Savien’s face lit up with delight at Jie Ming’s words.
But to Jie Ming, that expression looked strange—not the joy of someone being admired, but more like... someone spotting a useful pair of strong hands?
Sure enough, Savien cut straight to business. “You’re familiar with my research? Wonderful! I’ve run into a problem recently. That technology of yours can stabilize the spatial environment of an area to near-absolute stillness, but some experiments don’t need absolute stability—they need a dynamic balance between stability and change.”
He raised his hand, and his fingertips lightly traced through the air. There was no spiritual power or elemental fluctuation, yet faint ripples of space spread outward.
“A lot of experiments need space not to be chaotic, but just as many need space not to be dead. The current Self-Stabilizing Field Regulation Protocol has plenty of stability, but it lacks room for adjustment. In plain terms, it’s so stable that high-precision fine-tuning becomes impossible...”
Savien frowned as he spoke. “I’ve tried a few modification schemes before, but none of them satisfied me. Since you’re the founder of the Self-Stabilizing Field Regulation Protocol, I’d like to hear your thoughts.”
Jie Ming felt a little helpless. So his earlier perception had been right—Savien really was treating him as free labor.
Still, judging from Savien’s emotional state, he wasn’t trying to mooch off the technology or anything like that. He was simply a research maniac completely absorbed in his work. Jie Ming couldn’t really bring himself to dislike someone like that.
But...
“This problem... I really didn’t consider it back then,” Jie Ming said thoughtfully.
After all, the Self-Stabilizing Field Regulation Protocol had originally been designed to pursue extreme stability within a sealed area and assist lower-rank wizards as much as possible. It truly had never taken the needs of high-rank wizards into account.
Yet even though he hadn’t considered it, given his current understanding of the Internal Circulation system, fulfilling Savien’s request was actually quite simple.
His technical level now far surpassed the person he’d been when he created the protocol.
After a few seconds of thought, Jie Ming slowly spoke. “Actually, this isn’t hard to solve. You can add a Dynamic Frequency Coordination Layer on top of the stabilization layer.”
Savien shook his head helplessly. “I’ve tried that approach too, but it wasn’t very effective. The stabilization layer is responsible for maintaining the spatial framework, and the adjustment layer is supposed to create controlled fluctuations—but in actual use, the two are required not to interfere with each other... That’s very difficult to achieve with technical runes.”
Jie Ming smiled and traced a series of rune formulas in the air.
“This part is actually simple. If you modify it using this rune formula, it can satisfy all the requirements. When an experiment needs adjustment, only the adjustment layer’s frequency, amplitude, and duration change—the underlying stable structure is never touched. This way, you don’t destroy overall stability, and you retain enough tunable space...”
As he spoke, he tapped lightly on the table, and the basic formation structure of the Self-Stabilizing Field Regulation Protocol automatically unfolded before them. The rune formulas he had traced flew into the formation like living things, filling its interior until they perfectly interlocked into a brand-new formation.
“Furthermore, you can even modularize the window parameters. You can swap in different adjustment templates according to experimental needs. Later, whenever you need something different, you just replace the template—no need to rebuild the entire stability framework.”
Savien stared at the transformation unfolding before him, and his gray-blue eyes suddenly blazed!
That wasn’t just a figure of speech. There genuinely seemed to be a scorching light shining from them.
"Excellent!" He slammed the table. “I knew coming to you was the right call!”
“This rune structure is brilliant. It makes the smallest possible changes while preserving all the original advantages of the Self-Stabilizing Field Regulation Protocol. Hahahaha! As expected of its creator—your understanding of this technology is incredible!”
Savien grew more and more excited. Finally, he yanked his chair to the side, pulled a Magic Net terminal out of his space ring, and slapped it onto the table.
With his manipulation, a huge light screen unfolded, and countless spatial runes arranged themselves automatically. Savien was already eagerly starting to modify the architecture.
“Do you think this formula needs another feedback node? What if we adjust it so the frequency can drift?”
“I think that works,” Jie Ming nodded. “But I’d put the feedback node in the second loop rather than the first. Otherwise, the rune formulas are prone to resonance.”
“Makes sense!”
“What about here...”
The two quickly became immersed in their technical discussion, losing all track of time.
When they finally came back to their senses, they realized the attendant puppet had already brought the dishes at some point—except the food had gone cold.
Even the tea had been replaced with fresh, steaming hot tea. It seemed the attendant puppet had come by and swapped it out.
