Chapter 161 - Formation Mathematics

Translating the book through the process I came up with... Was a massive pain in the ass. 

No, calling it like that didn't even start to describe how it felt. 

Because I managed to obtain the translator job, I could no longer just look at the line of text and do my worst to translate it. It would change into letters and words I could understand the moment I would lay my eyes upon it. 

No. 

I had to take a look at the sentence below the paragraph I wanted to translate. Then, keeping my eyes on the same sentence, I had to rewrite the letters above while considering them to be just an image.

Only then I could use my translation board to voice the word I have written before and figure out its meaning. 

A lot of the steps in this process appeared to be meaningless unnecessary. But sadly, they were not. 

'At times like this, I wish I could turn my abilities off,' I thought, turning the page of the book that I was translating. 

The only reason why I was stuck with this insane job was the language's fault. Even though it had more letters than the alphabet I was used to, properly learning how to read and write a single letter allowed me to add one experience point to my translation skill. 

Sadly, that only brought my total progress gauge from one to forty-one, leaving me clueless about how I should approach the remaining sixty.

And the answer turned out to be pretty simple. 

At first, I hoped that I could get a full point of progress by learning how to translate a single word. 

But it was a stupid and naive hope. 

In the end, in order to get a single point of progression as a translator, I had to meticulously translate an entire page!

Because of this reason alone, reaching the second level of a translator job took me several hours, eating well into the little time I had of the day. 

'If I were to be any slower, I would have to put it aside,' I thought. The light of the day was about to be over soon, prompting me to go back to work. 

I felt no excitement upon advancing my job. Sure, I could now automatically translate entire paragraphs just by looking at them. But after hours of hard toil, I hardly had the energy to feel the joy anymore. 

'Still, I can't waste the sunlight,' I thought, putting the book away to let both my eyes and my hands rest a little. 

Even with all the mana and cultivation that I had to my name, I could still get tired.

'I guess cultivating one's body only helps you to ward off the physical exhaustion, not the mental one,' I realized before reaching for the book again. 

Finally, I could see enough of the translated text to focus on its content. And soon, the simple words explaining the intricacies of formation allowed me to forget about my exhaustion and focus on the task. 

'This is just what I was looking for,' I thought as I swept my eyes through the content of the book before moving all the way back to its first page. 

Just a quick look to confirm the validity of the book wasn't enough for me to learn anything. Even though it would be a time-consuming process and time was the one thing that I lacked... I still went on and started reading. 

Bit by bit, I started to uncover the mysteries of the formations that baffled me since a long time ago. 

'Wait, isn't it... pretty mathematical?' I thought after reading just a few first paragraphs. 

The entire entry outlines how one needs to learn specific formulas for every kind of formation stone to properly understand how it will work. 

For the people of this world, this had to be some kind of high-class mystical knowledge. But for me...?

'Isn't this just a slightly more complicated programing language?' I asked myself upon seeing the formulas.

The first chapter of the book, outside of explaining the general terms, only gave the formulas for the eight basic stones. 

The author of the book came up with fancy names for it, but I couldn't help myself and used the names I was actually familiar with. 

And, or, not and equal. 

Those four basically described the baseline of the mathematical logic. The four base functions that could be used to construct any other function one would like. 

For example, if one wanted to use implication, then instead of using higher-grade formation stones described in the further chapters, one just could use the not and or stones to construct a logical gate with the same effects!

'Still, it's no use if you can apply logic to the magic alone; you still need a way to interact with it,' I thought, quickly coming up with the names for the four other stones. 

Push, pull, start and stop. 

The push stones would push the magic away. The pull stone would attract the magic to itself and inject it into the formation system. The start stone would mark the opening of the formation sequence while the stop stone marked its end.

'Isn't this too damn simple?' I thought, seriously scared out of my wits. 'What if I created a recurring function like that?' I thought. 

The book stated explicitly that every formation should have at least a single start stone and as many stop stones as necessary. 

But I couldn't help but ask. 

What if one failed to add a stop stone? What would happen if the entire process would just roll on itself, endlessly repeating the same logical formula?

'At least I know that I shouldn't try it anytime soon,' I thought, mortified by finding out a potential way to bring forth a mana disaster. 

In the end, there was one recurring formula that worked pretty well on earth. The one situation where humans learned how to make use of it for their own advantage. 

And discounting for the third world war, it was only used twice to force Japan to surrender back in nineteen-forty-five. 

'Still, this gives me plenty of possibilities,' I thought, unable to contain my excitement. 

I finished college, which allowed me to program my own games. They were crude and used a lot of existing tools that others created... But if I brought my level of formation mastery sufficiently high...

Would it be possible to basically create artificial intelligence from magic flow alone?

Was it possible for me to create a magical computer?

Tic. 

My body shook under the influence of this familiar sensation. And I didn't even need to open my system to understand what just happened.

"I guess it's a formation master job this time,' I muttered to myself before immersing my attention back in the book. 

Soon, though, I understood how naive my thinking was. 

Just the opening of the second chapter of the book was enough to destroy all my initial hopes. 

"You should simplify your formations whenever possible, as there is a hard limit of the number of stones that can be used within a single formation," one of the paragraphs warned. 

"By breaking the limit of the formation stones, the formation will cease to work," the author explained in another paragraph. 

'There has to be some quality of magic that they didn't know about that's causing all those restrictions,' I realized.

Was it the will of a higher being that created the mana, to begin with, opting to stop people from using it like they used electricity on earth? 

Or was there some natural physical restriction to the mana that I have yet to grasp?

I didn't know the answers to those questions yet, and it would likely take me a long time to find them. 

But instead of losing my drive to push forward, those problems only served as further motivation for me. Because no matter how one looked at it, I just found out some new things about the inner workings of mana, the force that everyone in this world considered to be essential!

Still, I closed the book about the formations and put it away. I did it the second I felt another tic, most likely meaning that I just climbed to another level of the formation master job. 

'Since leveling up the jobs appear to be connected to understanding the principle of said job... Can I actually raise their levels by learning instead of just grinding their levels?'

I learned a lot about formations. But this simple information, the ability to bring a level of a job up just by... well, getting better at it in a proper way, was far more important. 

'Could I maybe apply it to the arcane weaponmaster, then?' I asked myself as my excitement shot through the roof.