Kinetic magic would be more immediately practical; there was little doubt about that. It also wouldn't provide him with the information he desperately wanted, after going so long without the ability to check everyone’s class and levels whenever he pleased.
The most obvious obstacle to making a new pair of glasses was his lack of materials. Silverite was the clear choice, but after his recent experiences with crystals, he believed he could significantly improve the SDGs’ versatility and power efficiency with the material selection alone.
“For that, I need to take a walk through the shopping district before we leave. It's a good thing I have the walk with Ophelia scheduled for tomorrow. She should know a few good places.”
He wasn’t exactly searching for tier-five legendary treasures, but he suspected that what he’d find here would be of higher quality than what Silverpeak had to offer, at least if he wasn’t willing to empty his purse.
That’s another thing. I should ask Mom about all those monsters we took down. She told me she’d handle the sale through the embassy’s people, but I haven’t seen any of the profits yet.
He would need to explain why he needed the money, but Asteria was more than used to his little projects by now. She’d probably welcome it as a return to normalcy.
The second, and more immediately solvable problem, was the coding. The original version of the SDGs was built using APL, a programming language that closely resembled local runes, and it had allowed him to go unnoticed for quite some time.
Those glasses were now slag, useless in theory, but Orion suspected he might be able to use them as a catalyst to anchor his new version, given how much contact they had made with the System.
That might save me some trouble. Technically, I should be able to anchor them just by summoning my Status Screen, but that connection is very weak compared to what a rank-up offers.
After a certain point, he suspected that the strength of the initial connection wouldn’t produce much better results, which was why he hadn’t rushed to have them ready before his own rank-up. He only needed a solid enough link at first, and everything else would rely on his Traits and the efficiency and decoding abilities he embedded in the artifact.
The original code stared back at him, and he had to admit it wasn’t as terrible as he’d feared after spending countless hours turning brutish spells into more refined magics.
But he knew he could do better. “First of all, I can probably fit much more into a standard frame now. I have access to extremely precise lasers that will eliminate the need for a scalpel and allow me to perform even more precise procedures. Second, I don’t need to hide everything in the inner part of the frame, which significantly expands the space I can use. Finally, with the actual glass replaced by crystal, I can remove the need for power modulation and rely on the coding beyond the basics, managing all of that through the crystals, giving me even more space.”
Frankly, Orion might have too much space now, which he never thought he’d say.
“It’s a good problem to have,” he muttered, twirling his pen before setting it down on his journal’s paper and starting to jot down a few loose ideas.
“I should add a few redundancies. I really didn’t like how [Inspect] was no-sold by so many people, and not just because I lacked the connection to read their data.” That was an easily solvable problem now that he had so much insight into how the System and the Mana Field worked.
First, he would use the reliable passive spectroscopy he’d been running on the V1 to observe the subject’s natural backscatter across the Field’s bands. That alone would cover ninety-eight percent of the people he’d encounter, since very few had a way to shield themselves or even thought to do so.
For the second scanning component, he drew inspiration from magnetic probes that measured near-field magnetic components of electromagnetic fields. It wouldn’t be as comprehensive as passive spectroscopy, but it would provide him with some valuable data about the strength of their connections and even some of their traits if they were visible enough. However, he suspected that this would be limited by the difference in rank, meaning he’d only be able to gather so much information from people with better connections than his own.
For the third, and most esoteric of the lot, he would introduce a unique probe, one that would take a portion of the summoned mana from the field, send it back into the area of influence of his target, and then return it to run analysis on it, all in an effort to bypass active defenses, as he wouldn’t be directly interfacing with their connection, but with the echo of it.
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That would require extensive noise correction, which he was sure would quickly become the most complicated part of the code. However, if it worked, it would allow him to approximate everyone’s status, even those who would normally be out of reach.
And I can use [Hypotheticism] as a foundation. Actually, that's a brilliant idea. I should integrate it directly into the code, since I probably won't lose it anytime soon, and by the time I reach tier three and get my new Traits, I'll be ready to craft an even better version.
Thoughts of what V3 would include briefly clouded his mind, but Orion composed himself, wiped his mouth from imaginary drool, and went back to work.
With the basic method decided on, at least for now, until he could actually write the code and see what worked and what didn’t with [Hypotheticism], Orion focused on the details of how he would parse through all the data he was trying to collect.
It was all well and good to build a sturdy machine that could handle much more force than the delicate artwork he’d created once, but he didn’t want to have to manually analyze its data, especially since he often did other casting at the same time.
