The Wizard Tower had been airborne for two minutes before it hurriedly fell back to the ground.
Inside the tower, Richard and Tosio sprinted through the Wizard Tower much like a fire brigade, repairing the energy pipelines.
Although the energy pipelines designed by Tosio indeed worked, they could only handle a little pressure; a slight increase in energy output would cause them to start breaking down.
Blue magic arcs darted chaotically throughout the Wizard Tower, leaving both men in an embarrassed and disheveled state.
After busying himself for half a day, Richard, who had finally repaired the energy pipelines, returned to the laboratory and said with an awkward chuckle, "Director, the Prototype made you see us in such a predicament."
Garon the Great Wizard laughed heartily and clapped Richard on the shoulder.
"Not bad at all. As a Prototype, being able to ascend is already a great achievement. Optimize the blueprints, and for the materials, just go directly to Jimmy.
Your project has the full support of the Academy.
The only thing I ask is that the small Floating City we create must have combat applicability."
Using vast amounts of alchemy materials to create a small Floating City wasn’t challenging, but Garon the Great Wizard needed more than a mere toy; he needed a small Floating City that could be utilized in real combat.
Should this endeavor succeed, it would change the way wizards conducted expeditions to other planes.
In future civilization wars, small Floating Cities could greatly enhance the combat power of Wizard Civilization.
For wizards, materials were not an issue. As long as the designs were available, even if it required piling up Secret Silver Essence Gold, Wizard Civilization could assemble a fleet of small Floating Cities.
"Yes!" Richard responded crisply.
Garon the Great Wizard nodded and then disappeared from within the Wizard Tower.
On one side, seeing Garon the Great Wizard vanish, Tosio’s body suddenly sagged, almost causing him to fall to the ground.
"President, what’s your relationship with Garon the Great Wizard? It feels to me like you’re his student."
Richard glared at him upon hearing this.
"Don’t talk nonsense. The Director is amiable, but that’s because he very much appreciates what we bring.
If I went to him with garbage, do you believe he could slap me from Garon Wizard Academy all the way to Extreme North City?"
"I believe, but the President surely wouldn’t bring him trash," Tosio said with a laugh.
Recovering a bit of his strength, Tosio took out the design blueprints for the Wizard Tower from his pocket.
"President, I have a simple improvement idea. The design of these energy pipelines..."
"Let’s not rush that." Richard interjected, "Tosio, there’s nothing wrong with your planned energy pipelines.
The biggest issue is with the materials of the energy pipelines.
Now, first calculate the load capacity of the energy pipelines, and we will use that to find suitable materials.
Remember, you not only have to consider the energy consumption of flying. Factor in the energy consumption of weapons and the shield generator as well."
Hearing Richard’s requirements, Tosio nodded slightly.
"Alright, in that case, I’ll start on the calculations."
After delegating the work, Tosio left for Extreme North City, while Richard took out a Communication Crystal Ball.
Once the Crystal Ball connected, the panicked voice of the Extreme North City mayor instantly came through.
"Great Wizard Sir, about the incident just now..."
"That was my experiment, nothing wrong," the mayor was interrupted by Richard’s cool response, "Inform the citizens that such occurrences will become very common.
But they need not worry, I will not abandon Extreme North City."
Hearing Richard’s promise, the mayor on the other side of the Crystal Ball finally sighed in relief.
He started to respond as he was accustomed to, "May the Saint Heir bless..." but he stopped midway upon realizing an issue.
Richard was the Saint Heir of the Miracle Sect.
Thus, he changed his phrasing, "May truth favor you."
The Crystal Ball disconnected, and Richard opened the Secret Realm Rift, entering the Secret Realm.
In a corner of the Secret Realm, what Richard called the giant Floating Mother Body, officially named the Land-based Floating Mother Ship by the Pioneers, a giant Crystal Creation, was in a dormant state.
Nearby, the spider-shaped armed puppets acquired by Richard were also in a dormant state.
Richard approached the mother ship to activate it, commanding with spiritual power, "Initiate maintenance mode."
As the command was issued, what had appeared to be a single entity, the land-based Floating Mother Ship, suddenly displayed cracks.
Such a massive creation was naturally not cast as a single piece.
After initiating maintenance mode, Richard could dismantle the parts of the Floating Mother Ship. Among these parts, the energy pipelines constituted a significant portion.
[Raw material: Land-based Floating Mother Ship Energy Pipeline]
[Refinable information: Energy Transmission Crystal production]
[Refining cost: 10 spiritual power]
The load capacity of the land-based Floating Mother Ship’s energy pipeline was very high, and the energy transmission process had minimal loss, almost negligible.
If Richard could replicate this kind of crystal using wizard technologies, then the issue of materials for the energy pipelines of the small Floating City would be resolved.
Richard chose to refine, and soon he obtained the production process for this energy transmission crystal.
"Wow, the production is so complicated."
Startled by the complex process in his mind upon receiving the production procedure, Richard reacted.
