Chapter 497: Floating City Project

In early December, led by an old acquaintance Lin Shuanghe, a total of fourteen Celestial experts arrived in London. Because two of them were Muggle experts, the Ministry of Magic was told that it did not need to participate in the reception work, and everyone stayed in the Muggle world. This led to the fact that when the joint discussion meeting was about to be held, Harry could not sit in the familiar conference room of the Ministry of Magic, but instead had to go to a conference center they didn't quite recognize together with several relevant people from the Wizarding World.

When they brought Arthur, who was overly curious, and Duoji, who looked a bit dizzy, and finally sat in the venue, the Celestial experts had already taken their seats and started chatting with Tang Nade.

After the people from the Wizarding World were all present, the waiter began to serve black tea and coffee. The air was permeated with a faint lemon fragrance. An official picked up the agenda document and said calmly: "Thank you all for coming. Next, we will jointly carry out the design and construction work of the floating city. Let us first invite the Minister of Magic, Mr. Wei Silai, to introduce the preliminary plan of the floating city to everyone."

Arthur cleared his throat, opened the parchment that had been prepared long ago, and began to recount the Ministry of Magic's vision: they prepared to build a large city of about 40 to 60 square kilometers, set up administrative districts, residential districts, ecological districts, and many other districts on the ground, and divided the underground into four layers, including secondary residential districts, magic experimental districts, power/defense districts, etc., which could satisfy three to four thousand wizards to work and live in.

After his beautiful blueprint was recounted, a Celestial expert quickly splashed cold water: "I'm sorry, Mr. Wei Silai, we here think your vision is a bit too grand. Considering the time and cost, I'm afraid your side can hardly afford it."

"Let me explain it," Lin Shuanghe said. "Shuntian city is an extremely special case, a spectacle piled up regardless of cost based on political factors, and it is not replicable. We spent nearly 200 trillion US dollars and more than 70 years to finally complete it. And considering the current time and budget constraints, we suggest that everyone refer to Baiyujing, which is the separately built magical floating city. Its area is less than three square kilometers, and the internal living space can be expanded later. And the cost of Baiyujing is about 180 billion US dollars, and the construction period will also be shortened to five to ten years."

This was almost unacceptable. No one was willing to see the floating city in their vision become a floating town, or even a floating village. Before the Minister of Magic could express his opinion, the Prime Minister immediately said anxiously: "We can add some budget, but at least we must ensure that the floating city has a decent appearance and scale, right?"

"Right, I feel at least about 20 to 30 square kilometers, with the size of Westminster, can it be considered a floating city."

"Preliminary estimate, this requires a construction period of 15 to 20 years." Lin Shuanghe looked at an expert in the team, and that middle-aged wizard had already started to draft calculations.

"The underground part doesn't need to be made very large during construction. We can expand it later using the Undetectable Extension Charm. The main thing is that the ground must be grand enough." The Prime Minister repeated his needs. Obviously, in his eyes, the floating city was more important for its symbolic significance. "And the defense function, perhaps some deletions can be made."

"I think what we need is not defense, but deterrence." Tang Nade began to express his point of view, and this sentence immediately made an old man in the Celestial team reveal a playful smile. "First, we need to carry a Focus of the Rainbow in the floating city, which is necessary; second, we need to build a charging array around the Focus of the Rainbow, and conscript wizards in the whole city to send out a shocking strike when necessary; finally, we also need to find a way to make a city-level teleportation array to ensure that our floating city can appear anywhere at any time."

As soon as the voice fell, Duoji, who had passed the air with Harry in advance, raised an objection: "No, sir, I think this will turn the entire city into a weapon of mass destruction—I am not against everyone developing that kind of thing, but just, does this violate our original intention of building a floating city?"

"If the residents in a city need to follow the city to teleport at any time, and occasionally need to contribute their magic power for attacks, then it is very hard for them to live normally. Even to put it clearly, Mr. Fontroy." Duoji used the tone of an old pedant to accuse. "What you want is an aerial fortress, a military stronghold. We cannot accept it."

"It can be both," Tang Nade frowned and argued. "In peacetime it is a city, in wartime it is a fortress. We rarely encounter wartime, right? Moreover, if you are worried about the abuse of weapons, we can formulate many complex plans to ensure that the Focus of the Rainbow is only launched when there is no other choice..."

"No, I think Duoji's meaning is." Snape said cunningly. "If you want a fortress, you don't need to make it that big at all, and you don't need that much cost and construction period."

