LRAB Chapter 266 Theoretical Construction of Communication Networks
Chapter 266 Theoretical Construction of Communication Networks
Chapter 266 Theoretical Construction of Communication Networks
Karen summoned Ernesto, Fabian, and Wesley to the inner workshop of the Eagle's Nest. In the center of the workbench, the seemingly blank parchment lay quietly.
"Guys, I've got something to show you." Karen, with a mysterious smile, drew her wand and tapped it lightly on the parchment, clearly stating, "I solemnly swear that I have not done anything good."
The next moment, ink lines spread rapidly, and a detailed map of Hogwarts and countless moving name tags appeared instantly.
After a brief silence, the three of them gasped in shock.
"Merlin's Beard!" Wesley's eyes widened, and he was the first to exclaim, "What—what is this? A map?"
How could this be—how could everyone's names be moving?!
"Merlin—" Fabian adjusted his glasses, which had slipped down his nose, and leaned so close he almost pressed his face against them, his voice filled with disbelief, "This is—real-time display? How is this possible? How did they do this?"
Even the usually reserved Ernesto lost his composure, his grey eyes filled with shock: "Incredible—this is simply—the ultimate embodiment of magical mapping and tracking charms! Where did this come from?"
Karen smiled at her roommates' shocked expressions. "This is Fred and George's treasure, called the Marauder's Map. We can borrow it for now to study. Apparently, it was made by some senior students."
"That's awesome! No wonder they know the secret passages in the castle so well, they can sneak out every night without getting caught." Wesley excitedly pointed at the map, "Look! Filch is moving in the third-floor corridor! Mrs. Lorris is next to him too! And—wow, there are so many people at the kitchen door!"
Ernesto, however, was more concerned with the nature of the magic: "What kind of magic can maintain this global tracking and display? And this precise name recognition is something that ordinary trace spells cannot do."
“That’s exactly what fascinates me,” Karen continued, his finger tracing the flowing ink lines and names on the map. “You see, it can not only track almost everyone in the castle, but also display all this information on one map, clearly and accurately. And I have an idea that I can use to improve my previous concept for a communication quill.”
Over the next few days, Karen spent most of his free time at the Eagle's Nest. His workbench was covered with sketches of runic structures he had copied from the Marauder's Map, diagrams of the communication quill he had designed, and a large amount of parchment filled with ancient runes and complex arithmetic and divination formulas. The ink was a mix of old and new, appearing messy yet full of focused attention.
The "Eye of Truth" provided him with a wealth of inspiration for observing the Marauder's Map, especially its "multi-point marking" and "centralized information display" functions, which fascinated him. He was now considering how to apply this concept to his own communication quill, making it more than just simple point-to-point messaging. Although he had similar ideas before—after all, Karen knew that communication methods in non-magical worlds were far more convenient than those in magical worlds—he simply didn't know where to begin. Now that he had a reference point, Karen naturally wanted to give it a try.
Ernesto, Fabian, and Wesley would occasionally come over for a curious glance, but they would soon be dazzled by the esoteric symbols and complex deductions.
"Merlin's Beard, Karen, your scribbles are harder to understand than Snape's potion recipes!" Wesley complained, looking at a parchment covered with twisted runes and star-like dots and lines.
"I'm trying to find a way to make a lot of communication quills work together, like—well, like a flock of owls can accurately deliver messages to different people without flying to the wrong place or crashing together." Karen didn't look up, resting the tip of the quill on her chin, her brow furrowed as she stared at a complex string of runes.
"Using multiple pens at once?" Fabian adjusted his glasses, trying to understand. "Does that mean—I can write to both you, Karen, and Ernesto at the same time?"
“That’s true in theory, but it’s much more than that.” Karen finally looked up, her eyes gleaming with thought. “My idea is that each pen has a unique inscription of its true name,” defined by a specific ancient runic sequence and the intersection of astrological trajectories. When you want to send a message to someone, your thoughts guide the quill, weaving the recipient’s true name inscription into the initial structure of the message.”
Ernesto pondered: "Like displaying everyone's name on the Marauder's Map? But that's the power of the map itself—you want to reduce that power to each pen?"
“Not entirely.” Karen shook her head, pointing to a partial copy of the Marauder's Map. “The map receives” and displays “all the true names.” My pen doesn’t need to be that powerful; it only needs to accurately guide the message “to the corresponding true name inscription” when sending it. It’s more like a kind of resonance-based “magic.”
He picked up another sketch filled with interwoven lines: "The challenge lies in ensuring this guidance is precise enough. Hogwarts is filled with all sorts of magical fluctuations—classroom magic, Peeves' pranks, even the castle's ancient magic—all can interfere with the transmission of information. If the guidance isn't strong and precise enough, the information might stray from its target like a lost owl, or even be attracted to other powerful magical sources, causing crosstalk or complete loss."
"Crosstalking?" Wesley asked.
"It's like your letter got onto my pen, or my letter and Fabian's letter got mixed up on the way, turning into gibberish that no one can understand," Karen explained. "To avoid this, I need to design an extremely complex 'isolation and identification' rune system, like adding a unique magical shell to each stream of information, so that it can only be deciphered and read under the resonance of specific True Name Inscriptions."
Fabian stared at the layers of protective runes on the sketch and gasped, "This sounds like it would require a lot of magic to maintain?"
"That's another huge problem," Karen sighed, pointing with the tip of his pen to several rune nodes he had specially marked with red circles. "These isolation runes" and "precision guidance" structures are extremely energy-intensive. If I want information to travel further, or process a lot of information simultaneously, the quill's own magical storage would probably be exhausted in an instant."
He leaned back in his chair, looking somewhat weary. "I need to find a way to either drastically optimize the energy consumption of these runes, or—find an external source of magic to support the entire communication network—or design some relay nodes to enhance the signal and share the load. But the latter involves more complex issues such as node placement and energy transmission."
Ernesto struggled to follow the train of thought, pointing to a complex structure on the sketch, composed of nested runes: "This loop—it looks like it borrows from the stable structure used to handle moving points on Marauder's Map?"
"You have a good eye! It seems your knowledge of ancient runes has indeed improved considerably." Karen glanced at Ernesto with some surprise. "It was indeed inspired by it. That structure can stably track a large number of targets simultaneously. I tried to simplify and modify it to stabilize the guidance path of information," preventing it from deviating. However, its original design was deeply bound to the castle's magic; its effectiveness was greatly reduced after being separated, and the energy consumption problem remained prominent."
Wesley only half understood, but he grasped the key point: "So the biggest problem now is that letters are easily sent to the wrong places, and they consume a lot of magic?"
"That's one way to put it," Karen smiled helplessly. "Moreover, these two problems are often interconnected; solving one might exacerbate the other."
The three roommates exchanged bewildered glances. Although they didn't understand many of the profound principles, they realized what a grand and intricate magical construct Karen was attempting to create. This far exceeded the scope of ordinary OWLs or even NEWTs, involving the fusion of several advanced fields such as ancient Neven, arithmetic divination, magic conduction, and resonance principles.
"This—this is practically creating a miniature, mobile communication network!" Ernesto exclaimed, his voice filled with admiration.
"Once you succeed, will we no longer have to keep running to the owl shed?" Wesley was more concerned with practical applications.
Karen chuckled: "Even if my plan is realized, it only solves the communication problem; you still need an owl to send packages."
He picked up his quill pen again, took a deep breath, and plunged back into the endless calculations and rune design. More and more scraps of parchment accumulated on his workbench, while his notebooks gradually filled with various failures and fleeting sparks of inspiration that might lead to success.