"Can I go over and have a look?" Ian tapped Void with his fingertips and sent an instant messaging message to Susan. Apart from the busy imperial government and profound research on topics, this Arcane Emperor rarely showed a trace of warmth belonging to his family.
"Why do you suddenly want to come here?" Susan did not agree immediately, and there was a hint of surprise in the reply.
"You mentioned your new project before, and during that conversation, you seemed more excited than ever. As your brother and mentor, I really want to see for myself what it is," Ian explained patiently.
Susan on the other side of the holographic screen fell into a brief silence. After a while, he sent a brief permission. "Okay."
Ian smiled slightly. In the lavender space ripples, he obtained the teleportation coordinates of the laboratory. With a slight movement of his body, he had crossed the long geographical barrier and appeared directly in the central area of Susan's exclusive laboratory.
"Your Majesty." The other researchers in the laboratory were busy, and they all nodded slightly to the Empire supreme Overlord, and then continued to devote themselves to the complex observation and recording work at hand without any distractions.
Ian looked at this scene with a look of satisfaction in his eyes. This is exactly the soul of the founding of the country that he personally established for the Arcane Empire - the will to pursue Truth above all else. Even the majesty of imperial power must take a back seat in a purely academic holy land.
In the laws and customs of the Empire, unless it is a formal government inspection or a ceremonial event, scholars only need to maintain a minimum of etiquette within any research institution to ensure that the continuity of thinking is not interrupted by trivial bureaucracy.
"Come on, let me show you my hard work over the past few months," Susan has been waiting in the test area for a long time. She is currently sitting next to a sophisticated magic monitor, leading Ian to a small test site that is tightly wrapped in translucent magic shields. It is an open area that looks like a miniature arena.
"Your laboratory looks... a little cramped," Ian looked around, frowning slightly.. As a member of the Imperial Family, Susan has almost Infinity's resource mobilization rights in the Empire. As long as she speaks, she can even ask for Seeking to build a higher-level Mage Tower independent of Floating City. However, in Ian's view, the current laboratory scale is not even up to the "qualified" baseline in his mind..
"I want to use my own savings and private money to fund this initial research, and then I will apply for formal budgetary appropriation from the Research Department after I have achieved some substantial results," Susan said in a calm tone but with an undoubted sense of independence.
"Well, as long as you are happy, I don't mind opening a 'back door' for you," Ian shrugged and withdrew his scrutinizing gaze, "So, what are you working on during this time? The inspiration that can make you pick up the staff again?" Although he tried hard to restrain his inner curiosity, as a top Arcanist, his desire for unknown areas still made him speak a little faster.
In fact, Ian has always had mixed emotions towards Susan. Susan is a very talented Arcanist. Under Ian's early personal training, her theoretical foundation and spell-casting skills should have made her one of the Empire's most successful tower owners.
However, with the explosive expansion of the Arcane Empire's territory, Susan is gradually unable to withstand the huge social pressure brought by being "Princess Empire" and "Sister of Arcane Emperor".
The entire Empire people are staring at her, expecting her to be like Ian, who can rewrite the course of civilization with every research she does.
That heavy expectation eventually turned into shackles. After an explosion a few years ago, Susan resolutely quit all academic positions and chose to become an anonymous magic painter, trying to escape those cold formulas in colors and brushes.
Even so, the noise of public opinion still followed. Although Ian felt a little regretful that his cousin gave up the arcane path, he never showed any blame. Instead, he used the absolute power in his hands to forcibly suppress the public discussion on Susan's private choices, trying to give her a space to grow freely.
And now, he was pleasantly surprised to find that the long-dormant princess seemed to have rekindled her enthusiasm for Arcane Truth.
"My research... is this right now," Susan turned around with a smile and handed Ian an extremely delicate card with a bronze texture from the pocket of his white robe.
"Yu-Gi-Oh! card?" Ian was stunned. The moment he took the card, a familiar and nostalgic memory surged out of his mind.. That was an extremely profound cultural symbol in his past life memory, and just when his fingertips touched the card surface, a strange, mixed Divine Power fluctuation of energy and Law of Causality made his pupils shrink, "Could it be that..."
"That's right," Susan looked at Ian's rare absent-minded look, winked playfully, and then gracefully waved the special card in his hand, "In the name of painting, answer my call - Dark Magician!"
As a burst of extremely bright arcane golden light bloomed crazily in the testing site, in the center of the area protected by layers of magic shields, a classic image that Ian had seen countless times in anime actually appeared in an absolutely real physical form.
Archmage, holding a staff, wearing a dark purple robe, and with stern eyes, perfectly replicated the childhood appearance of Ian.
"This... is this a deep extension of Drawing Magic?" Ian took a few steps closer and traced his fingers in Void, analyzing the chaotic energy flow around it.
"Yes. By using painting as an anchor, I can give these fictional characters a definition of 'existence' and let them regain a new life in reality," Susan explained, his words full of pride as a researcher.
"Does it have actual combat capabilities?" Ian asked the core question keenly.
"Both and no. The card creatures I have created so far can only cast some preset basic spells, and are more like high-level alchemy puppets." Susan's expression became more serious, "But do you still remember? When you first created this card game for fun, the three 'God Cards' actually showed an extremely strong independent will after they were formed using Mental Magic."
Ian recalled the scene when he used the soul fragments collected from various universes to try to reproduce the Egypt god card. Those three beings named "Phantom Gods" indeed have extremely domineering Self consciousness. They will even actively choose their masters and refuse to be controlled by those with mediocre souls.
"Is the situation the same now?" Ian looked at Dark Magician who was standing still in the field.