Manufacturing the Energy Transmission Crystal for a land-based floating mother ship required over five hundred procedures and included more than eight hundred kinds of materials. Moreover, a significant portion of these were materials synthetically created by the Pioneers.
What was even more troublesome was that Richard had no idea how those materials were synthesized.
And even if he knew how to synthesize those materials, Richard would not go ahead with manufacturing the Energy Transmission Crystal.
Simply put, it was too expensive.
He lacked the corresponding industrial system; synthesizing those materials required establishing an appropriate Alchemy Workshop, determining the production process, and reducing production costs.
If there were by-products and waste materials, he would also need to figure out how to handle them.
This was a highly troublesome and extremely time-consuming and expensive process.
Richard sighed slightly, "Indeed, without the corresponding industrial system, trying to replicate the creations of the Pioneers is just a fool’s dream."
However, he was not discouraged—he couldn’t produce a perfect Energy Transmission Crystal, but an inferior version should be feasible.
The properties of the Energy Transmission Crystal were singular and his equipment was now much more complete than before, so measuring the properties of the Energy Transmission Crystal wouldn’t take much time.
Once the properties were measured and the principle by which the Energy Transmission Crystal reduced energy consumption was established,
with Wizard technology, cobbling together an inferior version shouldn’t be a problem.
Without wasting time, Richard immediately took the Energy Transmission Pipelines back to the laboratory.
With prior experience in researching Pioneer Crystals, this time the determination of the crystal properties went very smoothly.
It only took Richard two months to determine the properties of the crystal and also incidentally determine the principle of reduced energy loss.
"Type superconductor, magic particles?" Richard, looking at the data recorded in his notebook, rubbed his temples with some headache.
Wizards are a race in pursuit of truth, and the various characteristics of Magic Power, a miraculous force, naturally led countless wizards to explore its mysteries.
Thus, the Shape-shifting School was born.
One of the ultimate questions of the Shape-shifting School was what exactly is Magic Power.
From the current perspective, the Wizards’ understanding of energy divides into wave and particle camps, eerily similar to Richard’s past life scientists’ debates about light.
Presently, both wave and particle theories had substantial evidence.
Richard suspected that Magic Power possibly also had wave-particle duality. The Truth Wizards also knew about this property but had not disclosed it.
In the process of proving wave-particle duality, numerous sophisticated Shaping Spells were born, significantly enhancing the Wizards’ overall strength.
The essence of the low energy loss in the Energy Transmission Crystal lay in the crystal’s extreme stability when charged. Magic particles, when passing through the crystal at the microscopic level, faced almost no resistance.
To explain this principle in detail would require addressing one of Alchemy’s ultimate questions—what is matter.
These complex principles, even Richard himself found difficult to understand, and hence won’t be detailed further here.
This outcome made Richard abandon the idea of using an inferior version of the Energy Transmission Crystal as the pipeline for the energy system of the small floating city.
The pure material advantage simply couldn’t be compensated for with a Rune Array.
However, this measurement wasn’t entirely useless; Richard could determine the basic structure of this type of crystal and then manufacture similar structured materials.
But such materials science experiments were nearly a matter of luck; who knew how long the experiments would take.
So now he was just waiting for Tosio to calculate the results while he started on the alloy formulation for Secret Silver.
Secret Silver, an exceedingly precious alchemy material, was extremely valuable to ordinary wizards. But on a civilizational level, Secret Silver was just a rare but common metal.
As long as Richard didn’t use pure Secret Silver for the pipelines, the small floating city would still have practical combat value.
"President, these are the results of the calculations. Based on these results, I’ve designed a set of Energy Transmission Pipelines. Do you see anything that needs to be modified?" Tosio’s tired voice came from the Crystal Ball. Richard reviewed the transmitted information and responded contentedly,
"Very good, leave the rest to me. Go take a break with a thousand Magic Essences from my account at the traders, you’ve been hard at work recently."
"It’s nothing, President. To see the small floating city ascend is my life’s dream."
"You still need to rest properly."
After the communication ended, Richard transcribed Tosio’s results into his notebook.
Looking at the results gave Richard a bit of a headache, it seemed that he really had to ponder the Secret Silver Alloy formula carefully.
Suddenly, the Crystal Ball on his desk lit up.
Richard glanced at it and realized it was Jimmy’s communication.
He connected the communication, "Jimmy, you were looking for me..."
The deep voice of Garon Great Wizard emanated from the Crystal Ball.
"Ah!? Principal, what do you need me for?"
"How’s the floating city project coming along?"
"Well," Richard replied offhand, "I’ve just calculated the load capacity of the pipelines, now I’m preparing the materials for the Energy Transmission Pipelines.
Once the materials are assembled, there should be no issues with the floating city."
"That’s perfect, you can stop your current work now. Come to the Academy with your data.
The Alchemy Crown has somehow heard about the small floating city; he wants to see you now."