A mage? A spell engineer!

Chapter 605: Opening the Champagne Too Early Never Ends Well

Four hours after the banquet ended, which was early morning according to Byrne time, the Kepler received a message from the ground.

The Senate sent a congratulatory message to them for their successful docking and assembly, along with a barrage of insults.

"You lot, you have nothing good to eat or drink on Earth, so you insist on overspending your supplies to enjoy yourself in the sky. Do you know how much that costs? The cost of one barrel of wine you open in the sky is enough to buy an entire winery; the value of one ham you eat could buy a whole herd of pigs!"

"If any of these kinds of activities are held without approval, everyone who comes back will have to wash their necks and wait to be beheaded!"

"Since the progress is going smoothly and exceeding expectations, get to work quickly. An additional supply ship will be dispatched from the ground to deliver replacement parts and replenish the supplies used in this operation. The alcohol, fruit, and desserts in the next supply shipment are canceled; you'll have to eat canned food!"

"The Arcane Senate, along with the Magic Guild and the Space Guild."

Johannes finished reading the instructions to all the senior crew members in the stationmaster's cabin. He looked at them sternly: "Why did the Senate know we were having a banquet?"

No one answered, but he didn't seem to care much: "But as you all heard, there will be more supply ships soon." As he spoke, the sound of sparkling wine being opened reached everyone's ears, and soon everyone in the stationmaster's office received a glass of Valois Southern craft beer.

"Cheers!"

Snow and Cavendish exchanged a smile, as if they had guessed who had written the letter.

However, the supervision was effective; the remaining rest period was cancelled, and the process of observing the original text layer was started.

The Kepler was launched on its sixth day.

It remains the bow of the seventh ship, and the banquet hall has been changed to a ceremony venue, or perhaps this was its original design purpose.

The exploration and testing of the original layer have been carried out in stages by the fourth to sixth ships, completing the three steps of positioning, perception and visualization.

The wooden planks on the bow floor were removed, revealing a complex circuit with pre-installed interfaces; the floor itself served as the base plate. The temporary gravity trap on the central axis has now been removed, leaving everyone with their feet off the ground.

Fortunately, those present were either spellcasters or dwarven technicians, so not having their feet on the ground didn't cause any problems. On the contrary, it made moving large instruments much easier.

Six specialized magic weavers were transported to the site and installed on the base plate. After being inspected in turn, they began to operate, essentially weaving environmental magic into unidirectional vector strings, forming virtual "antennas".

At the heart of the weaver, a broad-spectrum magic generator emits analog signals—its internal variable loop continuously loops the basic frequencies of various spells, even including divine spells and rituals from the past of dwarves and elves.

This machine itself cannot perform spellcasting for anyone, it will not complete the full chain of events, and the mana consumed is the same for both zero-ring spells and seventh-ring spells that can be recorded.

Its true purpose is to provoke a response from the Tree of Truth; in essence, it is a form of "deception." Moreover, the signal it emits is a multi-layered wave, equivalent to 128 spellcasters casting spells simultaneously.

Six virtual antennas form a matrix, comparing the feedback information with each other. They search for traces of changes in the original layer from extremely subtle differences. When the "deception" is successful and the Tree of Truth reacts, they compare the reaction with the signal output by the broad-spectrum magic generator to see if they match.

If the comparison is successful, it means that the virtual antenna has locked onto the Tree of Truth.

At that time, the broad spectrum generator will repeat the signal, and the magic weaver will attempt to bind with the Tree of Truth through elf-based contract magic.

The bound signals will contain a massive amount of information, which needs to be converted into information that mortals can understand through the analysis machine that has performed the [Enlightenment] spell.

The machine began to operate according to the established program, and Snow, as the person in charge of all the magic and alchemy technologies in the machine, stared intently at all the instrument readings.

Inside the glass enclosure, the thin, low-pressure gas is punctured by a high-voltage current, emitting a magnificent light. It is an indicator light, and it and its kind are changing wildly.

Still no response?

"Based on experience, simulated signals of spells from the fourth to sixth rings generally elicit a clear response from the original text level," Cavendish recalled of the experiments he participated in.

"I know." Snow immediately explained the reason behind it: "There are too many low-level spells used in real time, and the changes caused by 128 casting units are not easy to distinguish. In addition, their characteristic frequency bands are very short and not easy to be detected."

"High-level magic requires too high an energy level, and the function of the broad spectrum generator is limited, so it cannot be perfectly simulated and will definitely fail to respond."

"Considering both factors, the optimal launch zone is between the fourth and sixth rings for spells."

Cavendish nodded: "You couldn't be more right, but the dwarf and elf system might hold some unexpected surprises for us."

"The simulation of the seventh ring is finished, so let's switch to the dwarves and elves." Snow already knew from the past data that taking the first step would not be easy, but he still held onto a sliver of hope, in case he could succeed immediately?

Unfortunately, this "what if" did not happen. The miracle template provided by the elves and dwarves did not produce a miracle, and the feedback from the ship spirits and the changing indicator lights ultimately told them that the search had failed.

"Warning: Over 71% of the frequency band feedback is null. Attempting to parse valid data."

"Error: The return signals from units 3 and 4 and the generator do not converge. Singular solutions have appeared in the nonlinear equations. It is recommended to initialize and return to the settings at 03:12:52, or restore the original settings."

"Error, error"

"Who can shut that ship spirit up?" Snow had a headache. The other people in charge of the previous missions, including Cavendish, had a gloating look on their faces. They had experienced this kind of annoying error message before. Back then, Snow was the person in charge of improvements on the ground. Now it was his turn.

A few hours later, the energy was fully replenished, and they reset everything and began locating the original layer again.

The glow tubes flickered and changed continuously, and the magical light in the circuits shone brighter and brighter, but still no results were achieved.

A stalemate ensued.

Now everyone was no longer as relaxed as when they were having a banquet. They were exhausted and could only check the initial settings and line connections over and over again.

"Record the data, run it one more time, and then we're done. We'll continue tomorrow." Snow pinched his brow.

Someone suggested a strange method: "How about we have everyone on the ground stop casting spells for three hours? Wouldn't that make our signal much clearer?"

This is a bold idea that sounds impossible at first glance, but upon closer inspection, it's quite interesting.

Unfortunately, after further consideration, it still wasn't feasible. Snow was the first to reject the idea: "You may not know, but the number of alchemy devices currently in operation worldwide far exceeds the number of spellcasters. To achieve the effect you envision, you first need to stop the devices."

"I can't think of any other way to stop all those machines for three hours except by destroying the world. If they really stop, the factory owners, the common people, and even our esteemed Senate wouldn't mind destroying the world."

"Then never mind."

At this moment, a mage from the Tower of Light pulled out a pre-engraved microcrystalline template: "We've tried spells, elven miracles, and dwarven miracles. Is there one more option we haven't tried?"

"You mean the divine magic of the god of light and order?"

"Exactly." The mage of the Tower of Light smiled gently and confidently.

(End of this chapter)