Chapter 66

"I believe that for a spell to exert power, at least two conditions are required."

"The first is magic power. A person without magic power is a Muggle, and an animal without magic power is an ordinary animal. With magic power, a wizard can become a wizard, and a magical creature can become a magical creature."

"Magic power is the permission, the key to making the wave function collapse directionally."

"The second is will. A wizard must have sufficient imagination for the effect they want to achieve and have enough confidence and motivation to drive its realization. In the world of magic, consciousness determines matter; without the drive of will, matter will go its own way, and a spell played by a recording will not exert any effect."

"Based on this hypothesis, to explain the different affinities of different wizards for different spells, I introduced a third hypothesis."

"The Multidimensional Hypothesis of Magic Power."

"Assume that magic power has multiple dimensions, and each dimension has many levels or tiers, which can be represented by numerical values. Each wizard's magic power has different tiers in each dimension."

"I analyzed all spells and roughly divided the dimensions of magic power into six: Creation, Protection, Cognition, Transformation, Energy Shaping, and Control. This six-dimensional analysis method is not yet perfect, but it can already break down almost all spells into one or more of these six elements."

"When the elemental composition of a spell is adapted to a wizard's magic power dimensions, the affinity is relatively high, and the wizard finds it easier to cast this spell; when there is a large difference in dimensions between the two, it is harder to cast."

"Finally, to solve the problem of why the same wizard casts the same spell with different power, I introduced a fourth hypothesis."

"The Will Guidance Hypothesis."

"To realize a spell, besides magic power, the guidance of will is needed to provide the direction for the wave function's collapse. That is, to provide a concrete imagination of the effect the spell realizes."

"For example, the Levitation Charm: at the very least, the wizard has a psychological expectation of the concept of floating when casting it. Or take the Transformation Spell: if a wizard wants to turn a cup into a mouse, they should at least know what a mouse looks like. If it were someone who had never seen a mouse, they would never be able to complete this transformation."

"In other words, this imagination is based on our cognition of things."

"And our cognition of a thing can be divided into many levels. One is perceptual cognition, such as an apple being red, sweet, edible, etc. Besides that, there is rational cognition, such as fire being a chemical reaction, the color of the flame being related to the elements of the reactants, and the flame test being the physical process of photons being released during the transition of an atom's extra-nuclear electrons after gaining or losing energy."

"Theoretically, the more comprehensive our cognition of a thing, the easier it is to imagine, and the process of using it to guide magic to form a phenomenon will be more rapid and stable. Correspondingly, the power of the magic will be stronger."

"Based on the above four hypotheses, we can infer that there are several ways to enhance the power of a spell."

"One, try to make the spell realized in a way that conforms more to natural laws."

"For example, to create a glass of water, condensing water vapor is far simpler than generating hydrogen and oxygen atoms out of thin air and making them synthesize into water."

"Two, enhance the tiers of magic power in each dimension."

"The tiers of multidimensional magic power are roughly equivalent to a wizard's talent."

"It is very difficult to change talent, but Andrew's transformation path might be of some help in this regard."

"Three, strengthen the guidance of will."

"For example, practicing a spell more can strengthen the perceptual understanding of that spell."

"Another example: understanding the principles behind a spell and the real physical phenomena it calls upon can enhance the imagination of the spell's principles. For instance, if one has knowledge of fluid dynamics, it will certainly help in the application of spells like the Levitation Charm or Flight Spell. If one has a deeper understanding of the anatomical structure of a mouse, it will certainly help in transforming a cup into a mouse."

"In fact, almost all knowledge in human history is useful to wizards. Even knowledge of philosophy or economics, which seems to have no corresponding magic, can help wizards better categorize certain phenomena, understand some principles from different angles and levels, and is very helpful in broadening a wizard's thinking patterns and thinking paths."

Murphy understood, "You mean, the more precise and comprehensive our cognition of this world is, and the more knowledge we possess, the stronger the power of the relevant spells will be?"

"Yes," Haldane said, "In fact, regarding the mechanism of how spells work, I have another immature conjecture."

"I believe that spells might be a wish-granting system."

"Oh? How so?" This was the first time Murphy had heard such a statement.

"A simple thought reveals that when wizards cast spells, their imagination of the effect produced by the spell is actually very vague and general."

"For example, using Transfiguration to turn a teacup into a mouse. Wizards might have thought about the mouse's size, gender, and color, but they certainly never imagined the specific weight, age, length of the tail, number of hairs, number of bones, or what the heart looks like for this mouse."

"However, when Transfiguration creates the mouse, these features all exist."

"It is not 'some' mouse, but has become 'this' mouse."

"Many of its uncertainties have been eliminated, and its wave function has collapsed into a value in a very small range."

"Then, how is this collapse realized? How are those details that wizards never imagined, and which didn't even exist in their knowledge structure, filled in?"

"I think there must be something that made the decision for the wizard."

"It is what decides whether 'Diffindo' splits a piece of paper into four pieces or five; it is what decides in what order the lock core should be toggled for the Unlocking Charm; it is what decides whether the path pointed out by the Point Me spell is the shortest or the fastest..."

"This thing that possibly exists and manages the concrete execution of all magic, I call it the 'Magic Net'."

"And the wizard's spellcasting process can be seen as making a wish to the Magic Net."

"When the wizard's wish is not clear enough, the Magic Net will handle it itself. The more precise the wizard's imagination and the more limiting factors there are, the more likely they are to get the result they want."

Murphy frowned as he listened; why did this feel so familiar?

How similar it was to the 'spells' he used to communicate with those large models before he transmigrated!

Could the so-called 'Magic Net' be a large model based on a neural network? A deep learning AI?

Is that why spells are so much like combinations of keywords?

And these keywords might not even be preset by the 'Magic Net', but learned by the 'Magic Net' after thousands of machine learning cycles, as senior wizards imagined specific magical effects every time they recited a spell.

Hiss...

The logic feels very self-consistent!

(End of chapter)