Laelia's problem with transmitting information between different devices was not actually the distance. Her enormous rune slabs had already demonstrated that signals could travel across incredibly long distances, far beyond what she had initially expected. The problem was that the entire system depended on those enormous slabs, making the technology completely impractical for ordinary people. Nobody wanted to carry a half-meter slab of mana steel simply to make a phone call.
Her solution was to turn the large slabs into nodes within a massive communication network. Instead of forcing every device to communicate directly with the central quantum computer, each slab could receive a signal and pass it onward to another slab. In theory, the signal could travel from node to node until it reached a city with a quantum computer capable of processing the information. The idea was simple enough, but actually making it work with a device small enough to carry was another matter entirely.
What Laelia needed was a rune line that could be placed on a much smaller piece of metal. Ideally, the finished device would be small enough to fit inside a person's pocket, although she was willing to accept something that could at least fit inside a backpack. Her current prototype was far too large for that purpose, and shrinking the rune array without losing its functionality was proving to be one of the greatest challenges she had ever faced. The more she studied the problem, the more she realized that she needed to understand the fundamental differences between rune lines and rune arrays.
The tome she had just finished reading had provided an excellent explanation of the distinction. A rune line was designed primarily for equipment where maximum performance was desired from a specific function. It was comparatively straightforward, could be made smaller, and could perform its designated task extremely efficiently. The problem was that its capabilities were rigid, because a rune line could only do what had been written into it.
Rune arrays were completely different. They were considerably more precise and versatile, allowing multiple functions to be incorporated into the same structure. They could also regulate themselves after activation, preventing the user from feeding more mana into the array than the underlying material could safely handle. Once activated, the array could continue operating without requiring constant manual mana input, which made it considerably safer and more flexible than a basic rune line.
That flexibility came at a tremendous cost.
Rune arrays required far more space and were considerably more difficult to create. Laelia had personally spent nearly three hours carving the array onto the mana-steel slab in the next room. By the time she finished, almost all of her mana had been drained, and her mind felt as though she had spent the entire day solving difficult mathematical problems without taking a break. She could not explain exactly why, but she simply knew that she was incapable of carving another rune that day.
The exhaustion itself had taught her something important. Rune arrays were not simply difficult because of the physical work involved in carving them. The process demanded an enormous amount of concentration, and mistakes could ruin hours of work. Even someone as talented as Laelia could not simply produce dozens of complex arrays whenever she wanted. If communication technology depended on arrays of that complexity, mass production would be completely impossible.
That left her with the rune line.
Unfortunately, the rune line created an entirely different problem. Even if she discovered a sufficiently powerful design, she still had to figure out how the information would travel between the small devices outside the cities and the enormous slabs connected to her central quantum computer. The quantum computer would serve as the heart of the network, storing information, translating messages, and directing them toward their intended recipients. Without a practical method of connecting the two systems, however, the entire project would remain nothing more than an interesting experiment.
Laelia had already developed a theoretical solution. A phone located perhaps three hundred kilometers outside a city could transmit a message using a simplified signal, with Morse code serving as the initial method of encoding the information. A nearby communication slab would detect the signal and forward it toward another node, eventually carrying it into the city. Once the signal reached the quantum computer, the machine could decode the message and determine which recipient was supposed to receive it.
The reverse process would theoretically be just as simple. The quantum computer would identify the recipient's phone number and send the message toward the nearest appropriate communication slab. That slab would then transmit the signal through the open air toward the designated device. If the phone could recognize the signal assigned specifically to its number, the message would arrive without the recipient needing to know anything about the complicated system operating behind the scenes.
At least, that was how it looked on paper.
Laelia stared at her notes and immediately found a dozen reasons why the system could fail. The biggest problem was the number of users. A communication network designed for a few dozen researchers was one thing, but she was not trying to create a device for a handful of scientists. Eventually, millions of people could be using these phones simultaneously.
