Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 753 - 752: Neural Thorn

As someone from the military who doesn’t quite understand advanced Magic Guide Technology and doesn’t plan to switch careers to become a researcher, Byron’s visits to the Magic Guide Technology Research Institute are few and far between—he was last here for Pea’s issue as well.

Pea is a mute girl, and this matter is a source of deep regret and lament for Byron, who has been her foster father for several years.

The poor child was once a mute slave of a big merchant; her tongue had been severed, preventing her from speaking, and due to the long time since her tongue was cut, conventional Druid spells were no longer effective. Even though the Cecil Clan had become the Cecil Empire, and Byron had changed from a country knight to the head of the Empire’s army, he could do nothing about it.

In the blink of an eye, several years had passed, and the mute girl had grown into a graceful young lady. An unexpected turn of events emerged at this moment—

The Oblivion Legacy dug out from the Sorin Region gave Byron hope for healing Pea.

Those incredible advanced biotechnologies could be used to create terrifying monsters or to heal unfortunate mortals.

With Pea’s consent, Byron had his foster daughter become the first clinical tester in Pittman’s Druid Laboratory. The initial stages of the treatment went smoothly, with tongue regeneration taking less than half a day, but unexpectedly, getting Pea to speak again posed unforeseen challenges.

Today, this middle-aged knight once again arrived at the Magic Guide Technology Research Institute to seek a new solution.

With a hunched posture and hair and beard all white, Pittman walked ahead, leading Byron deeper into the Magic Guide Technology Research Institute.

This large facility, personally established by Rebecca Cecil, has been developed and perfected over time, and it has now become the most advanced research facility in the Empire. It also houses many new departments and divisions, including the conventional Magic Guide, mechanical, and mathematical research rooms. In the past year, it established two laboratories under the Rune Research Center and a Druid Research Center under Pittman’s name—

As Gawain initially planned, the Magic Guide Technology Research Institute has become more than just a simple research facility; it has become a ”greenhouse” for cultivating new technologies, providing venues, equipment, personnel, and other services for all sorts of emerging technologies or potential teams.

Passing through a gate on the third floor, Byron and Pittman entered the area belonging to the Druid Research Center. The walls here were decorated with floral vines and leaves, and the magic device at the entrance quietly projected a holographic image, with an emblem surrounded by floral vines floating on the image.

This emblem is the Empire’s standard Druid mark.

Several technicians, dressed in short robes with white backgrounds and green patterns, came and went in the corridor, all paying their respects to Pittman with reverence—it was a scene Byron had witnessed on previous visits, but he couldn’t help but glance at the little old man beside him: ”To be honest, I am still quite surprised to see a shameless fellow like you receive such respect from so many scholars.”

”You talk too much,” Pittman gave Byron a sideways glance. ”Did I say anything when I saw the soldiers on the road salute you?”

Byron pouted, saying nothing, and just followed Pittman through the corridor to a seemingly high-specification laboratory.

”Put on the robe and stand on that platform inside,” Pittman said, standing in front of the gate at the laboratory entrance and pointing to a small round platform inside the gate. ”Go in and wait for me.”

”What is this?” Byron was taken aback. ”Why wasn’t this step in the previous laboratory?”

Pittman glared: ”Nonsense, this laboratory’s biosafety isolation level is III, the previous one was only II—you can understand it as the things in here being more precious than elsewhere.”

Byron gave a sound of acknowledgment. Although usually rough and ready, he understood the importance of rigor and order in research facilities, so he said no more.

Following Pittman’s guidance, he completed the dressing and disinfection steps with some clumsiness, then passed through the gate into this seemingly special laboratory.

Upon entering, the first thing that came into view was a rather spacious room, with several large laboratory tables neatly lined up on both sides, and numerous technicians in standard short robes bustling between them — all had Druid insignia surrounded by floral vines on their robes, but Byron knew that, by old standards, only a small portion were true ”Druids,” with the rest at most being ”Mage apprentices” in the transcendent realm, or even ordinary people without any transcendent skills.

But with the development of Magic Guide Technology and many Druid spells being integrated into the rune logic system, the definition of ”Druid” within the Empire was no longer so rigid.

Byron’s gaze swept over the room and suddenly noticed a striking and special figure among them.

It was Master Kamel, whose entire body shone with arcane magic and was clad in rune armor plates.

He turned slightly and asked the newly-entered Pittman: ”How is Master Kamel also here?”

”He’s involved in this project,” Pittman said casually, stepping forward. ”Just follow and observe, and don’t touch anything here.”

Byron shrugged, following along indifferently.

Pittman, despite his elderly appearance, moved quickly, soon arriving at Kamel’s side and asking, ”Is the morning test finished? How’s it looking?”

”The neural response efficiency has exceeded seventy percent, but it still requires many adjustments,” Kamel said, casually pointing to the nearest lab table. ”Take a look and see if there’s anything wrong with its artificial neurons.”

Pittman turned and walked towards the lab table, while Byron craned his neck to curiously glance in that direction.

He saw an oddly shaped object quietly lying on an inclined surface, its details rendered vividly by bright lights.

It was a ”strip-like” object made of metal components, less than a meter in length, with one end featuring a palm-sized rhombus structure made of several metal plates pieced together, and the other end branched into fine, dark red terminals. Its strip-like main body exhibited a circular structure with intricate metal protrusions, this strange configuration...

