Chapter 334: Assistant
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
Lucien finished his words. There was a total silence in the study.
Lucien knew that overthrowing Atom Theory, one of the fundamental theories in modern arcana system, was beyond crazy, and he was expecting Fernando’s growl. However, the smile remained on his face, but Fernando did not make any comments yet.
Until Lucien felt the atmosphere making him slightly unable to breathe, the Lord of Storm slightly nodded, “In fact, after you put forward the Periodic Table of Elements, I talked to Hathaway many times and we’ve reached the consensus: if we want to go deeper down into the field of elements and atoms, we have to abandon some of the ideas first, as they’re probably not the truth, but they’re restraining us from exploring further. Like what you mentioned, we also believed that the most fundamental existence should also be the simplest.”
“What…” Lucien did not expect that the two grand arcanists had already taken a big step in the micro-world. How came they were not afraid of the fact that their brain might explode because of such a cognition shift?
Recognizing the look on Lucien’s face, Fernando put on his symbolic, sarcastic smile, “Lucien, don’t tell me that in your mind, we grand arcanists are just a bunch of fogeys who never want to accept new things and are reluctant to admit the mistakes we’ve made.”
Before Lucien managed to answer, Fernando continued as if he was just talking to himself, “Standing at the top of the world, we’re close to the nature of everything. However, we know that we’ve just discovered a few stars if the truth can be compared to the starry sky. We shall stay humble and determined. We shall be aware of things that should be abandoned. As long as we see problems, we can never just ignore them. Completely destroying a legendary archmage’s cognition world isn’t an easy thing. It has to be strong and fierce… totally out of expectation, or the worst scenario was just to add a limit for further progressing to the archmage. Of course, maybe what we’ve known is still too little. We haven’t encountered anything like this so far that can shake everyone’s understanding of the world.”
It seemed that what Fernando just said was a bit different from what Lucien knew.
“Meanwhile, legendary archmages’ understanding of the world can never be easily shaken. Without solid, rigorous reasoning and profound exploring, most archmages would stick to their beliefs. It also took Hathaway and me a long time to reach the consensus.”
Lucien nodded thoughtfully. Fernando’s words sounded a bit contradictory, but it was not. What Fernando was saying was about persistence and modesty.
Fernando concluded, “There’s a saying among every grand arcanist: ‘sometimes, our past experience and knowledge can be our hindrance.’”
Lucien slightly released a sigh, and then put on a sincere smile, “Then… since I’m not talking nonsense. Can you support me with setting up the institution?”
“Emmm… only one new point… maybe not enough. You have anything else to share?” grinned Fernando cunningly like an old fox. He wanted to see if Lucien still had more strange but creatives thoughts in his mind that could possibly inspire him.
“No.” Lucien shook his head in a determined way, “That’s why I’m applying for setting up an institution, sir.”
“Well… Let me put it this way. Before you reach the fifth circle, you work for me so I can tell if you can really accomplish anything with Atom Institution. You know, if I let you have a research group right away but you fail to find anything, you’d become a joke.” The fox-like smile on Fernando’s face was still there.
Lucien knew what Fernando meant. He seriously nodded, “I’ll try my best.”
Before coming to senior rank, Lucien was confident that his knowledge if the field of math, element, and electromagnetism should be enough. Lucien’s biggest problem was that he was still having a hard time combining his knowledge of astrology with celestial mechanics. Say, he still had not figured out how to understand these cursing and blessing spells.
As they had reached the agreement, Lucien asked, “So… how can I improve this application then? I know it’s too generous…”
“Why do you need to improve it?” Fernando made a surprised look, “Your signature on it makes the application form look rather ambiguous and generous. But with Hathaway’s and my signature, the application will appear to be very profound and provident.”
Lucien was speechless.
“Alright… Let’s get back to the letters. Read them for me, one by one.” Fernando sat back in the armchair and closed his eyes as if he was meditating.
Although Lucien was not sure why Fernando did not want to directly read the letters himself, as he was not that type of people who always liked showing off, Lucien still picked up the first letter.
The handwriting on the letter was very beautiful and elegant. Lucien took a glance at the envelope and saw the name, Yaroran Hathaway Hoffenberg.
“This… this letter should be confidential…” Lucien was very hesitant.
