Chapter 467 — The Controllable Holy Light

The laboratory's protective system had successfully come online.

This defense system, built in the era of the Spark, demonstrated just how supreme the Gondon Empire's magical craft had been at the height of human civilization—though most of the devices in the Defiance Fortress outside had long since failed under the corrosion of the magical tide and a thousand years of weathering, here in this hidden Defiance Bastion, the ancient protective system still maintained its most basic functions.

"Impressive..." Amber, though utterly ignorant of anything inside the laboratory, could not help but marvel aloud when she heard the synthetic voice answering automatically. "What was that just now? A magic puppet? A tower spirit? One of those artificial minds the northern mages make?"

Camiel answered while manipulating the complex magical runes on the circular platform: "Magic puppets and tower spirits? Those are mere trifles... We once could craft mind-cores nearly equal to human minds, capable of thinking as humans do. The iron soldiers loaded with mind-cores and our magus legions were regarded as the two mightiest troop types on the continent, while the northern barbarians' magic puppets and tower spirits... enormous in size, sluggish in thought, their logic systems riddled with flaws—they were nothing but defective goods."

"A pity that when the magical tide came, the overly intricate mind-cores were the first equipment to fail; the iron legion turned to scrap metal on the spot in the armory," Gao Yang shook his head. "Our only consolation at the time was that at least those iron men were scrapped outright rather than going out of control—otherwise it would have been worse."

Hearing Gao Song's words, Camiel could only heave a long sigh.

And amid the conversation, the ancient magus had finally finished preparing for the test.

On the round platform at the center of the laboratory, a device based on Cecil rune technology was placed upon the table. It had a universal honeycomb magic net, with six honeycomb cells arranged as the power-supply section of the whole device, set at the center of the platform, and at the lower edge of the honeycomb cells was connected a special large rune substrate—that was the inverter array unit Pi Yun had designed.

The output end of the inverter array was connected to a rune-trigger device, and the rune-trigger was linked to a blank substrate of purple copper, on which a groove was left, precisely so the holy light substrate could be inlaid within it.

The entire test apparatus was this simple; all its structures were clear at a glance, and its mechanisms plain to understand.

"Using the inverter array to charge the holy light runes is not a complicated process in itself. Our first test objective is to verify whether this process can be realized, and whether it will draw down the 'divine punishment' of the God of Holy Light during the process," Camiel floated before the experiment table, explaining the purpose of this test to everyone present. "The laboratory is equipped with a complete divine-power defense system, which ensures that even if the God of Holy Light sends down divine punishment, it will be filtered out by the defense system—its protection rating is very high. According to actual tests from those years, even if the flesh and blood of the Great Stag Amorn erupted out of control outside the laboratory, it would not affect the safety within the barrier."

The reason the Gondon researchers of those years could conduct all manner of research into divine power was precisely this layer of defense—otherwise, even though the Great Stag Amorn had already fallen, this crowd of mortals studying how to slice up a god beside its corpse would have been killed eight hundred times over.

That the Defiance Group of those years had all survived already proved the reliability of this defense system.

"This level of protection is certainly sufficient," Gao Yan nodded. "That is to say, after we activate the inverter array, we can judge whether this device carries the risk of provoking divine punishment based on whether the laboratory comes under attack?"

"Precisely so." Camiel nodded slightly.

Gao Yang thought for a moment, then raised a new question: "Suppose this device starts up smoothly and no divine punishment occurs—how do we determine whether it is the device's own architecture that successfully evaded divine punishment, or whether it helped the user evade his own mind-brand?"

Divine punishment and the mind-brand—these two factors were the two shackles affecting mortals' use of divine power.

Though Gao Yang was no researcher, he well understood the importance of the word "rigor" in an experimental project. The question he raised was meant to verify as rigorously as possible the roles these two factors played during the experiment—if this could not be confirmed, then holy light rune technology would undoubtedly leave behind an enormous hidden danger.

"...I must say, you truly have the heart of a researcher," Camiel could not help but exclaim in admiration, then continued, "Rest assured, we have already thought of this—we have set up a linkage device on the rune-trigger capable of transmitting magical power. This linkage device is connected to another holy light substrate, and connected directly. The test subject must inject his own magical power into the rune-trigger and start the device; thus, when the rune-trigger closes, two holy light substrates are activated simultaneously: one activated directly by the test subject's own magical power, which we call Sample One, and one activated indirectly through the magic net and inverter array, which we call Sample Two. By observing the activation of these two samples, we can determine at which stage of the whole process the test subject's mind-brand appears, and whether its presence affects the operation of the inverter array. Of course, to carry out this procedure, the test subject himself must be an extraordinary being with a magical gift."

Gao Yang was wholly convinced by Camiel's design—this was a professional researcher indeed; the questions he himself could think of had long since been considered by the professional.

The key to the procedure Camiel had designed lay in using "Sample One" to confirm whether the test subject's mind-brand remained in effect throughout the entire process. Since the mind-brand was an inherent attribute of the test subject himself, then so long as Sample One was affected by the mind-brand, it could be confirmed that the "brand" was present all along, and that the test subject had not evaded his own mind-brand thanks to the device's "magic net–inverter array" architecture.

The inspection of the device was complete; Camiel stepped aside, and a young researcher came to the platform.

He was the test subject for this trial.

Gao Yang looked at this young man who appeared to be only in his twenties, watching him stand calmly before the platform and place his hand on that specially made rune-trigger. Before the other began, Gao Yang suddenly spoke: "What is your name?"

"Kern," the young researcher faced Gao Song's gaze calmly; his breathing was slightly hurried, but he still maintained his composure as best he could. "My name is Kern Bell, my lord."

Gao Yang felt the name was familiar; after a moment's thought, he found the corresponding information deep in his memory: "Kern... you are the researcher who discovered the use of mithril in arcane transfer-printing technology?"

"You actually remember me—what an honor!" the young researcher said with some excitement. "I... I only discovered this approach; the coating was made by our entire team..."

"Your contribution is great; there is no need for modesty," Gao Yang cut off the young researcher, then glanced at the whole apparatus on the experiment table and said with a stern expression, "You know the nature of this experiment, yes?"

"Yes."

"Do you have faith?"