Chapter 1343

"Your Highness, I am very sorry about the plight of your kingdom. But forgive my bluntness, no matter how you participate in this matter, even if it's just helping Yondu hunt the raccoon, it may bring trouble you cannot handle."

Shiler looked at Alan with a sympathetic expression. He was certain that Alan would not pester him, and would not even further request the Sanctum to help him resolve this matter.

Don't look at how urgent Alan is acting now, as if he can't help but defend the safety of his country, but in reality, the Doder Federation he mentioned is a coalition of many tribes. He is just a prince of one of the tribes, and perhaps not even the kind of important prince who could inherit the throne.

He would show an attitude of "everyone is drunk while I am sober," insisting on helping the Federation solve this trouble, merely to gain some political leverage for himself. But if the price to pay for this process is greater than he imagined, then naturally there is no need to continue.

Sure enough, Alan just showed a look of regret, completely devoid of his previous anxiety, as if he were just lamenting that he had missed an opportunity to perform in front of his father.

Just then, the attendant walked out of the concert hall, leading the guests to their seats in order. Alan smiled at Shiler and said, "Thank you so much, sir. Thank you for your kind reminder. It seems we can only endure it. But I will still visit Earth another day; I still want to experience the Sanctum's services."

"Of course, the Sanctum welcomes your arrival at any time."

Hearing Shiler's polite reply, Alan turned around at the right time and didn't pester him further. But after he turned around, Shiler's serious expression quickly disappeared and became a smirk. His eyes fell on the hair Alan had tied behind his head.

This young prince had a thick head of black hair, most of which was braided and stood behind his head, groomed meticulously. But Shiler saw a hair that didn't belong to him on the side of the collar exposed when he walked.

Shiler followed the crowd into the concert hall. It was different from a human concert hall; it was circular in shape, divided into three levels: upper, middle, and lower. In the center of the ceiling was the performing orchestra, and the seats were all around it.

Actually, this wasn't very conducive to sound collection, but Asgard is a magical civilization after all. They have special methods to allow the sounds of various musical pieces to perfectly enter the listeners' ears.

After Shiler walked into the concert hall, he scanned the room, his eyes lingering on a few people, and then, unsurprisingly, he saw that conspicuous red cloak.

Shiler took the program of musical pieces from the attendant next to the seats and walked toward the figure in the front row of the second level. Strange also felt someone approaching him and turned his head to look, and Shiler had already sat down beside him.

Asgard's concert is different from human ones; drinking is allowed here, and during the interludes, guests can also talk in low voices. Compared to an art appreciation meeting, it's more like a social activity.

After Shiler sat down, he tapped the wine glass next to Strange with his fingertips and said with a smile, "Quit drinking, huh?"

Strange picked up the thin champagne glass, shook the wine inside, and said, "Quitting drinking also requires a gradual process. I strive to not drink before doing important things. You know, that kind of tipsy feeling will affect my use of magic, but it's nothing when I'm resting."

Shiler also took a glass of wine from the attendant, shook his head, and said, "Yeah, and then you'll find that all time is rest time."

The two reached out and clinked glasses. Strange smiled and said, "Seriously, when are you going to Kamar-Taj again to see our progress in the application of magical energy?"

"I'm just an ordinary person; I don't know magic. Don't go muttering those mystical words like 'prophecy' or 'fate' in my ear." Shiler shook his head, showing a lingering fear.

Strange sighed and said helplessly, "Alright, I wasn't there last time, and the one who received you was that kind of traditional mage. You know, they just like to talk like that. I guarantee it won't happen next time."

"Actually, I know that what you care about most should be the progress of portal technology." Strange took another sip of wine, frowned, and his expression became slightly more serious. While looking at the musicians taking their places in the arena, he said, "I still maintain my view that portal technology is very likely one of the greatest advantages for humans in the future."

"Before we stepped into the stars, we only thought it was convenient. But when we truly stepped onto the interstellar stage, we realized that no other race in the entire universe possesses a portal as convenient, flexible, and energy-saving as ours."

"Indeed, the three great empires of the universe don't lack portals. If there were no portal technology, it would be almost impossible to achieve large-scale interstellar colonization like theirs. But their portal technology has a big problem: it's bulky, energy-intensive, and troublesome to maintain."

"Of course, the three great empires don't lack these materials and energy, but personal, portable, ultra-small portals like the Sling Ring are still a technical difficulty they cannot overcome."

"The reason for this is actually because the development paths of the civilizations are different." Shiler began to analyze, saying, "The Kree Empire and the Skrull Empire both made their fortunes through technology. They don't have much research in the field of mysticism."

