Reverse Resonance, a Devil in the Smoke!
Professor Bryce stared blankly for two seconds before realizing what Li Mo was about to do. He said:
"Li Mo, the ritual has already been activated. If you study it now, it might just explode!"
Li Mo had already entered a state of research in which he recognized neither friend nor family. "True," he said.
Professor Bryce: "?"
Soon, seeing that the professor hadn't moved, Li Mo came to his senses a little and spoke again:
"Professor, sorry for the trouble, but please hurry. The Star Silver Powder is still burning."
It wasn't Star Silver Powder that was burning, but actual gold pounds... This time, it really burned his heart.
After hesitating for a few seconds, Professor Bryce decided it would be better to go along with Li Mo for now.
The observatory had everything Li Mo wanted.
There was no need to mention the vernier calipers and brass probe.
It also had purified linseed oil, which was used to maintain the telescope tube.
He quickly gathered everything and came over to Li Mo, not forgetting to warn him, "Li Mo, this time calibrator was custom-made by the Moonfall Artifact Workshop in the royal capital. It's very expensive. If anything seems wrong, stop immediately."
"Mm-hmm."
Li Mo gave a perfunctory reply and picked up the vernier calipers.
First, he measured the length of a thread.
Fourteen point two millimeters.
He measured the chord length of the arc between the first and second threads.
Eighty-five point two millimeters.
Exactly six times as long.
According to the Red Moon's harmonic data, the fundamental frequency was twelve point eight vibrations per second.
This artifact was made of copper.
Fourteen point two millimeters was exactly an integer multiple of the half-wavelength calculated from the speed of acoustic transmission through copper...
When he had attended classes in Wellington, a teacher had once said:
All Mystical Artifacts that could be made by human hands held sacred significance and were gifts bestowed by the Goddess of the Moon.
True.
Without the help of science, it was hard to imagine how much trial and error it would take to arrive at a frequency that resonated with the Red Moon.
Li Mo took the glass bottle of linseed oil.
Linseed oil was rich in unsaturated fatty acids and was a strongly reducing oil medium. When applied to the surface of the artifact, it could significantly weaken the silver threads.
He picked up the brass probe and dipped its tip into the bottle of linseed oil.
Then he silently counted the rhythm in his head.
"The node is at the third graduation mark."
"One, two, three..."
Li Mo's gaze sharpened, and he stabbed the probe into a thread!
As far as the professor could see, Li Mo was poking a needle into the air above the artifact. He had no idea what Li Mo was doing.
But in fact, this was like striking a snake at its most vulnerable spot.
The silver thread he had poked trembled pitifully,
Then its amplitude clearly began to diminish.
For the time being, it could be understood this way:
The rate at which the thread drew energy from the Red Moon had decreased.
Professor Bryce didn't know what Li Mo was doing and was still hesitating nearby, wondering whether to step forward and stop him.
Li Mo's gaze, meanwhile, grew increasingly fervent.
This method really works!
My deduction was correct.
A Mystical Ritual is essentially a physical process that draws energy from high above through resonance at the same frequency.
All I have to do is use a reducing medium to increase the damping coefficient at the contact surface, then introduce reverse half-wave interference at a standing-wave node, and I can directly weaken its resonance efficiency.
Following this principle, it's easy to deduce that blocking all the silver threads would greatly slow the Mystical Ritual.
Then... let's keep going!
-Little silver threads, big brother's going to start poking you with his big oily needle!
Li Mo began furiously stabbing at the air,
The old traditional physician unleashed the Torrential Pear Blossom Needles!
Soon,
All the threads became limp.
A quantitative change had brought about a qualitative change.
The threads seemed to have stopped drawing energy from above.
It stopped?
Li Mo held his breath.
He kept watching.
Suddenly,
His expression changed.
Something's wrong-
The silver threads had indeed been cut off.
But the energy already drawn into the time calibrator hadn't naturally vanished when the ritual was interrupted!
It was like the oppressive stillness before a volcanic eruption.
The energy had to find an outlet.
Li Mo had just opened his mouth to tell the professor to get out of the way.
But he hadn't expected that, in an instant,
An explosion would sound.
Boom-!!
Unburned Star Silver Powder sprayed in all directions.
A flying quartz fragment grazed Li Mo's left cheek, slicing a bloody gash into it.
The blast wave sent Li Mo staggering back several steps. He only steadied himself after hitting the desk.
Professor Bryce had it even worse. The old geezer had been standing closer to begin with, and the sudden explosion knocked him straight to the ground...
In this world, a Mystical Artifact exploding was a very inauspicious occurrence.
The old man's face went deathly pale as he scrambled to his feet.