"How am I supposed to push millions of signals through the same system?" she muttered.
That was the real bottleneck. Even if the phones could transmit their messages perfectly, all those signals would eventually have to pass through communication nodes and reach the quantum computers responsible for processing them. She had not yet figured out how the network would separate millions of simultaneous Morse-code transmissions without the signals interfering with one another. The problem did not make her original idea wrong, but it made the current version painfully inconvenient.
Everywhere she looked, there seemed to be another problem waiting for her.
The distance was manageable. The communication nodes were manageable. The quantum computers were manageable. Even the idea of encoding messages into Morse code was manageable. The difficulty came from combining all those systems into something that ordinary people could use without understanding any of the complicated technology behind it.
"Right, I can sit here and keep worrying about it, but that isn't going to get me anywhere," Laelia finally said with a defeated sigh.
She looked toward the window and realized that the sun was beginning to rise again. She had started working during the previous day and had spent the entire night reading, designing, testing, and thinking about the same problem. Even the special tea had failed to provide enough clarity to overcome the problems in front of her. At that point, there was only one reasonable solution left.
She needed to sleep.
"Miss has done it again," Amelia Mills muttered when she discovered the state of the study.
Amelia was the British butler assigned by the European government to care for Laelia. She was only thirty years old, but the position was expected to last for the rest of her life because she had signed a System contract accepting the responsibility. Amelia had wanted to become a butler for as long as she could remember, because the profession simply felt like something she had been born to do.
Her dedication went far beyond preparing tea and maintaining a household. Amelia had spent years studying everything a professional butler was expected to know, including etiquette, management, cooking, medicine, logistics, and, most importantly, personal protection. A butler assigned to someone as important as Laelia could not simply be a servant who knew how to pour tea. They needed to be capable of protecting their master if something went wrong.
That was why Amelia had advanced to Stage One only a few days earlier.
The government had approached her several years before with an unusual offer. They asked whether she would consider becoming the personal butler of a national-level scientist, and Amelia had immediately expressed interest. However, she had insisted on learning more about the position before agreeing to anything. That caution had eventually brought her to Laelia's laboratory, where she quickly discovered that her new master had almost no concern for her own health.
Laelia was brilliant, hardworking, and completely obsessed with knowledge.
Unfortunately, that combination also meant she regularly forgot to eat, sleep, or even leave her laboratory. Amelia had quickly realized that taking care of Laelia would require considerably more effort than taking care of an ordinary employer. Her biggest enemy was not an assassin, a monster, or a political enemy, but Laelia herself whenever she became interested in a difficult scientific problem.
With another sigh, Amelia closed the bedroom door after confirming that Laelia was finally asleep. She then returned to the study and stared at the disaster surrounding the desk. Books were stacked on top of one another, handwritten notes covered the tables, several diagrams were pinned to the walls, and abandoned cups of tea had accumulated in places where they absolutely should not have been.
"This woman is going to kill me before an enemy ever gets the chance," Amelia muttered.
She spent the next several hours restoring some semblance of order to the laboratory. By the time Laelia finally woke up, it was already three in the afternoon. The scientist emerged from her bedroom looking surprisingly refreshed, as though she had forgotten that she had spent an entire night exhausting herself over a problem that still had no solution.
"Right, Amelia, could you plan a general meeting for two hours from now?" Laelia asked as she sat down for breakfast—or rather, lunch.
She picked up a glass of apple juice and took a sip before reaching for another piece of French toast. Her expression was already becoming excited again, and Amelia immediately recognized the look. Laelia had clearly not forgotten about the communication device during her sleep.
"I'll need all the help and inspiration I can get," Laelia continued with a bright smile. "If I'm going to make this theory work, I need more perspectives than my own."
Amelia paused for a moment before giving a small nod.
"Of course, Miss."
Laelia smiled and returned her attention to her breakfast. The communication network was still full of problems, but that no longer mattered as much as it had the night before.