Arcane Linguist

Chapter 125: From Movable Type to the Cyris Character Set

The next day, Leitlin and the others started working non-stop.

Applying for a laboratory, debugging instruments, and installing an alchemy table...

Roland looked tired for them.

Although the transmission of the magic circle is convenient and fast, some people are not used to it, and may experience dizziness, vomiting and other adverse reactions.

Last night, he was dragged to drink a lot of wine, and a large group of seniors and sisters who were interested in alchemy surrounded him asking questions, turning the welcome party into an arcane lecture.

Is this really no problem?

Leitlin smiled and said: "It's okay, we alchemists are used to staying up all day and night."

"Mr. Roland, don't believe what he said, only Leitlin himself is like this."

The two companions, Tebow and Sitaya, couldn't help breaking the stage, both of them were yawning with panda eyes on their faces.

Leitlin said solemnly: "There is no way, if we want to carry out research in the field of bronze inscriptions, we have to be one step ahead of others.

It's rare to make an appointment with Roland on their respective areas of emphasis, but you can't let outsiders take the lead. "

The two couldn't help complaining: "The "Jinwenbian" has not been published until now, and there are no potential competitors!"

Regardless of whether the other party is afraid of his repentance and avoiding long nights and dreams, Roland can only show his admiration for such a highly motivated person.

According to the old wisdom of Han Gaozu Liu Bang, Roland named him "Seres Alchemy King" last night.

As a result, they started fighting as soon as they came up, and it seemed that there was no problem at all in making a big fortune.

……

Not long after, Froya, Skold, Yiwen and others rushed over after hearing the news.

Followed by a group of juniors who took advantage of the opportunity to visit.

Those were the five freshmen led by senior sister Froya.

"Are these the tools needed for alchemy? I have read some introductions in the book before, but many of them have not been specified."

After they greeted Roland and the others, they looked at the belongings of Lester and the others like a curious baby, asking questions from time to time.

"Yes, alchemy is based on the various skills of item manufacturing expertise during the period of the Magic Empire. You must have heard that the original purpose of this discipline was to transform base metals into precious metals."

When everyone heard this, they nodded.

"Up to now, alchemy is mainly divided into four branches, namely Potion Science, Magic Crystal Science, Alchemy Creation Science, and Alchemy Life Science.

There may also be cross-fields, but what I am good at is creation, especially some new strange things combined with magic tools. "

Leitlin introduced to everyone.

"Tebaut is good at something similar to me, and sometimes he also acts as my experimental assistant. Some of his efforts were part of my previous achievements, and we share the relevant royalties according to the agreement.

As for Xita Ya, she is good at potion science. If you have any alchemy potions you want in the future, you can ask her to help you refine them. "

Hearing this, Xitaya smiled and said, "Xitaya's potion hut is opened here. If you have any needs in the future, you can directly contact me. I guarantee that it will be much cheaper than the market."

When everyone heard the news, they were very interested, and hurriedly asked what kind of medicine she provided here.

Roland's attention was not here, and he was quickly attracted by a strange object placed on the table in the corner of the room.

He observed carefully for a while, and gradually a strange look appeared on his face.

"What is this?"

He was asking this knowingly, because as far as he saw, it turned out to be a type plate similar to that used in movable type printing.

Movable type that resembled seals were arranged neatly, forming the format of a small spell scroll.

Different from the clay type, tin type, wood type, copper type, lead type and other materials he knew, this alchemy artifact is made of a special alloy mixed with mithril, which is obviously magical. Made, more precise and detailed.

They also do not need to be glued to each other, but adopt a locking device similar to magnetic force, which is more modern and more stable and reliable.

Leitlin said: "This is Tebow's new invention, and I don't know much about it, Tebow, come and introduce it to Roland."

Tebow smiled shyly, scratched his head and said, "Actually, I just came across an inspiration, and I readjusted the engraving printing device that has been tried before..."

"Wait, printing device, what printing device?"

Skold next to him couldn't help but interjected.

"To put it simply, it is a device that can replace manual printing of inscriptions and runes. It is mainly used for printing spell scrolls."

Tebow replied in a very good temper.

Skold said: "Didn't it mean that casting magic or copying scrolls requires meaningful participation? If there is no participation of the caster, the manufactured items will be meaningless...

Only hand-copied things have souls, printed matter has no souls! "

"Ah, how to say this, it is correct to a certain extent, but it is not without exception.

For example, alchemy wonders and magic tools centered on rune arrays and magic circles.

In essence, this is not a meaningless participation, but the meaning given by the previous caster is preserved in a special way and continues to work.

