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Join the ServerOn the top floor of the mage tower, the afternoon sun streamed through the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, casting its light on the soft wool carpet.
Lia was half-reclining on a levitating soft couch that Klein had specially built for her, a thin, magically-warmed blanket covering her.
The couch was swaying gently at a frequency that made one feel drowsy.
To her left, a small mechanical arm held a thick copy of A Study of Ancient Runes, automatically turning the pages for her.
To her right, another, more precise mechanical arm was using a small silver spoon to deliver a small piece of dessert accurately to her lips.
Lia only needed to open her mouth slightly to enjoy the sweet and rich taste.
Ever since the last riot, Klein, under the pretext that “your time should not be wasted on trivial matters,” had turned the entire top floor of the mage tower into a fully automated paradise of comfort.
Lia had symbolically protested this, but after three days of being waited on hand and foot, she had shamelessly surrendered.
Thinking and research did indeed consume a lot of energy.
Replenishing sugar was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
“Lia, you’re about to be raised into a useless person by Master Klein.”
Adèle’s voice was filled with jealousy and accusation. She plopped down on the carpet next to Lia, snatched an apple that a mechanical arm was peeling, and took a fierce bite.
“I’ve hit a bottleneck in my research and came over to clear my head with you,” Adèle said indistinctly.
“Let me guess, is it elemental purification?” Lia’s gaze didn’t leave the book.
“That’s right,” Adèle sighed. “I’ve tried hundreds of catalysts and magic arrays, but the purification efficiency just won’t go up. There’s always a three percent impurity that can’t be separated, as if it’s grown into the element itself.”
“Maybe your line of thinking was wrong from the start,” Lia said casually.
“Of course I know that! But I don’t know where I went wrong!” Adèle ruffled her hair in frustration.
Seeing how engrossed Lia was in her reading, she leaned over curiously and picked up an unopened copy of the latest issue of Magitech Theory from the table beside her.
She began to unwrap it, muttering to herself.
Lia finished the last bite of her dessert, directed the mechanical arm to take away the empty plate, and then lazily sat up.
“Any interesting new papers?”
“Nothing much. Most of them are discussing your alternating current system, and some old fossils are arguing about whether your spacetime theory is the gibberish of a demon.”
She flipped to the back of the journal, where the papers were written by some lesser-known mages.
“Hm? This one’s a bit interesting,” Adèle’s movement paused. Lia’s curiosity was piqued, and she took the journal from her hand.
It was a paper with a very long title: On the Possibility of Superluminal Transmission of Current Effects Based on the Phenomenon of Electromagnetic Induction in Specific Media and Conjectures on its Application.
The author’s name was an unfamiliar one: Alistair, a Fourth-Circle Mage.
Lia’s gaze was instantly drawn to the title.
She began to read it quickly.
The content of the paper was not complex, even somewhat crude.
The author, Alistair, described a device of his own invention.
The device consisted of a simple closed circuit, an electromagnet, and an indicator needle.
When he pressed a switch at one end to close the circuit, the electromagnet at the distant other end would generate a magnetic field, causing the needle to deflect.
When the circuit was broken, the needle would return to its original position under the action of a spring.
By controlling the duration of the key presses, he could even make the needle perform two different deflection movements, long and short.
Lia’s breathing became a little hurried.
She knew what this meant.
This was the prototype of the wired telegraph.
This was the first time in this world that someone had conceived of a method for long-distance, real-time information transmission based purely on physical principles.
This key was enough to unlock a brand new information age.
She continued to read and soon saw the dilemma Alistair mentioned at the end of the paper.
His device worked remarkably well over short distances.
But once the transmission line exceeded one kilometer, the deflection of the needle became extremely weak.
If the line was extended to two kilometers, the signal disappeared completely.
Alistair attributed this to the “loss of electricity” in the wire and proposed several fanciful solutions, such as finding a “perfect conductor that does not lose electricity at all.”
A faint smile appeared on Lia’s lips.
This was the inevitable result of the current attenuation due to increased resistance over a long line.
Seeing how seriously Lia was reading, Adèle couldn’t help but ask, “What’s wrong? Is there a problem with this paper?”
“No, there’s no problem with it,” Lia put down the journal, her eyes shining with excitement. “It’s extremely valuable.”
She didn’t plan to contact this mage named Alistair directly.
Giving a man a fish is not as good as teaching him how to fish.
If she told him the answer directly, he would only solve this one problem.
But if she could provide guidance from a higher theoretical level, laying the most solid theoretical foundation for this technology, then what would be harvested would be the forest of the entire information age.
Lia stood up from the soft couch and walked to the desk.
“Adèle, help me get some blank manuscript paper and ink.”
“Oh? What are you going to do?” Adèle asked curiously.
“To guide a lost child on his way home,” Lia said with a smile.
What she was about to write was not just a solution.
What she was about to write was the first cornerstone of communication principles in this world.
Lia sat at the desk and spread out the manuscript paper.
She picked up her pen and quickly constructed the entire theoretical framework in her mind.
To directly give the concept of a relay would be too abrupt and lack theoretical support.
She needed to start from the most basic mathematical model and derive it step by step, so that everyone who saw this paper could understand its internal logic.
First, the problem of signal attenuation.
Lia put pen to paper and wrote the title of the paper.
On the Relay Amplification and Attenuation Compensation of Magitech Signals.
She used Alistair’s experiment as an introduction, first affirming its pioneering significance.
Then, she changed the subject and pointed out the flaws in his theoretical model.
She brought in the existing concepts of resistance, voltage, and current, and used clear mathematical language to establish a model of signal attenuation during transmission in a wire.
A simple exponential decay formula clearly revealed the essence of how signal strength weakens with increasing distance.
