Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
In the study on the thirty-third floor of the headquarter of the Congress, Lucien was holding a letter from Oliver Constantine, “…Since the fifth circle, a sorcerer’s every single progress involves the interaction between one’s soul and one’s cognitive world. In the progress, substantialization happens. In order to become a legendary archmage, one’s cognitive world has to be half solidified to remain between being virtual and real…”
Lucien was too shocked to continue reading as he knew that the information in this letter should be confidential to a middle-rank sorcerer like him. Although the letter was about the secret of the legendary level, Fernando still closed his eyes like there was nothing special.
Although the book Astrology and Magic Elements also contained the rites of legendary level, as of now Lucien could not read that part, as he was not yet a senior-rank mage. Neither was he qualified to use the higher level arcana and magic library to gather more information. Therefore, before Lucien read the letter, he knew nothing about how to become a legendary archmage and how it was like to be one. However, Oliver Constantine’s letter just revealed the secret casually.
Of course, Oliver Constantine was writing to the Lord of Storm, a grand arcanist. This was not a secret at all between them.
“Keep going,” Fernando said in a plain tone. “Don’t tell me you’re not interested in becoming a legendary archmage.”
This was the benefit of becoming the student of a grand arcanist. Lucien could find many secrets and all of them would contribute to his future growth.
Lucien continued to read the letter:
“Fernando, as you know, the closer one’s cognitive world is to the real world, the easier the half-solidification progress is, thus reaching legendary level can be easier. From what I know about Florencia, I think this is going to be her biggest challenge in her future progressing. Therefore, I’ve been studying the half-solidification progress for a while.
“As my research went deeper, I’ve noticed that after excluding the parts consisting of the different cognitive worlds formed based on assorted arcana theories, in the meditation environment, the space structure and the real world conflict badly. Perhaps the mathematical basis that we adopt in describing space is wrong. Maybe we need to start all over again to reexamine this part. I think…”
It seemed that Oliver’s math was not as good as his arcana. Fernando found a few mistakes in the letter and pointed them out in front of Lucien directly. Using the letter, Fernando again started to test and teach Lucien.
“You’re not really stupid when it comes to math,” commented Fernando with no any facial expressions. Then he grinned, “Although Oliver was a playboy and he was even fooling around with his female students, Florencia’s definitely his true love… like an opera.”
Lucien hoped that Fernando could mind his words a bit in front of him. Lucien felt that Fernando had two sides. When it came to arcana and magic, he was very short-tempered and impatient like an approaching storm, however, in other cases, was often humorous and sometimes even a bit dirty. Thus, some people secretly called Fernando “the old pervert”.
Seeing that Lucien did not answer, Fernando continued, “Oliver has to be careful. Maybe one day Florencia will be totally pissed if he keeps contacting his previous little lovers… Maybe Florencia will find a lover to take her revenge. Umm… Imagine the look on Oliver’s face… I wonder if one day Oliver, the Hand of Annihilation, will annihilate Florencia?”
Although Lucien was more or less prepared, Fernando’s passion for gossiping was still out of Lucien’s expectation, which further confirmed Lucien’s impression of his teacher—an old pervert!
“It’s… quite impossible. No one dares to steal a grand arcanist’s wife,” Lucien tried to end this topic.
Fernando took a glance at Lucien and said, “What do you know? There are always young guys who are bold and crazy about love. When I was young, I was even crazier than Oliver! But now I’m old. I’m not interested in anything else other than exploring the truth of the world.”
Shaking his head, Fernando said, “The next letter.”
After reading all the papers, Fernando did more thermal radiation experiments with Lucien to gather more information for the derivation of the formula.
…
In the study in Lucien’s garden villa.
Lucien received a letter today form Viscount Harrison, the senior-rank illusionist.
“… I’ve read your paper, Evans. I have to say that I’m a bit disappointed as you have given up your advantages in the field of Element and Astrology and carelessly stepped into the field of Electromagnetic Wave, Hormone, and Illusion that you’re not even familiar with. Thus, your paper is not enough thorough just like Isabella’s paper. And it is even less persuasive compared to Isabella’s work since there are many things in your paper that cannot be proved.
