(I usually write at night and schedule posts for daytime since I work during the day. Any suggestions from you esteemed readers are welcome.)
Queens, inside the Divination House.
Lin Huai hung up the phone, his fingers unconsciously tapping on the old wooden desk, his inner turmoil far greater than his calm exterior suggested.
He needed to translate the clue about the "Lava Octopus" into something Tony Stark could understand.
This clue was called the "Ancient Ballad of Homecoming". It sounded like a melody, but Lin Huai knew it was essentially more like a special key, or rather, a unique signal. Its purpose was not to emit sound to call out, but to provide a "spirituality stimulation" upon approaching the target, irritating that Beyonder creature and causing it to reveal its location.
Explaining such an abstract "mystical concept" to a staunch scientist was like playing the lute to a cow.
Time was tight; he didn't hesitate.
Lin Huai grabbed the pen on the desk and swiftly drew a series of bizarre symbols and Hermes Language on a piece of parchment. This wasn't a musical score, but rather an instruction manual on how to construct that "special signal."
After writing the final character, he slumped back in his chair, utterly drained.
He directly dialed Tony's encrypted line.
"Stark, I've got the principle of the 'Ballad.' But it's not an audio file; it's a complex set of rules. Trying to brute-force a scientific solution would waste a huge amount of time."
Lin Huai's voice carried a hint of urgency; his promotion couldn't wait.
"Give me a day, and some specific materials, and I can craft a temporary 'ritual item' that can directly emit the required signal. It's the fastest method."
There was silence on the other end for a few seconds, followed by Tony's chuckle, thick with interest.
"'Ritual item'? No, no."
Tony's voice was filled with that genius-specific, unquestionable Pride.
"I never use 'black boxes' I can't understand. consultant, send me that 'instruction manual' of yours. I want its'source code,' not a compiled program."
"But..." Lin Huai frowned.
"No buts," Tony cut him off, his tone leaving no room for argument. "If it's a set of 'rules,' then it can be deconstructed. If my science can't even translate your 'instruction manual,' then what makes me believe it can lead me to a non-existent octopus?"
"Don't underestimate science, and don't underestimate me. Send it over."
Lin Huai fell silent. He understood that this supremely arrogant genius had been provoked by this "test question" from another World, his competitive spirit ignited three hundred percent.
"...Fine." He hung up, took a photo of the parchment, and sent it over... Malibu, inside the workshop.
Tony stared at the "mysterious tome" radiating an arcane aura on the holographic screen. Far from being confused, his eyes burned with an unprecedented fervor.
"Excellent! Now this is interesting!"
Over the next few days, the atmosphere in the workshop became stiflingly tense.
"Tony, this is impossible!" A gray-haired physicist slammed his data pad onto the table in frustration. "These symbols violate all known logical information entropy! It's not code, not language, just a bunch of random scribbles!"
Another cryptography expert looked pale. "We tried every decryption model from ancient Hittite to modern quantum encryption algorithms. The results were all gibberish. This thing simply wasn't written for humans."
Tony Stark stood among them, silent. He didn't refute them because he knew they were right. Within the existing scientific framework, this thing was garbage.
"Enough," he waved his hand, his voice hoarse. "All of you, go home. Vacation starts early."
He didn't lose his temper, but the unwillingness and frustration in his eyes were almost palpable. He needed sparks that could follow his train of thought, not a bunch of parrots repeating "impossible."
As the last expert left with a sympathetic look and the heavy alloy door slowly closed, the entire workshop fell into a deathly silence. Only he remained, eyes bloodshot, staring fixedly at the parchment.
He had failed.
"Damn it..." Tony leaned back wearily in his chair. The workshop was a mess, with coffee cups and energy drink cans piled high. The holographic screens flashed countless glaring red Error codes. This tome was driving him mad.
Just as he was about to give up and pick up the phone to "surrender" to that Eastern charlatan, his gaze inadvertently swept over a coffee-stained paper on the corner of the desk—his own university thesis: "On the Non-locality Conjecture of Bell's Inequality in Superluminal Entangled States."
Entangled states... non-locality... These two words struck his chaotic mind like lightning bolts!
He abruptly sat up straight, glaring at the symbols on the tome.
"'Spirit's spiral... upward resonance...'" he muttered, as if conversing with another self. "What if... what if this'spiral' isn't a physical trajectory, but Quantum Spin transitioning between different energy levels?!"
"'Deceitful illusion'... not optical illusion, but... the Observer Effect! Yes! The Observer Effect! Forcibly intervening before the result appears, collapsing the wave function in the direction I want!"
He had found an absurd, yet the only viable, "translation" method!
"Jarvis!" He leaped up, his eyes blazing with an alarming light. "Abandon all acoustic models! Switch to the Quantum Physics Simulation Framework! Define every symbol of the 'Ballad' as an independent Quantum State! I'm going to use brute-force enumeration to calculate the probability of their resonance!"
After another night of frenzied calculations...
"Sir... synthesis... complete."
Tony's hand trembled as he pressed the activation key.
There was no sound in the workshop. But on the most precise Oscilloscope, strange, unprecedented, seemingly living, invisible waveforms were being emitted from the device, spreading outward.
Success.
He had truly used science to create that "signal transmitter" which existed only in myth.
Tony stared dumbfounded at it all, then plopped down onto the floor, letting out a hearty, wild laugh.
After the laughter subsided, he slowly stood up, his eyes burning with unprecedented fervor and Pride.
He grabbed his jacket and headed straight for the elevator, but he didn't contact the [poseidon] to prepare for departure.
"Happy, get the car ready," he said into the communicator. "To Queens."
He was going to personally meet the person who had given him this "mysterious tome."
He was going to tell him that his set of mystical, high-and-mighty "rules" had been completely deciphered by him, Tony Stark, in the language of science.