Chapter 328: Direction
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
When Fernando spoke the common tongue, he had this a sharp and creepy Brianne accent—an accent that was looked down upon by most people in the Kingdom of Holm, who regarded Brianne accent as the tongue from the countryside folk. At the same time, in Holm, most people who had Rentato accent were proud of their way of speaking and regarded themselves as the noble and elegant representatives due to complicated historical reasons.
Of course, in front of the grand arcanist, no one dared to mock the way he read the letter. The students all listened to his reading very carefully.
Fernando continued, “…Perhaps you may think my words leave no space for any possibilities, but this is what I believe: No matter what we are talking about—Transformation, Illusion, Elements or Summoning—they shall all be included in this fundamental system, and the finding of the Periodic Table of Elements has further confirmed my belief: Alchemy is in fact a kind of electromagnetic response. For example, when an object is heated up, the electromagnetic waves radiating from it can reveal different colors, and this can only be properly explained by the natures of the atoms, the most fundamental, non-further-dividable units of everything in this world. My assumption is that due to the quantities and masses of different atoms, the electromagnetic waves that they release also vary. I wonder why and how these atoms act like this, but I can assure you that this is not the arrangement from the God of Truth. Although so far there are no solid experiments that can yet confirm my guess, I’d like to share with you my thoughts, my friend. Again, here I repeat my point: although we’re still facing problems with regards to the spread medium for light and the existence of the stars, and despite the fact that there are schools of magic that still cannot be properly included in the comprehensive system, no one can deny the fact that we have entered a world in which arcana system has been established overall. Our future work shall be focusing our effort on further modifying, solidifying and improving the system and seeking for its wider application in magic.”
Lucien carefully listened to the letter, and he sincerely felt the great passion, pride, and confidence inside of the archmage’s heart. Even a calm and disengaged person like Cole felt encouraged and excited.
Fernando read the last part of the letter, “I am glad that we live in such a wonderful era, being able to devote ourselves into the world of arcana and magic. Our vision becomes possible because of the establishment of calculus, making us able to know and calculate the sequential world. We can see the beauty of balance and symmetry in the influential formulas put forward by Mr. Douglas, Mr. Brook, and many other great pioneers. In my eyes, the formulas are much more beautiful compared to poetries, music pieces, paintings or sculptures.”
Lucien would never arrogantly regard himself as an omniscient of this world, despite the fact that he had a whole library with him from the other world. Lucien knew that he had to do many experiments to verify his knowledge in practice to see whether his knowledge was part of the world’s truth.
“So… any ideas?” Fernando folded the letter and then asked.
Thompson was the eldest one among all the students of Fernando who were still alive, so he answered first, “Mr. Lauren’s opinion is shared by many other arcanists. Like what he said in the letter, although we are still working on proving the existence of the stars, we have already used Mr. Douglas’ theory and created powerful magic spells. Perhaps we’re still some distance away from the essence of the world, and maybe we haven’t been able to combine the two fundamental systems and the nature of atoms together perfectly, but, yes, the world of arcana has been established.”
Thompson was being euphemistic. As an arcanist specializing in the school of Element, he noticed that Lauren’s letter had ignored the importance of atoms. Thompson believed that if the two systems were the sun and the silver moon in the world of arcana, atoms should be the wide stretch of land!
At the same time, Thompson understood that this was just an informal letter between two friends, and he knew that Lauren was a firm believer of Energy Essentialism, who did not recognize the existence of material or spirit but saw energy as the essence of everything. Believers of Energy Essentialism argued that everything in this world ranging from atoms to human body all consisted of energies in different forms showing different features including showing gravity, releasing electromagnetic waves, etc, which was the only explanation in these arcanists’ eyes to why there were transformation spells, why catalysts could be used in alchemy experiments, and why spiritual power could interfere with reality and help to cast spells. Lucien’s Periodic Table of Elements, as they believed, further supported their point of view.
“That’s true. Even the overthrow of Life Force Theory is only part of the progress of the grand world of arcana,” said Ashikana, whose blood came partly from the elves. When talking about arcana, her eyes were sparkling out of excitement, “My friend Isabella and her student Rachel have found out that several substances are secreted when people are influenced by a certain illusionary spell. They thus believe that people’s illusions come from these substances.”
“Wow, their work sounds pretty cool!” Alferris, who had shrunk its size, cheered, “This finding has included some illusionary spells into the world of arcana, and thus Mr. Lauren’s letter is supported. The finding deserves Sorcerer Laurel! I wish I could discover something! I want the beautiful shiny crown!”
