Chapter 128: Crystal

Majiang carefully completed the final segment of the calculation settings; on the pear wood table in front of him, a small crystal floated in the air, rotating silently. Golden characters continuously flowed out from his Ear Bone Stud. Majiang closed his eyes and softly chanted the Secret Language he had woven; those Secret Languages, filled with Magic power, intertwined into complex commands. The Calculation Crystal started in response, beginning to process the data from the Ear Bone Stud. Golden data flowed continuously, like silk threads turning into lengths of cloth.

The sound of footsteps came from the doorway. Majiang looked up. To prevent Luo Qi from being too noisy while moving dirt, he had cleared out a study in the side room of the front courtyard, spending half a day dusting it and tidying up the old junk piled there.

Majiang leaned back in his armchair, relaxed, watching Guan Xinyue walk in with a light step. Her style of dress always had some similarities to Luo Qi's; they were truly of the same generation. Meeting Majiang's gaze, she gave a childish smile, waved her overly long sleeves, and stepped with her sneakers onto the carpet he had just created with Magic; he gritted his teeth, struggling not to wince.

"Luo Qi passed the test," she said, running over to sit in the chair next to Majiang, placing her feet on another ancient chair and stretching out her slender calves wrapped in jeans.

Majiang withdrew his attention from the Qing dynasty furniture. "Passed? By his willpower? Not by his diligent hands?"

Guan Xinyue laughed, understanding his meaning. She said, "Du Ge was watching him; he couldn't cheat. It wasn't done by filling the dirt with a shovel; it was truly done by willpower. He was covered in sweat and his face was flushed red. If he hadn't succeeded in the end, he would have been just like those charlatans practicing Qigong in old photographs."

"How many times did he succeed?" Majiang asked again.

"I didn't keep track. The courtyard looked like a sandstorm had blown through at one point, but later he controlled the dirt bit by bit, just like someone tossing dirt into a pit handful by handful." Guan Xinyue sighed with sympathy. "That's why he worked until this late. Oh, right, Du Ge asked me to come and ask you what we're eating tonight? The barbecue equipment I bought online yesterday has arrived, if you don't mind..."

"Sure, I don't mind a BBQ," Majiang said easily. "Anyway, the only thing left for my work here is the automatic calculation step."

Guan Xinyue turned her head to look at the diamond-shaped crystal rotating slightly on Majiang's desk; she had already grown accustomed to the Mage's little gadgets over the past few days. "I've always been curious, why can a rock perform calculations and decryption?"

Majiang also looked at the Crystal and explained casually, "I have already analyzed the structure of the puzzle your grandfather left behind and selected the appropriate Calculation Model to perform the calculation. Look at this."

His fingers made a dragging motion, and the strange golden symbol set split into several information clouds. "After analyzing for these past few days, I obtained these simplified results based on approximate correlations; the rest is to perform calculations on each cloud one by one. But if I made a mistake in the simplification process at the beginning and the calculation result is unreasonable, I will have to backtrack, re-examine the Calculation Model, and redo the simplification process. However..."

Majiang pressed his palms together in front of his forehead and muttered, "But I really hope not!" He lowered his hands and pushed up his glasses with a nervous twitch. "When it comes down to it, this should have been the work of a group of Calculators, with each Calculator modeling independently along one possibility, each completing one simplification mode, and calculating in synchronization. It's a pity that now there is only me; Parallel Calculation has turned into Linear Calculation, and the pressure is too great."

He shook his head and casually flicked out a thin, golden cloud. "This is your personal information collection. Your information is the key to these calculations, the key to the puzzle. If these cannot produce a result, girl, I will have to continue digging into you."

"I have absolutely no privacy left," Guan Xinyue made a face. "If you want to know more about me, for example, at what age I stopped wetting my pants, I don't even remember that myself. But what I'm curious about isn't that; I don't understand many of the terms you use, I'm curious why this piece of crystal can perform calculations?"

"Because it is a Calculation Crystal; it cost me a lot of credits to buy it." Majiang looked at the Crystal with affection, as if it were a pet he had raised for many years. "Special crystals have special uses. For example, crystals for the Pendragon Track are used to initiate fixed point-to-point Space Travel; some Hallucination Crystals can produce hypnotic effects; and others, Sandbox Crystals, can create a new space—you already saw that when you went out with Du Zhengyi last time, right? Oh, that thing is expensive as hell and very rare; besides Du Zhengyi, not many people can afford to play with it... So, what is strange about a Calculation Crystal being used to perform calculation functions?"

Guan Xinyue looked completely bewildered. "Right, speaking of which, I've also always been curious about this: aren't hypnotic crystals and Sandbox Crystals the same thing?"

"That's different," Majiang smiled. "Actually, the distinction is simple: the world produced by a Hallucination Crystal is unreal, but the space produced by a Sandbox Crystal exists in reality. For example, if you saw that bookstore, that bookstore actually existed; it's just that a Sandbox is often nested with hypnosis and hallucinations. However, the meaning of a Sandbox mainly lies in the Barrier; Mages can turn the world upside down inside a Sandbox, but it won't have any impact on the outside world."

"Is a folded space contained inside a Sandbox?" Guan Xinyue asked, pondering. "But who created this space? The person who made the crystal? Or the person who uses the crystal? Are there Sandbox theme parks? For example, a Jurassic Sandbox, a Star Wars Sandbox, a palace intrigue Sandbox?"

Majiang's expression was quite spectacular. "A palace intrigue Sandbox? You sure have an imagination, girl. Du Zhengyi has finished Seventh Grade in this area; you can discuss it with him. If he's interested, you two could build an entertainment empire."

"Haven't you ever thought about that?" Guan Xinyue pressed. "Do only humans know how to have fun?"

Majiang hesitated for a moment. "The world of Mages does not encourage the pursuit of pleasure, but as far as I know, there are indeed some underground entertainment venues with similar projects, but no one can be sure if they are really using Sandbox technology. Anyway, I have never been there, nor have I studied it. As for the Sandbox... Du Zhengyi once mentioned it to me; he said he felt that a Sandbox is more like a borrowed space, but how to interpret his words specifically, I don't know. If Du Zhengyi didn't have to run around fighting people, he might have been a Scholar in this field. As for me, I am a Doctor; I only know that a Doctor cannot understand a Sandbox. A Sandbox is too complex to be explained in a few words."

"Oh," Guan Xinyue said, disappointed. "That's just like our physics; Doctors can't understand it, and art students understand it even less. Forget it! Is the credit that you Mages earn used to buy these things?"

"Mainly for these things," Majiang said. "After all, as you have seen, Luo Qi's amateur skills are enough to steal rice from human homes. If it were really just for basic survival, why would we need credits?"

"Then what if it happens to be a particularly Buddhist-like Mage? Someone who doesn't want these crystals, just works a job in human society, takes the bus, and only wants to survive like that?" Guan Xinyue asked casually.

Majiang glanced at her and said in a low voice, "If one holds power, such a life is impossible."

"Why?"

"Because the Qionglin does not allow it," Majiang said. "Forced service based on ability is a basic obligation for Mages stipulated by the Qionglin."