Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
In Douglas’s magic tower in his demiplane.
The latest issue of Arcana beside him, Artil burst out loud laughter. “It’s been proven! I knew it! What a pity that I wasn’t there in Brook’s lab and missed the chance to see the look on his face! He must be beyond desperate! I’d be laughing in my sleep now if his cognitive world had exploded just like that idiot Lauren!”
Joy. Wild joy. Artil could not hold it back.
Fed up with Artil’s crazy spirit, Norman coughed a bit and secretly thought to himself that Artil indeed deserved the title of the Mad Dog — that was how the other arcanists called Artil.
Norman’s face was a bit pale from the injury in his soul. Using Douglas’ lab, he just verified the conclusion published in the journal.
To find the mysterious dimension, the legendaries in the congress had gone all out. Very frequently, they had to leave Allyn for the exploration. Therefore, although Douglas was also paying lots of attention to the verification of the light quantum hypothesis, his progress in improving the magic circles was slower than that of Lauren. However, after the design of the experiment was published in Arcana, it only took him half an hour to finish the improvement.
Luciana was in a very good mood as well. After the suppression of all these years had been released, she did share the same wild joy with Artil. However, she was definitely much more restrained. “Lucien Evans is indeed the most promising one of the younger generation to become the next grand arcanist. His hypothesis derives from the perspective which was ignored by all our particle theory supporters. I’m starting to appreciate the light quantum theory now. Maybe the form of the world is actually discontinuous…”
“If it is discontinuous, then what about calculus?!” scolded Artil. The fact that he had paid Lucien the fifty-thousand arcana points did not mean that he had fully accepted the hypothesis. In his eyes, Lucien’s hypothesis was just another variation of the particle theory, and it had nothing to do with if the world was continuous or not.
“There must be something wrong with the hypothesis! It has to be changed! I’d say the same thing even if Lucien Evans was standing right in front of me!” said Artil.
By the way, Lucien had used the fifty-thousand arcana points to pay off his debt with the Lord of Storm.
Luciana was just expressing her happiness, and she used ‘maybe’ before her ideas. However, it still triggered Artil’s anger. Luciana felt offended and her lips moved silently in the shape of the words,
“Mad Dog.”
Artil did not care about Norman and Luciana’s attitude at all. He picked up a piece of information and read it, then let out a satisfied and vicious laugh. “Lauren, Christal… An archmage, three senior-rank mages, twenty-seven middle-rank sorcerers, and more whose cognitive worlds have gone broken and solidified. Those bloody wave theory supporters finally got what they deserve! When they were showing off their victory years ago, had they ever imagined today’s situation? When Brook reached his throne of grand arcanist stepping on blood and brains, had he ever thought of his miserable ending?”
His hatred was even stronger than what Luciana and Norman imagined. Luciana frowned. Although she was also a supporter of the particle theory, she still thought that Artil’s hatred was too much — Lauren and the others were all sorcerers of the Congress, one shouldn’t act such happy and thrilled to their death.
Norman looked quite pissed. When he was just about to refute Artil’s words, the look on his face suddenly changed to respect.
“Sir.”
Douglas had walked down the stairs. Slightly frowning, he said to Artil. “Mind your manner, Artil. There are still phenomena, including the classic double-slit interference image, that cannot be explained by the light quantum hypothesis. We have to remain careful and humble all the time. All the sorcerers who died are our companions. We do have disagreements, but we still share the same goal — to strengthen the Congress of Magic.”
“Yes, Sir…” Artil held back his joy. “Lucien Evans is the one who made this happen; too bad he couldn’t carry out the accurate experiment three years ago. I wonder how he’s feeling right now, and what he is working on.”
“I heard that Lucien Evans is working on particle bombardment following his teacher, the Lord of Storm,” answered Norman. As a member of the Affair Committee in charge of the Magic Engineering Department, he knew that the department was sending senior-rank sorcerers to Lucien’s Atom Institution to improve the facilities.
Douglas nodded. “Fernando has taken Lucien here. Artil, if you really want to know, you could directly ask them. Norman, if you don’t feel comfortable seeing Lucien, you can go back. Don’t force yourself to do it.”
Norman was a bit discouraged. “No matter what I think, the experiment result speaks the loudest.”
“Great. I was about to thank him and have a conversation with him in person.” Luciana, on the other hand, was surprised and delighted.
She was working on improving her own meditation method using the light quantum hypothesis, and she had many questions to ask. Some of the questions she could talk to Douglas, but the rest would be most efficiently solved if she could directly talk to Lucien.
Artil was also excited. “I have to ask him if he still has other experiment clues for completely destroying the wave theory!”
— And send most sorcerers in the Congress who were above middle-rank to death?
Casting an angry glance at Artil, Luciana hoped that Artil knew what he was trying to encourage.
After a few minutes, Lucien, who was wearing the black double-breasted suit and his monocle, walked into the small living room following the Lord of Storm.
“Got something new again?” Douglas saw the thick pile of parchment in Fernando’s hand.
The paper rose up in the air and flew to Douglas.
“Lucien’s ‘New Alchemy’. Take a look at it yourself,” said Fernando.