In the final analysis, this is also the foundation of artificial intelligence and artificial life. "

"So that's it. To put it simply, it is to solidify the power of the spirit and operate like a magical construct." Scudder understood quickly.

"Almost, in fact, the idea of ​​spell scroll printing has been around thousands of years ago in the magic age, but the engraving has always been expensive, time-consuming and labor-intensive to make. Damaged by mana load.

However, due to the particularity of the spell scroll, one or two missing runes during the production process may cause failure, so until this problem cannot be solved, this invention is almost useless. "

Isn't this man-made gold?

It's theoretically possible, but practically useless.

Roland thought to himself.

When Tebow said this, he suddenly became excited.

"However, I seem to have found a solution recently, and that is this new type of printing technology. You see, I decompose various runes and make a single-character Yangwen inverse pattern, and then typesetting!

You should know better than me that the morpheme granularity and alphabetic writing of oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions are completely different!
If you want to make the Alterian script into this pattern, you must engrave each letter separately.

Not to mention that the amount of each letter is different, and it is difficult to make full use of movable type. It is only said that the meaning unit it can carry is also easily divided and destroyed, and cannot carry the power of spirit.

And if the word is used as the unit, the cost of typesetting separately is also far greater than the benefit.

But Siris' text is different!

It is almost as if it was born for this kind of technology. Not only can it be arranged and combined at will, but it can also carry enough meaning!
The final finished product can reach the level of novice copying, and the cost is completely controllable!
If some of the problems can be solved by combining the methods of the School of Magic, it will definitely be a new invention that subverts the field of spell scrolls! "

"Isn't this just movable type printing?"

Roland couldn't help but said.

carrying meaning.

I'm afraid it's not just the rich meaning of a single character, but also the natural disposition of the character itself!

"Movable type printing?" Tebow's eyes lit up, and he clapped his hands in praise, "Movable type, movable type...it's just right!
I was still having a headache because I didn’t know how to name it, so I might as well call it Movable Type Printing to borrow your words! "

Roland: "..."

Alright, Bi Sheng from another world, you win.

Roland has a feeling of traveling through time and space. Printing is one of the four famous inventions of Chinese civilization. Among them, woodblock printing was invented in the Tang Dynasty, and movable type printing was not invented by Bi Sheng until the Northern Song Dynasty, more than 900 AD. , but did not expect that it would be applied to bronze inscriptions.

Roland and Tebow talked about the wear and tear of movable type, meaning encapsulation, information residue and other issues, and they became more and more convinced that there is really a lot to do in this area.

High-level spell scrolls are difficult to produce in this way, but low-level spell scrolls, especially scrolls of 0-1 level spells, are simply perfect.

Among spell scrolls, most of the cost is at the level of mage casting spells. It just so happens that magic devices from the magic school also solve part of this problem. If machines can be used to replace labor, printing spell scrolls is like printing money. The economic benefits brought about are simply unimaginable!
Seeing that Roland was really interested in this thing, Thibault simply activated the magic circle, consumed some consumables, and started a practical demonstration.

In the laboratory environment, regardless of consumption, a scroll of the 0-level spell "magic trick" was successfully printed in no time.

Try it on the spot, and the effect is similar to that of magic net casting.

Sure enough, it has matured to a certain stage. If the remaining problems can be solved, it can be put into actual production.

"It's a pity that those problems that have not been solved are the most difficult, the endowment of meaning, the injection of magic power, the income from input and output...

For the time being, there is no hope of a solution at all! "

Talking about his own imperfect technology, Tebow is quite regretful.

After hearing this, Roland pondered for a long time, and asked, "Is there a possibility that the bronze script and writing fonts are not suitable for this?"

Thibault said: "But I have searched all kinds of characters and book styles, and this is already the closest to the existence of ideal data."

Roland said: "The font of the bronze script is neat and elegant, simple and thick, with fat and thick strokes, and there are many curved strokes and lumps.

But to be honest, this kind of writing has always been given more meaning to metal inscriptions. In my conception (transportation), it is also specially designed for this kind of use. I never thought that it could be used on spell scrolls.

If you want to study further in this field, why not try seal script? "

As far as he knows, Chinese movable type fonts mainly include Song style, block script, imitation Song, black body, and long and flat variants.

If it is magicalized and transformed into a rune, it is an image similar to the hollow artistic font in the electronic computer system.

Calligraphy has thin horizontal strokes, straight and thick strokes, neat and clear, and its recognition and reading effects are far better than other calligraphy styles, so it is often used as a printed font.

The magicized runes are attached with some hollow lines and borders, which are called inner lining and exterior decoration.

That's not actually a decoration, but a magic pathway.

