Roland exchanged pleasantries with Skord, then asked him to send over the material for a look.
It was a form of vector graphics that used mathematical curves to describe glyphs, containing important information such as key points, connecting lines, and derivatives.
Its greatest advantage over bitmap graphics was that it could be scaled freely without distortion, making it valuable in the fields of fonts and images.
The rune-encoding techniques Roland had previously studied with Skord and the others for the Phantom Magic Cards were, in essence, applications of those same fields.
Now, however, bitmap font technology was clearly proving somewhat ill-suited to the construction of enormous magic arrays.
That was not to say one was necessarily superior or the other inferior. Each had its strengths.
Roland, too, had been trying to find the optimal solution.
He had never expected Skord to bring him such a wonderful surprise.
"This really could solve the problems with large magic arrays.
It could even greatly reduce the number of base blocks needed.
However, the restriction blocks at key nodes would need to be packed more densely, and their quality would have to be higher."
After reading through the material, Roland quickly reached his own conclusions.
He then issued instructions to research and refine it, bringing the technology into practical construction.
Just like the earlier printing technology, something fresh out of the laboratory could not immediately be adopted on a wide scale.
There were still many practical problems to solve.
But Roland now had ample manpower, abundant resources, and strong demand driving the effort.
It was the perfect time to tackle major undertakings like these.
At his command, another round of intensive technical development began.
Nearly half a year passed. Numerous experimental proposals were scrapped, but a workable approach gradually began to emerge.
Roland