Fernando’s scarlet eyes looked around. Artil, Norman, and Luciana all took a step back spontaneously from his vigor. With the Lord of Storm present, they dared not to pry into the paper using their spiritual power.
Seeing that Fernando was being unusually serious, Douglas started reading the paper attentively,
As he read further, Douglas’s mouth slightly opened and raised his right hand, as if he was about to make some strong comments. But he held himself back and kept reading.
Time went by. And it had been two hours.
Douglas’s students just waited there. They dared not to talk or even use Telepathic Bond. Douglas should not be disturbed at this moment — They knew it very well.
Before the fall of the ancient Magic Empire, Douglas had already become an archmage. He was deeply influenced by the Empire’s tradition in the relation between students and teachers — although Douglas was indeed kind and patient to his students, his students had to be deferential to him as well.
Douglas finally put down the paper on the walnut table, and then he closed his eyes. In the following half-hour, he was quiet and seemed to be simulating something in his own cognitive world.
Finally, Douglas opened his eyes and said to them rather seriously,
“The Church has always been accusing us of profaning the divinity of God, of attempting to step into the forbidden realm that only belonged to God. However, we are all aware of the fact that we do not deserve such high comments from our enemy. We have just peeled off some holy wrappings on the outside, but are still far away from that realm. But now, it will be different. The theoretical system in Lucien’s paper has brought us right to the gate of the forbidden realm, and what is needed for pushing open the gate is the experimental proof. Finally, we won’t let the Church down anymore.
“But we can only fully rely on the theoretical system until the experiment’s proof is available. Lucien, your theoretical system can only be verified until the neutron is found, until how an element is changed by bombardment is proved, and until all your predictions come true. All the grand arcanists after me have gone through this after their theoretical systems first came out.”
The title, grand arcanist, only emerged after Douglas’s theoretical system was widely accepted.
When he was talking to Lucien, Douglas seemed to be a bit excited.
Finally, they had approached the truth of the world, the secrets behind magic!
The power of creation had always been the ultimate pursuit among all sorcerers! They were now much closer to the dream than ever before!
If human beings could do the same thing as Gods could, then what was the meaning of having Gods?
“What? Grand arcanist? The forbidden realm of God?” Asked Artil hurriedly.
After looking at Fernando and saw him slightly nodding, Douglas allowed the finding in the paper to be revealed to the students present. After all, the paper was going to be submitted very soon.
“Lucien’s new theoretical system, New Alchemy, will be able to give us insight into the secret of matters and hand us the power of creating. It’s going to be a theoretical system capable of changing the era,” said Fernando.
“… What?” Norman could not believe what he just heard.
Luciana’s spirit had been lifted again after the long wait. She looked at her teacher and the paper on the table and then turned to look at Lucien. She wondered if another grand arcanist was about to appear — a twenty-something-years-old grand arcanist.
Seeing the elegant, well-mannered young man standing in front of him, she could not imagine a man like this just claimed that he had mastered the secret of creating the universe.
She suddenly understood how the pastors in the Church felt. There was no way that they could accept the fact that there was no difference between God and human beings.
Artil shook his head fiercely. “This is impossible! Nobody can step into God’s realm! Impossible!” He was even more agitated than when he attacked the wave theory supporters.
As if he had gone mad, Artil suddenly made a rush for the paper beside Douglas and picked it up.
Fernando was just about to stop him, but saw Douglas slightly frowning and shaking his head, so he decided to remain silent and watch.
Lucien felt that he had grasped something.
“Proton… Neutron… Electron… Nonsense! How dare you make such a claim without any experiment support?” Artil turned to Lucien and asked furiously with a completely distorted look on his face.
Lucien answered calmly. “If you don’t believe in the existence of proton, I can go to the lab and prove it to you on the spot. As for the prediction of the neutron, it’s based on atomic weight, proton mass, and electronic mass. It makes sense logically.”
“Then let’s go to the lab!” Artil grabbed the paper and started heading for the lab, and he saw Lucien followed him behind at a leisurely pace.
Nodded in confidence, Lucien said, “no problem. I’ll show you two experiments. Also, we should be able to locate the trace of the new element in the radioactive substance now.”
He was referring to the fifth-circle spell for collecting small amount of elements put forward by Hathaway.
Norman and Luciana had no idea what was going on. Why was Artil acting so weird? Why would he hate Lucien so much for this? Was it because that he hate someone who could receive the title of grand arcanist at so young an age, someone just like Brook?
“It must be a fake experiment… It must be…”
As Artil saw Lucien’s attitude and knew that the design of the paper was reliable and the data was persuasive, the look on his face was replaced by perplexity. “How’s this possible? This is… God’s realm…”
Lucien then saw a beam of bright light burst out from Artil’s body and devoured him.
Before the power of the light could spread out, Douglas’s magic shield had stopped it.
The scene of the light spots slowly falling down was as beautiful as a dream. Watching it, Lucien knew that his sense had been correct.
Artil was not mad. He was not really a ‘Mad Dog’.
“No wonder he was continuously challenging the wave theory…”
“If he had believed in the particle theory that bad, his head would have exploded years ago…”
