Laelia Sevso sat inside her study, carefully examining the new stamp that had been placed on the desk in front of her. The scientist who worked for her had designed and handled much of the physical side of the project, which was a responsibility Laelia no longer considered particularly important for herself. She had far more valuable things to spend her time on, especially now that the theoretical side of the project was becoming increasingly complicated. Her main concern was finding the correct runic sentence that would allow the new phones to function properly.
That problem alone was still proving to be a significant challenge. They had already solved many of the other problems surrounding the phones, but the runic sentence itself needed to be precise enough to perform the intended function without causing unnecessary complications. Fortunately, one of the biggest obstacles preventing them from producing the new phones across the continent appeared to have finally been solved. Laelia could hardly believe how simple the answer had turned out to be after all the time they had spent struggling with the problem. Of course, the solution had only been simple once they had actually discovered it.
The reason was that carving and creating runes was incredibly difficult. In fact, Laelia considered the process almost absurdly difficult for something that could appear as nothing more than a simple line carved into an object. So far, only Laelia and four other scientists had managed to make runes work consistently. The amount of concentration required was enormous, and the process was surprisingly draining even when they were only creating a relatively simple rune line.
That had created a serious problem for the project. Even if they managed to solve every other issue surrounding the new phones, the entire project could still fail if there were not enough people capable of producing the runes. A system that required highly specialized scientists to individually carve every single runic line would never be able to produce enough phones for an entire continent. The cost would simply become too high, and they would eventually have to accept that the System's own limitations were something they could not overcome.
For that reason, the researchers had spent sleepless nights trying to figure out how they could mass-produce the runic lines. They had already considered numerous possibilities, but none of them had provided a practical solution. The problem seemed almost impossible because the difficulty was not merely understanding what the rune did. They needed a method that allowed ordinary production to reproduce the rune itself without requiring every single object to be individually carved by one of the few people capable of doing it.
Then, just yesterday, one of the researchers had returned with a bow.
Technically, he claimed that he had ordered the bow from one of the best bowmakers on the continent because he wanted to study the differences between weapons produced by different craftsmen. That was his excuse, at least. Laelia had not been particularly interested in the explanation because the bow itself was what had caught her attention. It was an extremely expensive weapon, and there was a strange marking on it that she initially assumed was simply the trademark of the guild that had produced it.
That marking immediately made her curious.
Laelia had asked how anyone could prevent other craftsmen from copying the trademark when the guild's bows were so expensive. If the marking could simply be reproduced, then it would not be particularly useful as proof of authenticity. The answer she received, however, had been far more interesting than she expected. The marking appeared whenever the bow was identified, and the result was apparently impossible to fake.
When Laelia asked how they managed to accomplish something like that, the answer she received was a mixture of confusion and a vague explanation involving a stamp.
That was the moment when the idea appeared.
Laelia's mind immediately connected the pieces together. If a stamp could somehow place a marking onto an object in a way that could later be identified, then perhaps the same principle could be used for their own project. Instead of forcing a handful of scientists to carve every runic line individually, they might be able to create a tool that could reproduce the lines for them.
And now that idea sat directly in front of her.
The stamp itself was not particularly complicated in appearance, but Laelia knew that its simplicity hid an enormous amount of work. The only part that had not yet been completed was the side of the stamp that would actually come down against the object. They had not yet decided on the final runic sentence that the stamp would need to reproduce, so for now, a test phrase had been placed there instead. Even so, the test had worked perfectly.
There were certainly several downsides.
Laelia was fully aware of that, but compared to the advantage the stamp provided, those disadvantages were almost insignificant. The basic principle behind the device was surprisingly simple. A singular rune had been placed on the handle of the stamp, and that rune allowed the user to insert mana into the object.
That mana then spread throughout the stamp itself.
Once the stamp had been filled with mana, the user could press it against a surface and imprint the runic sentence onto the object. The resulting runic sentence would then perform its intended function once it was activated. In other words, the stamp did not merely create a visual copy of the rune. It transferred the actual runic structure onto the object.
That was the part that made Laelia so excited.
With this method, a person could continue using the same stamp repeatedly. Instead of requiring a scientist to sit down and carefully carve every single rune by hand, one prepared stamp could potentially be used to stamp thousands of objects in a single day. The possibility of producing enormous numbers of runic components had suddenly become real.
Unfortunately, that was where the first major limitation appeared.
The stamps could only be used by Stage One humans.
The current explanation was that people below that threshold simply did not possess enough mana, or a high enough mana quality, to properly activate the stamp. The stamp itself required a certain amount of mana to function, and weaker users could not provide what it needed. The researchers had already hypothesized that a mana stone might be able to replace the user as the source of mana, but that solution was considered far too expensive to be practical for mass production.
Even if they solved that problem, another limitation remained.
A single Stage One human could only stamp approximately five items per day before becoming completely drained of mana and stamina. After reaching that point, the person would need to sleep for the remainder of the day to recover. That meant that while the stamp technically allowed mass production, the number of people required to operate the system would still be significant.
It was not the perfect solution.
There was also another problem that was perhaps even more concerning for the finished products. The runic lines were literally being stamped into the object rather than carved into it by hand. As a result, the durability of the stamped runes was considerably worse than that of properly carved runes.
The difference could already be seen through Identify.
When the researchers compared the two types of runes, the stamped versions consistently received inferior evaluations. Identify would indicate that the stamped runic lines could not withstand as much stress, while the hand-carved versions were considerably more durable. Laelia did not yet know exactly why this difference existed, and she did not want to simply dismiss it by saying that one was stamped while the other was carved.
There had to be a deeper reason.
After all, creating a rune placed an enormous amount of stress on the material into which it was carved. Objects that did not naturally contain mana could literally crumble apart before the rune could even be used. That alone demonstrated that runes were not simply decorative patterns placed on the surface of an object. They fundamentally affected the material itself.
Because of that, the difference in durability was a troubling discovery.
If runic items were naturally subjected to such enormous stress, then the limitations of stamped runes could potentially have a major effect on the future market for runic equipment. Stamped items would inevitably be more brittle than properly carved ones, and that meant they could not simply replace hand-carved runic equipment in every situation.
The difference in power was also obvious.
A hand-carved rune required considerably more time, concentration, and mana than a stamped rune. It would therefore have been strange if the two methods produced exactly the same result. The amount of effort invested into the creation process naturally affected the quality of the final product.
Even with all those disadvantages, however, Laelia was still extremely happy.
The most important thing was that the idea worked.
They now had a method for mass-producing runic lines, even if the method was not perfect. The greatest difficulty would now be producing the stamps themselves and creating the various relay systems necessary for the new phones. From Laelia's perspective, however, the hardware side of the setup was essentially finished.
That was an enormous relief.
The only remaining issue that particularly bothered her was the size of the runes. They had tried to make the runic lines smaller because smaller runes would allow them to fit more functions onto the phones. More space meant more possibilities, and Laelia naturally wanted to use as much of the limited surface area as possible.
Unfortunately, there was a very simple reason why they could not just keep shrinking the runes.
For every centimeter they reduced the size of a rune, the difficulty of writing it increased exponentially.
Laelia stared at the stamp in her hands, already understanding that this problem would not be solved simply by making the tools smaller. The runes themselves had a physical and magical limit to how small they could become before their creation became far too difficult. For now, however, she was satisfied.
They had finally found a way to reproduce runic sentences without requiring every single one to be painstakingly carved by hand.
For a project that had once seemed almost impossible to mass-produce, that was already a remarkable achievement.