These words directly pulled the Prime Minister, who loved to do great things, into the dove camp. He put on a solemn expression and said: "Yes, we cannot do that kind of thing that threatens world peace, at least not on the floating city of wizards."

"From a technical perspective." Lin Shuanghe also began to send assistance. "A floating city that wants to carry strategic weapons is not reasonable. It is expensive and has a long construction period. The effect, it is not that good."

"That is to say, teleportation technology is not mature yet?" Tang Nade frowned.

"It's not that it's not mature, but it has an upper limit." Lin Shuanghe said in a tone of finality. "If you want to achieve larger mass teleportation, you must accept the reduction of its reliability, even to a level that is hard to accept."

"And the Focus of the Rainbow technology, we have understood." Another Celestial expert said in not very proficient English. "It is a delicate technology. If teleportation destroys the integrity of the magic circuit, the Focus of the Rainbow will not be able to exert its effect, and may even trigger the explosion of the city."

"But objectively speaking," another Celestial expert interjected, "even if it's just flying level, a floating city carrying a Focus of the Rainbow is also a spectacle with great deterrence."

Tang Nade's face looked a bit better when he heard someone speaking for him.

"Our disagreement is actually very simple. If you want deterrence, you don't need to build it that big; if you want to build it that big, you'd better not add weapons." Snape bypassed the technical details and gave a vague conclusion.

"Why can't we carry a weapon while building a big city?" Tang Nade didn't get bypassed by him, and instead raised his appeal.

"This will cause a change in the nature of the city, sir." Arthur also began to express opposition. "If our city can occasionally launch attacks, then our residents will feel strange, especially since launching attacks requires them to provide magic power, which will make them feel that they have become executioners. And, if our enemies destroy the city in order not to let us launch attacks, that is not good for the residents."

Feeling Tang Nade's gaze starting to fall on him, Harry knew he had to say something, but he very cleverly threw the topic out: "Uh, from a technical perspective, Ms. Lin, what do you think are the pros and cons of the floating city carrying strategic weapons... because as far as I know, Shuntian Prefecture doesn't seem to have strategic weapons."

"It is... and it isn't." Lin Shuanghe said hesitantly. "Admittedly, Shuntian Prefecture itself does not have attack capability, and its power comes entirely from the troops it carries; but, these troops can carry strategic weapons."

"If we don't talk about that Muggle floating city, just talk about your Baiyujing?" Tang Nade asked eagerly.

"That doesn't need strategic weapons even more. The Old Ancestor himself is our strategic weapon." Lin Shuanghe answered very naturally.

The Prime Minister's eyes lit up, and he said happily: "That's right, we just need to build a beautiful, peaceful floating city, and then invite Harry to live in it. That solves the weapon problem."

Harry felt that saying it this way was not very friendly to him, but under the current situation, he chose to ignore it for now.

"That's fine too." Tang Nade faced the British Wizarding World that had already reached a consensus, and the various technical difficulties that objectively existed, and ultimately chose to retreat. "However, I feel the Prime Minister's proposal has opened up new ideas for me. We need to deploy some super-wizard forces in the city. It doesn't have to be a Focus of the Rainbow, but at least it must form a wizard army... or a special team, let's say."

"This team can elect a captain by itself, freely use city resources to carry out various actions, only needing them to adhere to one principle, which is that they must protect the floating city when the city is in danger." Tang Nade put his posture very low. "I think this is still acceptable to everyone, right?"

This proposal did not involve the modification of the city plan, so whether it was the people in the Wizarding World with different thoughts or the Celestial expert team that only considered technical problems, they all adopted this opinion without any obstacles. And for Harry, he knew that he could easily obtain the captain position—as long as he was willing. Thus, he also did not express opposition.

After another round of discussion, the Celestial team finally gave the basic framework of the new floating city. They very thoughtfully set the city shape as a regular heptagon, with a total area of about 31.6 square kilometers, and the proposed floating height was set at about 800 meters. This required nearly 16 years and about 1.5 billion Galleons. The annual income of the Ministry of Magic obviously could not support this consumption, so the expenses that could be replaced by pounds would be provided by the British government, and the Galleon expenses would be shared by the Magical Congress according to a certain proportion.

In return, the Magical Congress could send people to participate in the management and operation of the city, and wizards of the two countries would also enjoy equal citizenship. And, as compensation for vetoing the weapon proposal, Tang Nade obtained the naming right of the city, and he happily decided to call it "Dalaran." ===== CHAPTER 498 =====