Translator: Henyee Translations  Editor: Henyee Translations

The weather was cool and refreshing, and the sky was high with vast clouds. That was exactly the sight of the Month of Gold in Allyn.

“That’s why I love October in Allyn the most…” Thompson, a member of the Affair Committee, stood next to the window with his teacup in his hands while appreciating the scenery outside.

While remarking, he turned around and pushed the gold-edged glasses on his nose, before he asked Conden, his student, “You walked in without asking for my permission after only one door knock. Is there anything urgent?”

Thompson had been amiable to his friends, students, and subordinates and cared little about protocols. Therefore, he did not blame Conden too much for barging in.

As they spoke, he closed the mission report on the desk. That was a rule of the Affair Committee. Those who should not see it must not see it even if they were his students.

This mission report was exactly the one submitted by Katrina. Because she had investigated the demon worship case clearly, the report did not receive much attention in the Task Zone. The senior-rank sorcerer who was supervising the Task Zone browsed through it and believed that the case was already evident. He determined that Katrina’s mission had been accomplished. Naturally, her report went to the file room.

Thompson, however, paid much more attention to the demon worship case, because it had something similar to the several cases in Rentato, Cocus, and the northland where primeval devils were summoned or worshiped, and yet it was fundamentally different.

Therefore, after finishing his work, he retrieved the report and prepared to analyze it carefully, seeing if any Demon Lords had also started to develop the power of faith. More importantly, he wanted to figure out whether the incident was independent, or if it was part of the series of cases that took place within the jurisdiction of the Congress of Magic so that he could find the Bird of Death behind the curtain.

It was a pity that he saw nothing but the fact that a grand knight increased his strength by worshiping demons from the report.

“However, some of the details are too coincidental. The people involved are already dead, and a long time has passed. It’s barely possible to continue the investigation. It’s not like I can go to the abyss to ask the Demogorgon of Darkness whether or not Viscount Andree worshiped him, or capture Nicolle, the Storm of Death, to let him confess why he recruited Viscount Andree as his student, right?” Putting his right hand on the report, Thompson tapped it softly.

Conden, who stood on his opposite side, was a slim and tall young man. His cheeks were hollowed, and his skin had been “burnt” into redness as if he had taken too much sunbath. There was also a fashionable monocle on his right eye. He apologized quickly, “I’m sorry, Master. After I knocked, the door was opened with a gap. I thought that it was a hint that you were asking me to come in…”

Thompson knew his student’s impatience and honesty very well. He asked in confusion, “The door opened on its own? I forgot to shut it?”

“I don’t know. Well, I ran into Alferris in the hallway. He seemed satisfied…” Conden suddenly remembered something else.

Thompson grimaced regretfully. “Leave him alone… Can I help you with anything?”

A while back, he made a bet with Alferris, thinking that it was impossible for him to be tricked by Alferris’ illusion since he was close to the ninth circle, particularly in the Allyn magic tower. Therefore, if Alferris could take away any items from his office without anybody’s help, he would open the treasury and allow the dragon to pick a lot of gems. It seemed that he had already failed the bet. However, it did not seem entirely bad. At the very least, he didn’t have to be on alert all the time anymore.

“Master, Mr. Evans has submitted a paper entitled ‘Determinism, Free Will, and the Source of Magic’, in which he constructed a model regarding the essence of magic. Although many questions remain unanswered, such as why magic patterns could help us communicate with the truth of the world and what the mechanism behind them is, the paper has indeed opened a new gate for our studies on magic and supernatural powers… After somebody discovered the paper in the library by accident today, it immediately became a hit…”

Conden seemed excited. Plus his impatient character, he talked as fast as a storm, and Thompson could barely understand what he was saying. “Wait, wait, wait. Give me the paper first!”

For a senior-rank arcanist, reading a paper was much easier than listening to the excited narration.

Taking over the paper that Conden borrowed, Thompson glanced at the date. He said both in surprise and in relief, “It was submitted three days ago? No wonder it was not published on Arcana or Magic…”

Generally speaking, no journals would refuse the paper of a grand arcanist as long as it was of some value. They would even compete for such papers. However, Lucien’s works were almost exclusively published on Arcana, Nature, and Elements, although he sometimes wrote for the “Monthly Journal for General Arcanists” when asked to. There was no way that Arcana would have let go of such an important paper, and since it was about the essence of magic, Magic wouldn’t allow other people to publish it easily, either.

He kept reading, and he frowned at the part at the beginning of the paper. It seemed that determinism was truly in peril!