Byron couldn’t help but think of the human spine or something that could stick to the spine.

He leaned in closer and saw a subtle red pulsing between the metal segments, and upon careful inspection, he recognized it as fibrous material resembling some kind of flesh.

The ”flesh” was growing between the metal, maintaining its vitality in a way that was difficult to comprehend.

”What... is this thing?” Byron blinked and asked curiously, ”Why does it look like the artificial nerve cords from the Immersion Capsule?”

”This is indeed an artificial nerve cord, but it’s not for use in the Immersion Capsule,” Pittman replied, seriously examining the nerve terminals extending from the end of the ”metal spine,” without lifting his head, ”It’s a branch application of the artificial nerve cord... I’ve temporarily named it ’Neural Thorn.’”

Byron continued to ask, ”What’s it used for?”

”Essentially, it’s still a neural connection device, used to connect the human brain to external magic-guide devices, but aside from this basic connection function...” Pittman finally looked up and pointed to the dark red fibrous structure at the end of the artificial nerve cord, ”It can also be used to break the boundary between ordinary people and the transcendent, truly break it.”

Byron’s eyebrows slightly furrowed, and his expression grew serious: ”...Can you explain that in layman’s terms?”

Pittman couldn’t help but roll his eyes at him: ”Read more books once in a while, or when Pea enters the Imperial Academy, you won’t even understand her textbooks.”

On the other side, Kamel floated over, and after greeting Byron, he spoke in a buzzing voice, ”His Majesty once proposed that the current magic-guide technology has a flaw, which is that all transcendent powers are achieved through machinery. Humans achieve the preset spell effects in the machines by manipulating the Rune Trigger. This implementation method has inherent limitations.

”Magic-conducting machinery can only be used to execute simple spells that don’t require ’mental power’ to maintain guidance, such as fireballs, ice cones, arcane bullets, etc. Once a spell requires the mental power of the spellcaster for guidance, like illusions, dream spells, or large-scale ritualistic spells, then magic machinery is powerless.”

Byron laughed, nodding as he said, ”Now that I understand.”

Transcendents all have this common knowledge: Spells can be categorized into two types based on their control method: one type is ’formed and realized,’ where after constructing the spell mould, it only needs to be triggered to release the complete spell effect, such as fireball or ice arrows; the other type is ’mentally guided,’ where the spell is usually continuous, requiring the spellcaster to continuously manipulate it on a mental level during casting. Once interrupted, the spell immediately dissipates.

Obviously, current magic machinery can only implement the former, while the latter... due to the limitations of maintenance, is destined to remain reliant on the transcendent ”operator.”

This clearly conflicts with the concept of magic-guide technology to ”bring the transcendent into the mortal realm” and de facto limits the development of magic-guide technology.

In fact, during the current technology development process, this limitation has already begun to manifest—after linking with the human brain, the virtual interface that needs to be presented by the Immersion Capsule, the part of the parameters ”written” by the Magic Web Broadcasting System, these processes that cannot be simply controlled by a Rune Trigger but require the involvement of the operator’s mental power, currently still completely rely on real mages to operate.

This is also one of the reasons why the output of the Immersion Capsule cannot be increased—for each Immersion Capsule requires a certified mage to personally debug it for a long time, how many mages does the research institute have available for this?

Byron vaguely guessed the purpose of this so-called ”Neural Thorn”: ”So... this thing can enable ordinary people to use mental power to control those guided spells?”

”More accurately, it enables ordinary people to ’sense’ magic power,” Pittman smiled and said something that could leave every traditional transcendent astounded.

Letting ordinary people sense magic power!!

Byron’s eyes widened, and it took him several seconds to realize what this bizarre-looking thing in front of him implied.

The dividing line of magical talent is the ability to sense magic power, the first threshold for ordinary people entering the realm of the transcendent is also sensing magic power.

Only by sensing the existence of magic power can one control it, use it, and subsequently achieve transcendence—but this special talent is only possessed by a very few exceptionally gifted individuals.

”We’ve been tinkering with this thing for a whole year, always stuck on the problem that ’artificial neurons cannot survive long within small devices,’ until recently, the technology from the Oblivion Association helped us close this gap,” Kamel said buzzingly, ”We successfully created a long-lasting Neural Thorn—although it still has a long way to go before being perfect.”

Pittman also slightly straightened up, with a proud expression: ”Once this succeeds, it will be true ’transcendence for everyone’.”

Byron couldn’t help but be influenced by the atmosphere at the scene, becoming slightly excited, but he quickly remembered the purpose of his visit today: ”...But what does this have to do with Pea?”

Pittman looked at him: ”As a superficial early-stage technological product, the Neural Thorn still has a long way to go to achieve ’transcendence for everyone,’ but before that, it might be used to accomplish something simpler than casting—this thing can directly connect to the human brain, and if it’s connected to a little device that emits sound, perhaps it could ’speak’ for Pea.”

Byron was silent for a moment and only asked: ”Is there any risk?”

”There is, every experiment has risks, the main risk is brain damage,” Kamel said straightforwardly, ”We will set enough safety locks and cast spells in advance to protect Pea’s mind and brain, which can reduce the risk to the lowest.”

”...I need to go back and seek Pea’s own opinion.”

”Of course, that’s the right thing to do.”

(Oh my gosh!!!)