Throne of Magical Arcana

In the villa surrounded by flowers, Milina was shocked again by the beauty of math in Lucien’s paper. After quite a while, she finally picked up her quill-pen and wrote,

“With amazing conception and precise demonstration, Lucien Evans’s paper shows us the beauty of math and also proves the compatibility between Levski Geometry and Tower Geometry. The paper gives a solid foundation to the establishment of the New Geometry System and changed the world of Math, which was constructed based on our direct perception of the world. This paper reveals to us another path for math development and demonstration.

“This groundbreaking paper is apparently significant to the establishment of the new geometry system and deserves broad discussion. Forty arcana credits and five hundred arcana points are suggested to be given as reward.”

Strictly following the standards of review, Milina gave her comment objectively. If she had let her preference played the leading role, as an authority in math and mathematician, she would have given the paper an even higher comment because of the beauty the paper displayed.

……

Meanwhile, Salgueiro was also reviewing Lucien’s paper An Attempt to Explain Non-Tower Geometry .

“The paper provides a math model that contradicts our knowledge but actually exists; it makes a breakthrough contribution to the establishment of Levski’s geometry system. It makes us realize that Levski Geometry is a new system which was essentially different from Tower Geometry.

“Given the groundbreaking contribution brought by its math model and the demonstration, this paper’s content deserves broad discussion and research. Thus, sixty arcana credits and six hundred arcana points are suggested to be given as reward.”

When he put down his quill-pen, Salgueiro realized that the winter evening had already closed in. The wind was blowing outside of the window, and everything had been encased by the darkness. However, from this cold darkness, he seemed to notice a slight glimmer of light; there was light in the future of math.

“If the new geometry system is actually applicable to arcana…

“What Evans said earlier today was interesting… the axiomatization of math…”

……

After a week, in the morning, Samantha came to Tower to study with her teacher as usual.

“Morning, Ms. Samantha,” greeted the several low-rank arcanists.

The dome of the hall was black, inlaid with magic crystal lights that lit up the entire space. The arrangement of the lights followed the order of constellation, forming a huge astrology chart above.

Samantha nodded politely but also seriously. Then she asked out of confusion, “Leo, Gina… Why are you two here so early?”

According to what she knew, their teacher, level-four arcanist and fifth-circle astrologer Da Serra, who was also her friend, never taught students on Fridays. And the time right now, the labs and libraries inside Tower are not open yet. There was no reason to come this early.

“Ms. Samantha, don’t you know?” Said the round-faced Gina, “Tower sent a notice yesterday that today a new journal is going to be issued. We’re all curious, so we came early to wait.”

In order to improve one of her magic spells, Samantha studied the stars at night and slept during the day in the past two days, thus she never heard about it. Now the look on her face slightly changed and she murmured, “A new journal… Is it the one with Lucien Evans’s inscription?”

“No… No idea…” The young man named Leo, who developed a middle-aged spread before the age of 25, shook his head.

“Hey, Samantha! Are you here for buying Nature as well?”

It was Rachel. She was always full of energy and cheerful. Everyone liked her as she lifted people’s mood.

Samantha also smiled, which was unusual for her. “Are you here for this as well?”

Although they had opposite personalities, they were very good friends.

Rachel sighed deliberately. “Yup, as a member of the Arcana Review Board, my teacher Ms. Isabella should have enjoyed delivery of the journal. But she’s out of the town right now exploring new materials, so I have to come here myself. Poor me…”

Facing Rachel, the low-rank arcanists were more respectful. For one thing, they were unacquainted with Rachel; for another,, Rachel was the winner of Sorcerer Laurel. The crystal hairpin on her linen-colored hair shocked the students.

“You know about Nature’s content and inscription?” asked Samantha. After all, Rachel did not have to come here so early; with her status, she would definitely be able to get a copy.

Rachel looked at Samantha confusedly. “No… But this is the first issue of the journal. I’d like to put it into my collection! It’s even better if I buy it myself!”

“…” Samantha forgot that her friend was an enthusiastic collector.

At this time, the library behind the reception desk opened. Two female apprentices pushed out several stacks of books with a black cover.

“I’ve gotta take a look at it,” said Rachel curiously as she pulled Samantha’s arm and walked to the reception desk.

