"Prince, I regret the predicament that your kingdom is in, but to speak frankly, no matter how you involve yourselves in this matter, even if it's merely assisting Yondu in capturing a raccoon, it may bring trouble that you can't handle,"
With a look of regret, Shiller stared at Aran, confident that Aran wouldn't make a big fuss over this, let alone further request the Holy Sanctuary to solve the issue for him.
Despite Aran's apparent desperation, as if he can't help but uphold the security of his country, he was in fact referring to the Dodel Federation, an alliance of numerous tribes. Aran was merely the prince of one of those tribes, possibly not even one of those important princes who could succeed to the throne.
His seemingly urgent need to address the Federation's troubles was likely part of his own political maneuvering. However, if the cost of these maneuvers exceeded his expectations, there would be no need to proceed.
As expected, Aran merely made an expression of regret and the previous anxiety disappeared. It seemed as though he was merely lamenting the loss of an opportunity to make a show in front of his father.
At that moment, waiters began guiding guests to their seats in the concert hall. Aran smiled at Shiller and said, "Thank you very much, sir, for your kindness. It seems we'll have to grin and bear it after all. However, I still plan to pay Earth a visit someday, I want to experience the Holy Sanctuary's services."
"Of course, the Holy Sanctuary always welcomes your visit."
Having heard Shiller's courteous response, Aran timely turned and left without causing further hassle. However, upon Aran's departure, Shiller's solemn expression quickly faded, replaced by a slight smirk. His gaze fell upon Aran's ponytail.
The young prince had thick black hair, most of which was woven into a braid tied back perfectly. As Aran moved, Shiller had spotted a hair that didn't belong to Aran at the side of his collar.
Shiller followed the procession into the music hall, which was different than what the human race would typically see in their concert halls. It was circular, with three levels: upper, middle, and lower. The musicians performed in the center of the dome, surrounded by seating.
While this wasn't ideal for sound absorption, Asgard after all was a civilization of magic. They had special ways to deliver the sound of each tune perfectly into the audience's ears.
Upon entering the music hall, Shiller scanned the room and found the noticeably red cloak, as expected.
Shiller took the program from a waiter and made his way to the second row where the figure in the red cloak was seated. Strange felt someone approaching, turned to look, and found Shiller already seated next to him.
Asgard's music festivals differed from human ones; they allowed drinking. During the intermissions, guests were allowed to whisper to each other. It was more of a social event rather than just a pure art appreciation gathering.
After taking his seat, Shiller tap the rim of Strange's glass with his fingertip and said with a smile, "So, you're abstaining from alcohol, huh?"
Strange picked up his thin champagne glass, shook the liquor inside, and then said, "Abstinence needs to be progressive. I'll make sure not to drink before doing important things. As you know, the feeling of being tipsy can affect my magic casting, but it doesn't really matter during downtimes."
Shiller took a glass of wine from a waiter, shook his head and replied, "Yes, and then you'll find that all the time is downtime."
The two clinked glasses and Strange chuckled, "Really though, when will you visit Kamar-Taj again to see the progress we've made in harnessing magic energy?"
"I'm just a regular guy, I don't do magic. Please stop chanting those mystic words of prophecy or fate into my ears," Shiller shook his head and made a look of apprehension.
Strange sighed regretfully, somewhat helplessly saying, "Alright, the last time when I wasn't there, the mage who received you was rather traditional. You know, they tend to use that kind of language. I assure you it won't happen next time."
"In fact, I also know what you're most concerned with is the progress in portal technology." Strange took another sip of his wine, frowned and his face grew serious. He was watching the musicians take their positions and said, "I still stand by my view that portal technology is probably one of the biggest advantages humanity may have in the future."
"Before we stepped into the interstellar, we merely thought it was convenient. But once we truly entered the interstellar stage, we found that such a convenient, flexible, and energy-saving portal was unique to our species in the entire Universe."
"Indeed, the Three Great Empires of the Universe are not short of portals. Without portal technology, they could hardly have established such extensive interstellar colonies. But their portal technology has a serious problem — the portals are large, high-energy consuming and hard to maintain."
"Of course, the Three Great Empires are not bothered by this since they don't lack resources or energy. However, a portable personal portal device like a suspension ring which can be easily carried around remains a formidable technological barrier they can't breach."
"The reason for this lies in the different paths of civilization development," said Shiller, "The Kree Empire and the Skrull Empire are both technologically advanced civilizations with little interest in mysticism."
"Most technological civilizations follow a portal development route starting with artificial wormholes, improving their stability and transport accuracy, and then continuously downsizing and simplifying them. Based on this, they develop various types of portals."