“So that’s how it is…” Adèle, who was watching, had a look of sudden realization. “The longer the distance, the faster the attenuation, so the signal disappears.”
Lia didn’t stop and continued to write.
Now that the problem was identified, the next step was the solution.
How to combat attenuation?
The answer was to “replicate” and “amplify” the signal before it disappeared completely.
Lia did not directly draw the structural diagram of a relay; that would be too much like an “invention that came out of thin air.”
She chose to start from the most basic principles of electromagnetic induction.
That was a theory she had already expounded upon in The Fundamentals of the Alternating Current System in order to counter Konrad.
She proposed a concept: since a weak current cannot directly drive a distant device, could this weak current be used to control an “energy source”?
This “energy source” would be an independent power supply located in the middle of the transmission line.
And the “switch” that controlled this power supply would be a small electromagnet driven by the weak signal current.
When the weak signal arrives, the electromagnet gains magnetic force and attracts an armature.
The movement of this armature would then close a brand new, more powerful circuit powered by the local power supply.
The output of this new circuit would be a perfectly “replicated” and “amplified” new signal.
This signal could then continue to be transmitted to even more distant places.
With simple lines, Lia drew the complete design of this device on the manuscript paper.
A coil, an armature, a spring, a few wires.
The structure was simple, the principle was clear.
This was the electromagnetic relay.
It was like a relay station on the path of information transmission, allowing signals that would have died halfway to be reborn again and again, rushing towards the infinite distance.
To make the theory more complete, she even used calculus to provide a precise mathematical proof of the changes in various parameters when the relay was working.
When Lia wrote the last character, the sun outside the window had already begun to set.
For a whole afternoon, she had been immersed in the deduction of theory.
Klein, at some point, had stood up behind her and silently watched the birth of the entire paper.
“Finished the new paper?” he asked softly.
“Mm,” Lia put down her pen, let out a long breath, and rubbed her sore wrist.
Klein picked up the manuscript and read it carefully from beginning to end.
He read extremely fast, his blue eyes shining with the light of understanding and appreciation.
“A very perfect theoretical closed loop,” he commented.
From discovering the problem, to establishing a mathematical model, to proposing a solution, and giving an engineering design and theoretical proof.
This paper was less of an academic article and more of a complete technical guide for pioneering a new field.
Lia took a sip of the warm water a mechanical arm handed her and said, “I was just standing on the shoulders of a giant. That mage named Alistair is the one who truly came up with the idea.”
“But he could only see the first floor, while you saw the entire staircase leading to the top floor,” Klein said.
He picked up a pen and added a sentence at the end of the paper.
“The value of any theory lies in its application.”
Then, in the author’s signature space, he wrote Lia’s name, and next to it, he signed his own.
“Why add your name?” Lia was a little confused.
“So that some people will have a little more reverence when they see this paper.”
Klein’s tone was very flat. “And also to make the Magic Association publish it as quickly as possible.”
“The joint signature of an Eighth-Circle Archmage and a Royal Honorary Professor carries enough weight to ensure that no one at the Magic Association dares to be the slightest bit negligent.”
Klein carefully rolled up the manuscript and placed it in an enchanted teleportation scroll.
“Let’s hope this Alistair doesn’t disappoint you.”
With a faint flash of light, the paper carrying the cornerstone of the information age disappeared from the mage tower.
The publication process of the paper was even faster than Klein had expected.
However, this paper, which was capable of changing the world, did not cause much of a stir at the beginning of its publication.
For the vast majority of mages, its content was too professional and dry.
The complex mathematical formulas and unfamiliar circuit symbols made many people shy away.
“Another paper by Lord Klein and Professor Lia? Can’t understand it, next.”
This represented the sentiment of the vast majority of mages.
Only a few mages specializing in the field of electromagnetism, after getting their hands on this paper, studied it voraciously as if they had found a treasure.
And in an inconspicuous alchemy laboratory in the Royal Capital.
Alistair, the Fourth-Circle Mage, was staring blankly at the supplementary issue in his hand.
His eyes were bloodshot, his breathing was rapid, and his body was trembling slightly from excessive excitement.
To him, this paper was no less than a divine oracle.
It used impeccable logic and exquisite mathematics to answer all the puzzles that had been perplexing him.
Why does the signal attenuate? Because of resistance.
How to solve it? Relay amplification.
How to achieve it? The electromagnetic relay.
Every word in the paper was like a beam of light, dispelling all the fog in his mind.
Especially that simple and perfect design diagram, it was simply a miracle.
“Genius… no, this is a concept that only a god could have!” Alistair exclaimed as if in a dream.
He locked himself in the laboratory and enshrined the paper in the most prominent position.
He began to frantically build the device called a “relay” according to the requirements on the diagram.
He failed again and again.
Either the coil was wound in the wrong direction, or the gap of the armature was incorrect.
But he was not the least bit discouraged.
Whenever he encountered a problem, he would return to the paper to find the answer.
Lia’s mathematical proofs, precise to every detail, pointed him in all the right directions.
Three days later.
The laboratory door was flung open.
Alistair’s eyes were red, his hair was as messy as a bird’s nest, but his expression was incredibly fervent.
He was tightly holding a simple device.
It was a small electromagnetic relay, only the size of a palm, built with wood and copper wire.
He connected it to his two-kilometer-long test line.
Then, with a trembling hand, he pressed the switch at the other end of the line.
The needle, which had been motionless, suddenly deflected.
The crisp “click” sound, in the silent laboratory, was like the most beautiful symphony.
It worked.
Alistair collapsed to the floor, looking at the device, tears streaming down his face.
He slowly raised his head, his gaze once again falling on the signature of the paper.
In his eyes, these two names were no longer those of mortals.
They were the personification of truth, gods who guided lost souls like him.
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