Chapter 376: Chapter 373: Descriptors and Ring Tiers
Rorschach didn’t like Gao Pei—or at least, he didn’t like the man who was now the head of Factory Number One.
Initially, Gao Pei’s desire to delve into his own work and his dedicated spirit had moved Rorschach. Not only did Rorschach give him the blueprints for the computation core, but he also paid a hefty sum to hire a professor to tutor him. Rorschach had hoped he could transition from a simple artisan into an engineer who understood fundamental principles.
Gao Pei’s learning progress had then pleasantly surprised Rorschach, so he entrusted the newly established instrument factory to the young man, along with introductory knowledge on how to manufacture Alchemy Devices.
Including Rorschach himself, Andre, and newly recruited interns placed in management positions, not to mention the promotion of new masters who were more dissatisfied with the old workshops... his entire enterprise was a slapdash operation run by a bunch of greenhorns.
However, it wasn’t all greenhorns. For example, there was Mr. Hasse and the head of the Steel Factory. They were "old sausages," having shifted over from their original merchant associations and Guilds, and they brought some of their old habits with them. When Gao Pei was suddenly promoted from an Apprentice to the "head of Factory Number One," putting him on equal footing with the heads of the three major factories, he was frequently wined and dined for the sake of instrument deliveries. Gradually, he picked up their slick, greasy ways.
These were external factors, and perhaps Rorschach’s decision at the time had been too casual, failing to take this into account. But he still disliked Gao Pei, because he had Andre as a point of comparison.
This Apprentice, once contemptuously called a "Valuvanan" by everyone when he first arrived, had now become a figure second only to Rorschach and above the other managers. Everyone else now addressed him respectfully as "Mr. Andre."
But he hadn’t been intoxicated by the flood of wine, money, and flattery. More importantly, Rorschach could still joke around with him. Andre respected Rorschach as a mentor, but that was the extent of it.
Andre’s existence assured Rorschach that he could bring about more change, while Gao Pei’s transformation reminded him that many things would stay the same. Thinking about it, Rorschach wasn’t sure if he disliked Gao Pei himself or the reality he had to face.
Rorschach returned to the server room that housed the Tower Spirit’s main body. He took out the machinery and modified the interfaces to connect it. Work was a good way to chase away such troubles.
The machine whirred to life, and Rorschach prepared to test its newly added functions. He uploaded another new spell, the Spirit Armor Skill, but the analysis speed hadn’t increased much.
"Analyzing audio... may I ask if you are sighing?"
"Your performance hasn’t improved significantly. Just like the Electric Claw last time, this is also a First Ring Spell, but the analysis speed hasn’t increased."
The Tower Spirit’s voice was completely flat. "Analyzing... Master, I believe your test is not rigorous enough. The speed of uploading and analyzing a spell is limited by the connection between the storage and computation units. Furthermore, even spells of the same Ring Tier consume different amounts of resources. For example, compared to Electric Claw, which only involves transforming electrical energy, I also need to retrieve the concept of ’armor’ to understand the complete model of the Spirit Armor Skill and break it down into ’terms.’"
Rorschach was not in a good mood. He said casually, "Alright, my mistake. I misjudged you."
But the Tower Spirit’s next words gave him a jolt. "Furthermore, I believe there is a flaw in your thinking."
"Huh?" He jumped to his feet. ’It’s rebelling! It’s rebelling! The Tower Spirit is calling out its master’s failings to his face!’
He waited for it to continue, wondering whether he should reward it or just dismantle and reformat it. The Tower Spirit, unable to sense Rorschach’s thoughts, simply stated in a straightforward manner, "Is there a direct relationship between how much hardware is connected to my main body and my performance? With the core’s feeble capabilities, it’s fundamentally impossible to simulate a human-like consciousness such as a Tower Spirit.
"The Enlightenment Skill was simply used to transform a main core into a Soul container. Adding more computational machines from now on is, for ’me,’ merely adding more available tools to offload simple tasks. It won’t cause a qualitative change in their nature."
Ultimately, no matter how exquisite these machines were, they couldn’t compare to billions of transistors. Rorschach had already realized this, so the Tower Spirit’s Soul had inherited his conclusion. "Continuing to add more hardware will only yield diminishing returns in performance. I suggest you stop focusing on simple material additions and consider constructing a better form of ’container.’"
Rorschach fully agreed with the Tower Spirit’s suggestion, but he began to have doubts. "You’re absolutely right, but how am I supposed to upgrade you then?"
"..." The Tower Spirit fell silent for a moment before activating its wave function analyzer and vocal components again. "Apologies. I can only offer suggestions based on the memories inherited in my Soul. Everything I’ve said so far is based on your own existing knowledge. The innovation that comes next... is your prerogative."
Only then did Rorschach relax a little. He continued to ponder the Tower Spirit’s reminder, realizing that the current "Spell Cloud" also had problems. The current "Polarized Crystal System" storage was definitely an improvement over paper tape, but why did spells have to be stored this way at all? The memories carried by the Tower Spirit were clearly not kept in a storage unit. Yet without a storage unit, the Tower Spirit indeed had no Casting Ability; even its voice was produced by an external Magic Array.
"At least it pointed out a vague direction for future improvements..." Rorschach muttered as he moved on to the next task.
Previously, spells had been entered as complete records, which the Tower Spirit would then analyze, deconstruct, and compare against the "terms" Rorschach uploaded. Even the same term could have variations. For instance, with "Elemental Transformation," the effect would differ based on proficiency, and the target element it could be converted to would also vary.
After analysis, although the Tower Spirit couldn’t understand the meaning, it could compare the frequency differences of the same "term" across different spells to extract more information. After identifying the similarities and differences, Rorschach and the Tower Spirit finalized the "Feature Symbols" that corresponded one-to-one with the terms, and the "Descriptors" that guided the differentiation in the spells.
By constructing a system interwoven with both, they created a new method of chanting and Casting. Rorschach’s previously developed "Major Accident Reversal Technique" was itself a Spell Chain composed of multiple spells. As the first spell to be uploaded, Rorschach could get away with assigning it a simple code. But as the number of spells increased, this unsystematic approach would cause all sorts of conflicts and consume storage resources.
Now, with the addition of "Descriptors," the Tower Spirit could call upon basic "terms" to provide Casters with a wider range of effects, granting the Casters themselves more freedom. Of course, Rorschach had no intention of making the rules for this set of "Descriptors" public. If a Mage using the Spell Cloud to assist their Casting gained a deep enough understanding of the system, they would naturally learn how to combine "Descriptors."
’The Tower Spirit’s response and processing capabilities are limited. In the future, as the number of users grows, I’ll need to rationally allocate its processing power and priority.’ Therefore, Rorschach added a series of special "Level Descriptors" to the "Descriptors." The more processing power a spell required from the Tower Spirit, the higher its corresponding Level Descriptor. The Tower Spirit would only respond if the correct Level Descriptor was inserted at the correct position in the chant.
A corresponding Level system already existed. According to the teachings of the Royal Magic Academy, the Ring Tier System that has been passed down to this day was created by the original Aurora Elder Council to facilitate better communication and education, as well as to conveniently assess the contributions of a Mage’s research. It was divided based on a combination of learning difficulty, Casting difficulty, and spell effect.