"Yes, and it's not just the three magic cards. As my painting skills have improved, many high-end paintings have shown a similar trend of becoming alive," Susan elaborated on the current bottleneck. "My next research direction is to try to solidify the native skills of these card characters and gradually evolve them from 'painting products' to truly independent Magical Creatures. Of course, this seems to be a somewhat unreachable scientific fantasy at the moment."
Ian looked at Susan's Blink eyes that shone with wisdom, and couldn't help but get excited. When Susan was young, she showed an almost obsessive love for <Yu-Gi-Oh!> comics and Card Duel.
While studying at Hogwarts, she relied on her special mental concentration to win the school duel competition Champion for seven consecutive years. Ian even suspected that the reason why Susan did not skip a grade early like other Imperial Family students was precisely because she was unwilling to give up the craze for dueling in school.
Ian felt sincerely happy to see that his cousin finally walked out of the confused forest and found the direction that he truly loved and was willing to devote his life to.
Susan continued to share her inspirational structure, "At first I couldn't find a breakthrough, until during the research on the <Black Clover> universe, I saw Lear Boismotier's Drawing Magic." Lear's magic can instantly materialize the scenery or creatures on the canvas, and release various unpredictable high-level spells.
"I plan to rebuild Empire's card system based on the underlying code of that magic," Susan pointed at the rows of complex experimental drawings behind him, "And this is just the first First Tier The 'mimicry' work in section. In section Second Tier, I plan to try to use the 'Spirit Realm' you brought back from the Eastern Continent."
"You want to use Spirit Realm's laws to hatch these card elves?" Ian instantly understood her ambition. He had forcibly captured a secondary Spirit Realm during that expedition and merged it into the logistics plane of the Empire.
"That's right. According to the famous hypothesis you proposed before: Spirit Realm will spontaneously breed the corresponding Servant or essence based on the history, mythology, folk customs and widely circulated stories of the connected civilization. And these card cultures were already in our circle before Empire was established. It has been circulated in the Empire and has long become an integral part of the Empire culture," Susan explained excitedly, "As long as we give appropriate magic guidance and 'concept infusion', it is entirely possible for us to accelerate the birth process of these cards Servant in the Spirit Realm."
"This plan is logically self-consistent, but you also know that the evolution law of the Spirit Realm is still in my speculation stage, lacking the support of big data. How do you plan to ensure that the experiment can obtain accelerated feedback as expected?" Ian raised an extremely pungent academic question.
Susan did not answer directly, but showed a naughty smile like a child.
"What's wrong?" Ian was confused.
"It's nothing, I just suddenly remembered when you tutored me in my homework when I was a child. Whenever I asked a question, you never told me the answer directly. Instead, you would throw me a thousand new and more difficult questions like a machine gun," Susan joked, and that smile diluted the original serious atmosphere in the laboratory.
Ian stopped the academic discussion, gently touched Susan's hair, and let out a long sigh, "I never thought that the pressure would push you to that point."
"That's not your fault, it's just that I was too young at the time and couldn't handle these emotions well," Susan gently held Ian's hand.
"I shouldn't try to make you 'another Ian'. You are an independent soul and should have your own Truth road," Ian carried out deep introspection at this moment.
He is aware of his "obsessive-compulsive disorder" - whenever he sees talents with magical talents, he always wants to use the most efficient means to lead them to the peak of academic research, but often ignores the other person's true wishes.
Susan was once a victim of this tendency, and his two apprentices, Flynn and Emily, almost made the same mistake. Fortunately, he adjusted his policy in time and allowed them to pursue those thrilling archaeological dreams.
Susan gave Ian a long-awaited hug. "It's all over, let's not talk about those disappointing topics anymore." She neatly brought the topic back to the research plan, "In order to answer your question about how to accelerate, my current plan is to conduct in-depth research on the embodiment model of 'Faith Power', refer to the preliminary theories of various ethnic groups on 'Servant', and try to integrate Ancestral Spirit Magic from different ethnic groups."
"Faith, or the 'belief power of cluster consciousness', is indeed the only key to enter the Valhalla field," Ian nodded in agreement.
"So, as a master in this field, what do you think of my idea?" Susan asked expectantly.
"This is an epoch-making research. Once you successfully build this system, you will deserve to be the founder of the Empire summoning Magic Domain," Ian gave a very high academic evaluation.
"Do you really think so?" Susan smiled happily, and that smile was even more dazzling than the light in the test site. "Then... you, the 'omniscient and omnipotent' emperor, do you have any good suggestions or secret information that you can share with me?"
"I thought you were still angry with me and didn't want to listen to my 'long talk'?" Ian joked.
"Come on, look at the entire Milky Way Galaxy, how many high-end Arcanist are willing to go bankrupt or even sell their own Mage Tower, just in exchange for your comment on their research?? I'm not stupid enough to let go of such a good opportunity to plunder money just for that old debt," Susan turned over Byakugan, with a hint of pragmatism unique to the Empire citizens in his tone..
"I'm glad you finally realized how great I am," Ian put on a self-satisfied stinky expression.
"Okay, don't be so narcissistic, hand over your things quickly," Susan pushed him, and the barrier between the two completely disappeared at this moment.
"Okay. I brought back some interesting information about 'Soul Coding' and 'Authority Fragments' during the last expedition of Naruto World and Abyss, which may be useful for your card spirit experiments. A cross-dimensional acceleration plan," Ian waved his hand and drew a blue holographic screen in the air, and began to show Susan the underlying logical data that was listed as top secret even in the Empire core database..