Chapter 374: 374 On A Spectrum



Energy transfer that occurs without a medium to facilitate it (such as in a vacuum), takes place within the electromagnetic spectrum. It is generated when charged particles accelerate.

Take the sun, for instance. At the core of the sun, the temperature and pressure is so high, that causes hydrogen to fuse together through the process of nuclear fusion. The subsequent formation of helium through fusion causes the release of a tremendous amount of energy, which radiates outwards. This radiation is propagated outwards through a series of interactions with charged particles (primarily protons and electrons). This interaction in turn releases high-energy radiation in the form of gamma rays, which is on the electromagnetic spectrum with the highest frequency. As the radiation is absorbed and emitted while traversing through the many layers of the sun, its energy decreases. Like this, the primary makeup of the energy that leaves the sun consists of infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, and X-rays.

And because electromagnetic waves do not require a medium for transmission, they travel at the speed of light, which is three hundred million metres in one second.

"Electromagnetic waves are all around us," Markus explained. "They are absorbed by or reflected from objects. It is because of this that our eyes are able to see in the light."

The duo were currently in the staff room, a few days after their previous meeting.

"I was actually reading into the design of the human eye," Yohn redirected. "If I can turn my empty sockets into directional visible light receivers using the same mechanics of a human eye, would I be able to see again?"

"I mean..." Markus said with an elongated tone. "If your objective is just to see, then I guess we could just do that."

"You don't seem enthusiastic about it," Yohn admitted.

"Yeah- Well, I guess there is an argument to be made about keeping things simple and straightforward," Markus started. "But I was hoping for something with more potential with our assignment. Why try to replace the eye, when you can have something even better?"

"Something better?"

"Imagine being able to see even in the dark, for distances even beyond the limits of your mana senses?" Markus proposed. "If you can emit infrared light, and capture and analyse the reflection, you can see what exists in the dark without alerting anyone!"

Yohn hummed in thought as he pondered over Markus' words.n(/o(-v//e(/l)(b.-I-)n

"If that isn't something you want to pursue, though," Markus added. "I'm not going to force you."

"No, you're right!" Yohn spoke up enthusiastically. "I've already come this far, why stumble and take the safe route?"

"That wasn't what I meant..." Markus mumbled.

"What do we do?" Yohn asked.

"Well, we will have to start with analysing the visible light spectrum," Markus elaborated. "I'd like to start by revisiting a common experiment we've worked with in class."

Markus placed a box on the desk. Opening it, he revealed all the apparatus required to conduct a refraction experiment. A triangular prism, a lightbox and white paper. He placed the apparatus in a way such that the white light exiting the lightbox hit the triangular prism and split into the rainbow spectrum.

"Our first strategy is to change the way you use your mana sense to see," Markus explained. "The mana sense works through familiarity. If you let it encompass the region of space you wish to observe, it will evaluate information in a way that is familiar to you already, which would be the way the eye works. The fact of the matter is that it is automatic - basically, the mana sense does all the work the eye does for you and shows you the image directly. HOWEVER, we don't want this because the radius of your mana sense is limited. Instead, we want to use our mana sense as a capturing device and perform the rest of the analysis by ourselves. Does that make sense?"

"You want me to be able to create the image by analysing the reflected visible light on my own," Yohn affirmed. "So how do I do that?"

"There isn't a systematic approach to this," Markus revealed. He then took out multiple transparent film filters from the box and placed and replaced them in front of the lightbox. "As you can see here, once we filter out certain frequencies of visible light from the complete spectrum, the refracted output does not contain that frequency of light. We want our mana sense to see the output from the prism by analysing the input into the prism prism. To do this, you need to take your time and cycle through your mana sense until it is observable."

Yohn nodded in understanding and let his mana sense envelop the setup in its entirety.

"I'll leave you with this then," Markus said in a low voice, to not disturb Yohn.

Yohn added and removed the filters in front of the lightbox. As he did this, he tuned his mana sense to observe the visible light in different ways. His first attempt produced garbled nonsense that overwhelmed his mind within the fraction of a second that it was on.

