CHAPTER 205: CONCEPTUAL QUALITY

CH205 Conceptual Quality

***

While Alex couldn’t be called outright paranoid, he still possessed a firm and healthy sense of caution; what to share—and what to keep entirely to himself.

The Voidheart Core belonged, without question, in that second category.

With that settled in his mind, he refocused.

After taking time out to unravel the structural and operational puzzle of the Voidheart Core, Alex returned to his original purpose—the experiment he had set out to conduct.

He positioned each Mana Stone in turn close to the Core’s left atrium, the part most likely responsible for absorbing and processing energy.

Almost instantly, each stone was drained dry, crumbling into nothing but fine dust. Mere moments later, faint motes of Spatial Energy drifted outward from the core’s left ventricle, shimmering as they emerged.

A smile tugged at Alex’s lips, "I was right."

Thanks to the remarkable gift of his Truth-Seeker Eyes, he could literally see the truth unfold before him. What had been theory mere moments ago now stood as undeniable fact.

By common understanding, the energy content of Mana Stones scaled by factors of a hundred. One mid-grade Mana Stone held roughly one hundred times the energy of a single low-grade stone. One high-grade stone matched a hundred mid-grade stones, and so forth up the scale.

[A.N: 1 Peak Mana Stone (MS) = 100 Top MS = 10,000 High MS = 1,000,000 Mid MS = 100,000,000 Low MS]

Of course, in real-world trade, the ratios rarely stayed that clean. Unless the exchange took place between major organisations with long-standing supply contracts, prices were almost always inflated in favour of higher-grade stones.

For example, a single mid-grade Mana Stone might fetch anywhere between 110 to 115 low-grade stones, while a high-grade stone could cost as much as 120 to 130 mid-grade stones.

As for top-grade or—rarer still—peak-grade Mana Stones, good luck convincing anyone to part with them in exchange for lower-grade stones.

The reasoning was simple. Beyond their vastly greater mana content, higher-grade stones boasted roughly fifty percent greater purity than the grade below them.

Purity mattered in every single application of mana stones, without exception. Greater purity meant cleaner, more efficient mana output per unit of energy, and that translated directly into better performance in whatever task the stone powered.

In other words, even if a higher-grade Mana Stone merely matched the energy content of a hundred of the grade below, its output—or the "work" it could achieve—would far exceed what those hundred stones together could manage.

With this knowledge as context, Alex observed something that intrigued him deeply. The increase in Spatial Energy motes produced by the Voidheart Core did not merely scale in direct proportion to the stone’s energy content—it grew exponentially.

Going from low-grade to mid-grade stones yielded not just a hundredfold increase in motes, but somewhere between two hundred and three hundred units. The jump from mid-grade to high-grade was even more dramatic—closer to a thousand units.

Put simply, high-grade Mana Stones were far superior for generating Spatial Energy, both absolutely and relatively.

In fact, the amount of Spatial Energy produced from just a single high-grade stone was more than enough for Alex to finally consider beginning his long-planned Interspatial Storage method.

However, the continuous use of high-grade stones was far from realistic. Cost was one obstacle, but availability posed an even greater problem.

High-grade Mana Stones were in constant demand for their versatility, being essential components in powerful and strategic formations and artefacts—City-grade Barrier Formations, Dimension-scanning Arcana Telescopes, and countless other high-tier applications. Their scarcity meant that supply never truly met demand, and any spare stock was quickly absorbed by the powerful and influential.

It would be foolish for Alex to openly compete for such a resource against the old, undying powerhouses who had both the means and the will to hoard them.

’The solution isn’t using more expensive materials. That’s a lazy way out,’ Alex told himself firmly.

Two clear differences stood out between higher and lower-grade Mana Stones—both of which he classified as increases in ’conceptual quality’.

’First,’ he noted, ’higher-grade stones hold greater perceived value in the eyes of every intelligent being. Value itself is a conceptual quality—admittedly a subjective one, but a quality nonetheless.

’Second, and far less subjective, is purity. Higher-grade stones possess a much greater mana purity compared to their lower-grade counterparts. Purity is also a conceptual quality—one that, I believe, can be manipulated.’

He leaned deeper into this line of reasoning.

’Perhaps I don’t actually need higher-grade stones. If I can increase the purity of the mana I feed into the Voidheart Core, that mana will inherently possess a higher conceptual quality of value than raw ambient mana. At the very least, it should boost the Core’s output.’

Even if this turned out to be nothing more than a stopgap measure, it would still be far more efficient than his current setup—and much cheaper than using high-grade stones as a default.

High-grade stones could remain reserved for special experiments where their superiority was necessary, but they shouldn’t become his everyday fuel source.

Alex began reviewing his current advantages, searching for a method to achieve this.

’I can fall back on my comprehended Gathering Formation,’ he considered, ’If I integrate a purification function into the formation, it could both gather and refine the energy before feeding it into the Core.’

Several possible purification methods flashed through his mind, most of which he could incorporate into the formation without too much difficulty. Yet, one by one, he dismissed them as too weak for his standards.

Inevitably, his thoughts drifted toward a few of his usual, more... extreme ideas. And, as always, those appealed to him most.

Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—his more audacious concepts would have to wait. Thanks to a recent incident in OmniRune’s Simulation Function, the Simulator was still on cooldown, recovering from the metaphorical (and near-literal) explosion he had caused.

A small price to pay, considering the possible alternatives.

With no way to immediately test his latest hypothesis, Alex shifted focus to the second major issue with the Voidheart Core.

Looking back, it seemed obvious. But earlier, he had completely overlooked it. It was only when the Nightmare Eagle Egg effortlessly absorbed the motes of Spatial Energy produced by the Core that his attention was drawn to the problem:

Containment and Storage of produced Spatial Energy.

***