A mage? A spell engineer!

Chapter 540 Temporary Meeting Supported by New Communications

Does the Grand Master want to sleep?

Rorschach had previously read some self-cultivation texts that boasted about being so full that one couldn't sleep. In his understanding, being full was a physiological phenomenon, while not wanting to sleep was insomnia!

Anyway, this guy is an engineering student who doesn't believe in any of that stuff. Even in this other world, he's busy as a bee every day, only managing to rest a little late at night. When he's resting, there's no internet, and Rorschach isn't the type to appreciate any kind of singing or dancing art, so what else can he do? Sleep.

Although his physical condition has improved, just like his habit of using a mobile phone, the phone used to have poor performance and he often had to restart it. Now that the phone has better performance, he still refreshes the overall status because of habit.

With his physical fitness and such a mindset as a foundation, Luo Xia didn't have any particular feelings about waking up in the middle of the night. He just felt that he had finished sleeping and could continue his work for the new day.

Rorschach walked through the quiet mage tower corridor. Now there was another corridor outside the hall, which could accommodate more fixed portals. Besides managing the school and teaching, Caroline had been spending most of her time lately fiddling with new connections.

Many doors here are in a state of waiting to be connected, and even Rorschach doesn't know where they will be connected to in the future, so he just lets Caroline do whatever she wants.

I found the workspace and pushed the door open to enter.

He spread out the design sketches of the starship and scribbled on them at will. With the success of the prototype, a lot of experience and lessons were accumulated. The ship to be launched this time would be mainly designed by the Arcane Tower. In fact, Feuerbach had "outsourced" this job to Rorschach.

The workshop also has a very large device, the main body of which is a receiver, which is eventually connected to a crystal ball.

Pop pop.

The machine was emitting a signal reception sound, and Luo Xia wondered, "At this hour... who could it be?"

He turned the knob on the device, and the crystal ball began to emit irregular light, flickering and changing colors as he adjusted the knob.

Finally, Rorschach found the corresponding channel, and the crystal ball immediately emitted its brightest light, projecting a very realistic image.

"Can you hear me? Feed me?" the other person asked, peering in curiously.

"You can't see me." Rorschach sighed and cooperatively opened his transmitter, but he didn't choose to open the other party's [Advanced Illusion] channel, only transmitting his voice: "Master Colbert, I can hear you."

"Hehe, so you weren't asleep after all."

Kober was still driven by his playful nature. His phantom was dressed in red pajamas and a red and white pointed hat—not to flaunt his status as an archmage, but because, according to him, all the robes in the Forest Tower were green, and he deliberately chose all-red pajamas to separate work and life.

The indicator lights and crystal ball continued to flash. After a few adjustments by Rorschach, new device users came online.

In about the time it takes to drink a potion of energy, almost all the device holders had logged on. The last one was Kano, who thought he hadn't activated the communication. He was hiccuping and scratching his head as he tried to operate everything he could. In fact, his full-body image had already been projected into Rorschach's workspace.

This new communication system, which uses "Advanced Illusion" as its terminal representation method, is only being tested among members of the Senate.

It seemed to be some kind of strange synchronicity; all the elders were awake, and then the archmage's habit led them all to their own research labs/offices, where they saw experimental devices constantly receiving signals.

A 13+1 impromptu meeting was formed unintentionally.

In the end, no one activated their full-body projections. Instead, at 3:05 AM, thirteen 3D iridescent heads floated around the crystal ball in Rorschach's workshop. The other mages also realized something was wrong and modified the spell frequency of their transmitters, transforming them into illusions of various symbols.

There were bird heads, beast heads, and runes. The fact that the Tower of Light and the Tower of Darkness both chose white and black spheres reminded Rorschach of the "origin and end" symbol he had seen in the High Heavens.

He was sporting a cartoon-style Labrador dog head and silently marveled: "The first portraits in the magical world were 3D full color, how wonderful!"

"I didn't expect it to develop into a late-night discussion. Should we hold all our meetings like this from now on?" Cano suggested.