“Hurry up,” Fernando urged.
Lucien nodded and started reading, “Fernando, according to your suggestion, I have improved the design of the magic circle and now it can separate the substances even more specifically. This is the improved structure…”
As he was reading, Lucien was surprised and also a bit amused.
He felt surprised because the two arcanists were actually heading for the right direction: separating isotopes!
Through the application of the Periodic Table of Elements, more and more arcanists had realized that the measurement of atomic weight was indeed not correct due to the limit of the methods currently applied. Fernando and Hathaway were trying to use electromagnetic force and centrifuging to purify the atoms. Only legendary archmages could do this.
What amused Lucien was how Hathaway described things. As a grand arcanist, her ability of expression was not very impressive and organized. She had to use a lot of magic symbols to make her words clear.
Reading the letter was not an easy job. Lucien finished reading, and Fernando grinned, “It’s torturing reading her papers and letters. When she was still the princess, she never passed her literature course. Every single one of her papers had to be polished first by her students or the younger arcanists.”
Lucien just got to know a big secret of Hathaway like this.
“What do you think of the letter?” asked Fernando, “I remember you mentioned something about this before.”
Lucien thought it for a while and said, “This method works better when there’s a bigger difference in mass… So heavy elements are ideal…”
Then Fernando asked Lucien more questions based on the paper. If Lucien failed to answer properly, Fernando would explain in details and even use some experiments to make the explanations even clearer.
Then Fernando finally asked Lucien to reply the letter for him.
Lucien started to realize Fernando’s true intention. Fernando was using the letters between the legendary archmages to let Lucien know what the most cutting-edge researches were and to broaden his horizon.
Therefore, Lucien became very focused when reading the next letter.
The second letter was from an even more famous arcanist, Derrick Douglas.
“… As all arcanists know, transmission requires media, but how light and spiritual power transmit in the space? We believe that no matter how secret a matter is, or how carefully it hides, we shall finally find the clues. However, people were saying Aether was the medium for the transmission of light, but it hasn’t been proved yet until today.”
Aether was also the name for an alchemical material. It could be quite confusing for beginners.
“Brook and his supporters believe that the theory of Psychic Wave has won the game, but I’m not one of them. A simple experiment has revealed the problem hiding in this theory—if Aether indeed exists in the space, when our world revolves around the sun, there should be a resistance, thus the speed of light should change as well…”
Fernando listened carefully and commented, “Douglas has been working on Particle Theory for a long time. He’s the leading figure opposing and questioning Wave Theory. Many arcanists have chosen to take a more neutral standpoint facing Wave Theory. So… What do you think of the experiment Douglas mentioned?”
Lucien was quite pessimistic, “Even if it is proved that Aether does not exist, I’m afraid that Mr. Douglas’ effort would still not be recognized, as the experiment is designed based on his space model. However, we haven’t found a single planet yet. This experiment is not persuasive enough.”
Fernando slightly nodded, “What you said makes sense, but Douglas won’t give up. The experiment has still provided us with a new perspective to examine the existence of Aether.”
Then, Fernando asked Lucien more questions on Particle Theory and Wave Theory. Those questions really gave Lucien a hard time.
In the end, Lucien felt a bit exhausted. For those questions that Lucien did not answer very well, Fernando kept providing detailed explanations.
Then more letters followed. They made Lucien feel both nervous and excited. These letters covered all the eleven schools, which was out of Lucien’s expectation.
Finishing reading all the letters, it was already close to noon. Fernando took Lucien to the lab where they built a black, hollow sphere, which was an ideal thermal radiation model.
“Okay, you may leave now. Tomorrow, we do the same. Letters first, and then experiment,” said Fernando.
Lucien felt dizzy after all the work when he walked out of the lab.
At this time, he saw that Thompson came over. Seeing the look on Lucien’s face, Thompson was not surprised, “Evans, you must have worked very hard. Trust me. It’s really good for you.”
“I can tell…” Lucien released a sigh of relief, and then he asked, “Why are the archmages still writing letters to communicate when Electromagnetic Message has been invented?”
“Writing can make them stay more organized… That’s one thing.” Thompson put on a meaningful look, “And the other thing’s that… they would rather write letters because…”
Thompson looked at the direction of his teacher’s lab and grinned.
