I Pioneered Scientific Magic - Chapter 537 (Patreon)

Chapter 537: Establishment of the Magic Network System and Methods for Extracting Antimatter

The internal meeting among legendary councilors did not cause much disturbance outside, but some keen wizards still sensed the approaching war.

Due to the acceleration of various basic constructions by the council, particularly the railway network between the major cities of the empire, which was prioritized as the most urgent task to be completed within two months.

Moreover, the council also transferred a large number of laborers to the northern borders and began constructing various sturdy defensive facilities there. Magic workshops were also expanding wildly, working overtime every day to produce weapons and ammunition.

Now, with a population of twenty million in the empire, the number of laborers alone has reached a staggering four million, leading to various issues like chaotic management, enslavement of workers, and wage deductions.

Among these, the most serious issue was the shortage of food.

After all, a large number of people abandoning agriculture meant reduced food production and abandoned lands. Fortunately, thanks to the grains collected from various traders, they managed to just make it through to the new year's summer harvest.

Half of the central plains' large farms, under the combined effect of mechanical plowing and magic fertilization, welcomed an unprecedented bumper harvest. Tons of wheat were transported to various parts of the empire by rail, effectively nipping the looming food crisis in the bud.

However, the joy of the harvest and the shadow of war were soon overshadowed by another piece of major news—the magic network developed by Councilor Lynn was officially operational, allowing any wizard, apprentice, and even a part of the outstanding commoners to join!

This was undoubtedly explosive news. Although Lynn had previously used the magic network to enable thousands of wizards to witness the results of the double-slit interference experiment, this time it affected hundreds of thousands of people across the entire empire!

The news broke, and countless apprentices stuck with limited talents and unable to advance were overjoyed, rushing to join the magic network.

And the most excited were undoubtedly the graduates from the civilian academies.

Alec was among them, but he was undoubtedly luckier than others. Born in a land of wizards, he was one of the first to enter a civilian academy, although he was recruited early due to his outstanding performance, becoming an envied airship pilot!

However, after the council's war on the empire ended, Alec did not rely on his war achievements to continue advancing but chose to return to the academy to deepen his studies in advanced mathematics, physics, and chemistry.

Whether it was comrades or relatives, everyone was quite puzzled by his decision. After all, like them, without magical talent, no matter how well they studied, they would end up working in wizard workshops, serving the high and mighty wizards.

Being a pilot, controlling the vast and sophisticated airships, was a dream for many.

But Alec gave it up, simply because he was not satisfied with it. Being born in a land of wizards, he was aware of a secretive message: Councilor Lynn... that star of magic might possess a method that could allow ordinary people to become wizards.

Because one of his apprentices was a widely recognized talentless halfling who had repeatedly attempted to become a wizard's apprentice but was rejected by Iyeta Academy, only to be appreciated by Councilor Lynn for his excellent alchemy skills and eventually granted the ability to cast spells.

If he performed well in the civilian academy, he might also be noticed by a great wizard.

Of course, the chances were very slim. Alec had been in the academy for a full half-year with excellent grades in nearly all subjects, yet he had not encountered any discerning great wizards. However, he unexpectedly waited for the opportunity of the magic network's opening.

Alec, with his outstanding grades, became one of the first thousand to try the drug, receiving a 【Spirit Awakening Potion】.

This potion was actually a weakened version of the 【Source of Magic】, originally intended for apprentices to break through to become official wizards, but now, with the promotion achievable through the enhanced computing power of the magic network, it was safer and thus no longer needed.

The council's potion masters weakened its effects to one-fifth of the original, allowing ordinary people to safely consume it, though its effectiveness was significantly reduced, only granting a slight amount of magical power.

But that was enough, at least meeting the minimum requirements to learn meditation techniques and connect to the magic network.

Under the watchful eye of a potion master, Alec shakily took the potion and drank it down. The blue liquid flowed down his throat, and soon his entire body was wracked with excruciating pain and burning sensations.

But Alec didn't care, for it was the first time he felt the presence of magic. His body seemed to boil, his soul leaping...

"Very good, the seventh experimental group, the three hundred forty-fifth without any adverse reactions..." The potion master glanced at Alec and quickly recorded the data on a piece of paper.

About ten minutes later, Alec recovered from

 the physical transformation induced by the potion, then quickly closed his eyes and attempted the technique to communicate with the magic network. A wave of magical power sped towards the distance at the speed of light, soon received by a magic power station.

It was a sensation as if his brain was about to explode. Once Alec adjusted, he found himself in a boundless dark void, gray runes floating in mid-air, shining like stars.

Alec instinctively touched the rune closest to him, and a flood of information poured into his mind, the gray rune turning colorful.

It was the basic spell 【Elementary Material Deconstruction Technique】... Alec quickly grasped the information and roughly understood the techniques to cast spells, immediately reaching for other runes.

This time, no information came through, but a reminder sounded instead.

【Ding, first-ring advanced elemental magic—Multiple-Ice Blades, minimum spiritual power rating—Apprentice (not met), Junior Chemistry Diploma (met).】

Alec was clearly startled for a moment, but soon understood the meaning of the reminder. He indeed had a junior chemistry diploma, having passed the chemistry exam with excellent grades.

As for the spiritual power rating, Alec checked and found his rating was only 0.4, still 0.1 short of the minimum apprentice standard.

Having a clear goal and progress, Alec was not discouraged and immediately decided to return and train his spiritual power diligently, aiming to reach the wizard's apprentice standard as soon as possible. He then learned two basic spells in the magic network, 【Mage's Hand】 and 【Water Condensation Technique】.

