Kays Translations

Chapter 18: Improving the Activation Circles

Isamu, who had finished deciphering the activation circles provided by Annemarie, began the process of improving the current activation circles.

He asked Rudolf for several non-attribute magic stones, magic ink, and the foundation for drawing magic circles.

“By the way, Rudolf-san, do you have any concerns or points of interest regarding this magic lantern?”

 Isamu decided to inquire about the user’s feedback before proceeding.

“Concerns, you say? Well… considering that we’ve been using it as intended, there are about three points of concern. First, it’s large and bulky. It would be appreciated if it could be made smaller and lighter. Secondly, it doesn’t have an option to adjust the brightness. It’s excellent for night patrols due to its brightness, but it can be somewhat challenging to use in other situations. Lastly, it doesn’t last very long. The consumption of non-attribute magic stones is quite high, and we have to replace the stones after about two nights, which can be somewhat bothersome. However, it does help sell the magic stones, so it’s a mixed blessing…”

With a wry smile, Rudolf shared his points of concern.

“Thank you. I’ll see if there’s anything I can do about that,” 

Isamu responded and immediately began sketching the magic circle on the foundation.

“Regarding the size and weight, I’ll have to address that on the functional side. Even if I make the activation circle for this incredibly wasteful one about one-tenth its size, it won’t work without a place to insert the magic stone…”

Isamu muttered to himself as he developed his concept.

From his experience, when he considered algorithms, speaking aloud allowed him to approach problems more objectively. It became a habit for him.

“As for the brightness, I’ll try reducing the amount of magic power supplied to the functional side to see if it affects the brightness. If that doesn’t work, it might be challenging to control the brightness from the activation circle. Well, at least the lifespan of non-attribute magic stones will be extended, so it’s not an issue.”

With his strategy in place, Isamu began sketching the activation circle.

First, he started by eliminating sections with excessive and redundant words and branches.

“Why are there so many redundancies in the first place?” 

Isamu’s confusion was understandable.

In terms of a program, things like this comment and things like conditional expressions that are not working at all are written, and the necessary parts are less than 1/10th.

By the way, as for the comments, I could tell that they were comments, but I couldn’t understand their content. As for the conditional expressions, it seems that, regardless of meaning, the ability skill can only understand what would be considered “reserved words” in a sense.

“No, wait… Could it be that there’s no actual meaning in the content? Perhaps it’s all for appearance, like ASCII art?”

Viewing it from this perspective, it did appear as though it formed some kind of pattern, although what it represented was unclear.

“I recall they mentioned that they were referencing ones that happened to move… Perhaps the souvenir ones or those made by someone as a prank got mixed in?”

Tools tend to become more compact as performance is improved. Even if the size is impractical, it’s necessary not to make the exterior dimensions larger than required. The internal components are streamlined for cost reduction.

This concept should hold in this world as well, given that they have a concept of cost. However, Isamu had no way of knowing the true nature of these activation circles.

Next, he began working on the adjustment to the amount of magic power supplied from non-attribute magic stones.

The activation circles of the magic lantern had an extremely simple mechanism where they continued to absorb magic power at the default power as soon as the switch was turned on.

In contrast, Annemarie’s activation circles explicitly quantified the amount of magic power absorbed.

Isamu decided to integrate this feature into the magic lantern’s activation circle.

“Since I don’t know what the default value is… I’ll create a few different patterns and experiment. But I never expected that it would use hexadecimal.”

In this world, just like on Earth, the commonly used number system is decimal because they have five fingers on each hand, right?

However, the numbers used in the magic circles were unexpectedly in hexadecimal.

“I’m glad I studied binary and hexadecimal. Well, for now, let’s try starting with about 10 units of magic power (in decimal, it’s 16)…”

One of the activation circles that Annemarie showed him was a type that divided the supplied magic power into two parts. Each had different amounts of magic power, with the smaller part being 10 units (in decimal, it’s 16), and the larger one was 30 units (in decimal, it’s 48). Isamu designed it to match the smaller amount.

“Alright, if the magic amount is sufficient, it should work.”

Isamu’s very first magic circle was quite a compact one, measuring around 3 centimeters on each side. The board itself was about 5 centimeters on each side to accommodate the magic stone, but the magic circle was exceptionally small.

He connected the part that sent magic power to the functional side and prepared to perform the activation experiment.

“Now, let’s see what happens.”

Excitedly, he touched the magic stone, which served as the activation switch.

Just like the original magic circle it was based on, the non-attribute magic stone emitted a faint light, which flowed through the magic circle to the functional side.

And…

“Oh! It’s shining! It worked!”

To succeed on the first attempt was indeed a promising start.

“Alright, now let’s try it with various minimum magic power amounts…”

Isamu spent the next hour immersed in the rather mundane task of increasing the numbers incrementally from a magic power of 1. He determined that the minimum activation magic power amount was 0B (decimal 11).

“Great. Now, the only thing left to determine is how much the magic stone’s endurance will change. I’ll go to Eto-san’s place tomorrow and have him assemble a few more. Also, I’d like to conduct experiments to see how much magic power is used by default, so I’ll prepare a few more patterns for idle experiments.”

Isamu prepared additional boards for idle experiments: 20 (decimal 32), 30 (decimal 48), 50 (decimal 80), and 100 (decimal 256).

“Hehehe, looking forward to tomorrow.”

As he happily gazed at the finished boards lined up, there was a knock at the door of his study.

“Yes!”

“Isamu-sama, dinner is ready. May I ask you to take a break?”

It was Karina who had come to call him.

Time had passed astonishingly quickly, and it was already time for dinner. It reminded him of when he first learned programming and lost track of time.

“Yes, I was just finishing up, so I’ll be right there. Thank you!”

“Understood.”

Isamu replied, and with the results of his decryption and experiments, he made his way to the dining area with a spring in his step.

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