"In the first solution, we have all the building cables connected directly to the main one that goes to the other cities and our Sect, right?"
Droman nodded and waited for Rean to continue.
"In the second and best solution, not a single cable would be directly connected to the main cable anymore."
"What? Then, how are you going to pass the electrical signal?"
Rean smiled as he continued.
"Here's the part that I think it will be complicated for the Formations Hall to work. Instead of connecting all the buildings' cables directly to the main one, you will first bring them inside another formation. This formation will then receive all the signals and send them in order into the main cable. Let's call it... the Router Formation."
Rean couldn't help but think.
'Since I already stole the word 'Network,' I might as well steal all the other names too. Hahaha!'
"This..."
Leaving the name aside, which he had to admit, was quite too perfect. Droman finally became speechless. What Rean suggested seemed simple. However, making such a formation would indeed be several times more complicated than the actual ones. He doesn't even know where to start!
Rean could already tell what Droman was thinking too.
"Indeed, the degree of difficulty will be several times higher. Until now, the formations used for our communication system only had to work with a single electrical signal per time. Obviously, that was simple for Elder to work around. After all, it simply received the signal and displayed what that signal meant to those looking at it. It couldn't be more straight forward. However, this formation I mentioned is completely different."
"First, this new formation will need to be able to handle several electrical signals at once. But that is not all. It has to send the received signals into the main cable in proper order too. That means it will need to literally save the content of the signals it received... all of them! After all, if two signals arrive at the same time, the formation can't send both of them into the main cable at the same time as well. Otherwise, they will once again bump into each other."
"Since it can't send both together, it will need to keep one of them 'saved' in its 'memory' while it works to send the other ahead. Only after it finishes sending the first one will it start to send the 'saved' signal next. The complexity and implications of such formation are far beyond what Elder has worked so far."
"For example. Suppose that this Router Formation received two signals at once. Which one should it prioritize to send ahead first? If you don't specify before-hand, the formation will probably crash straightway since it will be lost at what to do. It won't know whether it should still send the signals ahead or not. Or worse, because it received two signals simultaneously, the formation might think they are the same one. In that case, it will mix both signals as if they are only one and then send ahead. Those who see it at the end will only say that the message doesn't make sense at all!"
"No, it would still be good if the receiver could see anything in the first place. Because both signals got mixed, the 'identification' of the signals will probably not match any of the receivers' formations anymore. That being, those formations will completely ignore that new mixed-signals since they are not supposed to show messages with that weird 'identification' inside them."
"That being that, your formation MUST know that two signals or more can arrive at once. It also needs to know which one it will prioritize. For example, let's say there are 10 buildings connected to the formation. Suddenly, buildings 03 and 07 send a message at the same time. The formation will have to have a priority system. You can simply do something like, the lower the number, the higher the priority."
"Alright, let's continue."
Droman could help but stop Rean.
"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! Give me a second for me to note everything down."
Rean noticed that he got too focused on explaining that he didn't see that Droman was already sweating cold with everything he heard.
"Cough, cough... No problem, take your time."
Of course, Droman said note down, but he instead used a Jade Slip and his Spiritual Sense to save everything inside.
"Phew... Alright, you can continue now. Tell me all the possible errors you can think about. The more, the better."
Rean nodded as he continued to explain.
"Anyway, that is one of the problems. The next one is the saved information. This formation can't possibly keep saving everything forever. Otherwise, it will reach a limit and won't be able to record anything anymore. You will need to find a way that the information will only stay saved until the signal is sent out. After that, the saved information will be deleted to give space for more information that arrives."
Droman then thought about something.
"What about the jade slips? They can save information exactly as we want, after all."
Rean shrugged his shoulder after hearing that.
"Well, Elder is the real Formations Master here. However, I need to point out that what will arrive at this Router Formation are Electrical Signals! Can jade slips save electrical patterns?"
"That..."
Droman became speechless again. What the cultivators used to input information inside the Jade Slips was Spiritual Energy, not Electrical Signals!
