Chapter 450: The Prologue of the Printing Age

The development of technology often takes the form of a tree branch. When a key technical difficulty is broken, many products behind this technical difficulty will develop one by one logically. In Gawain's view, Rebecca and Nicholas This "arcane transfer cylinder" made by eggs is such a key technical difficulty. It seems to be just the core component of a printing press, but what it solves behind is a key step in transforming traditional illusion magic into industrial printing products. .

As long as this critical step is taken, various printing technologies based on the principle of "arcane transfer" will develop naturally.

The only thing that went beyond Gawain's expectations was Rebecca's keen ability to "detect new things", as well as his unconstrained ideas.

He told Rebecca about the concepts of faxing and network printing, and the girl seemed very happy. She cracked a lot of her thoughts and follow-up improvement plans. In the end, she even ran to Gawain's desk. Grabbing a pen and paper, she drew up a slew of sketches to build her imaginary Leyline fax workflow, and a matching miniaturized printing device with communication capabilities. In fact, Gawain felt that this kind of equipment should be called a "printer"... But in front of the peculiar working principle of the Arcane Transfer Device, he decided not to worry about this conceptual issue.

"Lord Ancestor Ancestor, do you think this is feasible?" Rebecca grabbed the sketch she just drew and ran to Gawain happily, because she was too impatient to draw, the girl's face and hands were covered with ink , "I think in addition to the machines that can print newspapers in large quantities, places like the Government Affairs Office also need small printing machines for printing documents and so on. These machines can all be connected together..."

Gawain looked at Rebecca, at the ink accidentally stained on her face, at the way she was dancing with joy, and couldn't help remembering what Hetty once said

Although the Cecil family does not communicate closely with other nobles, the style of comparison between nobles has always prevailed, and in the evaluation circle of the southern noble lady, Rebecca has always been known as "clumsy", she is in etiquette The clumsiness in the course is regarded as a typical example of "natural stupidity", and her keenness to "explore" in the castle and study machinery always makes herself appear dirty in front of everyone, which is particularly aggravating to others. The negative impression of this "last descendant of the Cecil family"...

The corners of Gawain's mouth twitched up, how could the noble ladies who can only slowly drink tea and grow flowers in the castle, and even touch the scissors need eight steps to be smarter than his roe deer?

"Lord Ancestor, what are you laughing at?" Rebecca asked curiously, "Is there anything wrong with the process I designed?"

"No problem, I believe that this set of things will play a big role in the operation of the Government Affairs Office," Gao Wen smiled and waved his hands, "but we still have to take it step by step. The bottleneck of newspaper and book printing.

"

At present, general education has been implemented in the territory for more than a year, and the effect is of course obvious. However, with the rapid increase of population and the rapid expansion of territory, the existing general education model will inevitably face challenges, and one of the most important challenges is Just the textbook.

Gao Wen needs a large number of cheap textbooks with a unified standard. Only by letting these textbooks cover the entire southern border along with general education can he successfully remove the ignorance that shrouds the people.

At present, the textbooks used by Cecil General College are still "emergency products" printed in small batches by traditional craftsmanship. The current teaching scale is already stretched, and it is necessary to print enough books to meet the needs of millions or even thousands in the entire southern border. The textbooks needed to literate 10,000 people...it would be an impossible task without industrial printing presses.

That's why Gawain attaches so much importance to the printing press project led by Rebecca.

He turned to Nicholas Eggman: "Nicholas, how long does it take to make a prototype?"

The silver-white ball floating next to him made a confident voice: "At most one and a half days, including the time for debugging and designing the assembly line exploded diagram. I am 99% sure that I can succeed at the first time because the most critical arcane transfer cylinder has been fixed. , the rest of the structure is no harder for me than pinching a few gears."

"Very good, make a prototype first, the sooner the better."

The silver-white ball floated up and down slightly: "You will see it soon."

Afterwards, after discussing a little bit about the work of the Institute of Magical Technology, and after finalizing the reward plan for members who have made outstanding contributions to the research team, Rebecca left Gawain's study with the sketch she just drew satisfactorily.

Humming a casual tune and walking briskly, the Cecil heir walks through the corridors. Neither humming while walking nor walking in a dignified manner seems orthodox. What the noble lady did, but everyone in this mansion has long been familiar with the eldest lady with this style of painting, and even Heidi, who has always been strict, has given up on correcting Rebecca's behavior by now.

When walking through the corner of the corridor, Rebecca suddenly stopped and she saw that the door not far ahead was slightly open, and there was light leaking from it.

She recognized that it was Betty's room and walked briskly over to see what Betty was doing.

After pushing the door open, she saw that the little maid who escaped from the old territory with everyone in confusion and followed her to this day was sitting at the small desk beside the bed, looking down attentively at something.

The furnishings in the room are very simple, except for the necessary beds, tables and chairs, there is only a small wardrobe and two small boxes in the corner.

A slightly old frying pan hangs on the wall beside the bed. It looks a little weird, but it is Betty's baby. Now Betty is no longer the lowest kitchen maid, so she put her most cherished pan. Hang it in the room, no one is allowed to touch it.

Rebecca knocked lightly on the door next to her, and the sudden sound startled the little maid. The latter raised her head and quickly stood up after seeing Rebecca, but Rebecca interrupted before she could bow. She said, "I'm fine, I just came to see what you're doing."

