Chapter : 799
His casual, almost dismissive tone was a masterful piece of understated theater. He was deliberately downplaying the monumental significance of what he had just created. An abacus was a tool that required a human operator to manipulate it. This device… it thought. It took a problem, it processed it, and it produced a solution. He had not just created a better abacus; he had created the world’s first magical computer.
“But… how?” Sumaiya asked, her gaze shifting from the glowing number to the intricate web of stones and silver. “What is the magic? What spirit is bound within it to give you the answers?”
“There is no spirit,” Lloyd explained patiently, tapping one of the smaller Lilith Stone chips. “And the magic is not in the answer, but in the process. Think of it this way. Each of these small stones is a very stupid, very obedient servant. Each one knows how to do only one, single, simple task. This one,” he pointed to a specific chip, “knows only how to add one plus one. This one knows how to carry a remainder. This one knows how to compare two numbers and decide which is larger. Alone, their knowledge is useless.”
“Then it is a good thing that the priests are not here,” he said with a wry smile. “And it is not mimicking thought. It is merely processing numbers. It has no will, no consciousness, no soul. It is a tool. A very sophisticated hammer.”
He then cleared the crystal display again, and with a final, theatrical flourish, he entered one last problem. He did not use numbers. He used his will, projecting a complex alchemical equation directly from his mind into the input receiver—the exact, multi-stage formula for the stabilizing elixir he had pretended to need for Tariq Qadir’s surgery.
The device hummed to life, the azure light now flowing in a far more complex, intricate pattern. The calculation took a few seconds longer. The light in the central crystal swirled, and then, a series of precise, shimmering alchemical symbols and numbers appeared, detailing the exact required ratios of the herbal components, the optimal brewing temperature, and the necessary infusion time. It had not just solved a sum; it had balanced a complex chemical equation.
Sumaiya stared at the glowing result, her last vestiges of rational understanding crumbling into dust. This was not just a toy for solving sums. This was a tool of immense, terrifying power. A machine that could unravel the very secrets of alchemy.
“You see?” Lloyd said, his voice soft and persuasive. “I told you I wished to create a diagnostic tool. This is the first, crude step. Imagine a device like this, but a thousand times more powerful. One that could hold all the medical knowledge in the world in its memory. One that could take the symptoms of a patient, compare them against that knowledge, and provide a perfect diagnosis and a precise, calculated cure in a matter of seconds. It would eliminate guesswork. It would eliminate human error. It would be the perfect, infallible healer.”
He was painting a picture of a future she could barely comprehend, a world where the art of healing was no longer an art, but a perfect, flawless science.
Chapter : 800
“And this… this is just a single application,” he continued, his voice now a low, hypnotic hum of pure, revolutionary passion. He was no longer the humble doctor. He was the visionary, the prophet of a new age. “Imagine what such a device could do for a farmer, calculating the perfect time to plant his crops. Imagine what it could do for an architect, designing a bridge that could never fall. Imagine what it could do for a king, managing the complex logistics of his entire kingdom.”
He had taken her to the edge of a cliff, and he was now showing her the beautiful, terrifying, and infinite new world that lay beyond it. She was speechless, her mind completely and utterly overwhelmed by the sheer, staggering scale of his vision. The small, quiet clinic had become the laboratory for a revolution that could reshape their entire world. And she was its only witness.
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The shimmering, alchemical equation hung in the crystal, a silent, glowing monument to a new and terrible form of genius. Sumaiya’s mind, which had always been her sharpest and most reliable tool, felt dull and clumsy, completely unequal to the task of processing what she was seeing. The world had a set of rules, a known order. Magic was a force of will. Science was an act of observation. This… this was something else. It was a fusion of the two, a strange and powerful chimera that had no name.
“Zayn…” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “What… what have you done?”
Lloyd leaned back, a faint, almost sad smile on his face. He had broken her world, and he knew it. Now, he had to gently piece it back together in a new shape, a shape that served his own grand design.
“I have built a better abacus, Sumaiya,” he said, his tone deliberately, masterfully anticlimactic. He reached out and, with a touch, cleared the glowing display. The crystal went dark, the silver threads ceased to glow, and the device once again became a strange, inert piece of art on his workbench. The miracle was over. “Do not be frightened. It is just a tool. A very clever one, I will admit, but a tool nonetheless. It is no more blasphemous than a well-designed water clock or a particularly sharp knife. Its purpose is to serve, not to rule.”
His calm, rational explanation was a lifeline, an anchor in the storm of her confusion. He was domesticating the miracle, framing it not as a world-altering act of godhood, but as a simple, practical innovation.
“I created it for a very simple, very humble reason,” he continued, his voice now taking on the familiar, compassionate tone of the doctor she knew. “The surgery on the Qadir boy… it was a success, yes. But it was also a desperate gamble. I was working at the very limit of my knowledge, relying on intuition and a great deal of luck. I cannot do that again. I cannot risk another child’s life on a guess. I needed a way to be certain. A way to calculate the precise ratios of the Dahaka herbs, to ensure the healing poultice was perfect. This device… it is my attempt to replace luck with certainty.”
He had framed his creation not as an act of world-changing ambition, but as an act of profound, almost neurotic, professional responsibility. He was a humble craftsman, seeking only to perfect his trade. The lie was so beautiful, so perfectly aligned with the selfless, dedicated man she believed him to be, that she accepted it completely.
Her fear began to recede, replaced once again by that now-familiar, overwhelming sense of awe. He was not a blasphemer. He was a genius, a man whose mind operated on a level so far beyond her own that she could only stare up at the heights he occupied.
“It is… the most incredible thing I have ever seen,” she said, her voice still shaky. “To create a… a calculation engine… from simple stones and threads. It is a true miracle.”
“It is a prototype,” he corrected gently, tapping the device. “A crude, first attempt. It is slow. Its memory is pitifully small. It can only perform a few dozen operations. It is a child’s toy compared to what could be built.”
And there it was. The final, crucial, carefully placed seed. He looked at her, his eyes filled with the distant, dreamy gaze of a visionary, a man seeing a future that no one else could.