“Of course, your talent in arcana impressed me. You’ve also put forward some creative findings even in the fields that you’re not good at. Maybe I should admit that some illusions were from the interaction between the electromagnetic waves and the alchemical substances. Your improvement on the spell, Charm Person, is marvelous. Perhaps, in the future, when you have a better understanding of the essence of Illusion, you can make an even greater contribution…”
Then Harrison spent more than twenty pages on explaining how he understood Illusion. Although he was more or less bragging about it, his words also solved some of the questions in Lucien’s mind in the school of Illusion.
At the end of the letter, Harrison wrote,
“… The debate over whether the Laurel should go to Ms. Isabella has been growing more and more intense. Family of Sorcerer has decided to gather us senior-rank mages together next month to discuss it. It is a pity that your paper hasn’t been proved decisive, or I would be able to nominate you to share the Laurel with Isabella. So you can be one of the two most outstanding arcanists in the past a hundred years.”
Family of Sorcerer retained the conservative style from the ancient magic empire. They looked back the whole year’s achievement in the three major schools of magic at the end of every year to decide about who could win the Laurel, if there was anyone qualified for the prize.
As for Holm Crown prize, things were different. A great achievement could lead to the activation of the reviewing process immediately and thus whether the sorcerer could win the prize could be decided very fast unless it had to take years for the value of the finding to be proved.
Obviously, this time, great pressure was confronting Family of Sorcerer.
Putting down the letter from Harrison, Lucien started to write his own letter.
Picking up the quill, he slightly dipped it in the ink. However, the tip of the quill stopped above the paper. The first letter was of course for the princess far away from him. However, Lucien was a bit nervous writing the letter.
He calmed himself down, trying to figure out what Natasha’s preference was. He knew that he should avoid talking about arcana and magic too much. In the world that Lucien originally came from, people made fun of such nerds all the time.
But what else could he write about? Lucien found it rather difficult.
A while later, Lucien started writing,
“… My teacher is Mr. Fernando, the Lord of Storm. He is a strange person. When it comes to talking about magic and arcana, he is very bad-tempered and impatient. He was even yelling at me a few times… You know, I’m always quiet and cautious… When he is angry, it’s more than dreadful, like a violent storm. But at other times, he is pretty casual and humorous, sometimes even a bit too much.”
Just in case, Lucien did not use the word “pervert”.
“… When I was reading the letters from these archmages, I could tell their different personalities from the ways they wrote the letters. For example, Ms. Hathaway is not very good at using words to express herself, but when it comes to arcana and magic, I can tell that she is very determined and intelligent, although the sentences she used were rather simple…
“Mr. Douglas seems to be a graceful senior man. He rarely gets angry. The only problem with him is that he always asks why. Mr. Brook is gifted in writing and is always very cautious about using his words. Meanwhile, he is quite old-school and stubborn.
“… Mr. Oliver, when talking about things other than magic and arcana, is always full of passion just like a poet. He is like the typical elegant and favorable playboy pictured in the operas. But he basically shows no resistance to woman’s beauty…
“… Ms. Hellen Paris’ words are always simple. She rarely talks about things other than arcana and magic. But according to Mr. Fernando, she is actually quite talkative in front of people she knows well, but she just focuses more on exploring the nature of the world.
“Vicente Miranda, Thanatos, rarely writes to Mr. Fernando. I can say that he is relatively… careless. He only wrote to Mr. Fernando twice, but both of the wrinkled letters were stained with the oil from the dead bodies in the back. It is quite disturbing…”
…
After finishing the letter for Natasha, Lucien felt much relaxed. Then he wrote more letters to all of his friends to tell them that he had come back. He also wrote back to Viscount Harrison and briefly explained his understanding of dream and of simple behavior psychology.
…
In the past a few days, many friends visited Lucien or wrote back to him.
This morning, Lucien stepped into Fernando’s study on time.
“Good morning,” said Lucien politely.
Fernando looked quite pissed, “I’m not good! Not at all! Why did I bother doing this damned thermal radiation experiment!”
Lucien’s heart suddenly missed a beat. He wondered if Fernando had collected all the data. However, as he was being busy with studying the fifth-circle magic these days, Lucien had not found any time to analyze the numbers.
