Exploring Technology in a Wizard World
Chapter 311 - Chapter 311 Chapter 310 The Secret Hidden in the Book is

Chapter 311: Chapter 310 The Secret Hidden in the Book is… Chapter 311: Chapter 310 The Secret Hidden in the Book is… In the night, Angel’s voice continued weakly and more and more ridiculously,

“Next… just keep walking until you come across a tavern called ‘Water and Fire’… then go around it to the right, and…”

Richard interrupted Angel as she spoke, asking seriously, “Do you know where you are right now?”

“Ah?” Angel paused, looking down at the ground, “On the ground?” then looked up at the sky: “Underneath the stars?”

“…” Richard fell silent for a moment, then let out a sigh of resignation and said to Angel, “Alright then.”

“Ah?” Angel didn’t understand what he meant.

“I’ll take you back to White Stone Tower Academy myself,” said Richard. In Richard’s view, given the extent of Angel’s disorientation, even if she were given directions a hundred times, it was unlikely she’d make it back successfully. It was probably for the best to escort her back and put an end to this matter, to save her from any potential accidents on her return that could cause unnecessary trouble.

Richard stepped forward, glancing at Angel who was still standing there, not yet having grasped the situation, and said, “What’s wrong? You don’t want to go back now?”

“Er… No… Not at all,” Angel hastened to say.

“Then keep up, and stay close.”

“Er, yes.” Angel hurried to catch up, following closely behind him.

Richard and Angel, one leading and the other following, soon arrived within White Stone City.

Walking through White Stone City, when they arrived at the familiar tavern “Salt and Fire,” Richard noticed it was closed. There was still a faint song drifting from inside, one that he had heard before, and it was familiar. Perhaps the meaning was indiscernible, but the rhythm of the song remained unchanged:

First came the “strong-weak, strong-weak” of a 2/4 meter, then the “strong-weak-weak” of a 3/4 meter, followed by the “strong-weak-weak, sub-strong-weak-weak” of a 6/8 meter.

“Tap, tap-tap, tap, tap-tap…”

Listening to the tune, Richard led Angel around the tavern and turned left, continuing onward…

Eventually, as the singing from “Salt and Fire” tavern faded away, Richard stopped at the entrance of the White Stone Tower Academy. Pointing forward, Richard said to Angel behind him, “Here we are, you should know how to proceed from here, right? You don’t need me to walk you back to your dormitory, do you?”

“Er, no need,” Angel was quick to shake her head.

“That’s good, go on in then, I’m leaving.”

“Er…” Angel lowered her head and walked into the academy. She turned and stole a glance at Richard, only to find he had already vanished into the darkness. Biting her lip, she walked deeper into the academy with a complex expression.

…

Back in the main lab of the research facility.

Richard had returned.

Having resolved all the insignificant matters, Richard’s mind was somewhat at ease. He strode over to the lab desk, took out the five newly acquired books from the Black Spirit Empire from the Space Iron Ring, and began his research.

Placing the five books on the table, Richard flipped quickly to the last page, scanning the numbers on the insignia of the Black Spirit Empire, his eyes flickering slightly.

The five numbers were 3, 7, 24, 27, and 29; when verified against the current world edition Lickerel numbers, the respective palindromic numbers were 33, 55, 66, 99, and 121.

And the books he already possessed were:

“Soul Wail,” palindrome number 11;

“Blood and Fire,” palindrome number 22;

“Towards Nobility,” palindrome number 77;

“My Autobiography – Moratos,” palindrome number 99.

This meant that among the newly acquired five books, only one was a duplicate, with four being new:

The first new book, “Dark Spirit,” was a novel of ghost legends;

The second new book is “Thirty-Six Stratagems,” a collection of fable stories;

The third new book is “Coppola’s Secret,” a rather basic book on wizard magic.

The fourth new book is “I was born from fire – Prometheus,” an autobiography of a wizard, similar to “My Autobiography – Moratos,” but without the bizarre content about training male slaves.

After clarifying the books, Richard’s eyes lit up. He had to admit, this night was a major haul, the material he gathered was worth more than everything he’d collected before.

Previously, he had guessed that the numbers behind the Black Spirit Empire book marks should be within 40, so, by verifying through the Lickerel Number sequence, he only found 11 palindromic numbers.

11!

Now, he had already acquired books with 8 of the palindromic numbers, leaving only 3 books with palindromic numbers not yet in his possession.

This meant that, even if he couldn’t unravel the secrets hidden in the books, he should now be able to see the general framework.

Richard’s gaze was sharp.

What exactly was the secret hidden in the books?

He didn’t understand the secret yet, but he had some guesses about the way the riddles were hidden.

The method of hiding riddles in the books was probably not some kind of invisible text–text that would only appear under special conditions such as water soaking or burning. Firstly, that method wouldn’t preserve for long, and secondly, it had no connection to the numbers on the last page of the books marked with the Black Spirit Empire sign, nor to the palindromic numbers.

The numbers on the Black Spirit Empire sign, as well as the palindromic numbers verified by the Lickerel sequence, were all very special numbers, which probably weren’t there to confuse but were related to the secret.

So…

Speaking of numbers, Richard couldn’t help but think of an early common method of code-breaking in cryptography: the tabula recta substitution method.

The so-called tabula recta substitution, in simple terms, is a cipher book method: the transmission of information is not done with normal words, but with seemingly meaningless numbers that replace them.

The recipient of the information needs the corresponding cipher book. They can only get the correct information by matching each number according to the content of the cipher book, to prevent the message from being intercepted and leaked mid-transmission.

This method can be very flexible and varied; with care, to avoid the scenario of a cipher book falling into enemy hands causing massive losses, it was possible to change the cipher book periodically. To be even more cautious, one could use a different book as a brand-new cipher book for each transmission of a message.

For example, if the sender of the information gives out “137, 826,” it could represent the 137th and 826th words in a certain book.

The recipient checks the book for comparison. If the books are different, so are the results they get–it might be a message of “success” or “failure,” or commands such as “attack,” “retreat,” or “hide,” almost eliminating the possibility of leaks. Of course, this is somewhat different from the modern encryption methods developed on Earth using computer technology, such as symmetric encryption with DES, 3DES, AES, and asymmetric encryption with RSA and elliptical encryption.

But returning to the present, what results does the use of the tabula recta substitution method in the book reveal?

Richard first picked up the book with sequence number 1, a palindromic number of 11, “Soul Wail,” and found the 11th word in the book, which was “Ke.”

Then he picked up the book with sequence number 2, palindromic number 22, “Blood and Fire,” and found the 22nd word in the book, which was “fruit.”

Sequence number 3, palindromic number 33, “Black Spirit,” the 33rd word, “inside.”

Sequence number 4, palindromic number 44, is currently missing, skipped.

Sequence number 5, palindromic number 55, “Thirty-Six Stratagems,” the 55th word, “ancient.”

Sequence number 6, palindromic number 66, “Coppola’s Secret,” the 66th character, a punctuation mark.

Sequence number 7, palindromic number 77, “The Path to Nobility,” the 77th word, “Du.”

Sequence number 8, palindromic number 88, is currently missing, skipped.

Sequence number 9, palindromic number 99, “My Autobiography – Moratos,” the 99th word, “Tos.”

Sequence number 10, palindromic number 121, “I was born from fire – Prometheus,” the 121st word “Mong.”

Sequence number 11, palindromic number 363, is currently missing, skipped.

The final result is…