"Strange. The teacher tells us to run away immediately if we see the forbidden spell, even though we could make up for the lack of magical defences by releasing light elements externally. Doesn't she know about this method?" Cyra tilted her head, still not quite convinced.
"Or maybe she just didn't know this method?"
"No way. With almost ten thousand years of history, how could angels not know about this? It's just that this method consumes too much of one's light element. Using it carelessly in battle without enough replenishment could lead to even bigger troubles." Nicola scoffed, having experienced the contamination of dark elves through the external release of light elements herself, she understood the direct consequences very clearly.
"So you have to make it explode up close? When are you planning to do it?" I looked at the gas collection sphere in my hand and asked Reed. 80% was quite a high probability, but as long as it's less than 100%, I feel it's still best not to try, after all, it's life and death.
Reed seemed a bit equivocal. She lowered her head in silence for a while, and her next words surprised everyone. "I can't use just compression to do it. I plan to find another opportunity after we get to the outside world..."
"Ha! Didn't you say you were done? How come you still can't detonate it?" Cyra reacted first. She had been looking forward to this day only to get disappointed.
Even I felt it was too lame. So all that talk earlier about resisting nuclear explosions with our physical bodies was just pointless.
"It is complete, just lacking one necessary condition!" Reed explained anxiously, seeing that we were all speaking up.
"Although I've already absorbed as much light element from the surroundings as I can to convert into pressure, it's still far from enough to reach the critical point for detonation, the amount of energy needed increases exponentially. Even if I drained all of Edenmere's light element, it would be useless."
"Then what's your solution?" I understood this point. After all, hydrogen gas is nothing like deuterium and tritium, meeting the conditions for fusion is much more demanding. But since Reed said so, there must be another way to resolve it.
"Temperature, of course." The other replied matter-of-factly.
"The pressure inside this gas collection sphere is already very high, and the internal temperature has also risen a lot due to the increased pressure. But it's still far from enough. So I re-engineered the light element isolation device to absorb external heat..."
As she spoke, Reed took the gas collection sphere from me and opened it to reveal the pure black sphere suspended inside. The black sphere had been compressed to the size of a sesame seed and was barely visible without close observation.
"Usually the light element isolation device reflects external light and absorbs internal light. That's why you see a mirrored surface at the room entrance, and it's pitch black inside. But this black sphere works the opposite - reflecting internally and absorbing externally. Also, by blending in the materialization effect of the Light Shield spell, no energy can escape from the inside. Now we just need to open this collection sphere and throw it into an ultra-high temperature environment, it will massively draw in external energy, and the inside will quickly reach the critical point of high temperature and pressure!"
"By 'ultra-high temperature environment' you just mean fire, right?" Cyra immediately understood after listening, coming over to Reed's side to observe the compressed black sphere in her hand again, and tentatively asking.
"So you mean it will explode if you just throw it into fire?"
"It's not that simple!" This time it was Nicola who answered. She had been working on this experiment together with Reed, so she knew some basics.
"Although ordinary flames could theoretically work, it might take a very long time. It would be best to have an even higher temperature environment."
In this world setting, something with ultra-high temperatures was not easy to find. The first thing I thought of was the smelters in the angel weapon shops in the city. The temperature inside the smelters was at least high enough to melt iron ore.
But the problem was, getting a smelter would not be easy! First of all, they were not cheap. Of course, there were still ways. We could just walk into a weapon shop on the main street throw the gas collection sphere in and be done with it...
Except the vast majority of creatures in this city were probably gone already (╯▽╰)╮.
Also...
"Aren't you worried the magical formations will be destroyed by the high heat if you put it in?" I looked at the patterns on the inner wall of the gas collection sphere. This material shouldn't be heat resistant, right?
"The black core sphere itself already has the function of absorbing energy, so the materials making up the formations won't be easily burnt away."
Afraid we still didn't quite understand just by listening, Nicola went out and gathered some tree branches to demonstrate making a fire on the spot.
