"Is that so?" Roland couldn't help but feel a surge of joy. Judging by Barov's tone, it was clearly more than just the facilities being built. "You heard the signal tone too?"

The so-called Iron Tower Project was the first step in the radio communication plan—to meet the enormous antenna requirements for long waves, the Construction Department erected nearly fifty-meter-high transmitting and receiving towers in both North Slope Mountain and Silverlight City. More than half of the towers were only as thick as a human torso, making them look like slender needles from a distance. Coupled with retractable hydrogen balloons towing metal wires, the antenna length could reach over a hundred meters.

In terms of construction difficulty alone, it wasn't particularly noteworthy, but the communication tower was a systematic project, and the transmitting and receiving equipment located below the tower was the key. Because electromagnetic waves would inevitably be emitted multiple times during the debugging process, even if it was a chaotic signal, it was normal for it to be captured on the other side in this world without any interference.

"Indeed, Your Majesty," Barov replied excitedly, "It does currently have, as you said, some kind of wonderful reaction. However... I'm not sure if it's caused by Silverlight City."

"I think this question will be answered soon," Roland mused for a moment. "Notify the ministers of the Administrative Office to go together—they probably wouldn't want to miss this opportunity to witness history either."

...

After years of development, North Slope Mountain was no longer the treacherous mining area with only a few narrow mountain roads. Wide cement roads and railways were built along the slope, and it only took a quarter of an hour to reach the summit by train.

Not far from the iron tower, there was a row of simple red brick bungalows, with a row of icicles hanging from the low eaves, looking far less grand than the new factories on the south bank of the Clearwater River. Judging by its appearance alone, it was hard for anyone to associate it with the "new era".

Walking into the house, Anna was directing several islanders from the former Supernatural Society to do the final preparations. Seeing Roland, she secretly made a gesture of "everything is ready", and then earnestly immersed herself in her work again.

Roland couldn't help but grin.

As early as when the radio project was decided, it had sparked heated discussions in the Administrative Office. Most people were clearly aware of what kind of changes the project would bring to the human world. If information could be transmitted in real time, it would be a great enhancement to both military strength and control over Neverwinter.

Wired telephones, flying messengers, and Listening Charms were proof—under the combined effect of the three, the old aristocratic forces of Graycastle had almost no chance to make a comeback. Many officials once believed that centralization would be a long and iterative process, but the fact was that they had not been able to stir up any waves since they were overthrown by the First Army. The reason was that in the face of efficient information transmission, the nobles would be wiped out by the Second Army, or even the police force, as soon as they showed a little sign of resurgence, leaving no room for brewing and development.

However, the telephone at least had a wire, and the latter two were related to magic, which the officials could barely understand. But the Iron Tower Project not only had no wiring connections, but also had a theoretical effect stronger than magical creations, which really made people feel a little incredible. Although basic information about electromagnetic waves had been introduced in elementary education textbooks, many people were still skeptical about this invisible and intangible thing. In a sense, it was even more unimaginable than the biplane.

Of course, this heated discussion would not affect the actual progress of the project. After all, under Roland's guidance, there had been too many things that could be called miracles in Neverwinter in recent years, and even if he suddenly announced that he wanted to ascend to the Red Moon, the Administrative Office would go all out.

However, radio was not his specialty after all, and he didn't have as much confidence as in the development of mechanical equipment. This set of transmitting and receiving devices was also completely copied from the prototype of the Graycastle Design Bureau, and no one knew the actual effect. With Anna's gesture, he finally didn't have to worry about losing face in front of the ministers.

"Then, let's begin."

Roland took Anna's hand and led her to the transmitter.

"Uh... Roland?"

"This is the crystallization of the Engineering Department, and you are of course the first tester." He winked at her. Although he already knew in advance that she had confirmed the feasibility of communication during the debugging process, it was the following official test that would be recorded in history.

"There is also a receiving location, who wants to be the first to experience it?"

Barov and the others exchanged glances and raised their hands one after another, "Your Majesty, let me do it!"

After some competition, the old butler, with his deepest qualifications, successfully broke out of the crowd and became one of the testers of the "first" long-distance telegraph communication.

In theory, the transmission and reception of the telegram could be done by one person, but separating them at this time was obviously more convenient for verifying the test results—for people who had never seen radio, the most crucial point was how to make them believe that the other end hundreds of kilometers away really received the information transmitted from this side? The simplest way was to have an unknowing receiver telegraph information that should only be known to the sender.

After Roland briefly explained the test method, he had the guards blindfold Barov. Anna then drew three horizontal lines and two dots on a small blackboard, the horizontal lines representing long tones, and the dots representing short tones.

When everyone confirmed that everything was correct, she pressed the key of the transmitter.

——「Three long, two short」.

The moment the circuit was connected, a bright blue light bloomed in the center of the spark gap.

Since the key was not connected to a buzzer, there was no other sound in the room except for this light.

Everyone couldn't help but hold their breath. This arc of light was so small that it would probably be difficult to see even standing outside the house, let alone Silverlight City hundreds of kilometers away.

But Roland couldn't help but get goosebumps.

At that moment, he seemed to feel something brush past his body.

There was no doubt that it was an illusion—under low power, electromagnetic waves would not have any effect on the human body. But in his mind, everything was presented as a clearly identifiable picture. The electric spark seemed fleeting, but the current transmitted oscillated repeatedly between the inductor and the capacitor, up to tens of millions of times per second, and the rapidly changing electric field expanded rapidly along the antenna and the ground wire, spreading in all directions.

In this silent world, it was a cry from mankind—no one could hear its voice, but it was louder than any voice in the past.

Even after flying over hundreds of kilometers, this ripple did not disappear, and was faithfully recorded by the antenna of Silverlight City.

Welcoming it were two receivers.

After an old powder detector captured the electromagnetic wave, the metal powder in the glass tube changed from loose to cohesive, which sharply reduced the resistance in the circuit, and the originally extinguished light bulb bloomed with a soft yellow light. Its biggest function was to inform the listener that the cry was echoing in the sky.

The other was a crystal detector. It did not require any external power supply, and was always in the listening state. A galena ore and an inserted wire formed a natural semiconductor-like structure, and the energy radiated by the electromagnetic wave formed a weak current inside it, which could only be heard with headphones.

In the absence of buzzer modulation, it did not emit a crisp and pleasant ticking sound, but it still accurately reproduced the frequency at the time of transmission.

Then it was a matter of reversing this process.

Distance was no longer a problem, it was as fast as light, or rather, it was light itself.

Anna released the key after repeating it three times.

According to the agreement, if Silverlight City received the transmission from this side, it would send an identical message. If it was the usual way of sending letters, it would take about five to seven days to complete a round trip between the two places. If it was changed to a flying messenger, it would also take at least a day.

But the moment Anna released the key, the light on the receiver lit up.

It was only a few seconds!

There was an uproar in the crowd.

Blindfolded, Barov was completely unaware of this. He listened for a long time, and finally slowly wrote down the message he heard on the paper.

When he took off his headphones and blindfold, he didn't need to ask about the test results—from the surprised looks on everyone's faces, the answer was self-evident.

The marks on the paper were exactly three horizontal lines and two dots!