Alferris’s tail swayed from one side to the other, hoping that the finding belonged to itself. But it was too late. The fact that Ashikana directly shared the finding with them showed that Isabella and Rachel’s paper should have already passed the review of the board.
Lucien realized that some arcanists had already found out the existence and influence of hormone, so he decided to disclose the two versions of his Charm Person spell before they lost their value. Although a big part of the school of Illusion was still outside of the system of arcana, this finding had contributed to the progress of covering the three schools—Transformation, Summoning, and Illusion—within the arcana system. In the past, the arcana system had always failed to explain how the three schools properly worked.
Cole’s face flushed slightly, “Although I don’t agree on Energy Essentialism, I can’t deny what’s been said in the letter.”
Before the next student, Lacie Carter, made his comment, Fernando growled angrily, “Stupid! Stupid! This letter is full of ridiculous errors! Are you all out of your mind? You do not know how to find the historical documents from the ancient magic empire?! At that time, those ancient sorcerers had no idea what gravity, electromagnetic induction, and electromagnetic wave were but they still managed to create the spells using the powers! Look at yourself! How arrogant and blind you are! We are making progress just because the system of arcana is a bit closer to the truth of the world! How dare you agree with Lauren on his nonsensical pompous words?! How dare you say that an advanced world of arcana has been established when there are still so many disputes and questions on what the form of spiritual power is? There are lots, lots of arcanists who do not see the current main belief as being correct, even including Mr. Douglas! He shall never be convinced until the spread medium of light is discovered! He’s still looking for evidence to overthrow what we think we’ve known! What if one day he finds it? Is half of the arcana world gonna collapse? What if it is proved that the stars, in fact, don’t exist, but are just the illusionary representatives of divine power? What if gravity is proved to be one kind of divine power? Is the whole world of arcana going to collapse like that? The closer we’re to the truth, the harder we shall remember—we shall always be humble and persistent, or we’d be deceived by errors!”
Facing Fernando’s growling, all the students flinched, including Cole.
Fernando put away the letter and said to his students calmly, as if he had never shouted to them just now, “Currently, I’m working on a few projects, such as the one with Hathaway investigating the reasons behind the distribution of the elements, and the other one is for creating a legendary spell of the school of Thermodynamics. But because I’ve finally worked out a spell for Thermodynamics experiments, I can get the accurate statistics for the thermal radiation. So I am going to first work on figuring out the formula for thermal radiation. So many spells in the school of Thermodynamics can become simpler.”
Then he also mentioned some difficulties that he was currently facing.
Finishing his words introducing the projects, Fernando turned to Lucien, “You’re my new student. If you don’t have any urgent, personal research interests so far, you can be my assistant in one of the projects.”
“I’d like to work on the experiment on studying thermal radiation,” Lucien hurriedly answered. He had been having a difficult time collecting related data of the researches in the school of Thermodynamics, which could be an important part for him to understand the difference between this world and the one he came from. Being able to study Thermodynamics was thus a major reason for Lucien to be Fernando’s student.
Fernando nodded but did not make any comments. Instead, he turned to other students and said, “Now… Let’s talk about what project each of us is working on right now and the obstacles that we’ve encountered recently. You first, Ashikana.”
Ashikana sat to the left side of Fernando, right beside Lucien.
“I’ve been studying the method to approach absolute zero, making more senior-rank snow and ice spells more powerful. Unfortunately, making further progress is quite difficult. I’m still about twenty celsius degrees from absolute zero,” Ashikana said to the rest of the class, and then she shared more details of her experiment with the class.
Lucien learned quite a lot from Ashikana’s sharing, which expanded his knowledge in ice and snow spells greatly. After that, all the students’ eyes looked at Lucien, in which there was great curiosity toward this young talent in the school of Element.
“I’m trying to reach the fifth circle. Except for being the teacher’s assistant, for now, I’m not able to work on other projects,” said Lucien honestly. “But some of my messy thoughts have become more organized and clear after I heard Mr. Lauren’s and Ms. Akashina’s sharing. These thoughts came from my study on the spell, Mechanized Mind, my understanding of Illusionary and Necromantic spells, as well as Nightmare King’s analysis of dream. I think there are weak but special electromagnetic waves in human beings’ brain that affect people’s emotions, feelings and behaviors. One’s soul can also be influenced.”
Akashina was shocked, “Evans, do you know what are you talking about?”
What Lucien Evans just said plus Isabella’s research outcome would be able to explain a large part of the school of Illusion using the system of arcana!
