Chapter 211: A New Beginning In the School of Element
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
Raventi’s roaring was in every arcanist’s ear. They were totally shocked, together with quite mixed feelings. Even the four members of the Arcana Review Board were no exception.
The finding of Periodic Table of Elements showed that the discovery of new elements was no longer blind and scattered or, as described by many, like a blind cat running into a dead mouse, but something that had theoretical guidance!
From now on, there was a way to proceed in the study to find new elements!
Exploring the world, finding laws among phenomena, and using the laws to explain other phenomena, this was the spirit of arcana!
“Lucien Evans X… Lucien Evans X is here!” The excited but nervous voice of a man resounded, and then one more time, this time louder, but still with certain control.
Gaston and Larry, as they were so shocked with the finding, did not realize that the young man they met before the conference began was the very author of this paper until now.
No one could believe that this great finding was from a level one arcanist, first circle sorcerer!
On the platform, Leandro, who was standing not far away from Raventi, felt supper dizzy all of a sudden, as his head was buzzing.
All the people present turned to look at the direction where the voice came from. It was Lazar who raised his hand and answered Raventi’s questions, and right now, he looked rather excited.
Lazar was deeply shocked. Every time Raventi announced the result of an experiment, his heart missed a beat. And when Lazar heard that familiar name, he was totally unable to believe his ears, since although he knew that his friend Lucien Evans was quite smart, he had no idea how Lucien could put forward the periodic table and make this prediction as if he had already seen the new element before, with his own eyes!
Behind Lazar, Lucien closed his eyes. When he heard that his paper was right on the atomic weight of the new element, Lucien knew that all his hard work paid off!
For sure Lucien felt rather excited, and deep in his mind, he was wild with joy. Meanwhile, although Lucien was relatively confident, he also found himself very lucky as he celebrated in his heart that this new element was not some strange isotope, or his paper would not be found valuable this fast. And if that was the case, this paper would bring him more trouble than reputation, as most arcanists who were regarded as being blindly arrogant with their previous papers would have a really hard time publishing their next papers, and at that time, maybe the ring of Holm Crown prize would be Lucien’s last protection.
Since the paper was finished, Lucien kept feeling quite nervous. Finally, Raventi’s experiment proved that he was right.
One would not imagine that finding the law was too difficult, however, not many could really stick to the effort if it didn’t pay off in a relatively short period of time.
Raventi, Timothy and other arcanists saw the young man standing beside Lazar. Wearing black bow and long double-breasted coat, Lucien looked handsome and elegant, and his black eyes appeared to be rather deep.
“You’re… Lucien Evans X?” Raventi could not believe that he was this young.
It was the same with other arcanists present. Except for Gaston, Larry and a few other sorcerers who had already seen him, the rest of the people all thought that this author only of junior-rank should at least have many years of experience in studying elements.
However, this was not true.
Lucien tried to stay calm, and he smiled, “Yes, Mr. Raventi.”
Squinting a bit, Raventi secretly used a magic and read the information of Lucien’s arcana badge. Then he nodded to Lucien. “Evans, come up here. I think your paper should be the last and best play of today’s conference. The great meaning your paper is of is clear to every arcanist present, and using even a single word to explain it is a waste of time. This conference will be remembered by history because of your paper!”
“Before that, Mr. Raventi.” Gaston stood up, “I need to apologize for my negligence when I reviewed this paper. So I would like to petition the board together with Mr. Overee for a reevaluation of this paper, so Evans could earn all the reputation, praise, arcana credits and points that he truly deserve!”
Overee also stood up and nodded.
Gaston and Overee were not stupid. After seeing Raventi’s experiments, they quickly talked to each other and made this decision. On one hand, they needed to be responsible for the mistake that their students made, since it was their students who ignored this paper, and on the other hand, they would not leave their enemies any time to take advantage of this thing and thus to kick them out of the board.
Now they made themselves look rather fair and humble.
Lucien took a deep breath and then started walking through the audience toward the platform.
No one is sure who started it, but many arcanists stood up one by one to show their respect to Lucien from both sides of the aisle as he was walking.
“I’m deeply regretful that I missed this paper,” apologized Larry sincerely. With his hand on his left chest, he bowed to Lucien.