In this moment of crisis, he didn't think of running away on his own. He came forward, grabbed Li Mo, and said:
"Li Mo! Hurry, get out of here!"
He pulled twice, only to find that Li Mo wouldn't budge at all!
Li Mo had no intention of leaving!
Blood flowed from the wound on his face, dripping down with a patter.
But he... wasn't panicking in the slightest.
His expression was excited, his body feverish.
To Li Mo,
-It's already blown up, and nobody's dead. If I don't keep researching, what am I waiting for?
He activated Focus again!
He saw that after the explosion, all those silver threads had actually reconnected.
They seemed to be taunting him: Come on, come on, let's play~
"Stop looking! Hurry up and go!" Professor Bryce was frantic. He reached for Li Mo's shoulder again. "Do you have a death wish?!"
Li Mo murmured to himself:
"The explosive yield was very small. The blast radius was less than half a meter, which works out to the equivalent of ten-odd grams of black powder at most..."
"Why was it so weak? My teacher in Wellington clearly said that destroying an advanced ritual would raze an entire building to the ground..."
"...Time... That's it, it's because of the time!"
Li Mo's eyes lit up. "The force of the explosion is completely manageable right now. I'm guessing it's because this ritual has only just begun! As time goes on, more and more energy will accumulate inside the artifact. Once it explodes later, its power will multiply! So if we want to test it, we have to do it now! Otherwise, we really can only wait for it to burn for the full forty-eight hours!"
Professor Bryce was dumbfounded.
What kind of person is he? A Mystical Artifact just exploded, and he's still fucking thinking about experiments?
The professor had seen all kinds of eccentric scientists at the Royal Academy of Sciences.
But... he had never seen anyone this deranged! He was simply a madman with no regard for his life!
"Li Mo, it's only an ounce of Star Silver Powder. Why don't we just forget it..." the professor urged earnestly.
Li Mo had already entered Focus and replied automatically, "Mm-hmm."
Professor Bryce: "..."
It's over. This little ancestor can't hear a word anyone says again!
Through the smoke and dust from the explosion, Li Mo was already reviewing what had happened. Why had it exploded?
The initial blocking had gone very smoothly.
The problem lay with the artifact itself...
It had absorbed so much energy from the Red Moon with nowhere to release it, so naturally it had exploded.
Thinking of it that way, forcibly blocking it wouldn't work.
As long as energy remained trapped inside the artifact, it would trigger an explosion.
Then how could he release the energy? Where could he send it?
Li Mo carefully studied the silver threads.
Suddenly,
A bold idea occurred to him.
Since the silver threads were connected to the Red Moon,
If energy could flow along the threads from the Red Moon to the artifact, why couldn't it go the other way?
Reverse it!
Li Mo immediately began considering the mathematical and physical conditions needed to reverse it.
In wave mechanics and coupled vibration systems,
The direction of energy transfer between two resonators depended on the phase difference between the transmitting and receiving ends.
When the vibration phase at the receiving end lagged a quarter cycle behind the transmitting end, the receiving end was in a state of maximum absorption.
Conversely, if he could alter the time calibrator's damping coefficient through intervention,
And shift its vibration phase forward by half a wave, making it lead the Red Moon's signal by a quarter cycle,
Once the phase was in the lead, the master-slave relationship would reverse!
The theory works. Time to put it into practice!
Just as Li Mo took out the probe and prepared to act, he realized it wasn't that simple.
Why was it that, over thousands of years, even if an occultist had stumbled upon a damping medium, they could never have reversed the energy flow?
Because the silver threads' resonance frequency was not a fixed constant.
The planet beneath his feet was rotating.
The Red Moon, 1.8 million kilometers away, was orbiting at high speed on a thirty-three-day cycle.
The silver threads contained not only the fundamental frequency of twelve point eight cycles per second,
But also Fourier higher harmonics from the second through the thirty-sixth order.
To achieve reversal, he had to solve this system of thirty-sixth-order time-varying coupled vibration equations in an extremely short time.
He needed to calculate the phase drift rate at the present moment and determine the correct depth and angle at which to insert the probe.
Without an understanding of advanced analysis and matrix eigenvalue decomposition,
Even given a hundred years, you couldn't calculate this set of dynamic parameters!
But Li Mo was different. Li Mo could.
When it came to calculations, Focus was an absolute authority.
Li Mo wanted it, Li Mo got it!
He took a deep breath.
Focus,
Focus.
Mental calculations, begin!
Doppler frequency shift correction due to the radial velocity component: positive zero point zero zero one four.
Phase drift rate due to the change in zenith angle: zero point zero four three radians per second.
Expand the Fourier series.