With that signature dull expression, Betty raised her finger and pointed to the small desk next to her: "...read books."

Rebecca leaned over and glanced curiously, and saw a wizard and potion bottle spread out on the desk. This is a very easy to understand book, although the title has the word "wizard", But the actual content is basically a simple story. She remembered that she also had such a book when she was a child. It was one of the earliest enlightenment books that the children of the wealthy class in this era came into contact with.

The book is very old, and has obviously been read many, many times, the writing is slightly blurred in some places, and the edges of the paper are badly worn, but it can be seen that it has been carefully treated and preserved to this day.

"This is... lent to me by Mr. Santis," Betty explained the origin of the book. "I'm almost finished, and I will return it after reading it."

Rebecca glanced at Betty in surprise. At this moment, a thought suddenly popped up in her mind, which was often in a state of release:

Betty is only two years younger than her.

However, this girl, who is only two years younger than her, has only just learned the basic words, and has only just been able to understand an enlightenment book that she had already read when she was seven years old, and read it with great interest.

And if his ancestors hadn't insisted on promoting general education, this little maid would probably never have had the chance to touch this book in her life.

Rebecca blinked, she had never regarded Betty as a "low-class person", she and everyone in the castle got along like family, even the lowest-level chores who shoveled horse dung and Betty. The kitchen maid, when she was very young, she even took Betty and several other little maids of the same age to organize a small castle adventure, and they played like sisters.

But why she never noticed... Betty didn't even have a book.

Rebecca was a little confused. She wondered why she had not noticed this kind of thing in her more than ten years of life, but she felt that the reason why she noticed it today was because the success of the "Arcane Printing Press" was in sight.

Ancestors once said that when the printing press is popularized, the printing era will come, and the monopoly of a few people on knowledge and knowledge dissemination channels will be completely broken. There should be a few books of their own.

Industrial printing is an indispensable link in the promotion of Cecil's "general education" to the entire southern border.

"Betty, do you want a book? Your own book."

Betty was a little confused, but she thought about it seriously, and nodded vigorously: "Yeah."

Rebecca laughed: "I'll give you a few books in a while!"

In fact, she can send Betty a lot of books now, whether they are simple enlightenment books or real magic books, but she feels that those books do not meet her requirements. After the books made in the way of production are printed, it is meaningful to select suitable ones from them and give them to Betty.

After Betty heard Rebecca's words, she was confused for a long time, and after a long time she said in a daze: "But books are very valuable..."

"No, books won't be so precious anymore. My ancestors once said that knowledge can be precious, but it shouldn't be noble, and it shouldn't be expensive," Rebecca shook her head, noticing Betty's confused eyes. He laughed, "It's okay, it's okay if you don't understand, and soon you will see it with your own eyes. From now on, every ordinary person in this land can not only read, but also read newspapers and own belongings. My own book! Lots and lots of books!"

Betty opened her eyes wide and stared blankly at the "Miss Viscount" who could almost be said to have grown up with her. After a long time, she said, "Miss... this way of speaking is a bit like a master."

Rebecca scratched her hair: "Hey, yeah, I think so too."

...

The first available industrial printing press was completed a little earlier than Gawain had expected.

On the afternoon of the second day alone, he saw this large machine, which was personally processed, assembled and debugged by Mr. Nicholas Egg, on the "Mechanical Round Table" of the Mechanical Research Institute.

Hetty and Rebecca, who was the general manager of the project, and Godwin Orlando, the president of Cecil Newspaper and the head of the press and publication department, came to the Mechanical Research Institute with Gao Wen to inspect the equipment.

The new printing press is like a crouching steel monster, with long metal grooves extending out from the front and back. The "arcane transfer cylinder" is fixed above a flat plate in the center of the machine by a movable bracket, and the outline of the gears and connecting rods can be vaguely seen inside the bracket.

Under the transfer device, there are the guide grooves for the paper to pass through, and the ink board at the bottom.

In addition to these main structures, there is an "attachment structure" on the side of the printing press that looks like a separate machine. At the top of the square, half-person-high metal box, Gawain saw the "large-scale" mentioned by Rebecca. Palette keyboard", and the "editing mechanism" used to control the crystal projected inside the arcane transfer cylinder, a dizzying number of dozens of keys arranged in a fan shape, mounted on a sloping metal panel, while in the On the top of the metal panel, you can also see a small projection crystal.

That projection crystal should be used to provide a "preview".

From the appearance alone, the complexity of this device far exceeds that of any kind of magic machine made in the previous territory.

If it wasn't for the ability of Nicholas Egg, Gawain would never believe that this thing was built in a day.

"Look, I'll tell you, you'll see it soon!" Nicholas Eggman said with pride in his voice, floating beside the new machine.

Gawain looked at the industrial printing press in front of him in amazement, but what was even more surprising was that the shape of Nicholas Egg, the silver-white metal ball that was originally spherical, now looked a little square.

Although it has not yet reached the level of angularity, it is indeed a bit square.

"How did you... shape up like this?"

"Oh, I've been tossing this printing press for a while now. It's fine if I'm tired, just go back and sleep."

Gao Wen: "..."

What's wrong with this ball?

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