Chapter 1681: Cracking the Scroll, the Learning Machine

Of course, testing it again certainly wouldn't be that simple.

After ordering the Communication Artifact Spirit to finish the Sending, Xia Duo waited patiently; during this time, he also attempted to test it himself, but perhaps because the Artifact Spirit was essentially connected to him, he discovered nothing unusual after multiple tests.

"As expected, an outsider is still needed!"

Thinking this, Xia Duo paused his self-testing, preparing to wait until Kente arrived before proceeding.

Within a few minutes, Kente, who had only just left a short while ago, returned to this Laboratory; seeing this, Xia Duo nodded inwardly, but this alone could not prove the Artifact Spirit was without issues.

Without waiting for Kente to speak first, Xia Duo took the initiative to ask: "Kente, you received my Sending just now, right?"

"Yes, President."

"Very good, I have a task for you now."

"Please speak, President."

"Do you see that Crystal Ball on the laboratory bench? I want you to communicate with it, determine the identity of the person behind it, and assess its state."

"This—" Kente was stunned; what kind of task was this? He wasn't a professional spy, and if he intended to probe, would the other party tell the truth? How was he supposed to judge this?

"What? Is it difficult?" Xia Duo asked.

"No, President, I am just worried that I won't do a good job and will delay your important business."

"Don't worry about that, just go ahead and do it. If you feel you can't handle it alone, you can take that Crystal Ball back and find your friends to complete it together. I will give everyone point rewards based on the completion."

Once Xia Duo said this, Kente agreed, but then raised a new question: "But how should we judge whether it is lying?"

"It won't lie, but you need to consider whether it has concealed key information. You can slowly probe this after you go back and give me the results in two days."

After saying this, Xia Duo let Kente return.

In reality, what he wanted Kente to complete was a type of Turing test; as long as he intentionally controlled it, the Artifact Spirit certainly couldn't lie. In fact, this thing didn't even have the concept of lying—without even a self, how could it lie?

Giving different answers could only mean that he had set up a response mechanism in advance on his end.

Just like the Tower Spirit of the Tower of Time; when Xia Duo was an Apprentice, he had to use a specific activation keyword to ask the Tower Spirit questions, and he couldn't even ask abstract questions.

Later, he learned that the Tower Spirit actually possessed Wisdom and could understand abstract questions, but only now did he understand the essence of the Tower Spirit.

It was not an artificial intelligence in the true sense, but a projection of the original Spellcaster's partial essence, solidified using Spirit Quality.

In other words, the Tower Spirit could actually be used as a Teacher!

Perhaps its intelligence could not support teaching according to aptitude, but it was more than enough if it were just answering questions mechanically!

Moreover, the more intelligent or knowledgeable a person was, the smarter and more knowledgeable the Tower Spirit they created would surely be compared to those created by ordinary people!

Of course, the Tower Spirit here mainly refers to the native Tower Spirit that has not been edited.

If it has undergone specialized editing and training, it might be even more outstanding; of course, it is not impossible for it to become worse.

After Kente left, Xia Duo silently formulated several simple rules for the Communication Artifact Spirit in his heart, and then took out the Enlightenment Scroll again.

Only this time, he was not going to create a new Artifact Spirit, but was preparing to crack the Scroll.

Bulundesi had sent a total of ten Enlightenment Scrolls; he had just used two, and now the difficulty of completing the cracking within the remaining eight was still quite high.

Cracking a Magic Scroll is similar to cracking a Magic Item, except that the Magic Scroll has the encrypted Spell details written directly on the paper, making it a tiny bit more convenient to crack.

But that is all; in reality, one still has to grind through it element by element.

Fortunately, Xia Duo also had quite a bit of understanding of mind Spells; combined with his recent observations of the essence of the Artifact Spirit, he could roughly guess the design direction of this Spell before encryption, as well as some details.

This was equivalent to giving him a key to crack it; although it didn't perfectly match the lock, the outline and shape were already there, and the next step was to fill in the details.

Of course, Xia Duo was also prepared to continue purchasing Enlightenment Scrolls.

In the following few days, Xia Duo almost never left the Laboratory except to eat and sleep; naturally, the construction of the 【Mythra】 device in the Blue Crystal Plane also temporarily stalled.

However, Niya's work did not stop; every day after lunch, she would punctually head to the Blue Crystal Plane to print the Mithril Circuit for the Flight Control System.

During this period, Xia Duo did not forget about the Communication Artifact Spirit he had given Kente to test; he had a premonition that he probably wouldn't be able to get the Tower Spirit editing technology from the Seven Towers, and there wouldn't even be any hints regarding the relevant theories.

That is to say, if he didn't research it himself, any "Artifact Spirit" he used in the future would be in its native state.

Not to mention containing various private information, it would also be very easy to leave a backdoor for the Seven Towers.

This day, Xia Duo once again recovered a pile of Mithril Components used for simulation testing; the lack of results after multiple consecutive attempts made his mood inevitably somewhat irritable.

Although only two of the remaining eight Enlightenment Scrolls had been used, if the cracking speed remained like this, he was afraid that after these were consumed, he would have to buy another ten or eight!

"Sigh—"

Xia Duo sighed in his heart that cracking was not easy, and this was still the result of the Seven Towers intentionally indulging it; if they truly didn't want people to crack it, they could have set up more and more perfect encryption and insurance measures.

After pacing in circles in the Laboratory, Xia Duo couldn't think of any new ideas for a moment, so he decided to put this aside for now and go see the testing situation of Kente and the others.

Of course, because the Communication Artifact Spirit was already connected to his essence, Xia Duo didn't need to go there in person; he could obtain the relevant information just within his consciousness.

—What is your name?

—No. 1.

—Where are you from?

—(No answer)

—Are you human?

—Yes.

The earlier parts were generally normal, but the interesting part came later; when Kente learned that the test subject was a Mage and would not lie, he threw all the difficult problems he had accumulated over time at it all at once.

Afterwards, other members of the Progress Society who were invited to participate in the test followed suit, directly treating the test subject as a teaching machine that would not resist, realizing learning freedom in advance!

"These brats!"

Xia Duo was not angry; instead, he felt very gratified, gratified by the thirst for Knowledge of these Progress Society members, and this could also be considered as verifying the feasibility of a "Learning Machine" or "Answer Machine" in advance.

Judging from the current situation of the Tower of Time, Teachers would definitely not be enough in the future; promoting Answer Machines or learning among some lower-grade students was almost an inevitable trend.

Being eager to learn is a good thing, but these little fellows have likely forgotten their tasks and their proper business entirely, and that is somewhat not good.