Throne of Magical Arcana

In the magic tower of the Congress’ headquarter in Allyn.

The always young and vigorous Rachel had put on a dark magic robe, which revealed her heavy mood. She had been waiting for the final result of the experiments conducted by His Excellency Mr. Brook and Mr. Lauren, wondering what the results would be and if they could deny Lucien’s light quantum hypothesis.

Affected by her best friend Samantha, Rachel’s cognitive world had changed a lot in the past three years. She was no longer a solid supporter of the wave theory of light, instead, she was now even leaning towards Lucien Evans’ hypothesis. However, all the knowledge that she had acquired since she was an apprentice, together with the classic double-slit interference image as well as the Brook bright spot, all reminded her that light displayed the nature of the wave.

Maybe just like Lucien said, they should go up to a higher level to examine the stalemate between the wave and the particle theory. Rachel thought to herself before stepping on the stairs. Taking back her right foot, she quickly turned around and headed for the exchange office. Although in her teacher’s office, she would get to read the latest issue of Arcana half an hour later, Rachel could not wait any longer.

Her pace was slightly faster than usual. When she came close to the exchange office, Rachel saw it was crowded with people. She was not surprised — Everyone was waiting for the experiment result of the wave and particle war. Normally, there wasn’t such a big crowd waiting for Arcana, as most arcanists below senior-rank could not understand all the articles on it.

Rachel forced her way into the crowd, trying to reach one of the desks in the corner surrounded by slightly less people. What made her feel strange was that the crowd was rather quiet. Strangely quiet.

“What happened?” Rachel wondered. Driven by curiosity, Rachel cast a couple of spells on herself and pushed herself to the exchange desk surrounded by most people.

“Ah!… ” The short scream stopped abruptly.

Rachel saw an incomplete body, head exploded… red blood, white brain tissues, and the latest issue of Arcana lying open on the floor.

Many arcanists in the crowd had killed someone in the past, however, the scene was still too much for them. After all, in the recent hundred years, head-exploding was just a remote story told by seniors. Only some middle-rank and senior-rank sorcerers from the Will of Elements and the Hand of Paleness had witnessed it once. On the contrary, pastors or cardinals turning into a holy light torch or fireworks could be seen every once in a while.

Those low-rank sorcerers and apprentices who hadn’t been sent out on missions before were even more frightened. Murmuring the terrifying name and the title, Headcrusher, their faces had turned pale as if their heads were tightly grasped in the claws of a devil lord.

Rachel wondered if more arcanists would come to her and her teacher for illusionary therapy for curing mental trauma in the future; After all, Chicken Soup for the Soul was popular among arcanists… She had no idea why the thought came to her at this depressing moment.

The scene was not the major cause of the stressful and terrifying atmosphere, instead, it was because of the journal lying open on the floor. On the page shown, there were several lines of bold letters,

“… I did the experiment for fighting against the light quantum hypothesis. However, the result and the experiment image perfected matched the features of the light quanta. So I have to admit that my effort for denying the hypothesis turned out to be, at this stage, the evidence supporting it…”

“— Edwyn Brook, grand arcanist, level four in the legendary class ‘the Emperor of Control.'”

Rachel removed her eyesight from the page and turned to look up at the ceiling. She did not know what to say — Since she became a student of the magic school, the wave theory was one of the most fundamental beliefs introduced by her teachers. In her mind, the wave theory of light was like a giant tower, standing straight up on the solid ground just like the other theoretical systems put forward by His Excellency Mr. Douglas and Mr. Brook.

She felt that the world had become strange to her.

The rare sentimental feeling seized Rachel’s heart. Silently, she retreated herself from the crowd and then went to the Arcana Review Board. Knocking at the door of her teacher’s office, Rachel felt that she was like a child seeking her mother’s comfort.

“Come in.” Isabella’s voice came from behind the door.

Hearing her teacher’s voice, Rachel suddenly woke up from her dreamlike wandering and found herself in the wrong place. She was supposed to go to the Brain and Hormone Research Center beside the Atom Institution to wait for her teacher. Also, Ms. Isabella wasn’t supposed to be in her office this early.

Carefully pushing open the door, Rachel saw that her teacher’s magic robe had turned into a long black dress. On Isabella’s chest, there was a small white flower.

“Who is it…?” Rachel asked carefully.

“Lauren, Christal…” Isabella said the names sorrowfully. She had known those stubborn mages for quite some years.

“Mr. Lauren…?” Rachel recalled the look of the tall and thin elder man. But what left her with the deepest impression about him was the row of badges in front of his chest, indicating the great honor that belonged him.

