Chapter 468 — An Even More Terrible Beast
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
Gao Yang had not expected Rebecca to have prepared a second item for this experiment, but the moment he heard the words "random selection," he dimly guessed what the girl was after.
"I want to test it more precisely — to see exactly how the mind seal takes effect," Rebecca explained her reasoning, pointing at the devices the researchers were mounting on the bench. "This is a modified rune trigger. Inside it there's a toothed disc that spins without pause; when the button is pressed, the disc makes contact with a small platform, and a proper magical circuit between the teeth and the platform is established only when the teeth happen to be in the right position. The whole assembly is sealed — in other words, whoever presses the button has no idea what the result of his action will be. His mental choice extends only to whether he presses the button, and not to whether the system activates..."
Amber's mouth fell open; she stared at Rebecca in astonishment. She had finally grasped a piece of it, and could not help crying out: "You research types... how are your brains even wired?!"
Gao Yang too was drawn in by the procedure Rebecca had devised. The procedure itself went no further than his imagination could follow, but the doe-eyed girl's thinking had, as always, a way of taking one by surprise. Stroking his chin, he spoke as he mused: "That spinning toothed disc is really a pseudo-random system — but the point of the system isn't the randomness. It's the test subject..."
"Yes — it's that the subject 'doesn't know the outcome,'" Rebecca said, nodding. "I want to know whether the mind seal still holds when the subject himself doesn't know whether he is defying the god — or whether it's enough for a doubt of faith to arise over his own action to set the seal off..."
Pi Yun, who had said nothing all this while, was now caught by this ingenious "random selection" trial as well. That old druid, who had never in his life been serious about anything, now wore the expression of a researcher — avid, and gravely expectant. Pinching the beard on his chin, he circled the bench once, nodding as he went: "Clever... clever... so there should be only three possible outcomes. First, the holy-light substrate in the inverter array activates, while the substrate the subject feeds directly does not. Second, both substrates activate. Third, neither activates. Those correspond, respectively, to the mind seal taking effect under random selection, the mind seal failing, and the teeth failing to connect."
Amber thought it over, and surprisingly enough, a question of her own surfaced: "And what if the substrate the subject feeds directly does activate, while the one hooked to the inverter array doesn't?"
The laboratory fell silent at once. Several gazes came to rest on Amber all at the same time, and the half-elf instinctively ducked her neck. Pi Yun tugged hard at his beard and, after a long silence, said: "Then it means we have all been played for fools by the God of Holy Light!"
"Let's begin," Gao Yang said. He drew a long breath and gave Cohen Bell, standing before the bench, a slight nod. "Run the random selection."
The young researcher bowed slightly with great solemnity, then steadied his breathing and turned toward the bench.
Everyone not involved withdrew to one side, watching the bench closely. Cohen Bell set his fingers on the modified rune trigger — a large thing, like an oblong iron box — counted several beats silently in his mind, then poured magic into the copper button and pressed down hard.
A clatter of clicks came from inside the "random selection" apparatus. A moment later, neither of the two rune substrates on the bench showed the slightest response.
Kamal stepped up to inspect the device, then announced the result: "First trial: no valid connection. Begin the second trial."
Cohen Bell poured magic into the rune trigger once more, then pressed the button.