Chapter 2402: Project Progress

————Something has come up temporarily, I might not be able to finish this chapter today, I'll make up for it tomorrow~~

————

Two days later, the School approved Xia Duo's new project application. There had been no movement from the Alliance Technical Committee yet, but Xia Duo did not take it too much to heart.

Having the Alliance's support would certainly be best, but not having it would not actually affect his current project progress.

But how does that saying go—"When the time comes, the heavens and earth all lend their strength." Less than a week after the School approved Xia Duo's new project application, a notification also arrived from the Alliance Technical Committee—

Granting Third-level Support.

This is the third level of the Alliance's official support for important civilian projects; anything lower would just be verbal encouragement. As for Third-level Support, it does not involve many physical assets.

Of course, that is relative to the Alliance. For Xia Duo, this portion of support is already no less than the School's Independent Project Fund, and what he values even more are actually the non-material benefits—

Such as remote access Permission Level to the libraries of major Alliance universities, application channels for special technologies, and so on.

These are things that cannot be exchanged for money or resources. Library access Permission Level is manageable; as long as one is willing to spend the time to take the entrance exam for every school, or obtain it through cooperation with the school administration, one can generally gather them all.

But the application channels for special technologies are only available through the Technical Committee, or rather, no matter where the channel is obtained, it ultimately still requires the Technical Committee's approval.

For example, the latest version of the Mythallar Arcane Component that Xia Duo desperately wants; if it were just a Mythallar Component, he would have an eighty or ninety percent certainty of being able to apply for it.

As for the technical details, the latest version might not be possible, but one that is a few versions behind might be obtainable.

It can be said that being able to gain the recognition of the Technical Committee is something every researcher in the Red Heart Alliance dreams of. This is not only about honor and prestige, but also carries tangible benefits that researchers find hard to refuse.

……

Chixin University, Library.

As soon as Xia Duo received the notification from the Technical Committee, he rushed here immediately. Remote access Permission Level for the library is not available everywhere; it requires verification through specific Mythallar Components in specific locations.

Generally speaking, library Permission Level requires verification at the library, including at Chixin University. After he graduates, if he wants to view the collection of the Chixin University Library, he will only have two choices.

One is to go to the School to view it in person, and the other is to obtain remote access Permission Level, and then find any library within the Alliance to complete identity verification before remote access can be performed.

Of course, this does not mean that major universities upload their libraries into the Mythallar. The Red Heart Alliance's current Mythallar can indeed upload information, but what it can store is extremely limited.

It seems to be a deficiency in the storage medium or storage method. This is actually a problem that also troubles Xia Duo greatly; for the time being, he cannot find a good solution either.

However, at least he understands where the problem lies. Currently, the Red Heart Alliance does not seem to have thought about this issue. This might also be a characteristic of the Magic world; there are too many Spells or media that can store text, sound, and even images.

And these storages are actually saving text, sound, and even images exactly as they are. That is why the Main Plane has the civilian saying that the "Image Retention Technique" cannot be tampered with (though one can use a Projection Spell to create a new image).

In Xia Duo's view, this is actually a lack of a unified information encoding method, which makes information storage in the Magic world very diverse, and this has to some extent dampened the enthusiasm of researchers.

But a problem is a problem after all. Without a unified information processing method, various types of information cannot be incorporated into the same system for unified management.

More seriously, this also greatly affects the efficiency of information storage.

Xia Duo speculates that the reason online libraries haven't appeared might be because of this, or perhaps the Alliance is worried that online libraries would be insecure. But regardless, Xia Duo himself hopes that such a thing exists.

Once he returns to the Main Plane, he will also attempt to build a more perfect online information database.

As for now, he can only obediently come to the library reading room and, after verifying his identity, go to other university libraries in the form of a Projection.

The first one he tried was Ailintar University, where Professor Weiya is located. Although this university and Chixin University both belong to the Red Heart Alliance, strictly speaking, one belongs to Yinerfalang and the other to the Chixin Tribe, so there are still some differences.

It is just that the interior of the Red Heart Alliance is gradually moving towards integration; otherwise, it would be impossible for Xia Duo to sit at home and visit the library of a university in another country.

Soon, the Projection was created, but it was different from what he had expected. He originally thought he might create a Projection himself to project over, but the reality is that the Alliance is more rigorous in this regard than he imagined.

The Projection is provided by Ailintar University, and what he projects over is only his Perception. If he wants to search for books, he cannot do it himself; he must operate through the Projection to achieve it, adding this intermediate layer out of thin air.

If he wanted to do something bad, it would be impossible to achieve. This is somewhat similar to Xia Duo's hometown, watching a monitor and directing a waiter on the other side to do things; if the request is unreasonable, the other party simply cannot execute it.

Of course, the Projection provided by Ailintar here is not a waiter with autonomous consciousness. As long as Xia Duo does not perform operations that touch upon risk management, Ailintar University might not even know what materials he searched for.

……

Facing an entire library that almost rivals Chixin University, the first thing Xia Duo searched for was Professor Weiya's writings. It was not that he didn't trust Mentor Tuto, but Mentor Tuto also heard it from a friend.

And Mentor Tuto's friend at Ailintar University does not necessarily know Professor Weiya very well. After being passed on several times, the information might have long since been distorted.

So Xia Duo decided to search for it himself. This search indeed allowed him to find something different: Professor Weiya's latest work from three years ago—

"Research on the Formation and Evolution Mechanism of Mythallar Nodes in the Ocean of Magic Net Strings"

Whether it is a Modern Mythallar, a Traditional Mythallar, or a Native Mythallar, they all have Nodes. The difference is only whether or not there are Nodes anchored to the material plane.

According to Professor Weiya's research, Mythallar Nodes are not immutable, but will undergo some unknown changes as time passes.

This is actually not a very novel problem. Many researchers in the past, and even ancient Mages, had discovered it long ago, but being able to discover something different regarding the same phenomenon is the embodiment of a researcher's ability.

Undoubtedly, Professor Weiya is not an ordinary researcher. Although he failed to develop a perfect formation and evolution mechanism for Mythallar Nodes, he still summarized a portion of the laws based on existing known Mythallars in a targeted manner.