Isabella nodded, her eyes glistening. “Yes, an archmage has fallen. An archmage who once won the highest honor in the school of Electromagnetism, Light-darkness, and Thermodynamics has fallen. He was eliminated by the development of arcana and magic…”

“…” Rachel suddenly understood the cruelty of the world.

In front of her student, Isabella forced a smile on her face to cheer her up. “Don’t be afraid. Don’t get lost. This is not something abnormal. When I was young, every once in a while, some particle theory supporters’ head would explode. This is why there are now so few arcanists supporting the particle theory right now. You should feel lucky, Rachel, so should I, for we had the past three years to get prepared. The committee members who reviewed the papers of Mr. Brook and Mr. Lauren thus survived. They just need a few months to have their soul recover from the trauma.”

“I understand.” When she was in school, Rachel read about this piece of history. During that period of time, His Excellency Mr. Brook’s outstanding talent was glowing and he managed to overthrow the particle theory of light. Stepping on blood and exploded heads, he finally ascended to the throne of grand arcanist and became the second top legendary in the congress. It was said that a close friend of Mr. Douglas, who was a member of the Highest Council and also a legendary archmage at that time, fell together with his demiplane.

But reading history from books and seeing it with her own eyes were two completely different stories. Rachel’s heart was still palpitating from the horrible scene.

Seeing that her student’s face still looked pale, Isabella walked to Rachel and gently stroked her hair, like a mom comforting her daughter. “An era of progress is coming. In the past several decades when Mr. Brook brought the huge revolution to the Congress, we saw new leaders entering the stage — The two grand arcanists, Hellen and Vicente, as well as the other four legendary sorcerers. The power of the Congress of Magic almost doubled. Now we have more archmages and senior-rank mages than ever before. When I was young, the Congress only had about twenty archmages, but now we have sixty-two… sixty-one.”

“This is our chance,” said Isabella, “keep it in mind. We shall never become blindly obsessed with our belief nor lose our faith. We must believe in facts.”

…

In the Radiance Church in Holm.

“Lauren, Lightning of Destruction, ranking no. 76 on the Cleansing List.” Vaharall read the list with a big smile on his face, “Christal, Bloody Thunder, no. 269 on the Cleansing List… Oh, I wish that I could give Mr. Lucien Evans, our Professor, a Night Angel badge, in order to honor his great contribution to eliminating the vicious sorcerers!”

After spending a long time in Holm, Vaharall had learned the standard Holm Crown prize awarding speech and turned it into a joke.

Stone, the divine knight, also laughed hard. “An archmage, three senior-rank sorcerers, twenty-seven middle-rank sorcerers… not to mention those whose cognitive worlds have gone broken and solidified! If Lucien Evans is willing to become a night watcher, he would definitely be in top five because of these numbers!”

There were only three legendaries in the Inquisition, and one of them was an ancient sorcerer who had converted, therefore, he was also in the ranking of the night watchers. The ancient sorcerer once killed a legendary ranking in the top 30 on the Cleansing List, and thus became the top night watcher. Although there were many senior-ranks in the team, no more than ten had reached the power of the ninth circle, even few had ever cleansed a level-nine arcanist and ninth-circle sorcerer like Lauren.

Philibell could not hold back his smile as well. This was the most wonderful news to him in the past ten years. To them, it did not matter at all whether light was wave or particle. There were pastors devoured by the holy light before when Brook proved that light was a type of electromagnetic wave, but it was because of the fact that the finding had deprived the divinity of light. As for the light quantum hypothesis, they were totally fine with it.

Rubbing his thick white beard, Philibell grinned.

“What a pity that Evans failed to explode Brook’s head, or the Pope would have to give him the title of Saint. You two remember the time when some were saying that we should directly call Brook a Saint? Compared with Brook, Lucien Evans is still a bit behind, isn’t he?”

Hearing the comment, Vaharall and Stone burst out loud laughter, gloating over their enemy’s loss.

“It is said that Brook was also badly hurt by this. I wonder how does his cognitive world look like right now. If his cognitive world has gone broken and solidified, I have to say that this is the perfect arrangement of the God of Truth. So many years ago, he took away countless pastors’ faithful hearts and destroyed many sorcerers’ cognitive worlds. What goes around comes around,” said Philibell piously. He deeply believed in the existence of the God of Truth, more faithfully now than ever before.

“Only Truth lives forever.” Vaharall and Stone drew a cross in front of their chest together.

Then the three exchanged a look with each other and smiled again.

Philibell said humorously, “shall we pray for ‘Saint’ Lucien Evans? Let’s pray for his safety so he can carry on his glorious mission serving the Lord?”

…

“New… Al-che-my?” Fernando stressed each syllable of the title of Lucien’s new paper. His scarlet eyes stared at the calm and composed Lucien alertly.