Chapter 486: Communication Array

After arranging the production increase plan for the Tower of Time, Xia Duo returned to the Study to continue researching communication spells. With the ready-made spells from the Projected Plane Arcane Empire at hand, there was actually not much he truly needed to do. Since returning from Seventon, his work had focused more on integration and extension rather than creating from scratch, but even so, the project's progress over the past half-month had been very slow.

This was because what Xia Duo wanted to submit was not just a single spell, but an entire new communication scheme.

The Projected Plane Arcane Empire had established a dedicated Communication Department to oversee territory-wide communication, using a spell called 【Background Communication】 to link various Communication Department agencies together like a web, forming a communication array that covered the entire territory and even further.

So-called 【Background Communication】 actually utilized the Magic Net Background Fluctuation to transmit information, which was similar in principle to the 【Echo Perception】 and 【Weave Moment】 that Xia Duo knew of on the Main Plane.

Both utilized Magic Net Background Fluctuation; the difference was that 【Background Communication】 used Magic Net Background Fluctuation to transmit information, while 【Weave Moment】 used it for timing.

As for 【Echo Perception】, it was just a minor spell, purely used to perceive Magic Net Background Fluctuation; one could even perform fuzzy perception through intuition without this spell.

When it came to the depth of theory and technology, the Arcane Empire naturally had a deeper study of Magic Net Background Fluctuation. The most intuitive evidence was that 【Background Communication】 was a 5th Circle Spell, while 【Weave Moment】 was only 3rd Circle, and as for 【Echo Perception】, it was only 1st Circle.

In terms of theory, Netheril was still only at the preliminary application stage regarding Magic Net Background Fluctuation, while the Arcane Empire of the Projection Plane was already exploring the deep principles behind it.

Questions like: Why do Magic Net fluctuations exist? Why are the fluctuations this way? Besides timing and communication, what else can they be used for?

Arcanists of the Arcane Empire had proposed a hypothesis that Magic Net Background Fluctuation originated from the overlap and Resonance between the Magic Net and the Plane. As for why the fluctuations were this way, it perhaps had to do with the elemental roots of the Plane.

Theoretically, from the perspective of the Plane's timing, the Magic Net Background Fluctuation would not change for a very long time.

Once the Magic Net Background Fluctuation changed, it must mean the Plane had undergone a massive transformation.

However, this conclusion had not been verified; for one, the Arcane Empire could not find a way to change the Plane, and for another, with war at hand, it was impossible to spare the massive manpower and resources to study this.

Being able to find a hypothesis and develop 【Background Communication】 based on it was enough.

However, Xia Duo had actually verified a part of this, proving that Magic Net Background Fluctuation was indeed related to the Plane; the Magic Net Background Fluctuation of the 【Blue Crystal Plane】 was completely different from that of the Main Plane.

……

The communication array constructed by 【Background Communication】 was indeed very convenient, and its coverage was vast; any Spellcaster with the relevant Permission Level could use the communication array to contact people very far away.

However, there was a problem here: who should hold this communication array? The Arcane Union? The Seventon Council? Or perhaps some Great Arcanist?

The Arcane Empire was an empire with highly unified power, where even Great Arcanists submitted to the leadership of the Great Sage, but Netheril was different.

The Arcane Union was itself a product of contradiction and compromise. Since the various Great Arcanists had not been able to reach a unified opinion, how could they tolerate a unified communication array? Aside from a few Great Arcanists, local lords likely would not be willing to use a communication array that was not under their own control, as whoever controlled the communication array could "see" all communication information.

Without changing this, no one would accept such a communication array.

And the method Xia Duo thought of was very simple, consisting of two points—

Do not build a complete communication array, and use encryption! The greatest advantage of a communication array was that it was similar to the Magic Net, where anyone with permission could communicate with it, but setting that aside, 【Background Communication】 remained a very powerful communication spell.

The distance was extremely long!

If it weren't for the convenience of allowing more people to use it, there would be no need to build a communication array at all; the individual spell could be used just the same, though its spellcasting threshold was as high as the 5th Circle.

To adapt to the actual situation in Netheril, Xia Duo's communication scheme weakened the spell's capabilities to a certain extent; specifically, by manufacturing Communication Magic Tools.

After Xia Duo's simplification, 【Background Communication】 no longer transmitted images or sound, only short text messages, and was only at the 2nd Circle level; this had already reached the simplest level Xia Duo could achieve.

Without the Magic Net String of the Second Layer of the Magic Weave, it was difficult to load information onto the Magic Net Background Fluctuation and subsequently use it to propagate.

At this step, it was actually already sufficient; Xia Duo estimated that Lord Duolaisen's new communication spell might not even have such a low threshold.

However, since it was an entire communication scheme, it naturally could not be that simple. Besides encryption measures, Xia Duo also needed to design specific Communication Magic Tools to make it convenient for more people to use.

In addition to the Princess's reward, using the Everlasting Magic Technology that Tilake was researching to lower the manufacturing cost of the Magic Artifacts would also allow him to make a fortune selling Communication Magic Tools.

Right now, Xia Duo was stuck on the encryption measures and the Communication Magic Tools.

The Arcane Empire of the Projection Plane also had encryption, but their encryption was provided by the communication array; the information transmitted directly by the spell was not encrypted. If one were to encrypt at the spell stage, it would inevitably increase the spell's circle level, which in effect meant increasing the threshold for use.

It was possible that the 2nd Circle 【Short Text Version of Background Communication】 could become a 3rd Circle, 4th Circle, or even higher 【Encrypted Short Text Version of Background Communication】.

Furthermore, there was another problem: if it were just encrypting the spell itself, that would be fine, as it would just be a matter of a few transformations. But if one were to add 【encryption of information】 at the spell design level, that was not Xia Duo's forte.

This was not like typing code on Earth, where one only needed to call the relevant functions.

In spell design, analogous to typing code, one had to write out the specific calculation process of a function. If it was simple, others could easily crack it; if it was complex, it was equivalent to increasing the difficulty of spellcasting and raising the threshold for use.

How to design an encryption system that was relatively simple in form but difficult to crack was indeed a problem.

Xia Duo had spent over ten days simplifying 【Background Communication】, and had only considered the encryption problem for three days. But unlike when he was simplifying before—where although it took a long time, there was progress every day—now, he had no ideas after three days.

"Worry, oh worry!"

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(End of this chapter)