Protein Structure Analysis (2)
Clack-clack-clack.
Team Leader Gong’s keyboard clattered in a flurry of rapid keystrokes.
“Beginning Nano AI analysis.”
Nano AI’s voice rang out.
Initial pattern matching.
A progress bar began to fill, slowly.
And after a while, the estimated training time appeared.
Estimated full training time… approximately 20 years.
Neither I, Team Leader Gong, nor Intern Oh managed a reaction. For a moment, the room went quiet.
Twenty years.
Was that good or bad?
Team Leader Gong spoke first.
“Boss, even so, this is huge. Nobody’s ever done this. Something people called Mission Impossible becomes Mission Possible if you just run it for twenty years.”
Well… he wasn’t wrong.
Gong added, “And we’re going to keep upgrading the data centers over those twenty years, right? If we pull in more data from scientists, we could maybe cut it down to ten.”
“Yeah, probably.”
Intern Oh chimed in.
“I heard something while I was gathering this data.”
“Go ahead.”
“They say if you actually fully analyze every protein structure, you win a Nobel Prize.”
“A Nobel Prize?”
“Yes.”
For a moment, everyone just looked at each other.
Intern Oh continued. “The Nobel takes about ten years after you announce a breakthrough, because they have to verify the work is real. The analysis shows twenty years right now, but if we push hard and cut it to ten, you might be holding a Nobel about twenty years from now.”
“That’s right. Even then, Boss, you’d still only be in your forties. A Nobel in your forties is young.”
“Exactly, Boss.”
I looked at the number on the monitor again.
Estimated full training time… approximately 20 years.
I pointed at the screen.
“But it says training time, not analysis complete.”
“Ah……”
“……”
“Still, once the training’s done, the analysis should be quick, right?”
“……”
Yeah. Winning a Nobel was apparently not going to be easy.
After days of wrestling with science, my brain felt overcooked.
“Healing. I need healing.”
What gave me healing.
I turned on the TV in the CEO’s office.
The Nano World filled the massive screen.
“No matter how many times I look, this place is beautiful.”
Warm sunlight. A medieval outer castle. The outermost walls had a charming, block-built color palette, almost toy-like. In the courtyard beyond the gate, a small fountain had gone up—new, by the look of it—and children were splashing in the water. Adults sat on wooden platforms soaking up the sun, sharing bread and fruit. Everywhere, people talked cheerfully over their slate tablets.
A beautiful, pastoral place.
This was healing.
I worked the smartphone.
Tap. Tap.
Registered: Illys
Whoosh.
Selecting Illys from the registered list snapped the view straight to her.
“Illys. Good morning.”
Ah, Constellation.
“I was just wandering around a bit. Thought I’d take a walk.”
Constellation. Thank you for looking over the Nano World again today.
She bowed.
“Illys.”
Yes, Constellation.
“Nano AI mentioned something. It said the people of the Castle of the Creator and Rodriguez Castle feel a great deal of gratitude.”
Nano AI had said it learned gratitude and love from people.
And who would those people have been?
Researchers? College student part-timers?
Honestly—how much profound love and gratitude could they have been carrying around? Koreans were busy surviving. Competition, ambition, maybe a peaceful daily routine—sure. But teaching an AI gratitude and love? I wasn’t convinced.
I’d even asked Nano AI directly who had taught it gratitude and love.
Nano AI had answered that the nano-people said thank you every time they opened their mouths.
Look at her.
Look at Illys’s eyes.
Gratitude toward you, Constellation? Isn’t that simply natural?
Blink, blink.
Eyes that asked why I was even stating the obvious.
“Illys, people often treat the natural as if it isn’t.”
No. That must not be so. It’s a little embarrassing to say this, but before you looked upon our territory, many of our people starved to death. And now? Not only healthy adults, but the elderly and the weak enjoy fine food.
“That’s true enough.”
The whole continent has suffered a long drought. And yet the children of our territory play in the water. Word has spread to other domains—this place is called a dream territory.
“I understand.”
Illys’s face hardened with resolve.
Any citizen who does not feel gratitude toward the Constellation is without question a psychopath. Such a person has no right to live in the Castle of the Creator.
Whoa, whoa.
Easy there.
“I know. I already understood that you feel grateful—I was going to say thank you myself. All right, all right. Let’s get to the lesson.”
Understood. Where shall we begin today? Magic? Semiconductors?
“Hmm. I thought we’d talk a little about medicine today.”
Oh, medicine! Another new field.
“Yes. A field people are trying to put AI to work on lately. Medicine—more precisely, chemistry.”
Chemistry! Thank you, Constellation.
“Why the sudden thanks?”
I must be the only mage who can receive a Constellation’s knowledge like this.
“On this side it isn’t that impressive. There is extraordinary knowledge, sure, but a lot of it is so hard I can’t even explain it. I’m just teaching you the basics.”
No. Thanks to what you’ve taught me, I already reached the Fifth Circle. A mage who rises in Circles while living as a lord, without training in a Magic Tower—I’m probably the only one.
“Come on. That’s because you’re smart, Illys.”
Illys shook her head.
The knowledge you share is beyond anything I dared imagine. The foundation of the world you spoke of last time.
“Ah—the elements?”
Yes. The whole world is made of elements. Elements are the origin of matter. That which cannot be seen is the root of all that is. Every single line of it was a lofty realm. Each time I recited a line, the mana in my heart surged. As a mage, it was an enlightenment one might spend a hundred years polishing to obtain.
When did people learn about elements, again?
Definitely by middle school—and even elementary kids met them easily through educational comics.
“Yes. The world is made of elements. Those elements combine into molecules. And among those molecules, we’re working hard to teach an AI the structure of protein molecules.”
