DRAM
Nano World.
Upon a vast plain, the silhouettes of two figures stood gazing up at an enormous structure — a slender woman and a short, stocky man.
Closer inspection revealed the woman clad in a pale violet robe, the mark of a mage, while the short man possessed thick limbs and a bushy beard. And the man, on a second look, was no human at all. He was a dwarf, of the race renowned as master craftsmen.
The dwarf thrust a thick forearm toward the colossal structure.
"My Lord. Is this the mission the Constellation has given us?"
Beside him, the woman in the pale violet robe was Countess Illys Rodriguez — countess, lord of the territory, and mage. For the moment she stood here not as a countess, but as a 4-Circle Mage, robed accordingly. The finest craftsman of the territory, and the finest mage.
Illys, too, looked upon the enormous structure before them.
"Yes. It's incredible."
Atop a vast green single-story building, four black rectangular towers rose. Overall it stood only as tall as a single story, yet its footprint spanned the size of a soccer field. Up close, fine golden lines covered its surface in intricate patterns.
Illys gazed at the structure with eyes full of awe.
"The Constellation has granted us our first mission. Our task is to repair that."
She clenched both fists tight. The first mission entrusted to her since becoming countess. Wherever one looked across the Empire, territories that enjoyed a Constellation's patronage prospered. Two massive food donations alone had, in an instant, lifted the territory free of its famine — a famine so severe people had starved to death and offered up their own children. The Constellation had solved that crisis with almost insulting ease.
That did not mean the food shortage had vanished completely. The bread may have been enormous, but it would not keep forever, and there were ten thousand subjects who needed to eat. Only continuous support would carry them through the drought. At the very least, she wanted that patronage until the drought ended.
Ralph's eyes glittered as he stared at the giant structure. He was the dwarf chief of the territory and its foremost master craftsman.
"My Lord! Shall we take a closer look first?"
"Yes."
Illys and Ralph moved in for a nearer inspection. Had it been ordinary work they would have summoned a full crew, but this was the Constellation's first mission. They could not simply set anyone's hands upon it from the start. Before calling in laborers, the two highest authorities would examine it themselves and deliver a diagnosis — Illys from a mage's perspective, Ralph from that of a dwarven artisan.
After studying it for a time, Illys asked, "Ralph. What do you make of it?"
Ralph answered with open admiration.
"It's magnificent. A structure this enormous, yet built as straight and true as if measured with a ruler. And these fingernail-sized jewel clusters — there are countless numbers of them — and these hair-thin lines connect every last one."
What they were examining was a memory semiconductor. The tiny jewel clusters Ralph pointed to were pairs of transistors and capacitors. Inside a memory chip, hundreds of millions of such pairs were linked by metal traces.
Illys's brow furrowed slightly. Even through a mage's eyes, the true nature of the structure was not easy to grasp.
"But… what kind of device is this?"
"I couldn't say what it's for, but sheer scale and delicacy alone tell you this is no ordinary object. Something far beyond our imagination."
"True enough… anything the Constellation sends would hardly be ordinary. But where has it broken?"
Ralph stroked his beard.
"I've never seen a structure this size, but the architecture itself isn't complex. Countless jewel clusters and the connections between them — that's the basic design. If something's failed, the fault is most likely in those connections."
Illys nodded. Together they began checking whether jewels and linking lines were properly joined. The sheer scale of the thing, however, made the survey take time.
"Still… what are all of these?"
Uncountable jewel clusters. And the metal lines binding them all together.
"Hmm. To my eye, they look a great deal like an anthill."
"An anthill?"
"Aye. Ants carve out many little chambers. And these lines look like the paths the ants travel."
Illys nodded at Ralph's explanation.
"I can see that. I thought it looked more like a library."
"A library?"
"Yes. If each of these fingernail-sized jewels is a book, then the lines are the pathways that let you find every single volume."
"Spoken like a true mage. That works just as well."
Illys asked with a note of suspicion, "This enormous structure… could it be a magical artifact?"
