kscans

Chapter 153 - Episode 20: Second Half - Mock

"Allow me to show you a piece of our technology."

I opened the box. Inside was the fruit of Fulsy and Noel's hard work. On a silver plate, simple symbols drawn with red and green lines, a mix of straight and curved strokes, were arranged. If I had to describe them, they looked like three ampersand symbols fitted within a one centimeter square.

"...This isn't Sorcery Silver. What are you doing with something so outdated?"

"Please, see for yourself," I urged Maytyl, who wore a puzzled expression.

"You mustn't, Magus. What if it's poisoned?"

The sorcerer at her side tried to stop his master. But Maytyl waved him off and took the plate herself.

"The circuit's pattern is a basic unit in our sorcery formulas. Though it's remarkably small and thin. With Sorcery Silver's magic conductivity, making something like this would be completely meaningle..."

Maytyl turned the plate over and examined it from the side. For the record, there was nothing drawn on the back or the edges. I had various ideas for the future, but they were still far beyond our reach.

"I expected... wait, what on earth is this... Hold on, this color, could it be. What!"

Maytyl placed a finger on the edge of the circuit, on the symbol for the Empire's interface. And then, she flinched.

"You. What did you do?"

Her attendant thrust a magic staff at me. He was looking at me as if I'd hidden a poisoned needle in it. As if a gentle person like myself would ever do such a thing.

"No way. It functions as a sorcery formula even though it's this thin and small? And the speed at which the magical flow switches is..."

It seemed Maytyl had grasped the full significance of this device without any need for explanation.

"Of course, this is merely a toy to demonstrate the technology we possess."

I smiled like a venture capitalist who had successfully piqued an investor's interest. This toy, this mock, was the cutting edge of the Kingdom's technology. A little too cutting edge, perhaps, and rather detached from our existing technological base.

I also won't mention that we had to make over ten of these just to get this one successful unit, giving it a yield rate of less than ten percent. A good bluff is important.

"A toy... You know exactly what you're implying, don't you..."

Maytyl glared at me, her earlier dauntless attitude having vanished completely. She was staring in utter shock at what was, in truth, nothing more than a simple imitation of a small part of the magic circles they used.

This toy was meaningless as a magic circuit. It was a simple circuit that did nothing more than switch the flow of magic on or off according to the user's will.

What made it different was its minuteness. The lines were less than half the width of the Empire's equivalent circuits, allowing it to fit into less than a quarter of the space.

The materials were what made this possible. First, the base was made of Sorcery Silver, which has far worse magic conductivity than Sorcery Gold. Upon that Sorcery Silver, we drew the magic circuit using two opposing magic catalysts, the green magic inhibitor, IG-1, and the red magic amplifier, ER-1.

The lines were drawn using Noel's ballpoint pen. Since the ball is one millimeter in diameter, the line width is about seventy percent of that, though it varies depending on the viscosity of the solvent used for the magic catalyst and other factors.

Eventually, I'm considering using the fact that it's softer than Sorcery Gold to press patterns with a mold, or even employing capillary action, but naturally, we haven't gotten that far yet. And even if we had, I couldn't show them.

In short, this was something akin to a semiconductor, but one that channeled magic instead of electricity.

"This is the Kingdom's magic technology. What do you think?"

What is a "semiconductor"? While the word is often used as a synonym for computers, its true meaning is a material with a conductivity that lies somewhere between a "conductor" like copper, which allows electricity to flow easily, and an "insulator" like glass, which strongly resists it. The important thing is not this middling conductivity itself, but the flexibility it offers. It means that depending on the conditions, you can allow magic to flow or stop it. And by manipulating those conditions, you can precisely "draw" the paths that magic can take.

If you compare the flow of magic or electricity to the flow of water, a conductor is like a deep ditch. Water flows easily, but if you want to design the flow, you have to go to the great trouble of building up banks from scratch. An insulator is like a rockbed. To create a path for water, you have to expend tremendous effort to carve a channel.

A semiconductor, on the other hand, is like a sponge. In the places you want water to flow, you treat it with a chemical that dissolves the sponge and enlarges its pores. In the places you don't want water to flow, you inject another chemical to clog the pores. This flexibility is what gives semiconductors their value as a material for circuits.

