Throne of Magical Arcana

At the beginning of July of 825, it was as scorching as fire.

On the thirty-first floor of the Allyn magic tower, Onore, who had passed the exam and was admitted by the Holt Magic College, observed the Sky Radio Station in the first district with his classmates with great interest. He said rather regretfully, “What a shame. The radio station only broadcasts at night, but the school will be closed after six. Otherwise, we would be able to ask for the autographs of Ms. Lark and Ms. Nightingale. They must be as beautiful as their sound.”

The remaining districts of the thirty-first floor of the Allyn were reserved as the teaching areas of the Holt Magic College because the advanced laboratories in the magic tower could be directly used. There would be no need to establish new laboratories. The dormitories of the students were in other places.

“You can apply for the magic experiments at night.” Clark, another student, said jokingly.

Onore was rather upset. “It’s only been two months since the semester began. I’m still picking up the basics of arcana and magic, and I’m far from qualified to apply for the night magic experiments.”

The Holt Magic College began in May. Students were allowed to select courses on their own and expected to graduate in two to five years. They had a new year holiday but not a summer holiday.

“Exactly. Mr. Evans’ matrix mechanics still confuses me. I have grasped the matrix, and I know how to calculate it, but I don’t understand how and why it works at all. It’s like a pure mathematical work. If I don’t learn the arcana significance behind it, the whole theory is often dizzying for me.” Said Clark bitterly. The matrix mechanics was truly frigidly unapproachable.

Onore shook his head and tried to ease the atmosphere with a joke. “It’s like what Mr. Evans said before. You know every word and every equation, but you don’t know anything at all when they are connected.”

“More or less. The special theory of relativity is the same. I can understand the premises and the deduction, but the space-time relationship that it entails, as well as its application to analyze magic, is too overwhelming for me.” Clark sighed. As for the general theory of relativity, there was only a basic introduction but no specific courses. It was said that there were no more than ten people in the entire Congress of Magic who had basically grasped the general theory of relativity. None of the teachers in the college was capable of teaching that.

Onore opened his hands and was about to talk, when he discovered that a teacher had been standing like a statue, with an issue of ‘Arcana’ in his hand, after he walked out of the lift.

“Mr. Ernesto?” Finding it odd, Onore greeted the teacher.

Pa. The journal in Ernesto’s hand hits the ground. He looked at the students, with panic and fear lingering in his eyes. “You don’t have classes?”

“No. The courses we selected for this week are over. Mr. Ernesto, is this the latest issue of ‘Arcana’?” Asked Onore curiously.

The Holt Magic College had stipulated that the students had to read Arcana, Magic and Nature to learn the cutting edge of arcana and magic studies whether or not they could understand them. Those three journals were ordered by the college and distributed for free.

Ernesto looked at the journal on the ground as if it were a devil and hesitated. “It is, but don’t you believe anything on it just yet until you confirm it with your own experiments.”

“Disruptive theories and experiments?” Onore also stared at the journal, his eyes widened. The head explosions when the light quantum theory was proposed left quite a deep impression on him.

“‘An Electron Diffraction Experiment With Monocrystals’…” Clark read the title of the page on the journal that was opened, confused. “Electron? Diffraction? How can they be associated?”

Because he needed to prepare for the exploration in the World of Souls, Lucien’s electron diffraction experiment was postponed for two months and not submitted to the Arcana Review Board until he was about to leave.

Uncontrollably, Onore picked up the journal and murmured. “Clark, do you remember the earlier issue of Arcana, where the Highest Council discussed Mr. Dieppe’s paper?”

“Mr. Dieppe’s paper…” Clark’s face was twisted as if he were reminded of the most terrible monster.

Onore read the paper greedily and anxiously. He saw the experiment preparations, he saw the experiment process, and the las the final result of the experiment, the familiar and classic pattern of diffraction!

“It’s… It’s true that electrons can behave as waves…” Onore’s eyes lost focus as he spoke what he thought subconsciously.

Thanks to Lucien’s speech and example earlier, he had accepted that the electron was something unknown that was not entirely figured out yet. What he thought was that electrons behaved as waves, not that electrons were waves. That was why he mind was not disrupted yet.

Clark shook his head quickly. “It has to be confirmed with experiments! It has to be!”

Ernesto also nodded hard. He led the students to his laboratory and prepared for the experiment materials according to Mr. Evans’ introduction.

After a long time, when the dreamy image was unveiled before their eyes, Ernesto collapsed on his chair and rubbed his head hard in pain.

It was a major shock for Onore, who suspected that Mr. Ernesto’s head would explode all of a sudden spreading the brains everywhere.

Thankfully, Ernesto was gradually back to normal. He looked around in confusion, “It behaves as both particles and waves. What about the real world? I think I can’t understand any of the things I know.”

