Chapter 498: Aerial Arms Race

Since the arrival of the Celestial experts, the floating city plan had become much more reliable. They soon organized different teams according to the division of labor, and each team issued perfect plan design reports, feasibility analysis reports, business budget reports, key technical reports, etc., according to their design content. Not only was each report over 800 pages, but for some projects with strong correlation, two thousand-page general reports would be generated. Each of these reports needed to be reviewed by the Ministry of Magic, and moreover, they had to write reply reports for the opinions raised at the meeting, as well as reply reports to the replies—in short, the experts followed the customs of the country, and soon reached a consensus with the work state of the locals.

In this matter, Harry truly experienced what the Minister of Magic had to do: endless meetings, listening to a pile of reports that had nothing to do with him, and he also needed to try to comment on them, which was too cruel for a seventh-year student who originally wanted to enjoy campus life well. Of course, Arthur and Snape, who dragged him to meetings, didn't think so. They felt that listening to reports at meetings was still a very easy thing for the Savior.

After another dizzying meeting, Harry rubbed his slightly sore neck, ready to walk out of the conference room and find a place to Apparate as soon as possible. However, he unexpectedly discovered that Tang Nade did not walk out like everyone else, but followed behind the expert team.

After hesitating slightly, Harry decided not to do the eavesdropping thing like before, but walked up to them openly and asked directly: "Mr. Tang Nade, do you have any new ideas to communicate with the experts?"

"Ah, yes," Tang Nade didn't seem to intend to cover it up either. "After I went back and thought about it, I felt that I shouldn't give up that very good train of thought, which is the city-level teleportation array and the application of the Focus of the Rainbow. So, I am preparing to see if I can build another smaller city, used for strategic deterrence... or don't be so serious, don't you think a city that can teleport would be very Coooool?"

"So, you plan to build another floating city with teleportation and attack functions? Can this be realized?" Harry tried his best to hide his attitude, but a trace of disapproval still flowed in his words. "And, if the experts are busy with our large city..."

"It can be one body." Tang Nade explained. "Satellite city, do you understand? Just like Crawley is a satellite city of London. Of course, if it goes to the sky, I believe the main city and the satellite city can be closer together."

"The theory of satellite city is of course applicable." Lin Shuanghe turned his head and said. "However, Mr. Fontroy, we have already explained the contradiction of this concept before—we cannot achieve city-level large-scale teleportation. If the teleportation scale is too large, many unreliable factors will appear; but if the teleportation scale is too small, then the teleportation itself will lose its meaning."

"So I think we can try to find a balance point among them..."

"There is a ready-made balance point in front of you." Lin Shuanghe pointed to the wall of the Ministry of Magic. "TARDIS. While ensuring the stability of teleportation, by sacrificing part of the positioning accuracy, we try to expand the mass carried in a teleportation as much as possible. But obviously, TARDIS is not enough to support military use."

Harry felt somewhat confused, because as far as his knowledge went, the Doctors had expanded many rooms in the TARDIS that were not commonly used, and placed a pile of sundries. If teleportation really had a mass upper limit, then they were doing it a bit too wastefully.

"That's also a line of thought. Yeah, TARDIS can carry quite a lot of things. If we carefully plan the weight..." Tang Nade started to have wild thoughts immediately.

"It doesn't just consider weight." Lin Shuanghe shook his head. "In the field of magic teleportation, people and objects are calculated separately, and what has the greatest impact on stability is actually the people participating in the teleportation. If you have traveled by TARDIS yourself, you will find this point: the more people, the worse its positioning accuracy."

A team member turned his head and explained carefully for them: "In fact, the city teleportation technology you value can be understood as a ritual spellcasting, and the spell to be released is Apparition. Then no matter which form we adopt, joint spellcasting or magic rune spellcasting, it will ultimately be subject to the various limitations of Apparition. And coincidentally, the 【determination to reach the destination】 emphasized by Apparition will be interfered with by people's thoughts, ultimately leading to the failure of the spell."

"A very obvious example is that whenever multi-person travel is involved, it must rely on other means of transportation, rather than Side-Along Apparition. Of course, Side-Along Apparition itself is also a high-end technique of Apparition, and only those most skilled wizards can use it."

