Chapter 538 — Brain-Computer Interface

The study door opened, and the stooped old druid came in beaming, the little old man wearing a smug smile. The moment he entered, he said, "My lord—I bring good news."

"So it looks like the nerve cord has passed its tests?" Gao Yang said with a knowing smile. "It seems this recent state of emergency hasn't affected your research progress after all."

"Once the door of the institute closes, who cares if the floodwaters outside reach the sky?" Piyun said indifferently. "If a researcher can't even manage that much composure, he'd best go home and plant potatoes."

Then he paused and went on, "I've already installed the newly made nerve cord on that contraption Kamael has been tinkering with. Would you like to come and see?"

"Of course," Gao Yang said, rising abruptly to his feet, and then he looked at Amber. "You too—"

Before the other could reach out to tuck her under his arm, Amber volunteered, "Of course I'm coming to see—I'm awfully curious about that 'mind-networking' you've all been working on lately!"

Soon Gao Yang and Amber arrived at the Magical Technology Institute. In the laboratory set aside for "neural interface connection technology," the brand-new linking device had been installed on the round platform at the center of the room.

Kamael and Rebecca stood beside the linking device, while a dozen or so technicians in white robes busied themselves around it, checking the condition of the device or of the other rune arrays connected to it.

Even Jenny, who seldom left the Rune Research Institute, was present: though her main field was not applied research, she had played a pivotal role in deciphering the spells of the Sleepers and reconstructing the rune arrays, and the completion of the linking device was in no small part to her credit—so it was only fitting that she be here to inspect the finished product.

Gao Yang nodded to Jenny and Camille, then let his gaze fall on the seat behind Rebecca. "So this is... the finished product?"

The connecting apparatus was not quite what he had first imagined—it looked nothing like a magical device of this era, but rather like something out of a future that had crossed time and space. The silver-white cabin was fixed upon a large, sturdy base; the rear half of the cabin, beneath the extended backrest, was hollowed out, and several faintly glowing "conduits," their texture like metallic sinews, connected the backrest to the base below. Inside the cabin could be seen a streamlined leather lining, upon which were distributed a great many metal contact points; joined together, these points took on the shape of a vertebral column.

Such an unconventional design could hardly be the style of any contemporary mage—clearly, Camille, this magus from the Gondor Empire, had once again applied the style of his own memories to Cecil's arcane creations.

What stood out was a sort of arcane punk.

What stood out was that this thing simply looked out of place.

Gao Yang did not care how it looked—on the soil of Cecil, after all, there was scarcely a person or thing whose style was normal—and as a pragmatist he cared only whether the thing worked well.

"We have already conducted all the offline tests and a portion of the networked tests—linked to the Magic Net communications network," came the buzzing voice from within Camille, whose whole body radiated a joyful pale blue, indicating that the arcane master was in quite a good mood. "Drawing on the mind-illusion techniques of the Sleepers, we fashioned a 'connection interface' for this apparatus; when hooked into the Magic Net communications network, this interface runs stably and protects the user's consciousness."

Pi Yun added from the side, "I helped make that interface—thankfully my little 'craft' hasn't grown rusty."

Gao Yu knew what Pi Yun meant by "craft," but Amber was utterly bewildered. "Craft? What craft? Old man, do you have some other craft besides forgery and fortune-telling?"

"Don't be silly, this old man has plenty of crafts," Pi Yun said with a wave of his hand, ignoring Amber entirely, then pointed at the three "conduits" beneath the seat. "These are the new neural cords, built from the materials you gave me. Honestly, if I ever get the chance, I must meet the person who designed them—that one is a talent. I never imagined that artificial neural cords could actually be reworked into a non-implantable form. That takes more than a flash of genius; it requires an extremely thorough familiarity with the nervous system and with how neural cords function. Frankly, if a person like that could join the research institute, it would be far more valuable than working alone on the outside."

"When a man has been tormented for over a decade by the aftereffects of implanted neural cords, he naturally comes to understand how they work down to the last detail," Gao Yang sighed. "Rest assured, with this apparatus, you will soon have the chance to meet the one who developed the non-implantable neural cords. But I'm afraid there is little chance of him joining our research system—the task on his side is no lighter than your research tasks."