[Comprehensive] Road to Trench

It was a rather old-fashioned key, which looked like the kind of bronze key that a butler would carry around in the Middle Ages, and it was bigger than Alex's palm.

The end used to hold is exquisitely detailed, hollowed out, in the shape of a clover, with a purple gemstone in the middle, and many small diamonds that are cut almost exactly the same are dotted on the key, but they are inexplicably inconspicuous.

The other end has a simple double rack shape with shallow grooves.

In short, in Tony's view, it is: "I can imitate 1 of this kind of key in one minute."

Alex disagreed: "It's just a form. Normally, the Mage Tower doesn't need a key to open it. As long as I want to open it in my heart, the door of the Mage Tower will appear in front of me." She pointed to her Head, "but my current mental strength is not enough to open it, so I need this 'key'."

She showed Tony the key in her hand: "Actually, it is just a concept. The real 'key' has no form, but the world consciousness seems to acquiesce that it looks like this, so it has an entity."

As she spoke, she held the end of the key and sent the key to the void in front of her.

A faint stream of light flashed across the surface of the key, as if there was some keyhole invisible to the naked eye in the air in front of him. The part of the key that was originally used to be inserted into the keyhole disappeared, as if inserted In the door lock.

With the key as the center, as if the camouflage had been lifted off the surface, a dark, eight-meter-high metal gate appeared in front of Tony.

Judging from Tony's shallow understanding of style, this door adopts a typical Gothic style. The carvings on the door are detailed and complicated about hell and scary creatures, bat wings and demons, crosses and roses. The reliefs on the two gates depict a story of disillusionment and despair.

Alex took the key and turned it clockwise at a ninety-degree angle, only to hear the sound of a rattling mechanism coming from the door, and the door vibrated like an earthquake.

She pulled out the key and took two steps back. The vibration from behind the door became louder and louder. When a sound sounded like the main mechanism was being touched, the two doors in front of her moved back automatically. opened.

Wearing a gorgeous princess dress specially prepared for her by Maria, the girl with dazzling silver wavy long hair stood in front of the gate, put her right hand on her left chest, and smiled gracefully:

"Welcome to my mage tower."

Alex twisted the lampstand by the gate, and with a bang, the beveled candlestick was straightened.

There seemed to be some signal coming from here, and the interior of the mage tower was lit up one after another. Tony found that he couldn’t tell where the light source came from—there was a lampstand, but the candles on the lampstand were not lit. The light seemed to come from all directions. There is a sun above the head.

With this ubiquitous light, he finally saw the interior of the mage tower clearly.

The interior of the mage tower is very large. In the center of the hall on the ground floor of the tower, there is a fountain that occupies nearly a quarter of the area and is in the center. In the center of the fountain is a group of strange creatures carved from unknown white stones. Tony can't recognize them. Those creatures all looked like animals and plants unique to fantasy worlds.

There are a total of sixteen pillars in the hall, which divide the rotunda into seventeen parts, bypassing the fountain facing the gate, and behind it is a Y-shaped staircase, which diverges between the first floor and the second floor, and one leads to the spiral upwards. The other is an extension to the room on the second floor.

Tony raised his head and didn't remember to bow his head until his neck was sore. He rubbed the back of his neck and asked the little girl beside him, "How many layers are there?"

"Seventh floor." Alex put away the key, looked around, but didn't see the housekeeper who was supposed to appear, so he shouted, "William!"

A nearly semi-incorporeal thing made of black smoke appeared at the stairway.

Its whole body is shrouded in a black cloak and hood made of smoke, and it is impossible to see what it looks like. The closer to the ground, the lighter the black smoke, and the part in contact with the marble on the ground has only a very faint outline.

Looking at it from a distance, people would think it was a ghost without feet.

Without a sound, it came to Tony, the little girl beside him, who had a frightened expression on his face.

"This is William, the manager of the Mage Tower." Alex introduced to the frightened little friend beside him, "—don't be afraid, this is the construction puppet, which is the thing I was making a few days ago. Not a ghost."

Tony turned his head quickly: "Are you sure!? You made something like a wooden barrel back then!"

He helped to build the circuit part and built-in logic system inside the puppet!

"You can set the shape after finishing!" Alex replied naturally, "Don't you think the shape of William matches the atmosphere inside the mage tower very well? And it also likes this image very much!"

