Necromancer, summoning 055? What the heck?

Chapter 122 "The Origin of Arcane Arts" - Ideographic characters!

Chen Mo has scheduled three weeks for military training. In other words, he plans to begin a tentative exploration of the Blood Fortress in late June.

Arriving at this desolate, barren land of salt frost and ruins at the beginning of the year of the Moonstorm, the territory has achieved remarkable construction results in just over five months, attracting the attention of all those in the know.

During the period when the troops were preparing for war, Chen Mo had more in-depth communication with scholar Aidan Eliot.

Elliott was very interested in the electrical system of the mechanical king behind Chen Mo, while Chen Mo was also very interested in the Magic Society's research on psionic energy conversion. Based on the principles of honesty, friendship, cooperation, and mutual benefit, the two sides determined the following cooperation plan.

Chen Mo will regularly and free of charge provide Elliott's team with photovoltaic power generation equipment, energy storage equipment, and power application equipment to assist Elliott's team in their research.

In return, Elliott will provide the Vast Ocean Territory with his two most recent research papers on the interference and influence of psychic energy and other energies.

This was the first time Chen Mo had learned that the Magic Society had an internal academic journal.

Most magicians are not short of money, but there are differences in how quickly and easily money is earned.

The kind of life-risking, high-rewarding work that involves working with mercenary groups, enduring wind and sun, and earning a meager, fluctuating wage is undoubtedly the lowest form of escapism.

Entering the ranks of various kingdoms, receiving offerings, taking on students in peacetime, and being conscripted in wartime—this is the most common state for most mages.

That's right. Once a magic tower is erected within the territory of a country, the mage is automatically considered an officially contracted mage of that country. In the event of a national crisis, the mage's disciples, vassals, and even the mage himself may be conscripted to the front lines.

Otherwise, why would the government give you such generous treatment? Do you think it's so easy to get a school operating license?

The best of them are the big shots at the Magic Society; they make their money through research.

For example, a great mage, after years of research, improved the model of a wind magic circle, increasing the original acceleration effect by 20%.

If this magic master has his own channels, he can directly collaborate with enchanters and apply the technology to armor, weapons, and even cavalry, thus covering the price difference of the entire technological innovation.

Alternatively, they could sell the technology directly, earning a one-time buyout fee, so that even if there are no further achievements, they would probably not have to worry too much about money.

Of course, if you want to earn more, then take your results to "Arcane Origin".

This is the internal journal of the Magic Society, providing a platform for magicians to showcase their new discoveries and creations. They only need to report their findings to the Magic Society and conduct one or two practical tests. Once the Society confirms their findings, they can publish them in "Arcane Origins".

This academic journal will be distributed to various countries through the Mercenary Guild, making it available to those who are eligible to read it.

Of course, the published research results only mention the effects without explaining the causes, using fuzzy principles to hide the model.

This is equivalent to a business advertisement targeting the entire continent of stars, which can be conducted in an orderly manner, with the highest bidder winning.

Elliott and his team are doing basic research on energy, which is a slow-growing field with little prospect of financial reward.

However, the Magic Society also needs such research results. Firstly, they can fill the gaps in academic journals when there are no major achievements. Secondly, some of these results can serve as a reference for the research of other magicians.

Of course, what Elliott provided to Chen Mo in exchange was not the kind of superficial version found in the internal publication, but a version that could be referenced and reproduced. As for whether there was any omission, Chen Mo couldn't understand it at all. The version provided by Elliott was the written version of the Misty Moon Divine Court, and the language was different.

That's how it was when it was first released. It's not exactly being deliberately difficult, but it's a bit unfriendly to a small place like HanHai. HanHai's translators are fine with handling routine tasks, but for professional documents like this, translating them is practically like filling the page with crosses or circles.

However, Chen Mo didn't care.

I have collected a complete language database from various countries and sent it back to Dongxia a long time ago. With the level of those language and writing experts, they can even decipher a heavenly book for you, let alone the characters in the existing applications.

However, Elliott's somewhat self-aggrandizing demonstration of collaboration made Chen Mo realize a problem.

The Magic Society has academic journals!
Can we let this go?

Chen Mo stubbornly persisted in dragging Elliot along, insisting on obtaining past editions of "Arcane Origins".

"I'm a mage too! I'm a lord! No, you have to share with me."