Timothy adjusted his glasses a bit, “Evans, if you had not put your experiments of correcting the atomic weights in the appendix, I might have visited you the very night you sent the paper to the board. Anyway, you taught me a lesson, Evans. Your paper and what happened to your paper will definitely become a famous story in the world of magic, while Larry and I would be two idiots in this story, in contrast to your great accomplishment.”
Timothy had a sense of humour and he was very straightforward, which sort of explained why he loved explosive magic so much. However, regarding appearance, Timothy looked quite gentle and elegant.
“At least my paper passed your review,” Lucien did not really have a bad impression of them.
When Lucien walked past Ulysses, the latter released a sigh and said to the former with a slight frustration in his tone, “There might still be some people who are gonna doubt your finding, Evans, but I totally believe in your periodic table. In fact, I was once very close to the finding, but I gave it up because of the several atomic weights that I could not explain. I’m restrained by my own sense of authority and experience.”
Lucien smiled and nodded, “Mr. Ulysses, without your paper discussing the possible law existing among the elements, I would not dare make such a bold assumption when I was developing my paper.”
At this time, someone who did not like Leandro said to Lucien, “Mr. Evans, you’re definitely qualified for this conference! Besides Mr. Raventi and all the committee members, you’re the most qualified one!”
Hearing that, Leandro wanted to directly disappear of the platform.
“Mr. Evans, welcome!”
“Mr. Evans, we’re looking forward to your speech!”
Although these arcanists were not familiar with Lucien, after witnessing the experiment and carefully reading the paper, they all showed their respect to this young sorcerer, which was pretty rare.
Stepping onto the metal platform at the center of the hall, Lucien first bowed to Raventi respectfully and then took the rostrum from him.
“Mr. Evans, I’ve got a question,” Leandro cut in before Lucien started his speech. “Finding the new element’s such a coincidence. I wonder if it wasn’t you who first found this new element beforehand, and then following its data, you figured out this periodic table. This seems to be the only reason that your ‘assumption’ could be this accurate, but if this is true, the finding of the new element wouldn’t be able to prove that your periodic table of elements is correct, as you used its data as a basis when you developed the table.”
A few arcanists in the crowd slightly nodded.
Before answering Leandro’s question, Lucien activated the magic circle for presentation first, and then he calmly explained, “Let’s ignore the new element first and just look at the elements discovered before my paper was published. I don’t think it’s too hard to see that my finding could logically be drawn upon the features and data of the elements that we are previously already familiar with. Besides, feel free to check my purchase record with the congress if I’ve bought any ores that contain this new element.”
The arcanists present stared at the table carefully, and Lucien continued, as he pointed at the blank spaces on the periodic table of elements, “As for those undiscovered elements, I’m confident that even though their atomic weights might not be exactly the same with what are on the table because of the limit of our current measuring methods, their characters should follow my prediction. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sure that you’ve all collected some pretty unique ores. Why not check them again to see if there’re any that suit the description in my paper. Try to find new elements out of them, and I’m waiting for your papers. Either prove me right or wrong.”
Lucien’s confidence influenced most of the arcanists. They started to feel very excited.
When they were considering to end this conference earlier so they could go back and do their research, Lucien said to them, “Actually, even if no new element could be found for a while, even if there’re still some tiny problems with my periodic table, ladies and gentlemen, should we just ignore this periodic law existing among all these elements?”
Staring at the periodic table, which contained so many profound secrets of the world, all the arcanists present fell into silence. They had to admit that the periodic feature truly existed.
Lucien raised his head slightly and said to the people seriously, “The finding of the periodic feature in arranging the elements represents a new beginning in the School of Element. According to me, I do not think that the most significant function of the table lies in leading us to find more new elements, but reminding us to take a step back and ask why is there a periodic feature among elements? This is the question that I’ve been asking myself since I’ve figured out this table.”
Hearing his insightful words, Lucien’s audience was deeply shocked, especially those senior-rank arcanists like Raventi and Gaston. Staring at this young man speaking on the platform, they recalled the great figure of Mr. Douglas, the president of the Congress of Magic, when he was giving the most influential speech in history of magic.
