Hogwarts: From Selling White Peppers to Becoming a God

Chapter 373 Insufficient Magic Energy

In fact, Magic Energy Fertilizer is not the only project that is being held back by Magic Energy.

Apart from magic metals, which are essential to the entire magic industry, other magic energy material projects, magic plant cultivation projects, and large-scale magic potion projects are all subject to restrictions on the allocation of magic energy.

There's too little magic power—too few magic stones.

The magic detection satellite has already unearthed the most conspicuous primal materials on Earth, but so far, only a dozen or so have reached the size of Flamel's Philosopher's Stone. The rest can mostly be made into miniature Philosopher's Stones, which are adequate for supporting small things like satellites, but far from sufficient to serve as magic power plants.

Next, Murphy went to visit the Celestial Magic Research Institute.

The subjects of study here are celestial magic, as well as magical phenomena or creatures that can cause changes in celestial phenomena—such as Murphy's familiar old friend, the Thunderbird.

"The principles behind celestial magic remain elusive, but applying it is not that difficult," said Morchanov Rossby, director of the Celestial Research Institute.

"The spells are readily available. After converting them into runes using a universal conversion formula, they are enchanted onto weather radar or satellites. Then, the magical fluctuations are amplified to guide the spells to the clouds, which basically completes the artificial alteration of the weather."

"Inducing rain or sunny weather is the simplest. We've also tried inducing extreme weather such as thunderstorms and hail, but the success rate is lower."

"In addition, we have discovered that celestial magic can also be used to guide ocean currents! Although it consumes much more magic power than influencing the weather, we can indeed guide the direction of ocean currents to a certain extent... Of course, the range is very small, the effect lasts for a very short time, and it hardly produces any substantial effect."

"What about research on the Arctic Ocean?" Murphy asked.

"Our research has found that the Arctic Ocean is melting at an accelerated rate, much faster than the rate of global average temperature increase, and this is likely a continuous cyclical process."

"Rising temperatures cause Arctic glaciers to melt, exposing dark land or oceans with lower reflectivity than ice, which are more likely to absorb heat from the sun. At the same time, the melting of glaciers also releases carbon dioxide trapped beneath them, creating a high-concentration area over the Arctic Ocean, which in turn heats it."

"The Atlantic Ocean also plays a role in this. As the Arctic glaciers melt, without the obstruction of ice, the Atlantic Ocean becomes shallower after flowing into the Arctic Ocean, which allows more of its heat to be used to melt the glaciers, creating a positive feedback loop effect."

"Under normal circumstances, we estimate that by around 2020, the Arctic Ocean should be able to open up shipping routes that can be navigated for most of the year."

"Can we guide and accelerate this process?" Murphy asked.

"It's difficult," Molchanov said. "Theoretically, if we could guide more of the Atlantic current, we could accelerate the process, and we could even guide the current's route after it enters the Arctic Ocean, opening up shipping lanes for us."

"But we've calculated that to achieve this kind of celestial control, we would need an extremely large amount of magical energy... specifically, equivalent to two thousand times the energy output of the world's current magical energy factories."

Well, this plan is essentially useless for now.

Murphy then went to the Lockpicking Charm Laboratory.

The research topic of this interesting laboratory is: to study how to solve all problems that can be described mathematically using unlocking spells.

The origin of this idea can be traced back to an idea that Murphy once suggested to Haldane: could we try to expand the use of spells to apply unlocking spells to crack codes?

Following this line of thought, scientists realized that the unlocking spell did not change the shape or properties of the lock, and its operation did not violate the rules of the lock.

In other words, whether the unlocking spell creates an illusory key or activates the lock cylinder on its own, it endows the "wizard and lock" system with information that was not originally present: this information determines the movement rules of the lock cylinder, which is necessary to open the lock.

In fact, spells often have the side effect of information completion. For example, when a transfiguration spell turns a cup into a mouse, the information that determines the mouse's fur color, body shape, and the specific appearance of each part is what the spell completes.

However, the difference with the unlocking spell is that it is more "simple"; it only provides the specific information needed to unlock the lock.

This makes it very easy for people to manipulate.

The Unlocking Spell Lab brings together almost all of the top mathematicians and cryptographers from the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom. They have developed an algorithm that can transform any mathematically described problem into an electronic lock, the key of which is the solution to the problem.

They created a scenario where, when an unlocking spell is used on an electronic lock, the lock cannot be opened unless the computer connected to the lock displays the solution to the problem.

