Chapter 197 — The Inverted Conversion Array

Fortunately, this time Pi Yun really wasn't cadging funding: "They were attempting to 'find an interface to divine power.'"

As he spoke, the old man pointed at the magic patterns engraved on the vessels and the platform: "Unless one adheres strictly to doctrine, divine power cannot be used by mortals—this is a shackle acknowledged the world over. But the mages of the ancient Gondor Empire clearly meant to do something rebellious. They designed this kind of hybrid array precisely to circumvent a certain 'restriction' the gods had set in place, so that divine power might be mobilized through the force of magic. From the clues you found in the mountain ruins, their attempt evidently succeeded—or at least partly succeeded. They found the 'access point' for controlling divine arts with magical runes. With our current techniques we can't fully reconstruct that complex hybrid array, nor can we produce an energy source powerful enough to drive it, but the underlying logic of how the runes are arranged can still be borrowed from..."

What Pi Yun said was not only astonishing but seemed full of promise, yet Gao Yang could not help but have his doubts: "I recall that people once tried to wield divine arts through the power of magic, and all of them failed—one Light officiant was even devoured by the Holy Light in the process... Are you sure this technique carries no risk?"

"Risk there certainly is—all magic carries risk—but controlling risk is a required course for us," Pi Yun nodded. "I know about those failed attempts you mention; we discussed them last time. As I see it now, their failure was simply that they went down the wrong road."

"The wrong road?"

"That's right, the wrong road. Those who failed in trying to control divine arts with magic merely forced the symbols in the divine arts into elemental runes by translating and substituting them through the elemental tongue—as if clumsily replacing every word of an Elvish text with a rough equivalent in the human common tongue in an attempt to translate an Elvish work. The words all get replaced, but because of differences in grammar and word-formation, what comes out is unreadable garbage," Pi Yun shook his head. "The mages of the Gondor Empire were far cleverer. They realized that the 'language' of humans could not 'translate' divine power, so they fashioned an 'interface.' This interface did not attempt to clumsily translate the symbols in the divine arts; instead, it drew out the divine-spell array and then set control runes at each key position, using materials possessing both spiritual nature and mana conductivity as a 'conversion medium' at the input and output stages. In this way they indirectly turned divine power from a 'rigid energy' that could only operate under strict doctrinal adherence into a 'flexible energy' that mortals could wield as easily as mana."

Somehow, as Gao You listened to Pi Yun's description of clumsily substituting divine symbols with elemental ones, the words that surfaced in his mind were "machine translation."

So this was the otherworld version of machine translation, ruining everything...

"So then, you've mastered this 'interface' technique?" Gao Yang shook his head to fling the unreliable "machine translation" association out of his mind, and looked at Pi Yun.

"I wouldn't say fully mastered—after all, what you had rubbed and brought back were only some magic arrays, not the Gondor Empire's original research materials. I'll need to study those arrays for a good while yet before I understand the specific principle behind this interface," Pi Yun said honestly, not boasting in a field that involved both expertise and risk. "For now I've only found a small part of the method for using it, and connected it to the ancient druidic divine-spell array."

Here Pi Yun stroked his beard, a smile creeping onto his face: "Strictly speaking, what I've done with the druidic divine-spell array is the opposite of what the Gondor mages did. They drew power out of the divine arts, but since the druidic divine arts lost their power long ago, the array can no longer release energy outward. So I reversed the process, using mana to 'charge' the divine-spell array and set it running. There is, of course, a certain degree of loss in the process, but not too much—backed by the new honeycomb magic web, the energy loss from this reverse conversion is entirely acceptable."

The old druid raised his hand and pointed to a corner of the apparatus on the platform: "You've probably noticed it already—it has a port here for connecting to the magic web. So once it's connected, the web's power will be converted through this 'divine-power inverted conversion array' on the platform into energy for the divine-spell array, thereby catalyzing the reagents in these two vessels—just as if an ancient druidic officiant were casting spells upon them, turning ordinary herbal juices in the vessels into magic potions..."

Having finished his explanation, the old druid let out a long breath and turned to Gao Yang: "My lord, this is the path to mass production I've found."