Relying on the CC for that was another option, but Orion was sure the crystals he planned to use as lenses would provide enough computing power without an external source.
Instead, he needed to compare the extracted features with library exemplars, weight them using a Class Graph—essentially a list of templates and their most common variations—for compatibility or adjacency, and generate posterior distributions with uncertainty.
Then he would falsify, attempting to disprove the current best hypothesis, before deriving a result with any reasonable certainty.
This was all meant to overcome more barriers, whether his own limits or the defenses others put up, but it also fit perfectly with [Hypotheticism] and allowed him to turn scattered data points into real insights without the risk of being rebuffed by active defenses.
I probably need to split the functions into two at this point. A basic [Inspect] to get a name, class, rank, and level like I’m used to could run all the time passively, while the more detailed scan would require active casting.
V1 had been entirely dependent on his Attunement and Mana Manipulation, as the only internal methods to handle all that power stemmed from silverite’s natural properties. However, with the right precautions, Orion was confident that the overheating that had dogged him at first would become a thing of the past.
The more he wrote down, the more ideas came to him, and he began to feel confident he could soon have a working prototype, as long as he found the necessary materials.
This might be a little too ambitious, but if I find some high-quality crystals instead of the basic ones, I could potentially repurpose some of the CC’s code to add a learning module to V2.
“Ah, the most sought-after socialite of Valderun!”
Orion froze for half a second before recognizing the voice and turning to give Seothyn the stink eye.
He was currently waiting for Ophelia to come down for their promised walk, and the girl was clearly taking her time, probably sulking because he would be leaving in the next few days and childishly punishing him, which she would soon regret, since it would cut into their time.
Minister Ames entered alongside the elf, and Orion saw the man for the first time in quite a while. Their last lesson had been before Asteria’s rank-up, and a lot had happened since then.
“Minister,” he greeted, ignoring the smiling elf.
“Young Orion, how good to see you,” the old man nodded, eyeing him critically. “I have to say, and this is not something I tend to do, given our current respective positions, but it is a delicate game the one you are intending to play.”
It wasn't surprising that Ophelia had confided in her grandfather about his intentions to start a salon; in fact, he had counted on it.
"Isn’t it just as dangerous to sit back and do nothing while others work around you?” he shot back with a cheeky grin, which drew a snort from the Minister, given that he’d been the one to teach him about the relations between the factions.
“I suppose I should have anticipated such boldness, or my granddaughter wouldn’t like you this much.”
“Grandpa! What are you talking about!” Ophelia shouted as she came down the stairs, almost gliding in a purple and silver dress accented with golden gloves.
“Ah, I shall leave you youngsters to your stroll,” Minister Ames said, his mustache twitching with amusement. He turned and gave Seothyn a meaningful look, which the elf returned with a calm nod.
He’s probably worried that my father’s new position might mean being around me could put Ophelia in even greater danger. It’s a bit paranoid, but then again, the dragonkin have been unusually quiet lately. I almost expect them to do something just out of boredom.
Ophelia huffed and rolled her eyes, but quickly grabbed Orion’s arm and pulled him along.
She looked at him critically as they stepped out of the Ames manse and clicked her tongue. “Couldn’t you find anything better to wear? You know you are a well-known figure by now, right? Not to mention the kind of shops we need to visit to get the rare materials you require. They don’t tolerate shabbiness.”
“Shabbiness?!” he grumbled. “I’ll have you know, this lab coat was woven for me expressly by a master weaver! There is nothing wrong with it.”
“I didn’t say there was something wrong,” she replied, speaking slowly as if to a small child who had gotten huffy, “just that different places require different clothes.”
“We are still on time to quickly visit Madame Gorelle,” Seothyn interjected from behind them, then quickly resumed his silent watch. “The twins will know how to handle him.”
Orion shot the elf a sharp glare, which seemed to have no effect at all, but Ophelia brightened. “Oh, that’s a great idea! And this could be a good thing for your little club. If you want to invite the up-and-comers, you need to tweak your style a bit. It was fine when you were just a mountain boy, but now things are different.”
“Mountain boy?” he mouthed in shock, but couldn’t oppose her iron grip, and she pulled him down the avenue, changing their direction slightly so they would enter the high shopping district from the front, rather than the back where the jewelers were, as they had intended.
“Don’t get hung up on the small details, Orion. It’s unbecoming,” Bart snickered from behind him, and he had to resist the urge to throw his hands up and start blasting everyone who thought making fun of him was a good idea to show they weren’t intimidated by his new social status.
He appreciated it, as things would have become very awkward very quickly, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have found a better way.