Then the group of mathematicians began to revel in their discovery that the unlocking spell could indeed yield precise solutions to many complex calculations, solutions that would likely take decades to calculate using a regular computer.

However, they soon discovered the bottleneck of the unlocking spell: given a certain level of magical energy, there is an upper limit to the complexity of the mathematical problems that the unlocking spell can solve; beyond this limit, the unlocking spell will fail.

It seems that the unlocking spell consumed magical energy instead of computational power.

Yes, it's a magic power issue again.

The research institute has many interesting labs. Murphy later visited the AI ​​Portrait Institute, which studies how to translate the simple logical intelligence of portraits into computers.

They also have a branch that studies how to transfer the "consciousness" of a portrait to a "robot," thereby giving the humanoid machine a "soul."

Next to the AI ​​Portrait Research Institute is the "Activated Object Research Institute." They are not obsessed with giving machines a "soul," but they hope to make machines exhibit the characteristics of being activated.

Their research focuses on "object-animation magic," similar to the kind Arthur used on his car in the original story.

Finally, Murphy also went to the Anti-Gravity Research Institute, the one where he had previously applied the Levitation Charm enchantment in the elevator.

Unlike the aerospace research institute, their research on anti-gravity magic focuses on the field of people's livelihood. For example, their most popular project is "flying cars". According to them, people can expect to travel in flying cars within the next ten years.

After touring all the research institutes within the academy, Murphy witnessed many inventions and discoveries that had not yet been formally documented.

But almost everyone asked him that question.

Insufficient magical energy.

Magic has limited the final implementation of almost all industries.

Solving the magic power problem is now of utmost urgency.

So Murphy went to the Aerospace Research Institute, which houses the largest magic detection satellite launch center in the Soviet Union, where satellite data would eventually converge.

"Has the discovery of proto-material increased?" Murphy asked the head of the satellite launch center.

The latter shook his head. "It's almost stopped growing. We've improved our detection precision to the microwave level, which allows us to detect almost all the primal matter on the Earth's surface. But magic waves at this level are easily blocked. If the primal matter is hidden a little deeper, we can't detect it."

"Moreover, the original substances that are found with this level of precision have very low magic output efficiency; some can barely even power a satellite."

"Is it possible that some primordial matter is hidden deeper beneath the surface?" Murphy asked.

"Theoretically, it is certainly possible, but if the theory of divine blood is true, the source of these primordial substances is some gods from a relatively recent era, and it is hard to imagine that they would appear deep in the earth."

"However, we are currently researching spectral analysis," the person in charge said. "Magic affects light, which naturally causes changes in the spectrum. We are currently researching methods to find the source of magic through spectral analysis, which may be helpful in the discovery of the original substance."

"In addition, we are also developing passive sensitive detection devices that are extremely sensitive to magical radiation. Theoretically, they can detect a wizard using magic from hundreds of kilometers away."

"By making some adjustments and neutralization to this detection equipment, we can eliminate meaningless interference signals and detect only the original signal."

Murphy nodded. These methods have a wide range of applications, but he was already somewhat lacking in confidence about the discovery of the original substance. The scarcity of the original substance seemed to be more serious than he had imagined.

However, increasing the magic output of a single magic stone in a short period of time also faces many technical challenges.

It seems we need to start looking for alternative energy sources.

But just as he was about to go to the Magic Energy Research Institute, a thin researcher wearing thick-rimmed black glasses stopped him. "I heard you're researching the issue of magic energy rationing?"

Murphy glanced at him; this guy probably thought he was an official allocating magical energy. "You're here to ask for your quota?"

"Yes," the other person nodded immediately, then shook their head, "No, I'm here to offer a solution."

"While I can't solve your energy problem, I can help you optimize your magic energy allocation plan to maximize the effectiveness of your existing magic energy."

"Oh?" Murphy became interested. "Tell me, what do you do?"

"I research magic computers and am also responsible for the algorithm optimization of the central supercomputer," the researcher said. "However, my research focuses on cybernetics, and I have an algorithm... well, actually not mine, but ours, that can effectively solve your problem."

"However, if it works, I hope you can allocate a little more of your quota to the development of the magic computer."

"The central supercomputing center?" Murphy almost forgot his original purpose for coming here. "I'm going there anyway, let's talk as we walk."

I have a ton of ideas about the application of magic, but due to space constraints, I won't go into detail here. I'll mention them later when they might come in handy. Regarding unlocking spells, I wrote about them in a rush before and didn't explain them in detail, but I just added a brief explanation. Thanks to the reader for reminding me.

(End of this chapter)