Samantha recalled, “Should have things to do with math…”

Her teacher, Neeshka, mentioned about it before. And when she was helping her teacher send back the review comments, she had a look at the new geometry paper from Lucien Evans and found the paper was too mind-blowing for her to accept.

However, soon, she was shocked by the math model provided in the paper. Despite the strong resistance in her mind, she was persuaded by the strict logic reasoning and the solid math model. After reading the paper, she was at lost for at least two to three days. And then she finally started accepting the fact that new geometry systems did exist.

“Finally! Tower has a journal for math! Awesome!” Rachel became very excited.

Tower sorcerers were all more or less emotionally connected to math in a complex way, and Rachel was one of them.

“Ladies, can I have two of them, please?” Rachel took out her magic badge.

“Sure, sure! Ms. Rachel” The two young ladies answered as they hurriedly put the badge into the magic circle to deduct arcana points and handed two new journals to Rachel and Samantha.

Almost everyone in Tower knew Rachel after she won Sorcerer Laurel.

“So thick!” Rachel exclaimed, while Samantha quickly looked at the cover of the journal — After all, her teacher’s words had made her curious for the entire week!

Like Arcana, Nature also had a black cover, on which silver lines formed many math symbols, equations, numbers, and geometry shapes. Joining together against the black background, they were like stars in the dark universe.

Samantha believed that the cover was designed to express the aim of the journal: Using the language of math to describe the truth of the world…

That was also her first thought after she saw the cover.

Against the starry sky, there was a big word — Nature — written in a special fancy font. The characters looked like a wonderful formula.

Under the big word, there were several lines of smaller words:

Your eyes can lie to you… , beside it was the numbers showing visible light spectrum;

Your ears can deceive you… , surrounding it was the numbers showing human beings’ hearing range;

your experience can mislead you… , following it was the simple but significant formula in calculus – 0.99999…=1;

Your imagination can restrain you… , under it was the hyperboloid model looking like a saddle and a sphere-like curved-surface model.

Samantha’s eyes traced the lines and figures. She felt that she had understood what the words meant.

Her eyes fell on the last line… It was a brief but powerful one:

But math won’t!

This line was a size bigger than the above ones and was on its own on the cover, with no figures following it. But all the symbols, equations, and numbers were its best testimonies.

It was shocking beyond words.

Samantha did not know what others felt, but she knew that there were a lot of things going on in her brain. She felt like she had understood many things, however, she also felt that she had not figured out anything yet.

Beside the last line, there was a name,

Lucien Evans X.

Samantha wondered if that was Lucien Evans’ perception of math.

Rachel, who was standing beside Samantha, also remained silent. She hurriedly opened the journal and started reading the inscription, which was Lucien’s speech. Then she browsed through the paper, sighing and exclaiming from time to time.

After a long while, she finally woke up from the world of math. Following a long sigh, she said,

“Is he still a human being?”

“Levski Geometry… Evans Geometry… If they were not findings in math but in other fields, countless people would have their head exploded! Although I’ve seen the demonstration and the models… It’s still hard to believe…” added Rachel.

Then her face lit up, “But I love what he said very, very much!”

The low-rank arcanists also got a copy. They were the same deeply shocked by the lines on the cover, but the content was still too difficult for them to understand so far. They had to take the journal back and slowly dig into it, treating it like their textbook.

……

… Ms. Florencia, Mr. Gaston, and my teacher, Mr. Larry cheered that you’ve shifted your focus upon math, so the arcanists in the Congress are now much safer. Ok, no more jokes. They, including me, hope that you won’t waste too much of your time in the new geometry system. Your talent belongs to the world of element and atoms, where findings of practical arcana and magic significance can be made. Leave geometry to Tower; they should get their own job done. Your friend, K.

After Nature issued, Lucien had received lots of letters. Some were sending congratulations, some were invitations for speeches, and some were from his friends. In Lucien’s friends’ eyes, the new geometry system was just like a piece of toy for Lucien, as it was of no practical arcana or magic significance.

Lucien sighed, as he knew that the new geometry systems were going to bring a more horrible and powerful impact than anyone had imagined.

Putting aside the letters, Lucien said to the apprentices waiting outside of the study, “Let’s go to the garden. We’ll see what are keeping you guys busy recently.”

Lucien learned this free-communication method from the several physicists on the Earth who were good teachers.