Alec opened his eyes again and immediately experimented. Under the drive of 【Mage's Hand】, the books on the table immediately floated up.

"Magic, this is magic!" Alec's excitement was indescribable; he had not expected to truly become a wizard.

However, an ordinary person's spiritual power is ultimately limited. Even though Alec was an outstanding commoner and had taken the 【Spirit Awakening Potion】, after maintaining 【Mage's Hand】 for about thirty seconds, his brain began to feel dizzy, and he hurriedly canceled the spell.

The potion master recorded Alec's performance one by one, looking at him with a complex expression, for from today onward, the magical miracle was no longer the exclusive domain of the talented. It was uncertain whether this change was good or bad...

In fact, wizards who harbored doubts about the magic network were not in the minority, and even some radical wizards maliciously hoped for a malfunction in the magic network constructed by the star of magic.

The empire's hereditary nobility system had been uprooted, but there were faint signs of another kind of resurgence. As status and power climbed and living conditions improved, the theory of magical bloodlines quietly emerged.

Its main idea was that wizards are noble, their bodies filled with magical blood, allowing them to wield the incredible power of magic!

However, this ideology had not yet developed enough of an audience before it was shattered by the magic network constructed by Lynn.

The establishment of the magic network system meant that even commoners without a trace of magical talent could gain power comparable to theirs through learning, naturally leading to incessant objections.

Fortunately, these voices did not last long and became increasingly insignificant. The reason was that more and more wizards found the magic network too convenient!

Using computing power to assist in advancement was just one of its functions. It also allowed one to directly see their remaining magical power, assess their general physical condition, aid magical experiments, and even assist in combat to a certain extent—though this was a high-level option not open to everyone.

Rumors had it that the star of magic planned to add communication and currency transaction functions...

This made the wizards gradually familiar with the magic network somewhat reluctant to let go, and correspondingly, the voices of opposition naturally diminished.

On the other hand, Lynn also received the experimental report on the 【Spirit Awakening Potion】.

"Did all one thousand succeed? It seems we can consider a large-scale promotion." Lynn thought to himself, not particularly surprised by this outcome—it was only letting a person initially possess magical power, not too difficult.

The only problem with a large-scale promotion was the lack of materials; each bottle of 【Spirit Awakening Potion】 consumed a substantial amount of potion reserves. Even though the council controlled the entire continent and had obtained some of the church's potion reserves, they could only produce fifty thousand bottles at most.

However, this time, deploying the magic network throughout the entire empire brought huge gains. Now, the number of official wizards connected to the magic network had reached nineteen thousand, with apprentices exceeding three hundred thousand.

Having tried connecting to the magic network, Lynn found that with the boost of computing power, he was only a short distance away from the limit of a nine-ring wizard.

Thinking this, Lynn turned his gaze to the books opened on the table. Recently, he had taken the time to finish reading the books written by the 【Elemental Controller】 Althok, which could only be described as insanely speculative.

Filled with various groundless speculations and fantasies, fortunately, Lynn still managed to glean some clues about quantum mechanics from the sparse phrases within, which seemed related to his own soul. He had a few guesses about what to do but was not entirely sure.

He had also managed to compile his integration of special and general relativity into quantum theory, having already written ten manuscripts, ready to be published one by one, available only to grand wizards and above.

If they could overcome the great wizards' fear of microscopic phenomena before the war against the master of the undead broke out, then they could gain a few more legendary warriors.

Finally, the issue of antimatter procurement!

This was the weapon Lynn had agreed upon to use against the master of the undead, using the powerful force from the annihilation effect of matter and antimatter to destroy everything, but how to obtain antimatter became a problem!

Antimatter is like the mirror image of ordinary matter, akin to Daoist yin-yang theory—where there is positive, there is negative!

However, contrary to many people's imagination, antimatter is not rare but is everywhere, whether in the surrounding space or within the body, constantly producing positive and negative particles.

They exist for a very short time, often annihilating each other into energy the moment they appear.

When this phenomenon was first detected, many historical scientists even exclaimed that the law of conservation of energy was broken!

Because these matter-antimatter particles appeared out of nowhere, even popping out of the vacuum without warning.

Of course, subsequent research proved that the law of conservation of energy remained firm. It's just that the vacuum is not truly empty, or rather, with the federation's level of technology, it's impossible to completely remove all matter and energy.

As for the antimatter extraction device, there are quite a few in the smart brain, such as the most advanced antimatter extractor with an anti-particle trap inside, capable of capturing anti-particles emerging from the vacuum and storing them.

However, it's clear that such convenient high-tech, they definitely can't make it, so they still use some ancient methods, such as high-energy particle collisions.

When particles are smashed with sufficient energy, some of that energy is converted into antimatter.

This requires the use of a magicked high-speed particle collider, which he had already secretly started constructing. Due to secrecy, it was not announced.

"Just don't know if antimatter can also be analyzed and controlled by magic..." Lynn pondered to himself, this was his biggest concern, as mass-producing antimatter with their level was almost impossible, nor was there enough time.

The only solution was to create a few anti-hydrogen atoms, then deconstruct them through the 【Great Dissolution Technique】, and then use magic to manufacture them on a large scale, just like they had magicked nuclear explosions, constructing the corresponding spells to perform 【Matter-Antimatter Annihilation】!

Lynn thought this as he organized the manuscripts, then called over Elok to compile some of the relativity manuscripts into volumes, making a hundred copies to send to the grand wizards in the council studying quantum phenomena.

It's just a pity that there was too little time now, with only about three months left. If they could have a few more years, they would undoubtedly be much more relaxed...

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