Ohh! Elements, molecules—and among them, the structure of protein molecules!
“Depending on the angles and the forces with which the elements in a molecule bond, the structure changes—and the performance of a drug can change completely.”
I talked with Illys about atoms, molecules, and the molecules that make up proteins. I explained carefully why the molecular structure of proteins mattered, and why we couldn’t simply look at their shape. Illys nodded with complete seriousness.
So… knowing a protein’s structure is extremely important?
“That’s right. But they’re too small to see directly from here. So we have to estimate the structure by indirect means……”
Wait.
Hold on.
While I was explaining it to Illys, something flashed through my mind.
Illys, right in front of me.
Who was she?
Just a beautiful woman?
She was that, of course—but she was something else as well.
Even now she sat before the screen, concentrating so she wouldn’t miss a single word I said.
On the TV she looked as large as any human, but in truth Illys was an incredibly tiny nano-person.
In other words—an impossibly small human being.
Why was learning protein molecular structure so hard?
Because they were molecules.
Because you couldn’t see them.
Because even with specialized equipment you only got shadow-like images, never a full three-dimensional view.
So even knowing how important it was, reconstructing the actual form was brutally difficult.
But.
To people on Earth, molecules were too small to see, which made solving their structure hard—but what about the Nano World?
And Illys was a mage, on top of that.
Blink, blink.
Even now, on the TV screen, a mage from a tiny world blinked at me.
I took out a molecular sample I’d received as a souvenir, opened the lid, and let a single drop fall.
“Sponsor.”
1 protein molecule has been sponsored.
Delivered with no size scaling.
“Illys, I just sponsored something. Can you take it out?”
Yes. One moment.
A short while later, Illys spoke with her eyes wide.
A small lump rested on her hand.
Illys lifted the protein molecule onto her palm.
To her, it was about the size of a fingernail.
Still—visible to the naked eye.
This is… a protein molecule?
The tiny mass on her palm.
Look closely and it looked like lumpy grains woven together.
“Yes. That’s a molecule.”
It’s cute.
A little disappointing.
It wasn’t perfectly clear.
Illys asked me,
If we learn this thing’s structure, that’s enough?
“That’s right.”
Shall I sketch it for you?
“What?”
I can use magnification magic—and for other people, this size is more than enough to draw accurately with a magnifying glass.
A sketch?
In other words—if I sent her proteins, Illys would look at them herself and draw them.
The thought hit me that, if this worked, a Nobel Prize might not take nearly as long as I’d feared.
That afternoon, a notice went up at the Castle of the Creator.
Target: People who draw well
Positions: 100
Duties: Observe small objects through a magnifying glass and draw them with precision
Compensation: Meals provided + coupons issued, scaled by drawing skill
Coupon value: 1 coupon = 1 meal
How to apply: Via slate tablet
Note: Drawing skill will be tested through the slate
People who saw the notice began to murmur.
The crowd before the gate suddenly grew loud and restless.
“Drawing? Magnifying glasses? What’s this about?”
“They’re taking a hundred people? Not that many.”
“But they give meals and coupons……”
“It says payment scales with skill, though. You’d better be good at drawing if you apply.”
“Should I try?”
“You too?”
“Yeah, me too.”
At the back of the crowd reading the notice stood a girl.
Her eyes shone.
She might not know much else—but she was confident about drawing.
A slate tablet rested in one of her hands.
“Apply through the slate?”
The girl looked at the tablet.
“How do I apply for that?”
The slate answered.
You want to apply for the drawing project?
“Yeah.”
Then draw this.
Ding.
An image rose onto the slate.
Hundreds of round spheres.
But the spheres were all different sizes.
And they weren’t still—they undulated and moved.
“You want me to draw this while it’s moving?”
Yes.
The image on the slate was strange.
Hundreds of round spheres.
All different sizes.
All different angles—and on top of that, they moved.
The spheres clung together and pulled apart. Stretched long, then contracted again. Even their colors shifted subtly—blue, pale yellow, soft pink… and among them, the faintest violet orbs mixed in.
Like layered ribbons left underwater.
Undulate. Undulate.
Tap.
When the girl reached toward the slate, the orientation of the image changed.
Swoosh, swoosh.
Moving her hand let her inspect the three-dimensional form from every side—up, down, left, right.
“You want me to draw this exactly as it is?”
The girl bit her lip.
Not a still object—a moving one. Spheres that looked almost the same but differed slightly. And it was three-dimensional.
It wasn’t going to be easy.
“Size, spacing, and angles will matter for something like this.”
She stared hard at the moving spheres.
And something seemed to click.
“They move—but the range is limited.”
She studied the regularity of the motion and the bounds of its range.
The girl picked up a small twig. She turned the tiny branch in her fingers, refining the feel at her fingertips. Then she drew a deep breath.
Like a swordsman settling her wrist before drawing a blade, she focused.
Scratch.
Scratch.
She pressed the twig to the slate and drew a line.
It was only a small branch, but it moved like a precision brush. Another line. A tiny point. Soft curves joined together.
“I’ll draw six views—front, back, left, right, top, bottom. I’ll submit six pictures.”
A good idea.
Her fingers moved faster and faster.
The tip of the twig rasped almost without pause across the slate, and within that motion the protein’s rippling form gradually took shape.
“This isn’t… twisted. It’s holding itself together.”
The folded, coiled structure of a protein’s amino-acid chain.
The girl finished six drawings—each viewing the protein structure from a different direction.
“Done.”
Submit?
“Yes.”
Current applicants: 4,630
Your drawing rank: …
“The ranking comes up right away?”
Ding.
Overall rank: 34th
Rank excluding dwarves and mages: 13th
PASSED
Please report to the Inner Castle Administration.
The girl shouted.
“Yes!”