However, as Lucien’s narration went on, his eyebrows relaxed again. He pushed his glasses now and then and remarked in a low voice, “The observer effect is not entirely absurd… The ‘unsteadiness’ of the material foundation… That’s new, but if it’s true, everything behaves so normally when magic and supernatural powers are not involved. Should it be attributed to the mysterious transition between the microscopic scale and the macroscopic scale? Huh, Lucien had also thought about that… Weak observers and strong observers…”

His attention was completely on the paper. Even though the paper hadn’t been confirmed by any experiment or phenomena, and the observer effect was rejected by the mainstream of the Congress, it was logically self-consistent and seemed legitimate.

Conden was not surprised by his teacher’s reaction. He picked up a quill and wrote his teacher’s questions and opinions on a piece of paper.

“… The energy that replenishes the spiritual power comes from the truth of the world? The additional matter caused by magic comes from the truth of the world? Huh… ” In his suspicion, Thompson remembered something. He hurried to turn around and drag an issue of “Elements” out of his bookshelf. Then, holding his glasses, he said in shock, “Is it a problem that the ocean of negative-energy state can solve?

“Yes. The arcanists who read the paper were all reminded of the ocean of a negative-energy state. It happens to have resolved a few critical questions in Mr. Evans’ paper on the essence of magic!”

Conden’s ears were keen enough to capture his teacher’s murmur.

He said excitedly, “The two of them are connected. One is focused on the source of magic energy, and the other offers a hypothesis on the essence of magic. Together, they’ve established a complete magic system!”

When he said a “magic system”, he did not mean a system of spells.

“I’m afraid that this is the first legitimate model on the essence of magic, no, of all supernatural powers, that has theoretical support.” Thompson also grew excited.

In the history of magic, the earliest sorcerers had already asked what magic was essentially and proposed their own answers, such as the system of four elements, namely earth, fire, wind, and water. The ancient sorcerers established a piece of speculation on the foundation of the world, where they believed that there were energy planes made of purely the same elements. Such planes had been named “Country of Fire”, “Ocean of Water”, etc. Their answers also included the root system, which believed that magic had a root, which was part of the truth of the world.

Such vision on magic had been affecting generations of sorcerers even to this day, as could be confirmed by the term such as fire element. However, due to the lack of exploration by the ancient sorcerers, their visions of magic were purely imaginary and did not have any theoretical reference. It was more like a fantasy than a model defined with arcana.

During the heyday of the Magic Empire, the sorcerers paid more attention to regular research and application. No one bothered to consider the essence of magic. All they needed to know was that spiritual power was the prerequisite to cast spells. Therefore, even someone as great as the Sun King, Thanos, did not come up with a model on the essence of magic.

After the Congress of Magic, studies on the essence of magic were continued. However, due to the insufficiency of other theories, little progress had been made. Therefore, Douglas and the other grand arcanists did not propose their model of magic essence recklessly, in case their whimsical ideas affected other arcanists.

It was not until today that Thompson finally saw a model that described magic from the essence and the origin, and it was also based on the cutting-edge research in the microscopic domain!

Whether or not the model was correct, it was definitely historically significant… Thompson was somewhat in a trance. He had witnessed history again, which happened a lot in the past ten years.

Conden said excitedly, “Somebody described the result of the two papers as ‘Evans-Telaviv Model’. It’s the first model on the essence of magic!”

After a while of discussion, Conden bid him farewell, claiming that he needed to read it more carefully after he was back.

Thompson was somewhat amused seeing his student folding the scribbled paper and putting it inside the magic pouch carefully. Then, his student walked to the door.

Suddenly, Thompson realized something and shouted, “Stop!”

However, Conden had already stepped into the corridor at this moment!

He turned around abruptly, with a mist surging around him. After the mist died away, he turned into a little crystal dragon with beautiful scales.

He dragged a huge ice cream from his underbelly and licked it with great satisfaction. He then said with a childish and gloating voice, “Thompson, you’ve lost!”

The dragon had come when he was considering questions, distracted him by saying that the door was not closed and “Alferris” passed by, gave him a paper to captivate him, behaved exactly like Conden, and only took away the scribbled paper where their discussion was recorded… Recalling those things, Thompson had to admit that Alferris had new breakthroughs in illusion, but he was the one who suffered losses!

Seeing Alferris off with an awful face, Thompson couldn’t help but continue studying Lucien’s paper. “Weak observers… Strong observers…”

He was suddenly stunned. Thinking of the recent investigation, he thought, somewhat in fear, “The accumulation of the power of faith seems to be the gathering of special electromagnetic waves, but it is actually the gathering of weak observers to evolve into a strong observer?

“Well…”

How would the experts who were good at playing with the power of faith view the paper?