The chief of the Tower of Light's sphere expanded and shrank as he spoke: "This device, like the communication system, requires manual maintenance and has a physical relay point. It's not discreet enough, especially after it's opened to more people in the future."

"We can establish a dedicated line for you."

With the rapid advancements in communication magic and aerospace engineering in recent years, a new generation of communication systems that integrate the best technologies currently available has finally begun trial operation.

Because the ground stations of the communication network were frequently interfered with, the mage, inspired by the Starship project, thought that the relay stations of the communication could be sent into the sky.

So at the highest level of the atmosphere, they launched "permanent high-altitude airships" in an attempt to keep these airships stationary relative to their ground coordinates or to cruise along fixed routes, thus serving as new transit points.

Meanwhile, with the support of new technologies and theories such as [Radio Transmission] and spell weaving theory, the way of transmitting messages has also changed. In the past, sending messages based on teleportation arrays was called "real transmission", but now there is "virtual transmission" which is represented by [Advanced Illusion].

Instead of direct remote spellcasting, it extracts the elements of spellcasting, transmits the key information through a communication spell, and the receiving end needs to analyze it and control the spell array on the terminal to complete the spellcasting. This idea is derived from the "descriptor" in the spell cloud.

The guild plans to launch more atmospheric cruise airships and fixed airships in the future, ideally achieving unmanned self-sufficiency. With the construction of the telegraph network and the maturity of the switching technology, it will only require maintenance ships to regularly connect with the transfer station and dedicated personnel for maintenance.

"You're doing this and spreading yourself too thin. Are you even managing to keep up with the guild's demand?" one master pointed out a problem—the magic guild is already burdened enough.

Rorschach replied matter-of-factly, "Then train more people. Many operations clearly don't require a spellcaster."

"This is the wisdom of the Dharma Master, so it must be preserved."

"But this is technology! Without it, it's a worthless secret," Rorschach retorted.

The mages of the Empire, Valuva, and Bain were already accustomed to the participation of ordinary people in various projects. Whether by choice or by force, these archmages had at least accepted the fact, such as the large-scale industrial complex in Bain.

"The education level of ordinary people is also improving now. The knowledge of many so-called 'graduate schools' professors is enough to cultivate talents that we can use. In the future, there will be a shortage of people everywhere, so we might as well recruit more of them, regardless of whether they can cast spells or not." Kano couldn't help but laugh at the end, "Anyway, the Empire and we have already done this." His gaze finally fell on the image of "White Dog".

Seeing that no one questioned it anymore, Luo Xia's mind raced. He had been harassed several times over this issue before. Now, a new tone had been set in just one impromptu meeting—times had truly changed.

However, the joy was short-lived. Luo Xia interrupted the topic, bringing up his own anxieties: "We all logged on at the same time. What an interesting coincidence. I woke up in the middle of the night, but I don't remember why. Anyone else experiencing the same thing?"

Surprisingly, seven or eight of the remaining thirteen people were in the same situation as Luo Xia.

After a brief period of sleep, Kano realized something was amiss after the nightlife ended: "Everyone here is a great mage; this seems to be a sign characterized by synchronicity."

"Is there anything unusual?" The more Luo Xia asked, the more uneasy he became.

Kano recalled, "The transmutation dust flow began to flicker in the afternoon, and the release signal sphere from the starship was interrupted. However, this was an occasional occurrence, and the emergency plan would not be activated until at least tomorrow if no response was received."

Kober thought of something: "The National Guard has reached the Oder River today."

"The communication node in Oward is offline today, and we are trying to fix it. It seems to be a battlefield there. It is said that the specialist sent by the headquarters in the capital has not yet responded, and the node is still offline."

The above are all anomalies that occurred from time to time during this period and were not particularly serious. In particular, the offline status of guild nodes was commonplace during the war.

Suddenly, a pale ray of sunlight pierced the night, and many of the mages' portraits turned away, indicating that they, like Rorschach, had windows in their location.

It's past four in the morning in winter! Rorschach stared wide-eyed to make sure he wasn't looking at the clock wrong.

(End of this chapter)