In the magic path between the rune and the corresponding rune array, the strokes of this rune are somewhat similar to the wiring design of an electronic circuit board. Even the naked eye can see that it is glued together. It must be that the magic power is disordered and difficult to use.

However, it is not easy to design based on the thick and simple bronze inscriptions.

Theoretically speaking, it is still the clearest and most suitable for printing fonts, which can be used in this field.

As for whether the inference is true, it can only be answered through experiments.

This is not only to try various fonts, but also to try various rune graphics (magic rune arrays) after magical transformation.

The reason why Roland didn't come up with the Song style in his mind, but replaced it with seal script, was naturally mixed with some private goods, paving the way for the emergence of seal script.

Sure enough, Tebow became a little interested: "Seal script? What is that?"

"Ah, an evolved font with rounded strokes, slender characters, and a structure based on the meaning of the Six Books. Compared with bronze inscriptions, it should be more suitable..."

Dazhuan refers to Jinwen, Zhouwen, and Liuguo characters, which retain the obvious characteristics of ancient pictographs.Xiaozhuan, also known as "Qin Zhuan", is the general script of Qin State and a simplified font of Dazhuan. In the history of the development of Chinese characters, it is the transition between Dazhuan from Li and Kai.

In general, it is linearized and standardized, and the glyph structure is becoming more neat and square.

At this point, it can really be called square characters!

Roland showed Tebow a brief gesture, and then said: "I can't say enough now, I'll send you the seal script characters needed for the "Light Art" later. "

With his current status and the lineage of Siris language inheritance, it is completely enough to prove his achievements.

These exchanges and discussions are not afraid to share.

"That would be great, because if it's really a font problem, a lot of the problems that were hard to solve before won't exist."

Tebow readily agreed, his attention has been completely attracted by the new font Roland showed.

That night, according to his words, Roland sent some of the seal scripts he had sorted out to Thibault's mailbox for his reference and use.

This contains all the words and a small number of magical structure prototypes needed to transform the "Light Art".

These are all results from the magicalization of oracle bone inscriptions, continuing the development of oracle bone inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, big seal script, and small seal script. The previous magical results can be reused, because their essence is the reflection of meaning.

As long as we grasp the source of meaning, many of the subsequent work can be done in a natural way.

At this moment, the advantages of the orderly inheritance of the Siris language are fully revealed.

Tebault is still unable to experience many of the wonderful benefits, but he can't help being stunned when he only confines his eyes to the scope of printing.

"It's so subtle, it's incredible...it's incredible!"

A few more days passed, and it was December 12th.

"Jin Wen Bian" was finally officially published.

In Roland's residence, in the lobby on the first floor, Leitlin, Tibow and Hitaya who came to visit congratulated him.

Roland said with a smile: "The things that have been scheduled a long time ago will come to fruition."

The three of Leitlin couldn't help sighing.

As expected, he deserves to be the winner of the Morning Star Award, and he published "Arcane" so calmly and naturally.

This realm is indeed worthy of having achieved success and fame.

Soon after, Froya, Skold, Yiwen, the seniors from the 8003 laboratory, and some other members of the co-research group arrived one after another.

They took advantage of the opportunity of the official publication of the thesis to gather here, which can be regarded as an organizational life.

Taking the opportunity of celebration, Roland formally extended an invitation to the three of Leitlin: "Three, join our joint research meeting? The organization needs talents like you."

All three of Leitlin laughed: "This is our honor."

Everyone laughed and applauded.

"Roland, now that the "Golden Inscriptions" has been officially published, what are your next plans?"

Everyone chatted about other things for a while, and suddenly a senior who was a member of the joint research association asked him.

Roland pondered for a while, and said: "First of all, of course it is the magicalization of the Jin Wenbian, but I am only an outline of this matter, and I don't plan to go deep into the specific work.

In contrast, I am now more interested in Tebow's invention, and I have thought of many problems derived from it. "

Tebow's invention?
Not all the people present understood, but Tebow stood up and explained himself, and then he understood.

Seeing that everyone understood, Tebow couldn't help asking Roland, "What question did you think of?"

Roland said: "Think about it, everyone, whether it's text or graphics, in essence, ink is falling on the paper, why not use dot matrix to form characters, and use the principle of pixel structure to combine flexibly?
It is still too troublesome to make and typeface the single-character Yangwen reverse font model. If we can use the magic array and magic technology to combine into a machine that can be controlled by programs, then the efficiency will be greatly improved..."

"Roland, you are such a genius, what a great idea!"

Tebow lowered his head and thought for a moment, and couldn't help applauding.

"However, what should this kind of thing be called?"