"Where is it matched!"

"Usually, the lights are not turned on inside the mage tower. I turned on the light source because I was afraid that you would not be able to see clearly. Normally, I carry a real lamp in the mage tower. The lighting range is three meters around, and the rest of the place is completely dark. , in that case, William and the atmosphere here are a perfect match!"

As if in response to the master's words, the black smoke billowing from the neck of the chief manager named William, who was shaped like a black-robed ghost, seemed to be nodding.

"How about we turn off the lights?" Alex suggested enthusiastically.

In the pitch-black darkness, a light was lit in the distance, and the traveler who yearned for the light rushed over in ecstasy, only to see that the person holding the light turned out to be a dark figure wearing a cloak and a hood. , what is even more frightening is that that person has no shadow and no feet...

The young man shivered, and immediately rejected his friend's proposal with a serious face: "No!"

Enthusiasm was splashed with cold water, and Alex suddenly became listless: "Okay... just visit the interior casually, and I will see if there is any problem with the magic circle system of the Wizard Tower. If you have anything to do, tell William, and it will Take you where you want to go."

Tony was looking at a statue of a knight not far away, and turned around when he heard the words: "There is no restricted area?"

"Yes, but you can't get in." Alex said without thinking.

"..." What a disappointing answer.

Tony didn't know the meaning of the mage's tower to a great mage. He walked for three hours before visiting the two floors (Tony: God knows how big this mage's tower is! The gap between the door and the door is only one meter to open The space behind the door is more than a few hundred square meters!) After that, he refused to measure the area with his own steps.

"Why don't you install something like an internal elevator, or did she not know what an elevator was when Alex built this place?" Tony collapsed directly on the ground—it was clean enough, and the ground couldn't even see a speck of dust I don’t know if this manager William cleaned it, “But how can a mage not have a teleportation array? A mage’s tower is incomplete without a teleportation array!”

Manager William floated over lightly, his fingers made of black smoke touched the void, and several lines of shining writing appeared in front of Tony:

Any internal teleportation circle and acceleration skills are prohibited in the tower.

Explanation: My dear master who has to use the teleportation circle to solve the distance from the bed to the door, if you think your magic is enough to replace the part below the waist, please be sure to tell William—your humble servant must Unnecessary torso limbs will be cut off for you in the shortest possible time.

——Excerpt from Article 5.0 of "Void Tower Internal Tower Regulations Version [-]"

Tony:  …

Alex, you didn't say your house manager is a jerk!

"Ah!"

The silver-haired girl in the main control room inside the Mage Tower sneezed.

"Who's talking about me!" Rubbing his nose, Alex closed the main control core that had just been checked, "It's probably Tony..."

Tossing the silver cube in her hand, thinking of her little friend, the little girl suddenly showed a rather mischievous smile: Climbing stairs is good for your health, Tony!

After a little distraction, Alex refocused her attention on the complex magic circle in front of her. While waiting for the self-examination of the Mage Tower, her eyes fell on the Rubik's Cube in her hand.

Back then, in order to build this Void Tower so that she could become a legendary archmage, she used countless slaves and materials. Every inch of the magic circle on the mage tower was drawn by herself, and the whole project took her ten years. year time.

The effect is also obvious-in the Mage Tower, she is not afraid to challenge any combination of two legendary classes.

Not to mention other functions, only one, if the Cosmic Rubik's Cube is activated inside her mage tower, she doesn't need to worry about being attracted by the signal of the Cosmic Rubik's Cube to attract any creatures-this signal can't leave the mage tower at all.

What mage would forget to add the "information shielding" attribute when building the mage tower?

Alex found an empty room on the sixth floor of the Mage Tower, took out the central processing unit from his small purse, arranged it, connected a new energy system, and put the activated Cosmic Rubik's Cube on it.

The magic text originally used for energy supply fades, the cosmic Rubik's Cube lights up, and automatically floats in the center of the central processing unit. The arc-shaped doors on both sides shield the signal it emits, absorb the emitted energy, convert it into standard energy, and provide it to CPU.

Alex clapped his hands in satisfaction, and added a central processing unit's special approval information transmission back door to the system of the Mage Tower, and it was completed.

If she had thought about the Mage Tower earlier, she wouldn't have to spend so much effort on optimizing the energy supply runes.

