Jin instructed Reiko to boil all of the remaining sap until they turned to maple syrup.
And it seems Saki had also regained her senses.
“Hmm, I can’t have you be like this, Saki…”
Reinhart said with a worried face, concerned about his childhood friend.
“By the way, why did the servant go out?”
To Jin’s question, Saki scratched her head and answered with a strained smile,
“Well, you see, I haven’t paid rent for the last 3 months so…”
“That’s no good…”
Even Jin instinctively retorted to that.
“For now, let’s just get food from my house…”
Reinhart said, with a pensive expression.
“Not paying rent for 3 months, what happened? There are a lot of expensive materials here too… don’t tell me…”
“Kufufu, yep. My father would always end up buying all the rare materials. Well, me too.”
In short, a researching idiot who has no sense of economy.
“Just get a butler to manage the house.”
Reinhart was exasperated. However, Saki just replied with a nonchalant expression,
“We are not nobles or anything. We don’t really need a butler.”
“But…”
Saki’s reply worried Reinhart as she made it sound like it wasn’t her problem. Jin worked out a plan.
“Right, Reinhart. We could just make an automata.”
Reinhart was immediately hooked on the plan. He lives up to his reputation of being a building maniac.
“Ooh! We can do that! You will help as well, right, Jin?”
“Of course.”
Reinhart’s excitement increased even further with Jin’s reply.
“Alright! Then let us make the 2nd best automata in the world!”
Seeing Reinhart so excited, Saki asked,
“……Well, that’s fine but, what do you mean by 2nd best?”
“Mm? That’s simple. After all, the best automata in the world is Reiko-chan over there.”
Hearing that, Saki looked like she had just remembered about Reiko and gazed at Reiko with her glasses on.
“Her build looks amazing the more I look… That reminds me but… Reinhart, and Jin. It’s fortunate that two of the top rate magi engineers are here.”
She bent over the table saying that.
“Mm? You have something you want to ask?”
There are many common points of interest shared by alchemists and magi engineers and they have been influencing one another to develop even more.
Reinhart had probably thought Saki had a small question or something when he asked that. He surely didn’t think that he wouldn’t be able to answer.
“Well then, I will go ahead and ask but… the golems and automatas, these magic dolls, how are they able to hold cups, which are very fragile, without breaking them?”
“……Uuh.”
Reinhart hardened.
Golems and automatas’ general movement control is usually given to them by their masters. And the masters inherit it from their masters.
This movement control system can be explained by comparing it to an operating system. In other words, it is usually inherited by the magi engineers from their masters as a ‘black box’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_box). There’s no progress there.
If you were to track it to its roots, most of the current control systems would lead to Adriana Barbora Cecy.
And the details of the control system, like magic, is stored in a ‘library’ in the ‘worlds with magic’. And most magi engineers are just accessing and copying that.
And, as for Jin,
“…Hmm, it’s really complicated so I will try to explain it simply. First, they scan the target. Then, they check it with their knowledge of things and if they find a match, they grip it with the necessary strength.”
Jin simplified it. Saki, and even Reinhart, was impressed.
Seeing Reinhart thinking about it with a backward glance, Saki asked more questions.
“Hmmm, very intriguing… Then, what if it’s not in the knowledge of things? They won’t know how strongly to grip it if it’s something they saw for the first time, right?”
“You come asking the hard questions, huh? …Well, it’s the same till the checking part. And if it’s not there, they perform ‘analogy’. They search for things similar to it or things with similar material.”
“I see, I see.”
Saki nodded. To which Jin grinned and asked,
“It’s fine if they find something similar. But don’t you want to know what happens if they don’t?”
“Kufufu, exactly.”
“Thought so… They start the action of ‘gripping’. The fingers touch the target. Then they put in the strength… You get it this far?”
“Yes, of course. The problem is after that. If they put in too much strength, it will break. If they don’t put in enough strength, they won’t be able to hold it. What do they do?”
“They detect the deformation between the target and their fingertips.”
“Eh? …is that so, Jin?”
Reinhart asked. It seems it was also his first time hearing that.