Roland said: "The 'type' is replaced by 'pixels', and the pixels look like a thin needle on the dial, which is called dot printing.

In addition, a similar structure can also be considered, but instead of using the firing pin movement of the printing needle to complete the printing, it falls on the paper through precise inkjet. "

Thibault thought for a while, and said: "The school of magic has been very developed so far. It is possible to apply magic power through the control of rune arrays, precisely control the size of the ejection area, and the directionality and volume of ink particles. "

The others couldn't help nodding.

It can indeed be achieved.

Leitlin was a little puzzled: "These are the contents of the combination of Alchemy and Magic School. Are you planning to study these aspects as well?"

Roland smiled and said: "No, you misunderstood, our rune school arcanists focus more on the production of character sets and dot matrix fonts. Digitization and informatization of all kinds of scripts..."

In the eyes of everyone full of surprise and admiration, Roland slowly revealed something that he had conceived for a long time, but he had never been able to carry it.

On the table in the corner of the hall, many quill pens floated on the paper, rustling and recording the conversations of everyone.

This is equipment purchased at public expense, and they are going to record the information in these arcane salons as a reminder.

"As Leitlin said just now, whether it is movable type printing or dot needle printing, inkjet printing (laser printing is not suitable for spell scrolls), they are all things of other disciplines, but the only thing is that they all need the Rune School underlying support.

What I intend to do is to support the use of those utensils and printing scrolls and the production of Cyris script and dot matrix fonts.

Characters are the general term for various characters and symbols, including various characters, punctuation marks, graphic symbols, numbers, etc.A character set is a collection of characters.

Dot-matrix font is a concept opposite to vector font. Each character is divided into different levels of dot matrix, and then the outline of the character is represented by the virtual and real points of each point. (A bitmap font is also called a bitmap font, where each glyph is represented by a set of two-dimensional pixel information)
A character set is a mapping table, which can be understood as an informational encoding of text, and a font is the appearance of a character, containing specific geometric shape information. "

During Roland's eloquence, everyone gradually understood his plan.

What he wants to do is still the underlying support of the Rune School.

As the saying goes, if you really want to develop scroll printing or other information equipment, you really can't do without the efforts in this area.

In the previous life of Blue Star, from ASCII to Unicode, from GB2312 to BIG5... There are also various character set schemes in the computer system, so I won't go into details, and Roland has no conditions to copy them all for the time being.

But the corresponding thought, the encoding of characters such as oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions, can be tried.

It is worth mentioning that this kind of large-scale systematic project, including standardization and digitalization, is extremely complicated and cannot be accomplished by one or two people in a short period of time.

Until Roland came to Art Rhine, Blue Star in his previous life hadn't been able to enter oracle bone script on the Unicode character set. (Note: But someone is already doing it, interested friends can follow, understand, and even participate in this work...)
That is to say, it cannot be easily input and displayed.

One thing that Roland deeply regrets is that in the history of the development of Chinese civilization, among the vast amount of ancient books and materials, there are many ancient characters or variant characters that cannot be directly displayed in the computer system.

The number of Chinese characters included in different dictionary tools varies, but according to statistics, there are more than 10 Chinese characters, 10 minority languages, and more than 10 rare ancient characters such as oracle bone inscriptions.

Even for important departments related to people's livelihood such as the household registration system, the font library cannot find some characters that are not commonly used, resulting in some people's names being forced to be changed, causing various inconveniences.

While thinking about this, Roland continued: "It is very convenient to communicate and discuss on the magic net. Here is a mapping of a mental power model, which is presented in an image-like way.

On paper, there is also such a convenient magic method as "scribing" - when we were magicizing the oracle bone inscriptions, we carried out related structures, and improved "scribing" for this..."

Hearing this, Scudder and Yiwen nodded again and again.

They also participated in this work.

"But if you want to go further and further develop, and even combine things like printing spell scrolls, and catch the express train of the magic school, digitization and informatization are still unavoidable..."

As a linguist and an arcanist, Roland also really felt that he had to do something for this world.

In the previous life of Blue Star, he was just a small doctoral student, but here, he is the winner of the Morning Star Award and a genius of the Rune School.

The resources that can be mobilized and the confidence they have are completely different.

This can also be regarded as a kind of practice of "if you are poor, you will be good for yourself, and if you are rich, you will benefit the world".

"Then, how to achieve it?"

Froya asked, she was more concerned about the specific implementation.

"Set up a project team, recruit people, and mobilize funds to do it?"

Roland said: "No, although this project is important, it is not urgent. I plan to use an open source method to break down and release related tasks, and realize them one by one!

The whole process includes single-character encoding, single-character dot matrix production, magical structure collection, etc...

A complete set can be copied.