But it's not bad now.

Well, it's time to prepare for the launch of the Taotao platform.

Although he was cheated by his little friend, Tony's interest in this mage tower continued unabated.

The fifth floor of the mage tower is the living area. Tony chose a room as his "residence in a friend's house" (Tony's language), and it took less than half a day to move a bunch of things in.

Alex looked at the rooms that have changed drastically. The rooms inside the mage tower can be transformed according to self-imagining. For example, in Tony’s room, if you walk in from the door, it will make people think that you have entered some kind of villa. On the big spiral staircase Through the private bedroom on the second floor, down to the underground workshop, in front of you is the lobby on the first floor, which is large enough for parties.

He even fumbled for an entry key from Alex's hand. The door opened on the sixth floor, the door of his bedroom, on the grounds that he could come in to sleep and rest anytime and anywhere.

It is definitely not to save the energy of running to the sixth floor.

Alex rolled his eyes, but still gave him a key, just telling him where he entered the Mage Tower from, and when it was time to go out, he was still in the same place.

Unless he does not go out from the door he opened, but from another exit—that is, the door opened by the key held by Alex, then he will appear at the place where Alex opened the door.

Of course, the premise of this is that Alex also comes in when he is in the tower, otherwise, if Alex does not open the door, the other exit will not open.

In addition, the opening of the mage tower needs a certain period of time to cool down. For example, if you enter the interior of the mage tower now, you can go out at any time, but after you go out, if you want to go in again, you need to wait 24 hours before you can open the door again.

The cooling time is counted from the time the person who opens the door leaves the mage tower.

"Why are there so many rules and regulations!" Holding the key that was finally ground, Tony protested, "Can't you set that there is no cooling time?"

"There is no way to use the key to make so many rules!" Alex spread his hands, "If my mental power returns to the previous level, then I can directly open and close the mage tower anytime and anywhere with mental power, and even let it appear permanently in the Somewhere in reality is fine - but for the person holding the key to open the door, whether it's you or me, please wait for 24 hours to cool down. Do you think I'm willing to wait that long?"

Tony rolled his eyes unceremoniously: "Since Mr. William's personality comes from you, I think, yes."

"..."

What a sad answer.

Originally, Bucky planned to take Alex to spend the whole summer vacation in the United States. Tony and Alex got along well, which made the two parents feel at ease, but the appearance of the mechanical arm with tomato scrambled egg color broke the peace. phantom appearance.

The head of the Barnes family felt that their well-behaved little princess seemed to have a tendency to be spoiled by the bears next door.

In Massachusetts, I found two bear children who ran away from home after being suspected of getting into trouble. I saw them wearing loose tops and trousers, with their long hair combed up and stuffed into a peaked cap, and wearing the same bright colors as the big bear child next to them. Sunglasses, changing from a sweet princess style to a hip-hop everyday style, when he glanced at Alex, who thought he was a cool and handsome boy, the extremely strong Winter Soldier touched that strange heaviness for the first time - commonly known as myocardial infarction .

And when that handsome "boy" raised his peaked cap, showed him those beautiful blue-purple eyes, and called him Uncle Bucky with a smile, he suddenly felt that this outfit was quite suitable for his family. little guardian...

The filters of parents who dote on their children are always so thick and adjusted in time.

Of course, even if the effect of the filter is removed, there is no way to criticize Alex's outfit - Tony's fashion taste has been approved by a series of fashion magazines.

However, even so, Bucky felt that he could no longer put his child with Tony.

Howard thought so too.

So, after a pleasant month of getting along, the Xiongzi group ushered in their first separation.

Except for Bucky and Howard, everyone else is very unhappy, including Maria.

Leaving aside the consequences that made Mrs. Stark unhappy, Bucky left Agana in the United States for the time being, and brought Alex back to the UK. Lix was standing at the door, waiting for the Winter Soldier who had just brought a large luggage into the house to come out, when a voice came from behind: "Can you help me?"

Does this voice sound familiar?

She turned around in amazement, and the young man standing behind him was waving at her, carrying a plastic bag (in which bread sticks and various foods were in it), his handsome face glowing with a smile even though he was thin.

——It was the strange wizard who rescued her from Professor Snape's "claw" that day.

Beside him, a skinny black-haired boy opened his eyes wide in surprise: "Alex!"

