Chapter 3125: Built-in Computer Cheating

The hastily concluded combat demonstration did not stop Kalishi from continuing to show Xia Duo around the society's premises, though Xia Duo had lost some of his interest.

He had already seen what he wanted to see; the rest was either useless to him or belonged to the secrets of Kalishi's Psionic Magic Society, and Xia Duo consciously did not want to get too deeply involved with the other party.

Naturally, that went double for any personal friendship.

……

Returning to the Reception Room, Xia Duo weighed his words, not speaking immediately, at which point Kalishi took the initiative to break the silence and bring up the topic:

"Consultant Xia Duo, you didn't just come here to visit this time, did you? Regarding the project mentioned last time, Consultant Xia Duo should be able to give me an answer now, right?"

"Yes, I came here specifically for that matter."

Kalishi's enthusiasm and initiative did not change Xia Duo's mind; he remained opposed to the so-called Artifact Project.

But before he could speak, Kalishi seemed to have already discerned his attitude, so he preemptively changed the subject and proposed a new question:

"I wonder if Consultant Xia Duo has any particularly difficult Arcane problems? I could try to solve them using the method of integrating Arcane and Psionic Magic."

"This—"

Xia Duo did not react at first, but looking at Kalishi's confident gaze, he immediately understood the other party's intent; he was likely trying to use this method to prove the prospects of integrating Arcane and Psionic Magic, thereby winning his support for the Artifact Project.

Currently, the general consensus in both the Northland and Zhamu Dasi is that if one wants to develop Psionic Magic, a Psionic Artifact is an indispensable condition.

Perhaps in Kalishi's view, if he were attracted by the prospects of Arcane and Psionic integration that he demonstrated, he might support him, but the fundamental reason Xia Duo opposed the Artifact Project was that the risk was too great, not that it lacked prospects.

Since Kalishi didn't even see that, he was destined not to get the result he wanted.

However, Xia Duo did not refuse Kalishi's demonstration; after all, he was also very curious about the extent to which Psionic and Arcane integration could reach.

So he asked the other party: "Can any difficult problem be solved?"

"It needs to be a problem that can be answered." Kalishi also provided a limiting condition; this condition seemed redundant, but it was a necessary constraint, because many problems have no clear answer.

And such a limiting condition made Xia Duo think of the General Magic Computer, which was still in the draft stage and also claimed that all problems that could be calculated could be solved.

This meant that the Arcane and Psionic integration that Kalishi had researched might have already reached a state of completeness within a certain range.

"Is that so! Then is using Arcane Magic to perceive Psionic a problem that can be answered?" Xia Duo pondered before proposing this question.

If there was a solution to perceiving Psionic using Arcane Magic, then according to what Kalishi said, that solution must be findable, though Xia Duo was not sure if this problem had a solution.

And after hearing this question, Kalishi was stunned for a full few seconds before telling Xia Duo, "Because it involves Psionic, I am also not sure if this is a problem that can be answered, but I can try."

"Consultant Xia Duo, while I am attempting this, you might as well think of a problem in the purely Arcane Magic domain, whether the answer is already known or not, as long as it can be verified after I provide the result."

"Alright, then I will trouble you to try it once, Excellency."

From Kalishi's answer, Xia Duo also heard a hint of subtext; it was likely that Psionic was not an existence that could be perceived through purely Arcane Magic means, but he did not immediately change the question, instead letting Kalishi continue the demonstration.

At the same time, he was also repeatedly selecting new problems in the pure Arcane domain in his mind; he wanted to see if Kalishi truly had the ability to solve them.

……

Kalishi did not choose to go to the Laboratory to perform the demonstration, but stayed right in the Reception Room, not even standing up, sitting in place and casting an Arcane Magic version of a Scrying spell right in front of Xia Duo.

The first time, Xia Duo did not feel there was anything special; it was just the Far-seeing Clairvoyance very common in Elven Magic, capable of projecting simulated visual perception to a distant place to obtain visual information.

A more complex one could simultaneously obtain visual and auditory information, achieving a level close to real-person on-site perception.

After that were more advanced ones, exceeding the Spellcaster's own perception limits, performing high-precision, large-scale perception of sounds, smells, elemental states, and so on.

If Psionic could be perceived using only the most ordinary Scrying spell, then all those experiments Xia Duo had done at the Tower of Time would have been in vain; he hadn't been able to directly perceive Psionic even with Multi-modal Fusion Perception, so how could a mere ordinary Scrying spell do it!

But when Kalishi cast the Scrying spell for the second and third time, Xia Duo noticed something unusual; although it was still the same Scrying spell, some of the spellcasting elements within it had undergone subtle adjustments.

These adjustments were not enough to change the nature of the Scrying spell itself, but they would more or less affect the Scrying result.

"Could it be that he wants to gradually transform it into a Scrying spell capable of perceiving Psionic through this method? But on what basis?" Xia Duo was very puzzled by this.

Arcane Mages would also adjust the details of a spell to obtain a more ideal Magic Effect; this was Spell Optimization, but no optimization of any spell could be like what Kalishi was showing now, completing an optimization through a single casting; this was simply inconceivable.

Even an Arcane Mage most proficient in the Principles of spells could not achieve this level; perhaps some Tricks could be adjusted and optimized several times in a short period, but when it involved complexly constructed spells, it was almost impossible.

The Scrying spell Kalishi used for the demonstration was certainly very ordinary in the category of Scrying spells, but compared to Tricks, it was still many times more complex.

Xia Duo calculated in his mind and knew the difficulty of this operation; it was comparable to having a built-in Magic Computer. Xia Duo himself tried it with his mental brain and simply could not achieve real-time calculation while casting.

The mental brain was not a General Magic Computer, but a cluster of Xia Duo's Consciousness Copy, which was not comparable to a computer in terms of pure computing power, but it was still much stronger than an individual.

If even Xia Duo could not achieve real-time calculation while casting with the help of the mental brain, then on what basis could Kalishi?

Just on the basis of Psionic?

Xia Duo could not help but waver; based on what he had seen so far, if Kalishi was not cheating, it was already enough for him to try the Psionic path.

Of course, trying Psionic did not mean supporting Kalishi's Artifact Project; he would rather find a way to snatch an existing Artifact from Zhamu Dasi than engage in a high-risk New Artifact manufacturing plan within his own base.

With this thought, he suddenly realized, could this be Kalishi's goal—

It would be best if he could directly forge a New Artifact that integrates Arcane and Psionic Magic, but if that didn't work, snatching an existing Psionic Artifact from Zhamu Dasi would also be fine.