This can not only mobilize the power of the internal members of the school, but also spread to the outside world and recruit the power of the outside world! "

"Standardized, streamlined model?"

"The open source model..."

Everyone couldn't help being slightly surprised.

This kind of engineering method is not difficult for them to understand, but few people do it.

The fundamental reason is that many achievements in the arcane world involve the interests of royalties.

How should this be distributed?
Roland obviously also considered this issue.

"This kind of thing, I plan to open source and share it completely, anyone can participate voluntarily, and enjoy the relevant results without any restrictions!

If there is a chance in the future, various languages ​​such as Elven language, Dragon language, Atlas language, Celestial language, Abyss language, Purgatory language, etc. will be included, and corresponding fonts and fonts will be designed for them..."

Everyone was surprised at first, and then shocked.

Such a huge project, such a grand plan...

You know, even Roland's teacher, the master of the mage tower where everyone is, Archmage Orvisto, became famous by presiding over such a big project as the compilation and innovation of ancient magic runes, and finally laid the foundation for obtaining The basis of the title of Archmage.

If Roland leads this project as the leader, he has every chance to apply to the Arcane Committee for funding of tens of millions of gold coins, and then get great blessings.

It can be said that Roland's "information coding" is not inferior to a huge project of rune compilation.

But to be honest, it is still unknown how much benefit it will have in this magical world and how much influence it will have.

Instead of organizing a team and mastering rights and interests, but making it a public welfare undertaking, it is even more unknown whether it will end up being overwhelmed or not.

"Can this really work?"

"With everyone's enthusiasm and interest, can this kind of thing be done?"

"Why don't you pay 100 gold coins for each word? Calculated in this way, it will be 10000 words, which is 100 million gold coins..."

"If it involves other kinds of languages, there may be too many letters and words involved, then 10 gold coins will do, and more or less rewards will be given to those who are willing to participate."

"Free and open source is feasible!"

Roland expressed his conclusion confidently.

This of course comes from the experience of Blue Star in his previous life.

Of course, even if the climate is not acclimatized, even if he can't get here, he has to say yes.

Because he gradually realized that he was slowly being promoted from an ordinary arcanist to the leader of the school. The leader can doubt himself, but he cannot show infirmity in front of others.

"I said yes, it will work!
There are many reasons for not planning to set up monetary rewards, but more importantly, I hope that those who participate in this matter will participate in this cause out of their own enthusiasm and public welfare, not for dozens or hundreds of gold coins , reduced to a labor of characters.

Besides, the entire project consumes 100 million gold coins, or even more, which is an expense of more than 10 billion copper dollars. Although the cost can be diluted and paid for in the long run, it will also put great pressure on the operating funds of the joint research conference.

And if I really want to be paid, I have a lot of achievements in my field, and I have the rights to get it myself. How can these be compared with dozens or hundreds of gold coins? "

When everyone heard the words, they were thoughtful.

……

Soon, Roland's remarks were published on the homepage of the Joint Research Institute along with the announcement of the "Seres Character Set and Font Library Project".

When the members of the school learned about it, they were all applauded.

Someone spread the general content of it to the outside world, and many people who are concerned about the Rune School and the development of the Seris language flocked to check the details, which is also quite appreciated.

Unsurprisingly, there are also some people talking about the rules of free and open source.

"It's too stingy to think that it can be solved without spending a single gold coin on a matter that can't be solved by spending millions or tens of millions of gold coins."

"That's not necessarily the case. It's hard to say about other schools, but Siris can really share the benefits and enjoy the benefits. Isn't this more meaningful than just taking a few gold coins?"

"We arcanists have really made achievements, and we can really use the royalties for life. What's missing is the thousand and eight hundred gold coins?"

"It's okay to give back to the society."

"What do you know? This is purifying the organization and selecting participants. Moreover, this is a large project with an extremely long time span. With a few extremely fanatical people actively participating, the effect is better than spending money to hire people too much."

……

Autodox Guild Hall, Gallo and Oxea also soon learned about this matter.

"Such a stingy thing can be said in a high-sounding way!"

Oxea dismissed it.

Gallo's expression looked a little dignified.

"Important but not urgent matters can indeed be delayed. I am afraid that Roland hopes that the people around him will have more topics to discuss and work together...

This will make the joint research meeting more cohesive! "

Because the joint research meeting is still in the preparation period and has not been officially announced to the public, many people do not know the news about it.

But how could Gallo and Oxea not know?
Even Green Dragon Trina knew that this organization had raised more than 60 gold coins in donations!
With money and faith, this organization...

Gallo's eyes were fixed, and he felt very bad.

(End of this chapter)