Chapter 198 — The Height of Technology

The principle Pei Yun described was in truth not complicated at all. The way divine-art arrays and magic arrays docked together, to Gao Yang's mind, was simply a process of "frequency-compatible conversion."

Though the two differed in structure, in rune systems and in the mechanisms by which they took effect, both divine-art arrays and magic arrays were at bottom systems that consumed magical power to produce effects—even a focusing array like the Magic Web did not truly generate power; it merely gathered and compressed the scattered magic that already existed in the natural world, and in doing so suffered its own waste-energy losses. Such a system held the innate possibility of docking: all one had to do was find the proper means of transfer.

Generally speaking, elemental runes and divine runes could not be made compatible with one another; the sole result of forcing a substitution was spell failure. The temple priests explained this as the gods being supreme and their granted power therefore loftier than the spells of mortals, so naturally lowly magic could not be reconciled with sublime divine arts. But in Gao Song's conjecture, this merely meant that the two were exceptionally difficult to reconcile, or that their "same-frequency band" was too narrow.

This conjecture of his was not baseless; it arose from the historical fact of druidic divine arts shifting into magic, and from the reasonable speculation prompted by the hybrid arrays discovered in the mountain ruins. Now the facts had proven his guess correct.

So-called divine power was not loftier than magic; the divine runes and elemental runes simply did not connect as readily as elemental runes connected among themselves. And absent theoretical guidance, finding the correct arrangement and combination among that vast ocean of runes was like fishing a needle from the sea—which was why scholars had concluded the two systems could never be made compatible.

The Gondor mages of a thousand years ago seemed to have fished out that "needle."

The druids' divine arts had been lost. Once the energy source that sprang from the gods' "bounty" vanished, they had no choice but to draw magic from the natural world in order to cast what had once been "divine arts"; in that process the divine arts became magic, and the divine-art arrays, failing to find any rational path of adaptation, gradually decayed into useless relics of history. Yet the "interface" Pei Yun had found gave those ancient abandoned divine-art arrays the possibility of running once more. In Gao Yang's eyes, the veil of mystery over the divine-art array had been torn away clean in that very instant.

It was, in fact, a magic array; the sacred runes were, in fact, a particular kind of magic rune—independent of the elemental rune system. Only, its energy could not be drawn directly from nature but required a layer of "filtration" or "conversion" before it could be used. The inversion array was the key to that conversion.

Gao Song's thoughts spread outward. He thought of those mysterious gods—what role had they played in this entire process?

They... were perhaps the first, and the greatest, inversion array.

The gods purified and extracted the primal energy that existed in nature, converting it into the so-called "higher energies" capable of releasing divine arts—natural force, holy light, the divine power of war, and so on. They then used strict doctrine as their "authorization standard," permitting those mortals who performed religious rites to borrow from them these converted second-order energies. On Earth, this would amount to an advanced nation monopolizing all primary resources—fossil fuels, solar power, wind power—along with the corresponding power-generating technology, then converting those resources into electricity and exporting it to some primitive kingdom, whereupon that kingdom would leap at a stroke into the electric age. But so long as it could find no way to generate power itself, it would remain forever stuck in that state, living a life of electric lights and telephones on the surface while utterly primitive beneath.

Because it lacked the crucial "conversion step" in the middle.

On Earth there was only one intelligent race, humanity, and the gaps between person and person were limited, so such a monopoly was hard to achieve. But in this world, the gods possessed power far beyond the imagination of mortals, and so they had succeeded in establishing exactly such a monopoly.

The "Fall of the White Star" three thousand years ago was the beginning of the breaking of that monopoly. On that day, the God of Nature worshipped by the druids vanished for reasons unknown, and with that the permission to refine natural divine power was lifted, and mortals gained the ability to cast nature-type magic. Then, a thousand years ago, the mages who studied the flesh of the gods within the Dark Mountains struck the monopoly another blow; they attempted, by a more radical means, to bypass the "permission lock" the gods had set, and they succeeded.

Yet the monopoly as a whole remained unbroken. The gods still stood everywhere in the world, and mortals could still obtain the corresponding divine power only by praying to them. But the key to breaking that monopoly now rested in Gao Yang's hand.

"Do you know what this 'inversion array' means?" Gao Song's mind cooled, and he fixed Pei Yun with a steady look as he asked.

The old druid smiled. "I know. Honestly, I'm rather proud of it."

"Every church in the world will count us as mortal enemies," Gao Yang said slowly. "Ninety percent of the clergy will come snapping at our throats."

Pei Yun blinked, a flicker of cunning showing in his eyes. "Not only the priests—but the 'gods' behind them."

Yes, and the gods behind them.

Though the Eternal Stone Slate had revealed the news that "the gods are dead," the fact that divine power still existed in the world was beyond dispute, and Gao Yang could not fail to guard against those "gods" hidden behind the curtain. Were they the resurrected gods? Or some sort of "usurpers" who had seized the empty thrones? Whatever it was that answered mortal prayers, it would hardly be pleased to see its monopoly broken.

"For now, do not apply the inversion-array technology to any divine-art array outside the druidic system," Gao Yang said gravely.

He did not know how bright the gods' eyes were, and could only assume that they would leap up in fury even at the loss of a single hair from their legs.

"I understand." Pei Yun nodded. Plainly he too dared not be reckless in this matter.

"This technology—we need to dress it up," Gao Yang said, drawing a breath. "It is an attempt to remodel druidic magic into a 'magic array,' and given the origins of druidic arts, ancient divine symbols would naturally appear within the magic array. That is only natural. Do you understand?"

"Of course. I am merely a low-ranked druid—how would I know anything about the technology for stealing divine power?" Pei Yun stroked his beard and narrowed his eyes. "I merely copied an ancient druidic divine-art array out of a book, hooked up the Magic Web, and mucked about with it. As for the so-called inversion runes—given the heads on most casters and clergy in this age, they'll only care whether the thing works. Who would bother about what principle it operates on, or what function it serves!"

In Pei Yun's tone Gao Yang caught a thick contempt for traditional casters, even a trace of resentment. He knew there must be a story behind it, but he merely gave the man a long, deep look and did not press.

He nodded. "These blinders are only a precaution. So long as we keep the technology secret, there is no need at all to worry about dangers that would arise only after a leak. Today only the three of us are present. Until I judge the time ripe, this secret stays with us—at most, the core technical staff added later will know. Understood?"