Alex's body leaning on the luggage immediately stood up straight: "Harry!"

Her surprise was undisguised on her face: "Why are you here!"

"My godfather lives here!" Harry stepped in front of Alex a few steps, saw her confused, and then remembered to introduce the man beside him, "He is my godfather, Sirius!"

godfather?

Alex was confused.

Sirius smiled and patted his excited godson: "I'll talk slowly later, let me help you move your things in first."

As he spoke, he chanted a floating spell on the pile of luggage, and the line of luggage automatically lined up and floated into the opened door of Alex's house.

The Winter Soldier who came out upon hearing the noise raised his eyebrows slightly and looked at the black-haired wizard.

With the help of Sirius Black, Alex's large pile of luggage was quickly moved back to the house.

When Harry calmed down, Alex finally knew what was going on.

The day before yesterday, when Harry contacted Padfoot, he knew that they were going to meet, and he was very excited. As a result, when he got up early the next morning, he saw Dumbledore and a strange wizard visiting the Dursleys' house together. .

I won’t go into details about the details in between. In short, in the end, Harry got a godfather (this godfather is also a netizen Padfoot who he has known for a long time on Wang Wang), and there is still a month left for the summer vacation to choose to spend with his godfather. The news—not only this year, but every year after that, as long as he stayed at the Dursleys' house for two weeks, he could choose on his own whether to stay at the Dursleys' house or come to Sirius.

Needless to say, Harry naturally chose to be with Sirius.

Although Sirius, who had cleared his grievances, inherited the ancestral house of the Black family, for him, the memory brought by that place was too dark. He didn't like it, and he didn't want to take Harry there—he suppressed He had read in Black's ancestral house in his childhood, and he didn't want Harry to live in that gloomy big house.

Uncle Alphard left him some property, plus his own, which is enough for him to buy a real estate, but it is really inconvenient to find a suitable residence in the short term, Sirius almost subconsciously remembered that he once lived in The family that passed by.

He thought it was a good place to live there.

—and the upstairs is still empty!

So, he rented the upper floor of Alex's house, and Harry and his friends became neighbors upstairs and downstairs.

They didn't move here until Bucky and Alex came back.

Alex, who knew the whole story from Harry, suddenly realized that this was the mysterious reward that Professor Dumbledore was talking about at that time.

The benefits of having an extra wizard neighbor are obvious. For example, when Harry and Alex want to play with brooms, they don’t need to go away from people, but just ask Sirius to cast an ignore spell.

Bucky is used to going upstairs and opening the door of a neighbor's house when he doesn't find Alex at home - or, when opening his own door, sees a small dark-haired boy with Alex , there is a pile of magic books in front of them, and the scene where two children are trying to write their homework on the parchment.

Compared to Harry, who basically didn't do much homework because the Dursleys banned any mention of magic, and his schoolbag and Nimbus 2000 were confiscated during the holidays, although Alex did not do much homework in the past month. Played a lot, but the homework was still done well.

While Harry was still biting the tip of the quill pen and thinking about how to write homework for Charms, Alex had finished all the remaining homework, opened her shell necklace, and thought about what to do next.

The harvest in Wizard Street in the United States was greater than she thought. Not only did she sign a contract with Gringotts, but she also sold a large number of dogs out of the way—she just checked the number of dogs and their assigned personal locations yesterday, and found out that there are dogs in the United States. The number of activations is almost one to one.

I don’t know if it’s because the atmosphere is influenced by the country and it’s extra open. American wizards accept Ali Wangwang much faster than the British wizarding world. When she went to a store called Hulala Stationery, the store manager was After asking about the situation, he even signed Ali Wangwang's general agency contract for the Americas with her without hesitation: except for the batch she provided to Gringotts and the ones provided to cooperative merchants for Taotao platform for free, in the future Americas All Wang Wang sales are in charge of this store.

The account system and the anti-theft system were officially launched not long ago, including the optional function of connecting to the Gringotts vault. Because of the previous announcement, everyone has accepted it well. Not many people choose to bind the vault, which is true As expected.

Alex is not too worried about this. When the Taotao platform is launched, as long as he wants to use the Taotao platform, he has to be tied up if he doesn't want to.

After checking the system load for the last time, Alex pressed the "Release Upgrade Package" button.