Of course, the computer chips from my previous world were far more advanced even in their basic principles, but in essence, the point of using a semiconductor's flexibility to create pathways for magic remains the same.

"Well? Can you still say the Kingdom has no technology that would interest you?"

"...Th-this part here is wrong. It's missing a line. This is what you get from crude mimicry..."

Maytyl pointed to a part of the circuit with a trembling finger.

"Where?"

"Right here."

"Oh? In that case, please, fix it with this."

I handed Maytyl a ballpoint pen filled with red ink. She added a single line. Incidentally, I heard that getting the ink to properly adhere to the Sorcery Silver was quite a struggle. I don't know the details, and I intentionally avoided asking.

"The circuit switched just by drawing a line!"

By contrast, the Empire's battering ram uses circuits made of Sorcery Gold, which is a conductor. To create banks that stop the flow of magic, they have to physically carve grooves and fill them with an insulator. To prevent the magic from shorting, there's a limit to how small they can make things.

"...I see. This is the same magic catalyst as that."

Maytyl took out a single magic staff. It had a mottled pattern on it. It seemed she had kept the one I spilled IG-1 and ER-1 on without wiping it clean.

"So, what do you think can be done with this? And please return the pen."

Maytyl was slyly holding on to it. Of course, I'd only put a tiny amount of ink in it.

"There are so many possibilities my head is spinning. But, without a doubt, we could reduce the amount of magic used in sorcery. Probably by half... no, down to a third."

Maytyl said this as if in a fever. For someone asking the questions, is it really okay for her to be so talkative? Thanks to her, I have a much better handle on a question that was bugging me. I now have a rough idea of the ratio between the two steps of activating magic or sorcery, that is, the computation and the manifestation.

Just as I suspected, the majority of the magic is likely used for the computation phase. To be certain, though, I'd first like to see their sorcery in action.

"Tell me. How did you make this!"

Maytyl leaned forward, her political demeanor from moments ago completely gone. You're not Fulsy, shouldn't you calm down a little?

No, this must be an act to draw information out of me. As a politician and a military commander, she can't possibly ignore this technology once she knows about it. She must be thinking that at this rate, the Kingdom's standards of magic will quickly overwhelm the Empire's.

"I'd like you to recall your own words from earlier. It's unfair for only our side to disclose our technology. You'll have to show us your sorcery in return."

I believe both magic and sorcery are forms of information processing that use the special power known as magic. To confirm that hypothesis, that fire sorcery is actually perfect.

Of course, she'll refuse. The question is how to pressure her...

"What are you talking about. You were the one who voluntee—"

"Fine. What do you want me to show you?"

"Magus!?"

Maytyl ignored her attendant's protest and spoke. Wait, really?

◇◇

In what felt like the blink of an eye, I was led to a place that looked like a castle courtyard. It seemed the Imperial Princess herself was going to give a demonstration.

From the pattern drawn on Maytyl's thin, white arm, a magic circuit connected to the surface of her magic staff, and at the same time, a band of light appeared. The band formed a spiral, converging at a point a short distance from the staff's tip.

I see, it's similar to the magic flow of that slime mold. This might be a form of biomimicry from monsters. I moved closer to Maytyl to confirm something.

"Do not approach carelessly."

The sorcerer who had his staff pointed at me spoke. Whoops, I hurriedly returned to my original position. I didn't have a thermometer or a pressure gauge, but it was obvious. My ears rang for a moment. And despite the presence of a flame, the surrounding temperature was dropping. That's not an ordinary flame, is it?

A bullet of fire shot out and struck a target over two hundred meters away with pinpoint accuracy. Maytyl looked back at me, as if to say, "How about that?" But my curiosity had already been satisfied before the projectile was even fired.

I'll need to do a more rigorous verification once I'm back in the Royal Capital, but it's settled. The essence of sorcery is information manipulation. Still, I had a rough idea from the precision of Fulsy's observations, especially with the antenna and the colony assays, but this is truly outrageous. The efficiency of the information processing is just too high.

I looked at Mia. Setting my personal feelings aside, I absolutely have to get her back. The sorcery I just witnessed... its compatibility with statistical mechanics, which derives the properties of a substance from the statistical behavior of its gas molecules, is just too perfect.