Seeing that they had snapped out of it, the attendant puppet quietly came over and took the cold dishes away. Before long, it returned with a new set of steaming hot dishes.
After discussing with Savien for a while, Jie Ming gradually relaxed.
He realized that Savien and Instructor Clark were actually the same kind of person.
Ordinarily, they seemed cold and aloof to the point of being inhuman—but that was only because most of their attention was focused on their research. The moment they started discussing their work, it was as if they became completely different people.
They didn’t care about identity or background when dealing with others, nor did they look down on anyone based on military merit or status. The only things that mattered were research ability and the problem itself.
If you could offer them a new idea or solve a problem for them, then you were a peer.
If not, they couldn’t be bothered to say an extra word to you.
The trouble was that, for people like these two, there were far too few people who could actually help them research and solve problems. So to everyone around them, they seemed cold and unapproachable.
Jie Ming smiled wryly at the thought.
To be honest, he had only managed to hold his own thanks to the fact that the Self-Stabilizing Field Regulation Protocol came from his Internal Circulation system, combined with knowledge from another world’s system.
As long as one’s knowledge and technical skill were solid, talking with such people was actually quite easy.
There was no need to guess intentions or beat around the bush—the conversations were always about the purest academic topics.
During a lull in Savien’s thinking, Jie Ming took another sip of tea and glanced around.
Ever since the two had started discussing, no one dared come over to disturb them.
Jie Ming even noticed several seventh-rank wizards of clearly high status standing at the far end of the corridor with wine glasses in hand. They looked like they were about to approach, but the moment their gazes landed on Savien, they casually turned aside, pretending they were just passing by.
It seemed Savien’s deterrent power was even more exaggerated than Jie Ming had imagined.
Jie Ming was lost in thought.
On the other side, Savien grew more and more absorbed in the discussion. The table’s light screen had already expanded from one to six. Layers of spatial models slowly rotated in midair, and countless rune parameters were constantly revised and reorganized as the two talked.
There had been quite a bit of low conversation in the dining hall, but now it gradually quieted down. Out of politeness, no one directly peeked, but people’s attention kept unconsciously drifting toward the originally unremarkable table in the corner.
A sixth-rank wizard who had just arrived in the dining hall saw the scene and couldn’t believe his eyes. He quietly sidled up to an acquaintance and asked in a deliberately suppressed spiritual fluctuation: “Is that really... His Excellency Savien?”
The man beside him couldn’t help wiping the cold sweat from his forehead. “Who else but that big shot would dare talk so freely here?”
Another person at the same table cautiously looked at the constantly shifting spatial models and said with a complicated expression: “I can’t keep up with their discussion anymore either... How about you guys?”
“If I could keep up with their discussion, do you think I’d be sitting here with you as background scenery?” His friend rolled his eyes. “If I could chime in even once, my research funding for the next few hundred years would probably double!”
The others at the table couldn’t help bitter smiles. The words were crude, but true.
If they really had the ability to follow the discussion between those two, they would absolutely have the confidence to demand more research funding from whatever organization backed them.
A sixth-rank wizard who had witnessed the whole process sighed. “This is the first time I’ve seen His Excellency Savien take the initiative to discuss a topic with someone else.”
“His Excellency Savien is famous for being easy to talk to. If you haven’t seen him initiating discussions with people, it’s only because you’re too weak!” another wizard sneered.
But halfway through his mockery, he himself felt a bit shattered.
The mocked wizard wasn’t particularly bothered. “Do you think that’s my point? My point is that those two are discussing. Discussion means both sides are exchanging ideas on equal footing. Every wizard should understand the significance of that better than anyone."
A young wizard from the Void Architecture Academy couldn’t help swallowing hard.
“I remember my mentor telling me that back then, he wanted to ask Wizard Savien about a spatial node model and waited years for the chance. When he finally met him, Savien took one look, told him which part of the formula was wrong, and then left. It took less than a second in total.”
He looked at Jie Ming, who was chatting animatedly in the corner, and envy nearly overflowed from his eyes. “To be able to discuss with Wizard Savien for so long... the gap between people really is...”
At that, everyone’s expressions became even more colorful.
The scene before them was absolutely not a teacher instructing a student. It was more like two researchers standing on the same height tackling a tough problem together.
Someone muttered quietly, “No wonder the Self-Stabilizing Field Regulation Protocol caused such a stir. Before, quite a few people thought it was just a flash of inspiration. Now it seems... we were the narrow-minded ones.”