"Is...isn't that dangerous? What if it detonates when heated up?" Cyra took a step back in fear as she saw this, instantly enveloping herself in white light.
"You think it's a firecracker or something?" Nicola glanced at her impatiently.
"This little bit of energy is far from enough. And even if it did explode, with your speed, you definitely couldn't fly out of the blast radius!"
We watched as the gas collection sphere was thrown in, and all the surrounding flames were immediately sucked into the black core. And because the temperature was insufficient, the tree branches quickly stopped burning further.
"So amazing!" This was the first time Cyra and I had witnessed such a scene with our own eyes. After squatting on the ground and staring for a long time, we fished out the ice-cold gas collection sphere from the extinguished firewood pile.
"See? Ordinary flames are meaningless. We must find an extremely high-temperature environment, like inside a volcano... it could work too..." Reed also watched for a while, seeming to have some feelings as she murmured.
"Hmm... just to be safe, an extra simple light element cover can be added too. It should be enough even at extremely high temperatures."
"Awesome! How many functions does this have already? Is such a small magical formation enough?" I looked up in surprise at her words. With the area of magical formations on that inner wall, it was really hard to imagine she could integrate compression, energy absorption, and materialization of the Light Shield spell all into it. And now she wanted to add light element covering too. I had to admire her talent. No wonder even Phoebe came to her for magical formation engraving after hearing about it.
"It's enough! The truth is, I'm not that great. It's just that there's a lot of redundancy in common magical formation patterns, you know?" Reed looked at me. Then she went to the pile of books on the ground, took one out and threw it to me.
"Take a look when you have time! This book talks about a lot of magical formation theory, quite reasonable. I was also inspired by many parts in it."
"This is..." I took it and saw the title was Analysis of Magical Formation Patterns. It looked vaguely familiar but I couldn't quite remember.
The author's name was also printed below the title:
"Bezi Bennett? Is that an angel's name?"
"No, he was said to be a sage, but his theories don't seem to be highly regarded in this world." Reed shook her head.
"Is that so? What's written inside..." I flipped open a page and glanced randomly. Most of it was arcane terminology, but I could vaguely understand some words and phrases.
"The forked structures composed of the third class of materials each represent possibilities under certain conditions..."
"Using circuits made of the thirteenth class of materials can achieve the purpose of storing elements. The storage capacity and types depend on the material's affinity and quantity for the elements, and runes can also specify the storage amount within the material's tolerance..."
"The pathways formed by the second class of materials can achieve various magical effects according to the elemental flow of the magic..."
"The nodes formed by materials of the twentieth to forty-fifth classes refer to the alterable count results of this type..."
"It doesn't seem comprehensible!" Not just me, even Cyra and Nicola cried out in surprise upon hearing this.
"Remember what I said before? Magical formations are like automated devices on Earth, and the patterns on them correspond to automation programs. Although what's written in this book is quite crude and hard for ordinary people to understand, for us transmigrators who have used computers, it should make a little more sense."
Reed directly pointed out the key point without beating around the bush.
"So I think these patterns represent something similar to code in computers."
"Huh?"
Not just me, even Cyra and Nicola cried out in surprise upon hearing this.
I wouldn't have thought of connecting magical formations to computers before, but after seeing the book and Reed's explanation, I suddenly realized there were indeed some subtle connections and traces.
For example, the "forked structures representing possibilities under certain conditions" described sounded a bit like the if conditional statements in programming code.
And the "alterable count results" were even more obvious - clearly variables!
"You can think of the patterns on magical formations as physical code. Although not as flexible and versatile as computer languages, just combining them simply can achieve many things not possible with magic alone."
Reed took the book back from me and flipped to a page with a diagram, explaining:
"Generally, a large branch pattern or rune area can achieve a relatively complex function. But after thousands of years of development, plus some magical formation creators not understanding the principles and just copying entire branches or sections, it evolved like computer code from low-level to high-level. So redundant, useless patterns gradually took up most of it, lowering the overall efficiency and increasing the size."