities, which is rather burdenso. So every couple of days, accidents like this happen, which you just happened to witness.
Truth be told, I’m almost accustod to it. The only thing sowhat unacceptable is that whenever the Energy Core malfunctions, even a small mishap that gets fixed in a few minutes can impact a significant number of Pompeii’s energy nodes, requiring extra effort for adjustnts, which is a bit ntally exhausting, even more than the matches I had with you before.”
Half-jokingly and half-complaining, Long i’er finished his words, lightly shook his head, and was about to leave with Richard.
Richard pursed his lips and suddenly suggested, “What about modifying the channel structure?”
“Modify the channel structure?” Long i’er was initially startled, then squinted his eyes, saying, “Wizard Richard, don’t tell your idea is to connect all the nodes with a single channel.
The first design at the beginning was like that, but it resulted in greater problems, not only failing to improve anything but also potentially causing all nodes to go offline if any channel section encountered an issue. After learning several lessons, it was changed to the current form.”
So initially it was a ring or bus structure, and then later changed to a star structure, Richard thought, shaking his head, looking at Long i’er, he said, “Supervisor, don’t worry, I’m not suggesting connecting all nodes with a single line. What I’m proposing is designing nodes of different levels, like First-level Nodes, Secondary Nodes, Third-level Nodes, etc.
Consider the Energy Core as Level 0, and use it to connect multiple First-level Nodes, then each First-level Node connects multiple Secondary Nodes, and each Secondary Node further connects multiple Third-level Nodes, and so on. The whole structure would resemble a tree branching out from the core, splitting and increasing. Actually, according to what you’ve said, the structure between each node and energy-consuming equipnt already resembles this. I just made it more complex.”
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