Free Web NovelChapter 218: Chapter 193: What Language to Use for Magic Programming
After a long while, Zog was back to his old trade: writing a proposal.
A proposal on designing a High Level Magic Language.
His vision went a step further than Xiaomo’s. Runes were still too difficult for Ordinary people to understand.
This wasn’t to say there was a major intelligence gap between Ordinary people and Mages, but rather a difficulty stemming from their inability to perceive Magic Power.
Inscriptions, and the basic Runes composed from their sequences, were mostly not like the lighting Rune or Elemental Inscriptions, whose effects were clear and easy to understand.
The most common ones produced extremely abstract effects, like causing a phase shift in the Mars Magic Power oscillation—and Mars was the Mage who discovered this Inscription.
Understanding what this Magic Power oscillation actually was required a significant amount of prerequisite knowledge.
Mages could intuitively observe the oscillation because they could feel Magic Power.
For someone without an aptitude for Magic to try and understand it would be like forcing a colorblind person to paint with colors. It wasn’t that they couldn’t memorize the expressive functions and mixing ratios of different colors by rote, but it would always be lacking.
That’s why it was necessary to go a step further and create a dedicated High Level Magic Language. It would be composed of vocabulary that Ordinary people could also read and understand, without requiring an aptitude for Magic.
Magic written in this language would be processed through a compiler, which would compile it into a runnable Inscription-sequence Magic model.
Its execution efficiency would be lower than Magic constructed directly with Inscriptions, but it could mass-produce Mages who "can write but not use" Magic.
It would put the power to create Magic into the hands of any Ordinary person willing to learn.
However, the beautiful future of everyone Writing Magic was likely still a distant dream. Even if this language was created, it would require a long educational cycle to train Ordinary people to be proficient.
The most immediate benefit was the potential to increase the work efficiency of the Mages at the Zog Group.
Using Inscriptions for game development was just too slow. Currently, a simple 2D beat-’em-up game required at least 20 Mages.
If research on the High Level Magic Language went smoothly, the same job could probably be done by just two Mages.
’Wait, does this mean I’ll be able to fire the other 18 Mages?’
’Cut costs, boost efficiency.’
’A job for twenty, done by two. We’ll release the rest as talent for society to enjoy!’
’No more pretending. I, Zog, am the most evil capitalist of them all!’
’From the moment I arrived in this world, from head to toe, every one of my keratinous scales has dripped with blood and filth!’
But that said, compared to the current feudal system, he was a genuinely progressive Longlong.
Firing people was just talk, a vivid little imitation of a former boss.
He would never actually fire them; they had been too difficult to recruit. When productivity increased, they would naturally move on to making bigger games.
Making MMOs, AAA titles, even VR with motion-sensing interaction.
In a world where Magic existed, games could definitely reach a much higher ceiling.
Creating a virtual world that encompassed hundreds of millions of users.
Greater cultural influence and higher value—that was the true meaning of boosting efficiency.
Of course, the prerequisite was a technological breakthrough.
The proposal he was working on could hardly be considered a standard, detailed plan.
Because Zog didn’t have a particularly clear concept of what the language would look like once it was fully developed.
It wasn’t like his previous games, films, or other projects, which were all just copied from a template with minor adjustments at most.
Zog could only use programming languages as a reference to give a rough description of the desired result.
He also dedicated a large portion of it to explaining the significance of the research, his plans for future promotion and widespread education, and his vision of the wonderful future that would follow its successful development.
So it was less a proposal and more of a pie-in-the-sky promise meant to entice the Mages—albeit a very detailed one.
Right now, the Mages were most interested in the Inscription-predicting function.
The Round Table Elders of the Mage Guild, except for the one practicing seclusion in Loman, had all gathered in Twin Tower City.
They were waiting for the predictions for the Illusion School’s Inscriptions to finish so they could also research the Inscriptions of their own specialized Schools.
In comparison, a function that compiled special characters into Inscriptions held little appeal for them.
After all, using Inscriptions directly wasn’t a problem for these Grand Mages.
’I have to shift their focus to this.’
The Round Table Elders were Zog’s ideal candidates for developing the High Level Magic Language. They were all top-tier Mages, covered every School, and still possessed a fervent curiosity for exploring Magic.
They might even forgo payment if they believed they were participating in a great undertaking.
’Could there be any more suitable developers?’
And the first "Little White Mouse" to experience the power of his grand promise was, naturally, the Zog Group’s chief Illusionist.
"You were looking for me?" Furin said as she arrived at Zog’s office. She hadn’t seen much of him for the past few days.
He had claimed to be planning for a great undertaking and had switched to "do not disturb" mode.
Although she was very unhappy about it, she understood.
She was sometimes the same way, like when she was working on a large-format art piece. During those periods, she would become quite withdrawn and get angry at anything that disturbed her.
"Yes! Come and see my grand plan to completely change the landscape of Magic," Zog said excitedly.
"Haven’t you changed it already? The Zog Group has practically taken over the Caster’s Journal lately. It’s filled with papers on Magic based on the new Inscriptions."
There had never been so many High Level Mages in Twin Tower City. They were all here for this Magic "gold rush."
For a Mage, creating a new kind of Magic wasn’t just a way to make a name for oneself; the Mage Guild also offered a corresponding reward.
And when a new Inscription appeared, deriving simple Magic from it was practically a freebie.