"It seems like Elder Droman understood. That is correct. If you want to use Jade Slips to save the information, then your formation will need to first convert the Electrical Signal into Spiritual Energy. That being said, I believe that Jade Slips are a terrible choice. Elder Droman forgot an important point here. To put information inside the Jade Slips, we use both Spiritual Energy and... Spiritual Sense! Can you understand where the main issue with Jade Slips is?"
Droman immediately nodded. He is, after all, the Formations Masters Hall's Head and a Peak Nascent Soul cultivator.
"Yes. The problem is in the Spiritual Sense. We can control our Spiritual Sense with our own Soul. However, formations don't have Souls. Obviously, they can't control Spiritual Sense to create detailed information to input inside the Jade Slips. There are formations capable of enhancing or hindering Spiritual Senses, but they are not even close to what we would need."
Rean agreed.
"Correct. So, if you really want to use Jade Slips, your formation will need to: Receive the Electrical Signal;
convert it into Spiritual Energy and Spiritual Sense;
input the received information correctly into the Jade Slip;
after that, it will wait for this information's time in the queue;
once that time comes, it will use Spiritual Sense and Energy once again to read the information in the Jade Slip;
convert it back into the correct electrical signal pattern as it was received;
and finally, send the signal into the main cable once more."
Elder Droman couldn't help but smile bitterly.
"Let's... drop the Jade Slip idea..."
"Hahaha! Sure, it would be way too annoying to work around such a thing."
Rean then asked something he was curious about.
"Elder Droman, the best thing is to have some material that can literally use electrical signals to save information. Do you know anything that could be used as a memory and that the formation could save the electrical signal pattern inside?"
Droman narrowed his eyes and began to think. However, even after a few minutes, he didn't answer Rean's question.
"Ahem... Could it be that there is none?"
Droman finally came back to himself and immediately shook his head.
"It's the opposite. I have too many options that I can't figure out just which one would be the best."
Rean really didn't expect that. He thought that one of the biggest issues would be to find something that could be used to save information. Who could have thought that not only there was, but there were too many on top of that.
"Well, then let's go for the cheapest options first."
Droman continued to ponder for a while and nodded.
"Indeed. I've never used those Lightn-... errr... electrical type of materials for something like this before. Because of that, I simply can't figure out which one is better. Perhaps, the cheapest ones will give the necessary results that we need. At least, I hope they do."
Rean agreed with Droman as well.
"Another issue I can think about is the time."
"Time?"
Rean nodded.
"Yes, time. To be more specific, the time necessary to save all the information and then take it out once more. Seconds are far from good enough. After all, these Router Formations will probably be localized at the intersection of several cities at once. Not only that, there will be Router Formations that will have to handle ALL the information of several other Router Formations that will arrive at it."
Droman promptly nodded.
"Indeed. If the busiest formations take as much as one second to make the entire process, it will definitely crumble apart. No, even a tenth of a second is way too much if the Router Formation is localized here in our Dalamu Sect. After all, a lot of information on our territory would definitely pass through here since we plan to make this place the center of the... Network..."
"Correct. Fortunately, now that we removed the jade slips idea, the formation will basically work with electrical signals. The only difference is that it will also use Spiritual Energy to generate even more electricity to keep the formation itself working. But that won't be a problem considering the gains of such a great thing. Anyway, what do you think so far?"
Rean thought that Droman would be somewhat discouraged about this second solution due to its complexity. However, what he saw next was the polar opposite of his thoughts.
"Hahaha! You want to know what I think? I have no idea whatsoever! I've never thought about something this complex before. However, I can't help but feel overflowed with excitement! This project will be the most entertaining and challenging thing I've worked with ever since I became a Formations Master!"
Suddenly, a wave of Spiritual Energy came from Elder Droman's body. It was so abrupt that even Droman himself was taken aback by that. Droman was one of the oldest elders in the Sect, being over 400 years old (Check chapter zero for lifespans). He had been in the Nascent Soul Peak Stage for a very long time already. However, at this very moment, the bottleneck that hindered his progress for over 150 years broke apart as if it was made of paper! From today onwards, the Dalamu Sect has one more Soul Transformation Realm cultivator!