Separate the thirty-six orders of harmonics into three orthogonal twelve-dimensional harmonic subspaces.
Non-diagonal coupling terms exist between the three subspaces.
The coupling coefficient is determined by the geometric chord length of the brass base, eighty-five point two millimeters, and has a value of negative zero point two five.
Construct a third-order block-coupled system of differential equations.
Apply the short-time frozen-coefficient approximation.
Introduce the Laplace transform.
Convert the differential equations in the time domain into a characteristic matrix in the complex frequency domain.
Calculate the eigenvalues.
Perform orthogonal similarity diagonalization.
Diagonalization complete.
The results were in:
Probe one, northeast thread, azimuth forty-seven degrees and six minutes.
Probe two, southeast thread, azimuth one hundred sixty-three degrees and twelve minutes.
Probe three, due west thread, azimuth exactly two hundred seventy degrees.
Li Mo moved.
One probe in his left hand, one in his right, and one between his teeth: just enough to insert all three at once!
"Calculating the timing..."
"Three, two, one..."
"Now!"
Li Mo plunged all three probes in at once, then held his breath!
Soon,
he saw a sight that could overturn the entire world of mysticism.
The silver threads turned red.
The ripples reversed direction-
The energy flowed from the Mystical Artifact back to the Red Moon in the sky!
It worked!
A surge of wild joy burst through Li Mo!
It had really worked!
Li Mo knew what an insanely powerful skill it was to be able to stop a Mystical Ritual.
More importantly,
his devious mind went straight to something even more outrageous.
Since he could send energy back to the Red Moon,
once the technique matured, could he send an artificially modulated interference wave along the channel into the Red Moon and directly alter its wavelength and commands?!
Even if it fell short of Infinite Tsukuyomi, wouldn't it still invalidate all the mystical knowledge this world had accumulated over thousands of years?
In the future...
Would only the people he chose, the people who knew the correct frequency, be able to use Mystical Rituals?
At the thought, Li Mo's heart pounded.
He knew he was getting a little too excited, so he immediately took a deep breath and calmed himself.
Then he began to consider whether there was anything he had overlooked.
Just then, Professor Bryce stared at the display stand in disbelief. "Li Mo, what happened? Why did the Star Silver Powder stop burning?"
Li Mo froze.
That's right. I can't let anyone else know about this.
The situation on the northern front was complicated, and spies from the Duchy of Magla were everywhere. The various factions within the royal capital were even more deeply entangled.
If people learned that he could shut down any Mystical Artifact in operation,
he would probably become the hottest figure in the world overnight.
He might end up on some enemy spies' wanted list, with a big fat danger sign appearing right over his neck...
The principle that possessing a treasure invited trouble held true in any world.
Li Mo glanced at the red threads.
Only a tiny amount of residual energy remained. In another minute at most, the ritual would safely dissipate.
He made an immediate decision.
He pulled one probe back slightly and closed his eyes!
Sure enough, the red threads instantly turned silver and snapped on the spot.
Boom!
Another explosion rang out!
With less energy remaining, this explosion was considerably weaker than the last.
The small blast caused no injuries, merely kicking up another cloud of dust.
The dust made the old man cough repeatedly.
"Cough, cough! Cough, cough, cough! Li Mo? Li Mo! Are you all right?!"
Professor Bryce swatted at the dust in front of him, deeply worried about Li Mo.
After all, Li Mo had been closest to the Mystical Artifact!
The old man felt a pang of regret.
He silently cursed himself for not rushing over and knocking Li Mo out and carrying him away.
If anything happened to Li Mo here today, even jumping into Mendel Port wouldn't be enough to answer to the Royal Academy of Sciences!
"Li Mo, say something! Are you all right?!"
The professor waved hard at the smoke before him and squinted through it.
Amid the billowing dust, he saw Li Mo crouching on the ground.
Li Mo held the Star Silver Powder he had gathered from the floor in both hands.
Powder covered his black hair, and the bloodstains on his cheeks were dark red. He looked a mess.
But amid that bedraggled sight, his shoulders twitched slightly, and a low chuckle escaped him:
"Heh heh... heh heh heh heh..."
Hearing the professor's voice,
he slowly turned around from where he crouched in the smoke and grinned at Professor Bryce through the swirling haze, baring his eerily white teeth:
"Heh heh heh... Professor, look, the Star Silver Powder. I saved a lot of it..."
Smoke swirled, bloodstains stood out starkly, and his strange laughter echoed.
He looked just like a demon in the smoke that had just crawled out of hell!
Professor Bryce shuddered all over.
He was so frightened that his legs went weak, and he didn't dare take another step forward...