Chapter 490: Limit Testing

At the same time, in Savile Town, at the former site of the Tower of Time. This was the location of the portal between the Tower of Time and Savile Town; to guard this portal, a semi-permanent camp had appeared here, with soldiers stationed day and night.

Dien had been left here by Xia Duo, and he kept holding that head-sized communication magic tool which had not yet been encapsulated; the Mithril structural components shimmered with a silver light under the sun, along with the Five-Colored Gem fixed by a latch, which served as the Energy Core.

Although the soldiers stationed around did not have Magic Vision and could not see the Magic Aura, from the perspective of an ordinary person, this laboratory version of the communication magic tool looked quite impressive.

From time to time, soldiers would cast curious glances, looking not only at the magic tool but also at Dien, wanting to know what this Mage was doing here and why he looked a bit silly.

Just as Dien was feeling a bit uncomfortable being watched by the soldiers nearby, a line of text suddenly appeared before his eyes—

"Start test"! Dien was startled by this sudden anomaly and almost threw the communication magic tool in his hand, but he quickly reacted, knowing that this was Xia Duo notifying him.

Thus, Dien activated the communication magic tool somewhat clumsily but accurately, then selected the Twin Mark, projected the text "Test 1", and triggered the spell; the aura on the communication magic tool surged for a moment before dimming again.

Meanwhile, on the other side, above a forest somewhere in the north.

Xia Duo held the communication magic tool in his palm, waiting anxiously while keeping a constant watch on his surroundings.

After using the 2nd-circle 【Background Communication】 to send the notification to Dien, Xia Duo's heart had been hanging in the balance; besides worrying about unknown entities that might appear at any time, he was also worried about the test failing.

Before long, the communication magic tool in his palm suddenly lit up, and then projected a line of text: "Test 1".

This was the testing method Xia Duo had previously agreed upon with Dien: Xia Duo would send the test command, and Dien would only send the test sequence to check the communication effect and see if there were any issues like "packet loss".

The first communication was in good condition, and Xia Duo did not discover any unknown entities appearing suddenly like the Great Arcanist Bailun had before.

He immediately felt a bit more at ease.

Then the testing continued, a "limit triple test"—

—"Test 2", "Test 3", "Test 4".

The three messages had some delay, about two minutes or so; this was the time required for the spell "Reloading", which could, of course, also be seen as the "cooldown time" of the magic item.

For a magic item to be reused, besides the element circulation created by 【Magic Permanence】, a magic item made with Mithril structural components must use an Energy Core.

Of course, the role of the Energy Core does not lie in the energy it possesses itself, but in the excitation, exchange, and circulation of the energy transmitted from the Magic Net.

This is somewhat like the automatic reloading principle of modern firearm bullets, except here, the residual energy "primer" after the spell is triggered is used to "reload" the spell again.

Theoretically, a magic item can be used an infinite number of times.

But considering that elemental mutation occurs when Mithril structural components carry energy and when the Energy Core circulates energy, causing the Mithril purity to drop and the Five-Colored Gem to mutate, magic items actually have a shelf life.

If you use it too many times, it will eventually break.

Of course, the higher the purity of the Mithril, the higher the tolerance of the material used as the Energy Core (Arcane Crystals are very useful), and the longer the service life will be.

As for the "Reloading" time, it is actually related to the spellcasting environment. Since it is spellcasting via a magic item, unlike a creature with subjective initiative, it requires a relatively stable spellcasting environment.

Simply put, after spellcasting, the Magic Net needs time to calm down; if this is ignored, the magic item will "protest", and "protest" usually comes at the cost of damage.

Xia Duo did not need to do "beyond the limit" testing for now; just testing a normal limit communication interval was enough.

Two minutes would be very uncomfortable for people from Earth accustomed to instant messaging software, but for a native Mage of Netheril, it was quite swift.

Moreover, the shorter the usage interval, the higher the frequency of use will be, and the service life will easily drop; it would be impossible not to update and replace it.

If one wants to achieve instant communication with a low threshold for use, it still requires the support of a vast external system; a single communication magic tool is very difficult to achieve that.

Xia Duo did not have such ambitions for now; he would just earn a wave with the low-cost communication magic tool first.

The test continued—

"Return to the Tower of Time"

A moment later, Dien sent "Test 5". Although theoretically only an extremely calm Magic Net environment like that of a Spell Laboratory could block 【Background Communication】, Xia Duo still breathed a sigh of relief when he truly received information from inside the Mage Tower.

At the same time, a question arose: did this mean there was a loophole in the defenses of the Tower of Time? Or would the Mage Tower only retain fixed communication zones in the future, while reshaping the Magic Net environment in other areas to shield external signals?

However, there was no need to consider this for now; after all, 【Background Communication】 was ultimately not an electronic signal from a hacker intrusion, and the Mage Tower was not an electronic device whose Permission Level could be easily usurped.

Next, Xia Duo had Dien enter various areas of the Tower of Time to test the specific communication conditions.

After a round of testing, only the Arcane Garden and the Spell Laboratory completely blocked communication, while other places also had more or less influence on the communication, such as projection distortion, dimming, or blurring.

Due to Dien's limited Permission Level, Xia Duo could not contact the Tower Spirit for the time being; of course, even if he could, there were places Dien could not go.

Overall, Xia Duo was quite satisfied with the test results; after all, it was his own creation!

Returning to the Tower of Time, Xia Duo took back the communication magic tool from Dien's hand, and then began the final test—the true limit usage test.

Once every two minutes, used continuously, until Xia Duo's patience ran out, he still hadn't managed to break this laboratory version of the communication magic tool; it seemed it was still quite capable.

However, the testing had to continue. Xia Duo did not have the patience to use the magic tool until it broke, so he sent the test task to the "Progress Society" through the Tower Spirit.

Anyone in the Tower of Time whose identity was marked as "Progress Society" could see this task; whether they were an Apprentice or an Official Mage, they could accept it. The only limitation was that the task location could only be at the Task Management Office.

After sending out both communication magic tools, Xia Duo only had to wait for the results.

However, he was not idle during this period; the head-sized communication magic tool was ultimately a bit too large, and if one counted the "encapsulation" Crystal material, it would be very inconvenient to use in practice.

Shrinking it slightly was a matter of course.

In addition, "encapsulation" also needed to be attempted a few times. This was different from the laboratory version; at the current stage, the Mithril was just Mithril, and the Five-Colored Gem was just a Five-Colored Gem, with the two only connected by a latch.

Encapsulation, however, required using other materials, such as cheap Gemstones like Crystal, or even metal or wood, to seal the Mithril and the Five-Colored Gem, serving purposes of aesthetics, protection, and encryption.

Once encapsulation failed and the Mithril and encapsulation materials were mixed together, it would not be so easy to separate them again.

(End of chapter)