A mage? A spell engineer!

Chapter 104 Isn't there too much success?

The core area of ​​this laboratory is a magic array, covered by a huge hemispherical crystal dome, with wiring connected to its base. The wiring doesn't input electricity, but rather a large amount of ether.

Before Rorschach solved the problem of the steam engine, Carnot had been the source of ether, and it was extremely unstable.

"Such a large crystal dome? Master, you are truly amazing." The entire dome is white with a slight hint of pale purple, indicating that it contains trace amounts of iron and manganese.

"That's right. I found a large piece of raw stone with the best transparency, and then used the [Stone Shaping] technique to mold it."

Okay, I didn't quite catch on for a second. Crystals are indeed stones, and if sand from a secondary plane can be shaped, then crystals can certainly be shaped as well.

"But what's the use of this shield?" Rorschach stared intently. The unactivated magic circle itself was unremarkable, but patterns of magical light flowed across the surface of the crystal ball, clearly indicating that it had been enchanted or had a magic circle subtly inscribed on it.

"You'll find out soon enough. Paulina, is the power plant downstairs operating at full capacity?"

Paulina checked the equipment in front of her: "It's on, everything is normal."

Cano nodded: "Okay, Rorschach, step back a bit. Turn on the switch."

boom!

The instant the ether flowed into the mithril alloy wires and activated the magic circle, the crystal dome burst forth with a dazzling, intense light under Rorschach's detection magic vision.

Ah! Caught off guard by the burst of light, Luo Xia felt as if his mithril alloy eyes were almost blinded. He involuntarily shed some tears before his vision slowly returned.

Kano hadn't anticipated Rorschach's reckless behavior and momentarily forgot to warn him: "Kid, are you that sensitive to Ether Burst? Don't activate Arcane Vision on your device."

"Okay, I got it, and I'll never forget it." Rorschach, who had been hit by the flashbang, became obedient, but he still didn't understand what had happened inside the crystal ball: "What happened inside?"

The circuit of the crystal dome is still active, and grayish-white powder is slowly falling.

"Transmutation dust is usually emitted when the teleportation array is activated. If these dangerous crystalline powders come into contact with us, we're doomed; if anything comes into contact with this place, the laboratory is doomed."

Those who dislike the powder will undergo uncontrollable and irreversible mutations upon contact, and may even die.

So we created a protective shield and constructed a series of magic arrays to cause the transmutation dust to quickly and as much as possible release its contained mass-energy when it approaches. Once all the ether within the crystal is expelled, it decays into the ashes you see now.

"So this experiment failed?" Rorschach remembered what Dryaz had said when he led him through the Symbolic Realm: the Prime Plane and the Astral Plane were isolated by metamorphic dust. The fact that metamorphic dust was spewing out of the magic circle indicated that the other end of the teleportation channel was not in the correct position.

"Yes, the research has been nothing but failures." Paulina was still in a very depressed state, making people wonder if, in addition to the aftereffects of her argument with Pascal, she was also affected by the gravity of the satellites in the main plane.

The senior sister carefully recorded the results, including the ether flux of the magic circle, the spatial distortion rate measured by the instruments beside her, and the experimental phenomena. "Accompanied by a dazzling, fleeting burst of magical light that almost blinded the junior brother."

"Senior sister, you're not really going to record this, are you?" Luo Xia turned to look at Kano and found that he was already engrossed in writing and drawing.

After Paulina finished recording these notes, she walked to the core device and said, "Give me a hand. This crystal pot has suppression circuits and other protections. We can't apply [Levitation] to it."

At her senior's command, Luo Xia immediately assisted her in carefully moving the crystal cover, which was indeed quite heavy.

The magic circle was inscribed on a metal disc that could be separated from the base. Paulina carefully removed the magic circle disc along with the decaying powder of transmutation dust and collected all the powder.

"The net weight of the plate has already been weighed. Now, let's weigh the plate along with the powder. Do you know how to use a balance scale?"

"I definitely can, senior sister." What a joke. Although Luo Xia only used electronic balances after entering high school, he had at least learned how to operate the retro classic model.

Luo Xia picked up the tweezers and held the weights, prompting his senior sister to nod repeatedly: "Back then, your muddle-headed senior brother just used his hands."

"Senior sister, something sounds off about that," Luo Xia thought to herself, then weighed the powder and reported the data. Paulina had obtained the net weight of the powder by using a substandard serving dish.

By combining this data with previous data, Rorschach roughly estimated that an exponential curve could be fitted.

"We have been adjusting the height of the target location of the magic circle. The mass of the transmutation dust that is teleported in will increase rapidly, and then reach a plateau. In theory, it should be close to the astral plane, but the teleportation height and energy required to cross the plateau often become infinitely large in the end."

The next step was for Master Kano to take action: he first used a cleaning spell on the metal disc on which the magic circle was inscribed to ensure that the impurities on the surface were removed, and then directly molded a piece of it to create the next magic circle to be tested.

Luo Xia noticed that there were hundreds of magic array diagrams in the experimental notebook in Paulina's hand.

"These have all been verified by the team?" This... this brute-force attack? Just blindly stumbling around? Am I studying magic or materials science?

"Initially, our research was simply to reproduce and verify the magic arrays that could construct astral portals from the Old Empire era and earlier, as recorded. There were records in the magic guild registers, discoveries from the underground palaces of the dwarves in the north of the continent, and even arrays from the Semitic system."

As Kano explained and shaped the new circuit, it was about to be completed: "But the old magic arrays have all failed, so the research direction has shifted to comparing and analyzing these magic arrays."

We have summarized various ways in which a series of magic arrays depict loops related to space, positioning, and maintaining channels, constructed our own system, and continuously experimented. Our current achievement is the ability to summon the metamorphic dust at the edge of our celestial sphere.

Install and test the circuit, check for short circuits or open circuits, and then close the cover.

"Rorschach, don't get flashed again," Cano warned before closing the switch.

Rorschach stopped trying to focus and simply kept his eyes on the sphere as usual.

This time he saw it clearly: in a very short time, brilliant and colorful powder burst forth, and at the same time, the protective circuit of the crystal shield was activated, releasing and counteracting all the brilliance of the transmutation dust, leaving only pale ashes.

This time it wasn't grayish-white, but rather a white with a subtle hint of pink, a feeling that Rorschach found very familiar.

The remaining steps are the same as the previous set. A simple "same steps as above" is written in the notebook, followed by a new set of data, which means mechanical repetitive labor that makes people's backs ache and their heads spin.

As darkness fell and the lights came on, the three people in the room had been busy all afternoon, testing a total of six magic arrays. Their shapes were largely similar, with only minor adjustments to the positioning loops.

Luo Xia flipped through the records that had probably lasted for several years with a sigh: "Failure is the mother of success!" The problem is that there are too many mothers of success; they could form an army of women.

"Well said!" Master Kano was starving, and he suggested that we go to the restaurant in the Starlight Torch Tower for a meal, which he would treat us to.

"My treat." These concise, powerful, and inspiring words, spoken by the archmage, seemed to possess a magical quality, summoning the weary Pascal from who-knows-where.

However, the phrase "a debriefing meeting after dinner" and Paulina's angry glare caused Rorschach's senior brother to mysteriously disappear before he could even eat.

The relevant discussions about materials science in the article are just exaggerations and jokes. The psychological activities of the characters in the article do not represent the author's own views. Materials science is a discipline with a long history and a complete system. In the research process, there is absolutely no situation where you take an existing system, modify the raw materials, mix them, burn them to obtain new substances, and then measure the properties and do some characterization so that you can get a paper that is passable!

Thank you for reading!

(End of this chapter)