"I actually arrived in just 10 minutes..."
Inside the Purple River Beaver Car Park of the third new Nabistin, a floating car descended from the azure aerial track. Without any guidance, the automatic driving system of the floating car directly parked in the designated spot.
Nona opened the Gospel Book to check her travel traces, the map distinctly marked that just ten minutes ago she was still at the Senheiser Building in Vatican Mura, but now she had arrived at the capital of the Kingdom of Gospel, the blessed land of the All-knowing Weaver, Nabistin!
It must be noted that Nabistin is at the core of the Gospel, while Vatican Mura spans the southwestern edge of the Gospel, a distance exceeding twelve hundred kilometers!
"This speed has completely surpassed that of high-speed trains, almost comparable with vehicles traveling at ten times supersonic speed, and yet what we are riding in is just Salome’s 10-string sports car with materials far from comparable to alchemy-flying vehicles; moreover, we didn’t implement any protective measures against such supersonic speeds, and the whole process was a smooth drive," Nona said, biting her nail, "Unless space gates become entirely popular, no other means of transportation could possibly match this ’Azure Sky track.’"
"No wonder they only sent us the invitation today," Qinna tapped lightly on the steering wheel while smiling, "It turns out they wanted us to personally experience this central focus of future development."
Usually, when a normal kingdom wants to test new technologies, systems, or policies, they designate a dedicated test area to see the results, and if successful, they follow up nationwide. But the Kingdom of Gospel is entirely different in this respect—all reforms start from the Imperial City, Nabistin. Even if other cities invent some advanced technology, it will essentially be first popularized in Nabistin.
It’s not that Nabistin suppresses other cities to steal their inventions; it’s just that Nabistin’s efficiency is too high—while other cities are still researching and planning, Nabistin is already in production, akin to when you haven’t received your homework assignment and the class representative next door has already completed it.
Moreover, it has indeed been proven that the technologies employed by Nabistin are exceptional, and Nabistin always delivers a perfect answer sheet to the nation. Over time, the other cities have become lazy to do their homework themselves and simply copy from Nabistin.
The double-layer city was one example, and now the Azure Sky track is another.
Today is June 18, and it’s been 3 days since the ninth Weaving List. This afternoon Qinna and Nona were discussing when the Gospel List might come out when the invitation from Nabistin arrived in their Gospel Books, demanding them to depart by 18:30 at the latest and arrive in Nabistin using the Azure Sky track by 19:00.
They had heard of, but never attended, Nabistin’s court banquet—the last attendees from half a century ago were the preceding generation of Clan Leaders from the Six Emblems—but it seemed impossible to invite guests on the afternoon of the event itself, requesting them to cross over a thousand kilometers within 30 minutes to reach the Imperial City, as if they were just going to a neighboring community for a meal.
Yet now, they truly felt like they had just journeyed to a neighboring community.
Qinna flipped through the Gospel Book to check the information on the ’Azure Sky track’, surprisingly no points were required; it seemed as if someone had covered the expense for them already.
The technology of the ’Azure Sky track’ is a deep application by the Space Faction, Nona could hardly understand it, even Holy Sanctuary Mage Qinna could barely comprehend it.
To put it simply, imagine space as a fluffed sponge, where all objects move through the gaps of the sponge. Now, if a hole is smashed into the sponge, when objects slide along the bottom of the hole, due to gravity, the speed of their descent increases progressively—that’s the principle behind the Azure Sky Track.
Now the entire spatial sponge of the Kingdom of Gospel has been distorted, with Nabistin at the ’bottom of the pit’, and all Azure Sky tracks being ’the walls of the pit’. As Qinna and her companions travel on the Azure Sky track toward Nabistin, they are like sand sliding down the walls of the pit, not only are they ’approaching’ Nabistin, Nabistin is also ’pulling’ them closer.
In the absence of feasible space gates, this was undoubtedly the most cost-effective means of transportation. To know that two stably linked space gates require a Holy Sanctuary Mage a year to construct and continuous maintenance afterwards to avoid any chaotic spatial flows, indicating an extremely delicate facility.
However, the Azure Sky track didn’t need as much protocol, just needing to subdue a part of space. Although the spatial pit also needs maintenance by the sanctuary, one spatial pit can extend to over a dozen Azure Sky tracks, slightly less costly than space gates, but with popularity several times that of space gates.
The intentions of the Yisu royalty were quite clear: just like the nationwide construction of double-layer cities over the past fifty years to increase volume ratio, the plan for the next fifty years is to build a transportation network of Azure Sky tracks, reducing the travel time between any two cities to within 30 minutes.
Moreover, unlike other policies, this one appears to be an irrevocable decision by Yisu, allowing no room for negotiation.
Yisu royalty seldom enforce policies strictly but rather afford cities enough autonomy where mayors can selectively implement the policies they need. For instance, ’Full Popularization of Smart Home Technology’, Vatican Mura did not enact this as many tasks are still serviced by humans, and even maids still exist.
Or to say, the entirety of Vatican Mura is an inefficient, labor-intensive, ’Old Era City’ with the lowest level of automation among Level 2 cities. The reason Vatican Mura is so ’feudal’ is that the city’s revenue relies entirely on mermaid scent; the city’s gross domestic productivity is negligible, so there’s no need to increase the productivity of its citizens.