"What? There's no mercenary guild in the Vast Ocean? I'll create one right away!"

"Where do I apply? The Jade Mercenary Guild headquarters, right? Don't worry, I'll send someone there right now!"

"Broadcast a message to Helan to come over. Doesn't he have a lot of connections and influence? Bring people, money, and plenty of gifts! Bring the sincerity of Hanhai and get this sorted out for me!"

This was the first time Elliot had seen the usually calm and collected lord so anxious and agitated. He could only reluctantly agree to Chen Mo's request and provide the marble edition of the two most recent issues of the academic journal.

Chen Mo secretly recorded data from the magic marble shown by Elliott and finally obtained a part of the "professional documents" from the Starry World.

Although many of these journals only describe the "appearance" rather than the principles, Chen Mo has no doubt that the researchers in his family will treasure them.

Just like when the Eastern Xia Dynasty was first established, it spared no expense in using its precious foreign exchange resources to purchase foreign scientific journals.

In order to gain more access to "Arcane Origins", Chen Mo generously granted Elliot access to visit and study most areas of the Vast Ocean Territory, except for a very few core equipment areas.

For example, seawater rice greenhouses.

The seawater rice brought by Lord Chen Mo was like a miracle in the Vast Ocean Territory, but the Seven Luminaries Garland Merchant Guild had come and gone without showing any interest.

The logic is simple: who would want to grow rice in saline-alkali land?

In this world, those who don't grow food will never lack food.

Those who grow grain have neither the ability to cultivate it on a large scale on saline-alkali land, nor the ability to maintain it even if they manage to grow it.

Moreover, Chen Mo set an exorbitant price for the seawater rice seed and bluntly stated that the yield of its offspring would decline significantly.

So whether it's Farrell or Oren, they're just looking at something new.

Unlike the Magic Society, these guys are all about research; anything new, strange, or unusual is a subject of study for them.

Elliott showed great interest in seawater rice, especially the fast-growing seawater rice grown in this special environment.

The fact that grain crops could be grown on saline-alkali land with relatively high yields quickly attracted Elliott's attention.

Elliott himself wasn't involved in this kind of research, but that didn't matter. With this interesting new gadget, he could exchange it with his colleagues for experimental subjects and magical materials.

In the hands of some old-timers who were engaged in plant production research, they could easily produce at least ten or eight articles on "The Origin of Arcane Arts." In this atmosphere of mutual support, the cooperation between the two sides became increasingly harmonious, and thanks to the seawater rice seeds, Elliott provided two more copies of the Magic Society's internal publication.

Another point that Chen Mo hadn't expected was that Eliot showed an attitude of admiration and amazement towards the Dongxia script.

Having spent a long time in contact with the Vast Ocean Territory, Oren and Farrell learned that this necromancer lord had inadvertently connected with a mechanical creation plane and gained the favor of a certain "Mechanical Emperor," which led to the stories of these strange otherworldly creations.

To make it easier for the people in his territory to use the "Cyber ​​King's" devices, Chen Mo even brought over the other party's text system and publicly taught it in his own territory, which can be considered a reasonable thing to do.

Farrell and others studied it out of curiosity, but found it incredibly tedious and didn't take it seriously at all. However, in Elliott's eyes, the scholar saw a completely different meaning.

"This is...this is ideographic writing!"

What's wrong with ideographic writing?

"No, Farrell, you don't understand what this means!"

Eliot's hands traced the square characters representing "mountain," "fire," "water," and "sun," his eyes sparkling.

"Since the year the sky began to bloom, the star mages, who had initially grasped the laws of psychic energy, have been trying to find the ultimate truth of the universe from one different plane after another in the name of summoning."

"The final conclusion is that psionic energy is the only answer!"

"But I... I actually saw ideographic characters on a mechanical object! This is truly amazing!"

Farrell's curiosity grew, and he humbled himself to ask, "Respected scholar Eliot, what is so special about ideographic writing?"

"The writing itself is nothing special; what's special is the history behind it!"

Elliot used a glimmer spell to write the character "fire" from the Eastern Xia dynasty in front of him, and a cluster of flames rose up beside it. The flickering flames and the slowly swaying character "fire" seemed to overlap through the air.

"Master Lamar of the Magic Academy once wrote a very brilliant analysis of texts, which I still remember vividly."

"When any civilization transitions from having no writing to having writing, what they create must be ideographic writing."