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Yohn massaged his forehead to assuage the minor pain before trying again. The first few attempts were just like this, since he wasn't used to opening up his mana senses to untested "frequencies". The initial pain that would assault his head started to subside very soon, but he could not maintain the raw mana sense for more than two seconds without an ungodly strain bearing down on his mind.

The exercise continued for hours, with no success. While disappointing, this did not dissuade Yohn. He knew that this process was a time-intensive endeavour - not something that could be achieved in one day.

As dinner time had arrived, Yohn carefully packed up the apparatus and made his way to the mess hall.

____

The next day was the same for Yohn. He'd shift filters in front of the lightbox while using his mana sense to evaluate the scene through a different process. He'd open himself up to the raw mana sense observe the input light, and try to match it with the output, refracted and separated light.

The day was nearly finished when Yohn finally achieved a breakthrough. He did not know exactly what he was seeing, but he knew that it was what he was looking for. The mana sense did not show the same image as he would have if he had to use his eyes. What he saw was like a bouquet of blots.

From this stage, it fell upon him how he wished to analyse and decipher this bouquet of blots. What did he want them to mean?

At this juncture, he decided to consult Markus.

"Don't bother trying to decipher it just yet," Markus dissuaded immediately. "If you do so, you will only limit your perceptivity to the other waves in the EM spectrum."

"Now that you have a way to sense the visible light as an EM wave, we will now move on to the lowest end of the electromagnetic spectrum, radio waves," Markus explained.

"Master Larks once explained to me just how useful radio waves can be when it comes to communication over long distances," Markus continued. "As they are EM waves, they are able to penetrate through most structures and travel over long distances unhindered. They reflect off of the ionosphere and can follow the curvature of Gaea, making it possible to be received globally. And since they are just signals, if we can convolute messages into them, it would be possible to communicate with people all over the world at a moment's notice. We would no longer be beholden to messenger birds or complicated, and expensive communication arrays."

"That's amazing!" Yohn evoked with awe.

"Master Larks always wanted to set up such a communication infrastructure," Markus stated. "But since he hasn't been able to get to it, we will now take the initiative. So, our next step is to create the following device."

Markus picked up a roll of parchment from his desk and unfurled it in front of Yohn. "What we have here is a spark-gap transmitter. Its purpose is to generate radio waves by means of an electric spark."

"It looks complicated," Yohn said with a wry smile. "I barely understand a per cent of what is shown here."

"That's okay," Markus reciprocated with a laugh. "I barely understand it either. Our first task in creating this device is to understand what it is, how it works, and how it is made."

"Wait!" Yohn exclaimed. "If we don't know how it works and how it is made, how do we have its blueprint? I mean, if the design exists, then the product should already exist, right?"

Markus bit his lower lip as he considered how to explain the discrepancy.

"Okay, I will let you in on a secret," Markus whispered as he inched closer towards Yohn. "By now, you should be aware that there is a lot of knowledge in this Sect that is not freely practised outside, even though some of it feels like common sense. On top of that, you may also find a lot of corroborated knowledge in here, which is impossible for us to verify because our level of technology hasn't reached that far to be able to do it ourselves."

Yohn nodded, and his eyes grew wider as he suddenly realised that maybe he had been taking a lot of suspicious details for granted. For example, how do you know of the existence of the EM spectrum, if there is no technology to analyse it? And if it was known how to communicate over long distances using radio waves, why hasn't a device like that become ubiquitous already?

"Actually," Markus continued. "All this information is actually a part of my Master's inheritance. This is all sensitive information, so I must caution you against sharing this with others casually."

Markus bore down on Yohn with a serious stare, that caused the blind boy to swallow a mouthful of saliva in fear.

"So, anyways," Markus whispered. And then, he proceeded to explain the nature of his Master's inheritance. As he did this, Yohn's respect for the enigmatic and philanthropic Sect Leader grew even more.

Although Markus had warned Yohn against sharing this information with others, rumours are often hard to contain. Within the week, everyone knew of this, though no one was stupid enough to advertise it publicly.

And like that, the already committed Sect members of the True World Sect turned into devout followers of the Sect Leader.

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