Ralph nodded.
"I had much the same suspicion."
Ralph was no mage, but as a master craftsman he had built any number of enchanted tools. The magic circles that formed such tools fell into three broad stages: Collection — the part that gathered and stored mana; Conversion — the part that transformed mana into the appropriate magic; and Activation — the part that executed the desired function.
Studying each section of the semiconductor, Ralph pondered which of those three roles the various parts might serve.
"Hmm… let's look further first."
"Understood."
Illys and Ralph continued exploring the giant structure. Then Ralph found something.
"My Lord. Look here."
He had discovered a place where one of the fingernail-sized jewel clusters was cracked.
"It's broken."
Ralph examined the cross-section of the jewel cluster carefully.
"Oh-ho."
"What is it?"
"This wasn't just a simple jewel after all. Take a look. It's built in two distinct layers."
Illys studied the fingernail-sized jewel as well. What they were looking at was a transistor-capacitor pair. The transistor acted as a switch; the capacitor stored electricity. Together they formed a device that endlessly flipped and held values of zero and one.
"Hmm… My Lord. I don't think this little jewel serves any simple purpose."
Illys peered intently at the broken jewel's cross-section.
"You're right. It looks complicated. Two layers, is it?"
Ralph knew artifacts well.
"At first I thought this entire giant building was the conversion section of an artifact."
"I thought the same."
"An artifact gathers mana, converts it, and manifests it. This building didn't seem to be gathering mana, nor did it look like the manifestation end. The structure itself is simple. At a glance it looked exactly like a conversion unit."
"Yes."
"I assumed that if mana were gathered from somewhere, this was the part that converted it into a specific magic… but I think each of these tiny jewels is itself a conversion unit."
Illys's eyes widened slightly.
"Each one of these impossibly numerous jewels is its own little conversion unit?"
"Yes."
"The part that converts mana into specific magic — and every single jewel that makes it up can convert independently?"
"So it would seem."
"Then this building could convert every kind of magic there is?"
"If I may dare to guess — yes."
Illys looked around and trembled from head to toe.
"Heavens… what are we looking at?"
"I got chills myself."
"Ah… this is……"
"Exactly. This building appears to be able to convert every magic in the world."
Illys felt an overwhelming sense of scale. The palace-sized structure she was walking through contained hundreds of millions of tiny jewel clusters. And if every one of those jewels was a conversion unit, then this building was a living, breathing converter capable of unleashing every magic that existed.
A look of pure wonder crossed her face as she took in the surroundings.
"Ralph. What kind of magical tools could possibly operate through the countless magic circles produced by a conversion unit this vast?"
Ralph thought carefully before answering.
"Hmm… tools of the gods, I expect."
"Th-that would follow. But can we actually repair something like this?"
Ralph's eyes lit up.
"My Lord. There is still something we can do."
"What is it?"
"Look carefully over there."
"Hmm… it's a little crooked."
"Aye. These fingernail jewels are lined up in rows, but they aren't perfectly straight. They're slightly askew."
"So we align the rows?"
"Of course. If we mobilize the whole clan, we can have it done in a few days."
"Good."
"I also have a suggestion."
"What is it?"
"These jewels are linked by metal lines. If mana travels along those lines, what if we overlaid them with a metal that aids mana flow?"
"You mean use mithril?"
"Yes. We couldn't coat every line, but even speeding up the main thoroughfares would dramatically increase the casting speed of the tool."
Illys nodded.
"Very well. This is the Constellation's first command — let's give it everything we have."
"Understood."
Lucky Repair Shop
Ding-a-ling.
The shop door opened and a customer walked in.
"Welcome."
"Do you fix computers here too?"
A man in his fifties carrying a desktop tower.
"Oh, of course. What's the problem?"
"The computer's gotten really slow."
"How so?"
"One program at a time is fine, but if I open a bunch of windows, the whole thing crawls."
I had a pretty good idea what he meant.
"Let me take a look."
I connected the tower to the monitor on the workbench and hit the power button.