"Because no one knew how to say 'fire,' the accuracy of the drawing was the first step in communication between people at the dawn of civilization."

“Individual images accumulate to form a complete set of characters; this is the characteristic of the writing system in the Enlightenment.”

"However, ideographic writing is too complicated. I need to learn its form, its meaning, and then I need to learn its pronunciation separately."

"Okay, there might be more than one pronunciation!"

"Later civilizations were not capable of such complex creations, so they directly learned the writing systems of the Enlightenment civilizations and imitated and modified them to create their own writing systems, which is called pictographic writing."

“Phantom script has lost its ideographic function and is merely a kind of…mechanical, naive imitation.”

"And finally, as long as history is slightly interrupted, all writing systems will take the convenient and fast path of phonetic writing, because it is just too convenient. If you can speak, you can read and write. It will spread like a plague and infect everyone."

"Look, in the entire Starry Continent, only the script in the sky still shows a trace of pseudo-script; all the other scripts are phonetic."

"So, what does it mean to discover a script that primarily expresses meaning?"

"This means that this is an early civilization that emerged before the advent of writing, and has gone through countless eras with its heritage never being interrupted."

"This is simply—unbelievable!"

"I can already imagine how crazy the old man would go if Master Lamar saw this kind of writing!"

While Farrell and Oren were still somewhat confused, Elliott, with a pilgrimage-like attitude, reached a complete agreement to exchange "Arcane Origin" for the Eastern Xia script.

Both sides got what they wanted and were satisfied with each other.

Technical cooperation between the two sides has proceeded quite smoothly, and cooperation on the development of the ruins is also progressing steadily.

The magic array that can activate the core of the ruins, or the core of the nest, is expensive, but for the current Vast Ocean Territory, a problem that can be solved with money is not a problem.

Chen Mo also kept a close eye on the exploration of the ruins.

Or you could call it a mix of reality and illusion.

The real issue is that Thunder Wasteland has been ruled out, as that place is too far from the orcs' controlled territory and is already showing signs of becoming a popular "Instagrammable" spot on the planet.

Not only do magicians who enjoy studying lightning set up observation posts in the wasteland, but some high-ranking warriors who like to hone themselves in various ways also attract lightning and withstand electric shocks on site, ostensibly to enhance their lightning resistance.

"In this situation, we're too weak and feeble to join the fun!"

As for the abstract part, the lord waved his hand dismissively at the joint meeting with the Magic Society!
"Our primary objective should still be Fallen Feather Canyon!"

"We are a pioneering territory, so it's best not to get too close to the orcs. We feel a little more at ease staying in human territory!"

The mage Elliot and High Priest Farrell exchanged glances and shook their heads. To them, who had long been active in the north, the human race was far more sinister and despicable than the orcs. However, they couldn't discuss such matters with this lord, whom they didn't know well, so they could only laugh it off.

With Lord Chen Mo making Fallen Feather Canyon his primary target, the entire territory began to stir.

The Han Hai Council began issuing missions to mercenary guilds in the Southern Xi Yue Federation to purchase information related to Fallen Feather Canyon.
Three advance teams set off in succession to conduct a detailed investigation of the area surrounding Fallen Feather Canyon.
Hire mercenary groups and teams with experience in regional exploration to begin establishing the Vast Ocean Outpost;
The transport teams began setting up temporary warehouses in the southern desert and gathering supplies to serve as a transit point for the expeditionary force.
Of course, as an alternative, Blood Fortress also sent two reconnaissance teams to gather information and conduct preliminary exploration.

As time went by, the Centaur team's "armored troop transport tactics" drills became increasingly sophisticated. In mid-June, with the departure of Farrell and Elliott's delegation from Hanhai, Hanhai immediately began a major shift.

Led by the lord himself, ten squads of centaurs, all the skeleton warriors, and over three hundred human auxiliary soldiers, with the assistance of the Sandman camel caravan, marched continuously, heading straight for Blood Fortress.

When we arrived at the outskirts of Blood Fortress, it was the first day of late June.

　Controlling the word count is truly an art; just one more word and it'll be over the limit...

　　All I can say now is to try to be more careful and not be so deliberate anymore, as it wasted a lot of time!
　　Please vote for me with your monthly tickets! I'll try to add an extra chapter later. Time to get back to writing!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)