“The control core is ordering the body after estimating how much strength should be put in. And the body moves after that—a very short period of time, about 0.001 seconds later.”
“………”
Saki and Reinhart were both listening quietly.
“Once the finger touches the object, the finger movements slow down depending on the hardness of the object. If they object is soft, it’s harder for the core to process and it is harder to slow down. If it is hard, then it becomes slow quicker. They detect and calculate all these really quick and apply the necessary force.”
Jin added,
“By the way, they do mistake the force sometimes… After all, humans also sometimes drop stuff after holding them ‘cause they seem lighter. However, since their reaction speed is dozen times faster than that of a human’s, in most cases, they make it in time.”
After explaining that far, Jin looked at both their faces.
Like a magi engineer, Reinhart was digesting the information he just heard but Saki was fine with just understanding the concept.
“I see, Jin, thanks! One of my long lasting questions just got answered!”
Saki was overjoyed.
“They can do that because the control core is much faster than humans at thinking, right?”
“Yep, that’s right.”
Jin nodded to Saki’s question.
“If so, then the control core is dealing with difficult stuff like how the body should behave, eh?”
“Yep, yep… Mm?”
Jin thought over Saki’s question once again.
Generally, things follow the ‘simple is best’ principle. Even more so if it’s a system.
“Jin? Is something the matter?”
Saki called out to Jin, seeing him fall silent all of a sudden but the words didn’t reach Jin’s ears.
(For the action of determining the strength, most of the control core’s processing power is being used. In other words, it is being left to the software…)
Jin wasn’t really knowledgeable in the electronics engineering or IT field but he did have the general knowledge a normal person living in the current world would have.
(The software can surely work it out. However, if one can have the hardware also carry that load, the control core’s pressure would decrease and it could process other things…)
“Hello? Jin? Oii.”
Jin was deep in thought.
(Then, what can be in place of it? …Automata and golems are made by copying the structure of human body. Something a human has but an automata does not… sense of touch!)
Eyes for vision. Ears for hearing. Nose for sense of smell. All of these have a special magi device for it and were acting like a pseudo sense organ.
However, for sense of touch, they only have something very poor.
There’s a temperature sensor in the chest portion to detect heat and cold. It is used to monitor the metal body’s temperature.
If used properly, it could also detect the temperature of the object the fingertips touch.
Sense of pain isn’t being considered from the start.
(A while before, Reiko didn’t use her sword techniques even after learning them because figuring out the ‘ample’ amount of strength would be difficult.)
Complicated actions need delicate power distribution. Even though they have multiple times the processing speed of humans, it would be extremely difficult to calculate the strength allocation while moving tens or hundred times faster.
Even more so ‘cause Reiko’s power is tremendous. Between adjusting from 10 to 1 and from 10,000 to 1, the difference is huge.
One can easily figure out which will be harder to determine the strength for—simple actions like punching or kicking, or complicated actions like locking techniques in judo.
Such a conclusion had also come up after a discussion with Laojun.
(Ah… So that’s how it is…)
How he would help Reiko understand power distribution even better—Jin had just thought up of a solution for it.
(I didn’t think about it enough…)
There was a need to control Reiko’s magical muscle to the milli—no, to the micron unit by delicately limiting the power output from ether converter and mana driver for Reiko’s power distribution. All this while moving more than ten times faster than a human.
Reiko probably couldn’t explain all that to Jin.
“……What happened to Jin?”
“He probably became aware of something important.”
A few minutes after Jin had indulged in thinking. Saki and Reinhart were whispering to each other.
“Kufufu, there were times when you became like that too, huh? A specialty idiot, eh?”
“I don’t want to be told that by you.”
And then, Jin returned to reality.
“Saki, thank you! Thanks to your words, I might be able to progress greatly!”
In response to Jin’s loud thanks, Saki replied, still confused.
“Kufufu, I don’t really get what you mean but it’s an honor to be of use. If it’s okay with you, could you explain it to us as well?”
“Yes, of course! Reinhart, I would also like to hear your opinion on this.”
Saying that, Jin started explaining the theory of power control which he had just thought of.