"This thing's so sluggish I can't get anything done."
I started checking for viruses and software issues while I talked.
"Alright. What do you mainly use the computer for? Games, anything like that?"
"No. Just the internet and some documents."
I went through the hardware specs one by one.
"Ah — this is a custom build. The CPU's solid, but the RAM is lacking."
"RAM?"
"Simply put, the CPU is the part that does the calculating, and RAM is the notebook you write the numbers on. You need to write the numbers down before you can calculate anything."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. You've got a good brain. But being smart doesn't mean you calculate fast — you also need the material brought to you quickly."
"So it's sitting there waiting because there's nothing to calculate?"
"Exactly. The thing that carries the material to your brain is the RAM."
"So what do we do?"
"Boosting RAM speed is hard. But I can add more RAM so it can fetch twice as much at once."
"Ah."
"This computer isn't stupid — it just doesn't have enough room to take notes. Bump up the capacity and internet windows and document programs will fly. No problem."
"Then go ahead and do that."
Click.
I pulled the 4GB stick and slotted in two 8GB modules.
"All done. It was 4GB before; with two 8GB sticks it's now 16GB. Watch."
I ran a live demonstration of several programs.
"Whoa. That's fast."
The customer watched multiple browser windows whip open and looked thoroughly satisfied.
"Not bad, right? The kid wasn't dumb — it was just taking notes on Post-its."
"Haha. Fair enough. So how much do I owe you…?"
"Eighty thousand won will do it."
"Card okay?"
"Of course."
After the customer left, the RAM upgrade made me think of the stick I had sent to the Nano World a few days earlier. A broken 4GB module. Were they managing to fix it?
I took out the smartphone I kept carefully stowed in the drawer — the phone that let me see the Nano World.
"This is my number-one treasure now."
More precious than any other smartphone on Earth.
Connecting to Rodriguez Territory.
The territory appeared on the screen — wide fields, a pastoral atmosphere. Tiny people bustled about inside low castle walls.
"It's exactly like SimCity."
Watching the little people felt like playing a game. But this was no game. It was another world linked to Earth. The people inside were impossibly small.
I manipulated the phone screen until I found Illys. She was standing before the RAM I had sent, directing a large number of people.
"Heh. They're really going at it."
I had told them to repair the RAM, and they were pouring their hearts into it.
"Though I never expected them to work this hard."
They had wanted to be of use to me, so I had tossed them something — anything — to try. Whether they fixed it or not barely mattered. But with them this committed, I couldn't very well tell them to stop.
I watched for a while, and then the mood shifted.
"Huh? Are they wrapping up?"
Illys turned with a flourish and her clothes changed. Then she seemed to be praying. At that moment a message arrived.
The Rodriguez Territory offers tribute.
Do you accept?
The RAM, no doubt.
"Yes."
Whoosh.
A single RAM stick materialized on the workbench. The same one I had sent into Illys's world. What had changed?
I installed it in my desktop and pressed the power button.
Whirrr.
The computer came up almost instantly. The boot was rock-solid.
"Looks fine."
I checked memory performance in the Task Manager.
"Huh?"
I rubbed my eyes to make sure I was reading it right.
"Hold on."
The performance window read 48,000 MT/s.
"Did I get something wrong?"
MT/s meant how many operations per second. In other words, the working speed of the RAM. Earlier I had fixed that older man's sluggish PC by increasing capacity. That was the usual approach. RAM speeds were generally all in the same ballpark, so when a computer felt slow you just added more sticks. But this meant the RAM itself had gotten faster. Capacity was something you could expand by plugging in another module. Speed, though — that was fundamental. You couldn't change it without rewriting the foundation.
I searched online.
"Even AI-server RAM only hits 9,600 MT/s…"
Supercomputer-grade stuff topped out around 10,000 MT/s. And mine was sitting at 48,000.
I swallowed hard without meaning to.
"So… this memory semiconductor is the fastest memory semiconductor on the face of the Earth?"