"Magneto once showed me how a wormhole unfolded. Honestly, even for him, a Chosen One who has mastered basic universal forces, creating a wormhole portal was still not an easy task."
Strange nodded, he had also seen Magneto's teleportation method. Truthfully, opening a portal in the universe space wasn't much, after all, the universe was so large and so vast. Even if dozens or hundreds of portals were built, it wouldn't affect anything.
But Magneto's wormhole portals absolutely could not be used on Earth, and even being too close to the Earth was not possible, as it was very likely to affect the Earth's gravitational orbit.
Even if Magneto had reached a state of ultimate precision in controlling his own abilities, no one would dare to let him take this risk. After all, there is only one Earth. If anything happens, ordinary people would be doomed.
This risk would lead to a dilemma for terrestrial civilizations wanting to study portal technology. These civilizations lack the ability for interstellar colonization and even going to other planets is very difficult for them. They only have one home planet and can only set up their experimental fields nearby.
But once an experiment involving wormholes goes wrong, it would be catastrophic, and hardly any terrestrial civilizations are willing to risk the total destruction of their home planet to conduct such an experiment.
But humans are quite unique, their technology and magic have evolved separately. Even while they struggle to build a spaceship travelling within the solar system, mages already have small portals opened all over the universe.
This means that they can establish experimental fields outside of their home planet, such as at Mercury Base, or the currently developing Saturn and Uranus Satellite Bases. They could even go directly to extraterrestrial territories to carry out experiments, such as in the Andromeda Galaxy. This way, even if there is danger, it won't affect their homes.
Strange rubbed his chin and said, "In fact, the mages are planning to find a spacious area in the Andromeda Galaxy to test new portal technologies."
Shiller raised an eyebrow, asking somewhat puzzled, "What new portal technology? And why test it in the Andromeda Galaxy?"
Strange sighed and said, "This is actually a historical issue. As you know, for a long time, human mages were very poor. We only had a little bit of energy, so we had to be very frugal with it."
"Based on this, the majority of mage research focused on how to conserve energy and increase energy recycling efficiency. The portal technology was no exception. Surprisingly, the suspension ring portal, which is unique in the entire universe, was developed by mages out of desperation to save energy."
Strange showed a bitter smile, saying, "Think about it. The nature of magic dictates that every mage dreams of bombarding with energy - the more the better, the bigger the better. If we weren't really poor, would we research so many miniaturized technologies?"
"But no one thought that one day we would not be worried about energy, but instead encounter bottlenecks due to our extremely focused technological path."
It was then that Shiller remembered that when The Sanctum had just been established, Kamar-Taj had already started researching large-scale portal technology. The last time he heard about this technology, the large-scale portal had reached the size of the Moon.
However, since then, he hadn't heard of any breakthroughs in this technology. If it wasn't for Strange bringing up the past, Shiller would've almost forgotten it.
This was quite interesting, Shiller thought. The teleportation technology of other civilizations all evolved from large to small, from the initial large-scale wormholes that could potentially affect a whole piece of the universe space, to the small-scale portals for individual use.
But the course of human portal technology development, was the reverse. Mages researched energy conservation and miniaturization for years, which resulted in a portable suspension ring portal for everyone, but they encountered problems with the large-scale portal.
Although Shiller didn't understand the principles of magic, he thought that it was not just a matter of infusing the suspension ring with energy to expand the portal infinitely. The structure of an energy body that can accommodate one person and an energy body that can accommodate a planet are definitely completely different.
Just like a toy castle built with sand, it's easy to stand it up, but if you want to build a real castle, the load-bearing structure and the strength of the materials have to go through strict design and consideration, and it can't just be made casually.
"Because we didn't have that much energy at the time, mages, after generations of inheritance, painstakingly designed the suspension ring portal from scratch. This is simply a miracle."
"However, because no mage had that much energy to build a large-scale portal in ancient times, not even daring to think about it, our technological inheritance in this aspect is completely missing."
Strange shook his head and said: "The largest portal that mages have researched now is not much larger than the Moon."
"Of course, this size of portal is sufficient to transport a few small spaceships or to transport materials within the solar system, but since humans have already taken one step ahead in magic portal technology, why can't we take more steps?"
"With a large-scale portal and the Earth's magic defense network, humans can move their home planet at any time."
As the magnificent chandelier above the auditorium gradually lit up, the glow in Strange's eyes became brighter and brighter. His tone seemed to be joking, but in his words, he carried a much greater ambition.
"Perhaps, we could also move something else?"