Fearing that he wouldn’t let it go, Onore hurried to change the subject. “There’s a paper on ‘Arcana’ written by Mr. Evans and his students. They reprocessed the matrix mechanics with the classic mathematical tools. They seem much more clear and concise.”

“However clear and concise they are, if we cannot figure out the arcana significance behind the math, they will be just like the ‘matrix maze’ we are in right now.” Clark frowned as he read the journal.

The room immediately fell quiet. Onore couldn’t help but recall the uncanny qualities of the electron, which both undeniably behaved as particles and showed the familiar pattern of diffraction. According to Dieppe, protons and neutrons were the same. Then, would the elements, matter and even the world have dual qualities, too?

Looking at the platform, the chair, the floor and the lamp before him, Onore also shook his head. “I don’t know the real world anymore, either.”

Clark finally observed, “The textbooks have to be changed again.”

Onore was amused and recalled what he saw when he took the College Entrance Exam of Advanced Magic. The textbook on the new alchemy that was determined in the morning had to be revised by the time the exam was over in the afternoon. Now, after only two months, the textbook had to be rectified yet again.

“This is truly a crazy and wonderful age…”

Inside his own laboratory, Dieppe looked at the diffraction pattern in disbelief and remarked in amazement.

After he finished the experiment, he felt the feedback of the real world, which improved his cognitive world. However, he murmured in confusion, “Why is it much less than I anticipated? Did Mr. Evans take most of it because he completed the diffraction experiment?”

It could only be explained in such a way!

What he didn’t know was that Lucien did the experiment in a hurry to stop the changes in his cognitive world and didn’t finish the theoretical deduction at all. That was why he still received part of the feedback.

……

In the grey environment, Rhine’s red coat was particularly eye-catching. However, Lucien did not ease his wariness. The Temple of Spirits was full of dangers, and Mr. Rhine had always been acting mysteriously.

“I almost attacked just now if I didn’t sense my Origin of Blood in your body.” Rhine said so casually that he was more like attending a concern than having an adventure in the World of Souls.

Lucien also confirmed Rhine’s identity with his scent and the reaction of the Origin of Blood. He asked in confusion, “Mr. Rhine, why are you here? Are you trapped again?”

Rhine shook his head. “When Sard died in the battle against Benedict II, a mysterious piece from his body escaped into the World of Souls. I traced it and reached this place.”

As he spoke, he pointed at the blood on his chest. “However, I lost clues and encountered a transparent monster. I was heavily wounded and only beat it back with the strength of the Primordial Ancestor.”

“It was not destroyed? What’s the level of the monster?” Asked Lucien in surprise. Rhine was at the peak of legendary when he borrowed the power of the Silver Moon, and yet the monster was not killed.

Rhine retained his easy smile. “I found it quite odd, too. After being caged in the World of Souls, I have reached level three of legendary. When I fought the monster, it only showed the strength close to the peak. It could wound me but not kill me, but after I borrowed the strength of the Primordial Ancestor, it suddenly became stronger and reached the real peak of legendary. So, it was only temporarily beaten back.”

“It intentionally lured you to use the strength of Alterna?” Lucien analyzed. Rhine’s skill was like Ivan’s God’s Grace. It would take a long time before he could use it again.

Rhine smiled. “Probably, but it isn’t so easy to kill a prince of vampires. Why are you here?”

Lucien introduced what happened earlier and described the residue of the magic circle and the grey piece with the word ‘devil’ on it.

Pondering for a moment, Rhine said, “I met a similar residue before… Let’s check it again. We may find something else.”

Therefore, he reopened the black gate that Lucien came from, but the grey hall behind it had changed. Appearing before the two of them was a grey secret chamber.

Time seemed to be sealed in the chamber. Everything was fresh and real. However, after the gate was opened, time began to flow, and the paper, the desk and the utensils decayed quickly.

Different from the grey hall, this secret chamber only had two black gates.

“An alchemical circle? Is this the remains of a magic laboratory?” Lucien was slightly behind Rhine. He was grasped by curiosity and the desire of exploration.

Two items were still intact in the mud. One of them was a broken notebook that had been processed by magic, and the other was the arm of a puppet with weird patterns.

Rhine picked up the arm of the puppet and examined it carefully. Lucien also opened the notebook with magic, turning the grey, broken pages making crisp sounds.

The beginning of the notebook was the conclusions of some alchemical experiments. They were perhaps very precious for the ancient sorcerers, but for the arcanists of the Congress today, those things had been simplified and modified far too many times and were not worth mentioning at all. However, Lucien was intrigued by a solution to craft ‘stand-in puppet’ on the notebook. He recorded it inside his spirit library.

He was about to finish reading the notebook. There were no clues about the current environment. Suddenly, two lines of deep grey words were reflected in his eyes before Lucien had the time to react: “A ghost, an unimaginable ghost, wanders this place!”

“Quite a few partners have gone missing. Perhaps I will be next.”