Chapter 591: Elemental Transmutation, the Magic Version of the Industrial Mother Machine

In the Public Level of the Tower of Time, inside a certain independent workshop.

Xia Duo skillfully controlled the Alchemy Array on the Alchemy Bench to soften a Mithril Flower from the Mythallar Ruins, and then, with a flash of light and shadow, translucent auxiliary lines appeared on the Alchemy Bench.

Immediately after, Xia Duo cast the classic Transmutation spell, Mage Hand, controlling the softened Mithril to continuously draw into threads and wind according to the design blueprint, forming a miniature, dense, pipe-network-like circular structure.

It looked just like a ring woven from fine threads.

Xia Duo then controlled the Alchemy Array to instantly solidify it, and he himself temporarily abandoned control over this Mithril component, letting it hover above the Alchemy Bench.

Next was the assembly of the Energy Core; the Energy Core in a permanent Magic Item generally does not get consumed, but is merely used as a buffer for the Magic Item to draw Arcane Energy from the Magic Net, a mechanism somewhat similar to the "automatic loading" of rifles on Earth.

In actual use, however, the Gemstone acting as the Energy Core, as well as the Mithril component through which energy constantly circulates, no matter how high their initial quality, will undergo a phenomenon known as "Elemental Transmutation" after long-term use—

A tiny portion of the Gemstone and Mithril will transform into other substances, thereby causing their own quality to degrade, eventually leading to the Magic Item failing, breaking, or, of course, potentially self-destructing.

A permanent Magic Item is not permanent or eternal in the true sense; it is just that its "shelf life" is really long.

Although Xia Duo only intended to make a collector's item and was not prepared to actually use it, he did not cut any corners on the materials; the Five-Colored Gem used as the Energy Core was a high-quality, pre-cut Gemstone selected from the Tower of Time.

Especially the ruby used as the main core to carry the fire element circulation; it was worth a fortune, and in the past, he certainly would not have been willing to be so wasteful.

But now, there were actually better choices, such as using an Arcane Crystal as the Energy Core, though using it on a Fireball Ring was somewhat not worth it.

Furthermore, Xia Duo still had a Personal Space that needed "recharging and paying," so he would never use an Arcane Crystal.

Once the Energy Core assembly was finished, all that remained was to link it to the Magic Net, and theoretically, this Fireball Ring would be complete; it would have every function a Magic Item should have.

However, generally speaking, Mithril wire is very soft, and the slightest deformation would cause the Magic Item to fail; if there was indeed a need for deformation, the design blueprint could be adjusted in advance, but this would increase the difficulty of the design.

If there was no need for deformation, then it was simple: just encapsulate it.

Xia Duo did exactly that, and the encapsulation material he chose this time was different from the one he used when making the Communication Magic Tool; as an item worn on the body, a ring must take durability into account.

Therefore, he chose a "Silver + Adamantine" combination—mostly Silver with a small amount of Adamantine—which was both beautiful and practical, and for this kind of non-Gemstone encapsulation material, one only needed to consider the compatibility and concealment between the material level and the main body of the Magic Item.

Relatively speaking, it was simpler than using Crystal encapsulation.

Xia Duo was already familiar with these processes, and since the main body of the ring was already finished, at this moment, even if he just encapsulated it into a lump of iron, it would not affect its actual use.

But if he really encapsulated it into that shape, it would be a complete waste of the miniature, dense, pipe-network-like circular structure Mithril component he had specially designed for the ring; Xia Duo would, of course, not really encapsulate it into a lump of iron.

It was still the familiar Mage Hand, which, after Xia Duo's improvements, had higher precision in fine operations than the original version, perhaps it could be called Refined Material Manipulation.

Theoretically, he could also design a separate shaping spell for every alchemy plan, and other Spellcasters could follow this spell to directly complete operations analogous to Xia Duo's.

However, the more complex the shaping, the more complex the spell would be; if performed by a person, the spellcasting difficulty would be extremely high, even for Xia Duo, who used the method of real-time shaping with auxiliary lines.

But in the future, one could produce specialized Magic Items for the production of Mithril components, the core of which, besides the Alchemy Array, would be the customized Mage Hand—integrated molding, nothing more than that.

However, this would require a huge output volume to justify the need to specifically manufacture such a production machine; otherwise, manual manufacturing would still be more cost-effective.

In fact, Xia Duo could already imagine the scene of Magic Items in the future being like electronic products on Earth, sweeping the whole world—

Factories standing in great numbers on the Floating City, identical quasi-Magic Items being produced one after another from the assembly line, and then being linked to the Magic Net by individual magic technicians, finally reaching the hands of consumers.

And even without a Floating City, assembly-line production of quasi-Magic Items could still be realized, but there was one point Xia Duo still had no clue about, and that was the "Link Magic Web" step.

As long as the Spellcaster factor in this step was excluded, then what was automatically produced would no longer be a quasi-Magic Item, but a true Magic Item that could be used immediately upon coming off the assembly line.

Once this technology was broken through, the magic version of the Industrial Mother Machine could appear, and in this way, even ordinary people could develop a prosperous magic civilization.

But why was this style so familiar? It was simply a replica of the technological civilization on Earth!

Of course, this was just a kind of imagination of Xia Duo's; whether reality could really develop to that extent was hard to say, and the individual power brought by magic was probably the biggest variable.

If individuals had no power and relied only on external objects, then many experiences from Earth could be directly copied, but individuals did have power, and it often exceeded the system.

Perhaps in the future, when the development of external objects completely smoothed out the variable of individual power, similar to the appearance of the machine gun on Earth, then many experiences from Earth could be copied again.

But it was still that same question: could individual power tolerate the development of external objects to the point of threatening itself?

Xia Duo currently supported it; after all, on Earth, both knives and guns could threaten humans, but order still occupied a dominant position, and individual safety was actually maintained by order.

As long as the order was reasonable, Xia Duo had no reason not to accept it; after all, development was the absolute truth, and if one didn't develop, what if one encountered a strong enemy one day—would one just turn to dust?

And as long as there was development, it would eventually exceed the limits of individual power; this was perhaps a metamorphosis of magic civilization.

If it succeeded, there would naturally be great development; if it didn't succeed, and one was lucky, development would stagnate there; if one was unlucky, individuals who mastered powerful forces would launch a world-destroying catastrophe, and cultivating a new batch of humans would not be a problem.

It would be too terrifying if it really developed to that point.

Fortunately, the current Netheril was always surrounded by strong enemies; otherwise, the corruption of the upper echelons would probably happen in minutes. From this perspective, Xia Duo was quite grateful to the Elves.

However, he thought of the Mythallar again; once this thing came out, the Floating City would very likely appear as well.

Once a Floating City appeared, to say nothing else, even if it just kept conducting air drops, it could cause great deterrence to the Elves, not to mention the ultimate leap—directly descending from the sky itself, or even Mythallar bombs and the like.

Would the Netherese Mages become arrogant by then?

And once the Elves discovered that the Netherese possessed a Floating City, would they unite to cause trouble?