Chapter 598: The Benefits Of Spirit Arrays

While ordinary tools and Grade 0 Spirit Tools probably accounted for more than 99% of all items used across the Blue Sky Continent, it was the true Spirit Tools which Lucas had always been interested in.

Again, what made a Spirit Tool a true Spirit Tool were the Spirit Arrays installed in it.

Engraved, woven, impregnated, etched, there were all kinds of terms used to describe how Spirit Arrays were integrated into Spirit Tools, but they all basically meant the same thing; adding highly Qi conductive veins or patterns to an item to achieve a specific effect.

Certain types of metals, certain types of wood, certain types of fibers, and so on and so forth could be employed for this purpose, depending on what kind of Spirit Tool was being created.

Powders refined from crushed Beast Cores were also a popular choice as when mixed with other materials such powders tended to enhance Qi conductivity quite substantially.

As for how ’highly Qi conductive’ was defined, again there wasn’t a fixed rule for this, but in general, the vein patterns needed to be at least twice as conductive as the base material of an item for it to be considered a legitimate Spirit Array.

Following Lucas’ analogy, there were indeed some Spirit Tools that had Spirit Arrays which functioned like electronic devices, using the flow of Qi through a complete network of veins to components or materials then back to the source again to create some kind of phenomenon like producing a fireball or causing an explosion.

However, most Grade 1 through Grade 3 Spirit Tools functioned much more like Grade 0 Spirit Tools in that Qi was simply channeled into the structure of the item through the conductive veins and absorbed to produce a specific effect.

When Braxton explained all of this to him, the young boy was thoroughly confused.

If you could make a tool or weapon completely out of Qi conductive material to begin with, why use a Spirit Array in the first place?

It was only after the old Spirit Smith brought out a pair of swords made from the same base materials, one of them a Low-Rank Grade 1 Spirit Sword, the other a Peak-Rank Grade 0 Spirit Sword, and demonstrated the difference that Lucas finally understand.

The steel used to forge these two swords had average Qi conductivity and absorption properties and, like with many metals, it became more resilient when saturated with Spirit Qi; however, when Braxton quickly channeled his Spirit Qi into the two swords and then struck their edges together, the Grade 1 Spirit Tool cut heavily into the Grade 0 blade.

Lucas had witnessed the entire process with both his eyes and his Soul Sense, so he immediately understood.

Because of the Spirit Array etched into the Grade 1 Spirit Sword, Braxton’s Spirit Qi was able to permeate it much more rapidly and evenly.

On top of that, it took far less Spirit Qi to strengthen the Grade 1 Spirit Sword than it did the Grade 0 sword.

The advantages of better Qi efficiency under most circumstances were obvious, but it was on the battlefield where they were truly critical.

Unfortunately, complex Spirit Arrays could only be created by Spirit Professional as they had to use their own Internal Qi to ensure that all the pathways were connected, flowed in the correct direction, and produced the desired effect.

The better the production-type Spirit Professional, the more efficient the Spirit Arrays they created were.

The more efficient a Spirit Tool was, the more valuable it was, especially when it came to things like weapons and armour.

A 90% efficient Low-Rank Grade 1 Spirit Sword could be 10 times more expensive than on that was only 70% efficient because on the battlefield, the soldier with the 90% efficient sword was deadlier and could fight for longer.

This was all standard logic to Spirit Professionals, Braxton included, but Lucas, as usual, saw things differently.

In Lucas’ mind, it should be possible for anyone to ’draw’ a functional Spirit Array as long as they could shape the appropriate materials, and had some way to inject Spirit Qi into the array lines to condition them.

That was what today’s argument was about, with Braxton vehemently declaring that only a trained Spirit Smith would be capable of etching functional Spirit Arrays because of all the fine adjustments necessary, while Lucas insisted that if a high enough degree of precision was reached in terms of manufacturing, forget about an apprentice blacksmith, even a machine should be able to etch functional Spirit Arrays.

Braxton was basing his argument on centuries of personal experience, and the collective wisdom of all Spirit Professionals across the Blue Sky Continent.

Lucas was basing his argument on his knowledge from the other universe, where devices which were thousands of times more complicated could be automatically manufactured without any human input.

Who was right?

Both of them.

With the current standards in the Rockwell Kingdom, where the level of standardization in material composition and manufacturing tolerances were quite loose, only trained Spirit Professionals could create functional Spirit Arrays.

An apprentice or novice might inadvertently be able to produce a working Low-Rank Grade 1 Spirit Tool, but that would more-or-less be a matter of luck rather than skill.

That was just reality.

For now, that is.

Even Braxton would admit that, if you could forge 100 swords that were near perfect replicas of one another, then a Spirit Smith like him created a template Spirit Array for one of those swords and trained a set of apprentices how to etch said Spirit Array, it should be possible for those apprentices to consistently create working Spirt Swords.

That level of precision was absolutely impossible at the moment, but through his interactions with Lucas, Braxton was well aware that such standards were actually something his little friend was actively pursuing.

All the standardized units and measurement tools Lucas had produced and not-so-subtly forced all of them to adopt were the best proof of that.

In any case, while today’s argument had ended with Braxton coming out on top, that didn’t discourage Lucas, it only made him more determined to further improve the industrial standards of the Rockwell Kingdom so that one day his plans to mass-produce Spirit Tools could become a reality.

That, however, was a mission for the future.

Right now, all Lucas wanted to do was get back home, take a shower, and get some sleep.