A mage? A spell engineer!

Chapter 375 Crisis, but Money-Making Opportunities

"It would be best to get a complete spell list."

Perhaps the guilds, especially the Arcane Senate, have mastered most of the known spells; otherwise, how could they have established ranks?

However, Rorschach had a vague feeling that things weren't that simple. The "ring tiers" might not be entirely the product of a group of top mages' "brainstorming." He had already seen the upside-down "Tree of Law" twice, and the intersections on it were also distributed in concentric circles, but there were a total of sixteen tiers!

Currently, the publicly known spells are only at the ninth level, coincidentally matching the spellcaster levels created by later generations. The ancient sorcerer, a being far stronger than the current archmages, demonstrated spells from his peak period to Rorschach that he called "super magic," which should be above the ninth level.

The closer you climb to the trunk of the tree, the closer you get to the roots, and the rarer it becomes to be lit up. Rorschach remembers that the faintly flickering nodes went up to the eleventh ring.

He assessed the current performance of the Tower Spirits and decided to assign descriptors of the highest level, the sixth ring, and design variants according to the spell system.

This may seem like a way to make things difficult for the spellcaster, but it is also a means to optimize the response speed: in this way, the tower spirit can read the level descriptor and identify what series of spells the spellcaster is going to cast, allowing the tower spirit to narrow down the scope of the terms and predict the "terms" that may be used next.

This greatly compresses the spellcasting process. However, in Rorschach's view, the whole system is still somewhat crude. Although he himself has evolved from a "mute English" player to a "mute magic" player, he is not entirely opposed to chanting, material assistance, gestures, and other methods. He personally prefers to use gestures to assist in spellcasting.

These either concentrate the spellcaster's mind or resemble miniature rituals, better mobilizing environmental magic or establishing a stronger connection with the original text layer.

Therefore, the future "Spell Cloud" should also incorporate this system, or be compatible with traditional auxiliary methods, such as allowing spellcasters to mobilize magic power using other means. This is especially important when more spells are loaded in the future, with higher energy levels, or even when "runes" are no longer sufficient to represent them.

"The road ahead is long and arduous," Luo Xia thought, feeling tired after finishing his adjustments, and slumped back in his chair.

"You shouldn't complete the design alone; one person has limitations, for example..."

"For example what?" Luo Xia noticed that the tower spirit was being very bold today.

"You should find more collaborators to compensate for your weaknesses, or introduce new ideas to improve the system's compatibility."

Speaking of this, Rorschach suddenly thought of someone—Professor Caroline! If she could join the plan, she could supplement the spatial magic. His previous letter had received a reply; Caroline had no intention of coming to Byrne for the time being. She seemed to be still holding down her post and processing the stargazing data collected at sea.

He perked up and sat up straight in his chair: "Yes, we can contact the teacher again to join the project."

"That's right, that's right." The tower spirit was encouraging Luo Xia, its tone even more cheerful.

Then Rorschach produced another piece of paper: "And there's Lady Elizabeth, who is skilled in time-related magic, as well as spells and transmutations."

The tower spirit hadn't expected that Luo Xia wasn't satisfied with just one, and wanted two more: "...Okay."

Finally, Rorschach became excited: "Would the Forest Tower be willing to teach me low- to mid-level nature magic? If only I could get a public spell list from the Magic Guild! Master Feuerbach... he's eccentric, and he probably only knows some profound spells, so I won't consider him at this stage."

"..." The tower spirit gave up in despair: "Why don't you just open-source your system and let everyone upload spells?"

"That would be wonderful! What need is there for magic guilds, or papers that can't withstand plagiarism checks?" Rorschach's vision was full of beautiful ideas, as if he had already become the "God of Open Source" and could "Activate Source God" at any time!

"Wait a minute, if we really go through with this, won't the old fogies in the Arcane Senate blow my head off? The situation isn't chaotic enough yet, we can't be too impulsive." Rorschach shook his head: "Let's test it on a small scale first, or let's find Professor Caroline first."

He took the letter and ran to the Magic Guild office. Indeed, due to the growing population and industrial scale of Lanster, the increasing number of apprentices who failed their promotions coming to work in the factories, and the fact that Rorschach was said to be a regular there, the guild had actually opened an office.

It is currently housed in a villa at the junction of the old and new city areas. Of course, it lacks complete supporting facilities and permissions. All teleportation arrays point to the nearest Munich hub, which is used to connect to the communication network.

With the Empire's victory and pressure from the guild's upper echelons, restrictions on internal communication within the Empire have been lifted, allowing Rorschach to quickly send messages to Caroline. However, communication to the Holy Kingdom remains fraught with disputes, as the guild is unwilling to accept the Empire's approval, and the Empire is reluctant to open this channel.

The Empire's anti-magic devices have now been exposed, and the Empire has threatened to deploy them in the guilds' border cities to block cross-border communication. The guilds are threatening the Empire, saying that if they were to do so, it would be tantamount to the Empire becoming an enemy of the guilds.

Unfortunately, the Empire also has mages, and those military spellcasters who have become minor "nobles" and own manors in the north are the Empire's "ironclad support." Moreover, even if the Empire cannot threaten the mages, are all the guild staff high-level spellcasters? Don't they have any weaknesses?

The two sides are still arguing.

In Rorschach's opinion, they were just exchanging words. If things really came to a head, the Empire could activate anti-magic devices in all major cities and launch cannons to renovate the guilds and mage towers, dealing heavy damage. On the other hand, the mages could send out their best warriors to hit the Speaker, the Chancellor, and the Emperor with six magic missiles from behind, "ending their sinful lives."

In his opinion, the chief military mage didn't seem very strong.

Rorschach was unaware that the Empire allowed the guilds to continue cross-border trade, as long as goods imported into or exported from the Empire underwent thorough inspection. Although the guilds didn't want the Empire to extend these standards to communications, the sheer profits were simply too tempting!

What's even more appealing than smuggling is that the guilds can monopolize the channels if others want to smuggle. So now, there's constant bickering between the lower levels, while the upper levels are all about making money together, putting on a show that's partly for the benefit of the majority of the imperial citizens who already deeply resent the Holy Kingdom.

The public boycotting goods from enemy countries does not mean that the pillars of the empire will not taste the fine wines from Valois, or that the ladies will stop competing in Valois court styles and the most fashionable clothes and jewelry.

Just as Rorschach was lost in thought, a staff member's reminder interrupted his train of thought: "Sir, your letter has been mailed." The staff member then sighed, "Have you heard of a device that has appeared in the Empire that can block magic?"

"I've heard about it." Rorschach smiled confidently. "I've also heard it lasted a very short time."

"No matter what, it would be terrible if it interfered with our defensive arrays and communication systems." The staff member muttered as he finished tidying up the documents, "The Holy Kingdom has a communication device that doesn't rely on magic. The Holy Kingdom's branch has already tested it. At first, we thought it was unnecessary, but now it seems that they clearly knew about it."

"Yes, yes." As a spellcaster, Rorschach should have felt the guild's current predicament and stood together with them, but for some reason, he couldn't help but smile.

Before the staff noticed, she guided Luo Xia away from the guild as she spoke: "We also want this technology. We've already gotten the blueprints from the Valois branch, but there are still many things we don't understand right now. It would be great if we had a technician in this field."

"Madam, you've led me to the wrong place. I'm the person you're looking for, the one you called the 'Telegraph System.' Please take me to the person in charge here."

(End of this chapter)