"So this is what I said before, multi-person cannot teleport stably, and even if teleportation is done with few people, it has no meaning." Lin Shuanghe summarized again.

"Then what if we use the Portkey Charm?" Tang Nade proposed another whimsical idea. "Make the entire city into a super-large Portkey?"

"In that case, the magic consumption would be too great. It would be better to fly over." An expert couldn't help but laugh.

"What if we build a satellite city carrying a Focus of the Rainbow, keep it consistent with our main city in peacetime, and... execute combat missions alone when needed? How about that?" Tang Nade still wouldn't give up. "We can also build a second satellite city, carrying Muggle troops—anyway, it's all flying level, so we don't need to consider the problem of teleportation."

Harry frowned and said with some dissatisfaction: "This is not a floating city anymore, this has become a military fortress or something."

"Right, what I want is a military fortress." Tang Nade admitted without any taboo. "We must have military power. To put it ugly, if the floating city is not equipped with defense measures, it is a living target and will fall sooner or later."

This time, it was the Celestial expert team's turn to fall into silence. Their eyes wandered. It seemed that on this issue, Tang Nade was right.

Harry was also thinking. If a completely peaceful floating city was built, then indeed, it would be very dangerous. Muggles had many weapons that could threaten the floating city. If it could be determined that Tang Nade's concept could not form a cross-era super deterrence, then a satellite city with conventional defense means seemed not unacceptable.

No, Harry felt he had come to his senses. He had better separate Tang Nade's whimsical ideas from the floating city currently under construction. If Yanayev learned that "the satellite city of the floating city has military power," he might list the floating city as a target together, but if he learned that "there are two floating cities, one of which has military power and the other does not," then for him, it would be safe.

Just when Harry intended to speak, Lin Shuanghe gave another suggestion: "We have also discussed this. A floating city used for military purposes is not reasonable. It is expensive and has a long construction period. The effect, it is not that good. So, if you really just need an aerial fortress, the suggestion here is that it doesn't have to be in the form of a floating city."

Tang Nade's eyes began to get brighter and brighter. He clapped his hands and said as if he had suddenly realized: "That's right, I can completely think from another angle. If I just need an aerial fortress, we can use the assistance of technology to make it into the form of a large aircraft, or an aerial platform."

"If it's just to carry fighter jets, there is actually no meaning." Lin Shuanghe kindly reminded. "Muggles have already studied the combat system of fighter jets very perfectly, and an aerial fortress is just icing on the cake."

"Of course not!" Tang Nade said immediately and very firmly. "I want to carry strategic weapons on it, such as the Focus of the Rainbow!"

"Speechless." Lin Shuanghe supported his forehead. "The Focus of the Rainbow is just a magic cannon. It is at most a bit more powerful than ordinary Muggle main guns, and it cannot be counted as a strategic weapon at all."

It seems the Celestial people also know the Focus of the Rainbow quite well, Harry nodded secretly. But at this time, a conversation that had happened not long ago appeared in his heart again: when discussing the infiltration of the KGB into the country of werewolves, Zhang Qiu prompted that the reason Yanayev feared the Focus of the Rainbow was because he wanted to make a very huge, large-scale weapon that used a mixed defense system, and she likened it to an airship.

Tang Nade looked like he was still immersed in the concept of an aerial fortress, but Harry realized that the situation was not optimistic. It seemed Yanayev had already walked in front of them. Although airships were not so easy to break through the air defense network and threaten the floating city, if they met on the battlefield, relying on the quantity advantage brought by the first move, they might easily surpass the so-called aerial fortress.

"Mr. Tang Nade." Harry pulled his sleeve. "I have another idea. Instead of carrying a Focus of the Rainbow and flying around, it is better to deploy multiple Focus of the Rainbows on the ground."

"But we don't have that many people to fire the guns." Tang Nade said subconsciously immediately.

"I feel that since it is also necessary for a group of wizards to rush around, then by comparison, maintaining multiple glass balls on the ground might be more effortless than maintaining an aerial fortress." Harry persuaded. "And, we haven't mastered the Iron Curtain technology yet. Facing the conventional weapons of Muggles, the aerial fortress might be very strenuous."

Tang Nade fell into deep thought. Harry felt that he had briefly persuaded him. ===== CHAPTER 499 =====