Chapter 1115: Function Calls, Sculpture Completed

Taking Fireball as an example, its essence is to cause fire elements to erupt instantaneously within a specific area; it could also be considered a field spell, except that this spell is not persistent, lasting only for an instant.

From a practical perspective, choosing a spherical explosion space is naturally the simplest and most convenient.

If a Mage were bored, they could specifically design a tetrahedral area explosion, but in doing so, the spellcasting difficulty would increase, and at the same time, this spell might no longer be called Fireball, but should instead be called 【Fire Tetrahedron】~

Looking past the phenomena to the essence, the number of spells is infinite, but the principles within them are indeed limited, just as countless lenses of varying shapes and functions can be designed based on the principle of light refraction.

If a spellcaster cannot see through this and only indulges in the colorful appearances of Magic, then they might only ever be a "spell-craftsman" rather than an Arcanist.

This is also why Xia Duo believes that people who have received Modern Education in his hometown are very well-suited to be Mages; it is because even the most basic Primary School and kindergarten education contains the cultivation of scientific literacy.

"Always ask why"—this single teaching alone has served him for a lifetime.

Since crossing over, although Xia Duo only spent thirteen years (3 in the Main Plane, 10 in the Projection Plane) to become a Senior Arcanist of significant standing in Netheril, he is even only one step away from the top-tier Great Arcanist.

Yet he does not have a shred of complacency; beyond the self-cultivation of constant introspection and the desire for higher achievements in the future, more importantly—

He knows that the small achievements he has attained now are actually thanks to the education of his hometown.

If a Senior Arcanist of Netheril were to receive a round of modern education from his hometown, the achievements that person could attain would absolutely not be inferior to his current self.

It is precisely because he has an entire world as his foundation that Xia Duo dares to speak of things like creating an arcane civilization.

And now, in the design of the Magic-based CNC Machine Tool spell, he is still inspired by the civilization of his hometown.

To "sculpt" a large sculpture in one go, the essence is to preserve the shape of this large sculpture within the material, while discarding all other parts.

That is to say, it is necessary to make a specific processing field (here, reverse Petrification—from stone to water) exactly vacate a sculpture form and expand outward.

Similar to a four-dimensional laser, directly cutting out a three-dimensional sculpture in one stroke.

The implementation process is not complex either; Xia Duo first uses the miniature Code Sculpture, which he has polished for a long time and cannot be improved further, as a spellcasting tool to project a converging field in the shape of the Code Sculpture.

Afterward, he reverses it, turning it into an open field that vacates a sculpture form and expands outward.

The size of the vacated space in the middle is adjustable, and all are scaled proportionally.

Of course, one could also directly design an open field with a sculpture form expanding outward, but this is far more complex than projecting; even if it could be designed, the spellcasting difficulty would likely be so high that Xia Duo would be unable to cast it.

This is actually very similar to the process of writing programs before Xia Duo crossed over; when a function is needed, one generally calls it from a function library rather than foolishly writing it oneself. (Some special functions also need to be written by oneself and added to the library for convenience for oneself or others to call later.)

The miniature Code Sculpture that Xia Duo made before can be treated as a callable function library in the spellcasting program.

If this method is not used, in the absence of super-high carving experience and skills, there is only the path of "writing the function yourself" and grinding through high-difficulty spellcasting.

Now that all lines of thought are clear, what remains is only spell design, spell testing, spell practice, and finally, engineering practice.

……

In the following few days, Xia Duo maintained a work state of half-repairing the Magic Net and half-researching spells; this state continued until the birth of the new spell named 【Large Stone Shaping Technique】.

This spell was not born from some accidental occurrence, nor was it obtained from others, but was created by Xia Duo from scratch, using theory to guide practice.

Its birth was like a math problem; after painstaking calculation, a unique solution was finally reached, and Xia Duo is full of confidence in it.

Of course, even so, the testing phase is still indispensable; theory is theory, and no matter how consistent or correct it is, without verification, it cannot be taken as the final answer.

After all, Xia Duo has only just created this new spell and has not yet fully cast it even once!

……

Arcane Garden.

Xia Duo shooed away the Pegasus Yabo, who kept coming over to curiously observe the microscopic details, found an unplanted open space by the river, first pressed out a deep pit with 【Square Force Field】, and then burned the pit walls into a glass-like quality with 【Slow-Release Matrix Furnace】.

Thus, a square well with quite good waterproof performance was completed.

Xia Duo had made a similar pool when he first made paper in the Main Plane, but compared to that time, the pool he made this time was much larger and much deeper.

It was almost made according to the proportions of the finished Code Sculpture, occupying an area of 6x6 square meters and 10 meters deep.

Just filling the pool with water took him quite a bit of time, and afterward came the conversion to stone; for such a large pool of water, if one does not want the converted stone to have obvious layered structures, it can only be converted all at once.

And to convert so much water at once, the instantaneous power of the spell must be very high; through calculation, Xia Duo finally decided to use an 8th-circle 【Petrification Magic】 to complete such a conversion.

No accidents occurred during the spellcasting process; in fact, Xia Duo completed the spellcasting with the mindset of formally creating a Code Sculpture.

He did not simply treat it as a spell test.

As the base stone was completed, it was time for the 【Large Stone Shaping Technique】 to exert its power; whether it is a mule or a horse depends on this move.

Of course, Xia Duo's confidence was very sufficient.

Suspending the miniature Code Sculpture, which served as the spellcasting tool, above the pool, Xia Duo then began to cast the spell according to the requirements of the elements during the spell design.

It was precisely because this spell was created by Xia Duo bit by bit, and he knew it inside and out, that if it were someone else's new spell, he would never dare to attempt it in a place without the protection of a Spell Suppression Field.

As the Spell Source Point, woven from Magic Net Strings, finally formed, the energy in the specific circuit began to circulate.

At this time, the reverse Petrification field had not yet formed, but it could already be projected from the Spell Source Point, and during this process, Xia Duo made final fine-tuning to it to fit the size and orientation of the stone to the maximum extent.

Immediately following, the reverse Petrification field formed, and in just an instant, the surface of the square well changed from blue-black stone to transparent water.

In the high-light environment of the Arcane Garden, Xia Duo easily saw the Code Sculpture standing vertically in the square well through the water!