"Most technology-side civilizations follow a portal path that starts from artificial wormholes, constantly improving the stability and accuracy of the wormholes, and then constantly shrinking and downgrading them, developing various portals on this basis."

"Magneto once demonstrated to me how a wormhole is unfolded. To be honest, even for him, a chosen one who masters the fundamental forces of the universe, it takes a lot of effort to build a wormhole portal."

Strange nodded. He had also seen Magneto's method of teleportation. To be honest, opening a portal in outer space is not a big deal. After all, the universe is so big and empty that even building dozens or a hundred portals wouldn't affect anything.

But Magneto's wormhole portal cannot be used on Earth at all, and it can't even be too close to Earth, as it is very likely to affect Earth's gravitational orbit.

Even if Magneto's control over his own abilities has reached an extremely precise level, no one dares to let him take this risk. After all, there is only one Earth. If something goes wrong, all the ordinary people will be finished.

This kind of risk means that researching portals is a dilemma for surface civilizations. Such civilizations do not have the ability for interstellar colonization, and it is even difficult for them to go to other planets. They only have one mother planet, and they can only build experimental grounds nearby.

But once an experiment related to wormholes goes wrong, it's a disaster. Almost no surface civilization dares to risk their mother planet being finished to conduct such experiments.

But humans today are very special. Their technology and magic are developed separately. When it's difficult to build a spaceship that can travel within the solar system on the technology side, the mages' small portals have already opened all over the universe.

This means they can completely build experimental grounds outside their mother planet, such as the Mercury base, or the satellite bases on Saturn and Uranus that are currently being developed, or even go directly to extraterrestrial enclaves, that is, the Andromeda Galaxy, to conduct experiments. In this way, even if there is danger, it won't blow up their own home.

Strange touched his chin and said, "In fact, the mages are planning to find an empty area in the Andromeda Galaxy to test new portal technology."

Shiler raised an eyebrow and asked with some confusion, "What other new portal technology is there? And it has to be tested in the Andromeda Galaxy?"

Strange sighed and said, "This is actually a historical legacy issue. You know, human mages were very poor for a long time. We only had that little bit of energy, so we could only use it sparingly."

"On this basis, the path most mages researched was how to save energy and improve energy circulation efficiency. Portal technology is the same. You might find it ridiculous, but the Sling Ring portal, unique in the whole universe, was developed by mages who were forced into a corner and had to save energy."

Strange revealed a bitter smile and said, "Think about it, the idealistic nature of magic dictates that every mage's dream is to bombard with energy. More is good, big is beautiful. If we weren't truly poor, would we have researched so many miniaturization technologies?"

"But no one expected that one day we wouldn't have to worry about energy, but instead encounter a bottleneck because the technical route was pushed to the extreme."

Shiler then remembered that when the Sanctum was just established, Kamar-Taj seemed to have already started researching large-scale portal technology. The last time he heard the name of this technology, it was said that the large-scale portal had already been opened to the size of the moon.

But since then, he had never heard of any breakthrough progress in this technology. If Strange hadn't brought it up again, Shiler would have almost forgotten it.

This is quite interesting, Shiler thought. The portal technology of other civilizations all goes from big to small, starting from large-scale wormholes that might affect an entire piece of cosmic space, constantly compressing until they become civilian-use small portals.

But the history of human portal development technology is the opposite. Mages have spent years researching energy-saving and miniaturization technologies, leading to everyone having a portable Sling Ring portal now, but they have encountered problems in the large-scale expansion of portals.

Although Shiler doesn't understand the principles of magic, he knows that just pumping energy into a Sling Ring won't make the portal expand infinitely. The structure of an energy body that can accommodate one person and one that can accommodate a planet must be completely different.

It's like a toy castle made of sand; it's very simple to set up. But if you want to build a real castle, the load-bearing structure and material strength must be strictly designed and considered; it's not something you can just pinch out and use.

"Because we didn't have that much energy at the time, mages passed it down through several generations and went through great hardships to design the Sling Ring portal out of thin air. This is simply a miracle."

"But because no mage in ancient times had that much energy to build a large-scale portal, and didn't even dare to think about it, our technical inheritance in this area is completely missing."

Strange shook his head and said, "The largest portal mages have researched now is not much bigger than the moon."

"Of course, a portal of this size is enough to transport a few small spaceships or move materials within the solar system. But since humans have already taken a step ahead in magical portal technology, why can't they lead even more?"

"As long as there is a large-scale portal, combined with the Earth's magical defense network, humans can move their mother planet at any time."

When the gorgeous chandeliers above the concert hall seats gradually lit up one by one, the light in Strange's eyes also became brighter and brighter. His tone seemed to be joking, but between his words, a more magnificent ambition was hidden.

"Perhaps, we could also move something else?"