Hogwarts: From Selling White Peppers to Becoming a God

Chapter 302 Magic Metal

Murphy handed over the smelting technology of fairy metal to the magic research institute.

They are currently investigating a problem that has been troubling the institute for a long time: the compatibility of magic with technological products.

As is well known, an overly active rich magic environment can cause sophisticated technological creations to malfunction. Murphy had already experienced this at Hogwarts, and this would be a huge obstacle to Murphy's path of combining science and magic.

If science and magic are inherently incompatible, then what's the point of discussing a combination of science and magic?

Fortunately, after initial research, scientists have ruled out the possibility that the two are "conceptual conflicts." The technological failures in the rich magic environment are most likely caused by interference from magic fluctuations on precision electronic devices.

Haldane argues that the essence of this conflict is the "possibility expansion effect" of magic, which makes electronic devices unstable. Designs that should not leak electricity become capable of leaking electricity, and components that should be energized become insulators. The more sophisticated the electronic device, the easier it is for such disturbances to occur.

For example, after more than a year of research and development, the smallest process of the chip manufactured by Umbrella Corporation has reached 0.1 micrometers. A single field-electric crystal is so small that it can only be seen with a microscope. Changing the switching state of such a small circuit is far less difficult than changing the switching state of an ordinary macroscopic circuit.

This is an inevitable result of the "probability-based payment hypothesis of magic".

Scientists have proposed two solutions to ensure that sophisticated technological products, such as chips, continue to operate stably in magical environments.

One approach is the magic isolation solution. Scientists believe that a magic-isolating material can be designed, similar to an anti-electromagnetic interference design, to isolate magic disturbances.

The second option is a magic substitution solution. These scientists are quite radical, believing that isolating magic runs counter to the goal of combining science and magic. Since magic can affect electricity, they might as well do the opposite and directly use magic to replace the role of electricity in driving technological creations.

In fact, this approach is quite feasible. They have long discovered that many technological creations can be made to function through magic. However, creations driven by magic often produce some unexpected changes, such as making cars self-driving or adding strange functions like ejection seats—even if the designers did not intend for these functions to be used.

The challenge of this approach lies in controlling the magic to make it operate according to the designer's intentions.

To this end, they are trying to control magic using the enchanting rituals developed by the Weasley twins, and fairy metal seems to fit this approach very well.

The Magic Research Institute had already accumulated a wealth of experience in magic research. In the second week after Murphy sent over the smelting plan for fairy metal, they completed the analysis of the technical route.

"Fairy metals are mainly divided into three categories." Haldane showed Murphy several metal ingots.

"Copper forged with magic is called orchardite, silver forged with magic is called mithril, and gold forged with magic is called adamantite. These have all appeared in ancient legends. Some were not forged by fairies, but they are actually the same kind of material as fairy metals."

"The reason why the fairy coins we used to use had good enchantment properties was because their base material was adamantite."

"However, our research has revealed that this magical forging method can not only be applied to metals such as copper, silver, and gold, but also to various metals such as iron, aluminum, and magnesium. Even some non-metallic materials, such as carbon and silicon, can undergo unique changes under the influence of magic."

"This may be the essence of the magical glow phenomenon produced by gemstones. We are conducting in-depth research on this..."

"Back to fairy metal, its manufacturing method is actually quite simple. Essentially, it involves smelting and mixing metal with magic," Haldan explained. "It's very similar to electric furnace steelmaking in the metallurgical industry. Through a rapidly changing magic field, the metal is heated and melted. Metals forged with different magic attributes will form specific crystal cells, and the permeability of magic with different attributes and frequencies will vary greatly."

"This metal has a very high affinity for magic, and can be easily imbued with magic of specific attributes."

"The ability to imbue magic itself isn't anything special, but the ability to imbue magic with specific attributes is extremely useful. By combining enchanting rituals with magic-blocking materials, one can create magic circuits that achieve only a specific magical effect and are not easily affected by other magical interference."

Murphy nodded, which was why he valued fairy metal so much. "Could we use it to design magic chips?"

The pinnacle of precision manufacturing is, of course, the chip. The ultimate goal of the Magic Alternative Solution is to replace electric power with the power to drive such high-precision products as chips.

"Theoretically, it is possible, but our research on magic-doped materials has only just begun. Whether we can find suitable materials still requires a lot of experiments."

Murphy nodded. "Just tell me what you need."

Now that Gringotts is in place, Murphy's Muggle and wizarding wealth are completely connected. Apart from needing to be mindful of the fragile economic situation of the wizarding world so as not to collapse on his own, there are basically no restrictions. As long as something can be done with money, there are no more bottlenecks for him.

"Currently, the biggest problem encountered in metal smelting is actually a stable source of magic power," Haldan said.

"Currently, when we perform magic smelting, it still requires wizards to operate manually. However, the manual input of magic is highly volatile, which makes it difficult for us to precisely control the properties of magic metals."

"In fact, this is one of the reasons why the quality of fairy metals varies. The skill of fairy craftsmen is largely reflected in their control of the stability of magic during smelting."

"However, magic potions made from the blood of magical creatures or wizards, which serve as a source of magic, face the problem of having too little magic power and also suffer from magic power decay, making them difficult to use for large-scale production."

Murphy was aware of this problem, but the things known to provide magic all seemed to be biological.

"Perhaps... the Philosopher's Stone?"

Murphy considered a possibility.

Murphy once pondered the power of the Philosopher's Stone. Behind its miraculous ability to turn stone into gold lies an incredibly powerful energy conversion function, suggesting that the Philosopher's Stone might be an extremely vast source of magic.

Thinking about this, Murphy was furious with Dumbledore.

Damn it, this old guy is really making things worse.

Fortunately, he had already obtained Nicolas Flamel's alchemy information. If he didn't have a Philosopher's Stone, couldn't he make one himself?

To be honest, although that pile of materials had already been organized, he still hadn't had time to study them properly.

They hadn't even taken the elixir of immortality they had painstakingly obtained; instead, they each took a bottle and gave it to Snape and the research institute for testing and research.

Meanwhile, Snape was also in charge of the research and production of the Philosopher's Stone, and it was unknown how far his research had progressed.

Perhaps it's time to go to Hogwarts and meet the new headmaster.

(End of this chapter)