A mage? A spell engineer!

Chapter 194 The Intermediary of the World

"What's different?" Feuerbach entered lecture mode. His eyes were bright as he stared at Rorschach, hoping that the other's mind would work faster, even faster.

"The text was corrupted after restoration."

"Yes and no, use your brain!"

Rorschach felt he was being relentlessly pressured, and he pondered the meaning and connotation of the words themselves: "Information! The information is lost."

"Good." Feuerbach was satisfied. He then repeated his spellcasting demonstration on the part of the parchment that had not been burned or restored.

Rorschach intently used Arcane Vision to observe, attempting to record the archmage casting Reverse Ray before him, but was stopped by Feuerbach:

"Intermediate Mage Rorschach, you didn't come here to learn my spellcasting techniques. You're wasting your focus and relaxing your thinking. Look, look! You need to carefully observe the difference between the two results!"

"The text and images have been restored." Rorschach received the draft again; the second spell did not result in the loss of information.

"Yes, the most obvious difference is that I paid more magic the second time, but that's just the most superficial price. Don't you find that strange? Rorschach just said that the information disappeared. Doesn't the parchment itself contain information? When we hold it, it has size, weight, color, and thickness, so why can its state be easily restored?"

This made Rorschach hesitate. Clearly, the writing was only blurred, not disappeared. Rather, it was as if the matter had lost its "meaning" after the first spell was cast.

However, Feuerbach then changed the subject: "Since you studied at the Tower of Stars, I won't waste my breath discussing the concept of time with you. Let's start with the spells you developed and talk about the so-called gods."

"Our Creator possesses infinite power. He created the world, so before the emergence of intelligence such as humans, elves, and even other deities, could the world give itself meaning? Even if mountains and lakes exist, can the world itself recognize them? Even if magic exists, can it be utilized and transformed into miracles in the material world?"

Feuerbach seems to have viewed the Creator (i.e., the world itself) as a chaotic and foolish being, whose own infinity creates a terrible sense of meaninglessness:

"Since you have read Faust's works, you know how important so-called 'order' is. So-called order must grow out of 'finitude'."

Rorschach tried to understand the other person's words. If we follow the previous "monkey typewriter" assumption, the "monkey" is the creator in Feuerbach's eyes. He emphasized that even if there are "works" in endless permutations and combinations, they would lose their meaning because the content is "infinite". The premise of finding works is to extract finite existence from the infinite.

The limitations of intelligent beings like humans as individuals are precisely the premise for giving meaning to the world and creating miracles.

Therefore, in Feuerbach's view, intelligent beings such as humans, elves, and dwarves are all of equal intelligence, and even gods are the same.

"Therefore, I would like to say that humans and other intelligent beings are the mediators who produce symbols and symbolic order, allowing the world to emerge from infinite chaos and gain self-reflection."

"Some foolish and lowly believers say, 'When humans think, the Creator laughs.' That's true. What we see is what the world sees, and our thoughts are the Creator's thoughts. And I certainly don't bother to hide my ridicule of that idea."

He continued to share his research findings: "The gods are also divided into the earliest primordial gods who differentiated from the Creator and the later powerful gods. The first batch of gods were merely divisions of the Creator, light, darkness, and earth. They still possessed infinity and were still blindly active, just like natural phenomena and existences such as wind, rain, and lightning. They were merely 'in themselves,' not 'self-actualizing.'"

Intelligence, whether awakened in weak creatures or certain primordial gods, becomes the mediator of the world, further endowing finitude, and giving each being a name, meaning, and the power and divine office of the next generation of gods.

Since the intelligent entity is the medium through which the world attempts to grasp itself, then what is the medium of the intelligent entity's consciousness?

"Symbols, the special nature of symbols is revealed here. Please do not limit yourself to language and writing. All abstractions that are intellectually divided and dominated are symbols. Our graphics, words, and even magical circuits are organized to mediate consciousness, magic, and divinity. And the way they are organized is what I call 'symbolic order.' Because of the special nature of symbols, it takes a greater price to restore them after they have been destroyed."

Here, Rorschach argues that Feuerbach's "symbol" and "symbolic order" are the same as Faust's "orderliness," but the latter is more general. Feuerbach grasps that the symbol itself does not depend on the existence of any isolated individual, but has a set of rules in the process of the spread and use of consciousness.

"But symbolic order." Rorschach thought of the gods that were universally worshipped in the Holy Kingdom from this word.

Feuerbach was pleased with Rorschach's association: "That's right! This is the source of the God of Order's power! The core of its power is not stability, harmony, or a beautiful and just social order. That's just a trick to win over believers."

The master's expression became agitated, and the pipe in his hand had been extinguished for a long time: "It is obvious that all equal intellectual entities jointly created the order, especially the symbolic order, but this deity has stolen the authority and shamelessly proclaimed himself the 'Lord of Order'."

"Only by defeating it and its servants—the bishops, kings, and emperors—can we reclaim the power bestowed upon us by the Creator! Whether they believe in it or not, all those who uphold the old order it governs must be eliminated, without exception!"

Huh? I came here to learn magic, how did we end up here? Rorschach was initially on edge, trying to keep up with the archmage's train of thought, but somehow it turned into a inflammatory speech.

Rorschach was taken aback by Feuerbach's progressiveness, though he himself didn't care, because regardless of the reason, Rorschach had always intended to do so. It was a pity that he was the only one in the audience, which was a waste of the archmage's speech.

"I cannot agree with your ideas any further, but please tell me, what is the relationship between the above and the [Reverse Ray] spell itself?"

Feuerbach calmed down and handed the pipe back to the gargoyle to light: "So what I said implies the principle of how magic is implemented. You should have seen similar ideas in Faust's works. The key is in reversal."

"In fact, your 'divine expulsion' has already grasped the occurrence of the reverse process, but it did not go any further. In short, it is to cancel what Faust called 'orderliness,' which I call the 'symbolic order' of magic."

"The spellcasting process can be very complicated. To cancel the complicated process, we don't need to 'go back the way we came'. We just need to anchor the state before the spell was cast and then go directly there."

"First, what is the state of the spell itself before it is cast? Disordered, infinite magical power. Okay, this one step alone can dispel many magical states. And my restoration after burning the parchment is actually different from the 'Repair' spell. The first spell destroyed the current state of the material world, while I destroyed the previous 'destruction'. Do you understand?"

Luo Xia wanted to say no, but he couldn't bring himself to say it. He had some vague ideas and needed to sort them out.

(End of this chapter)