336 Drummond’s Visi (2/2)
When Lucien saw the chief editor, Drummond was wearing a dark vest and suit, holding a black stick. His black eyes were sharp and serious like the eyes of an eagle.
”The Lord of Storm once gave me some very useful suggestions in the field of Force Field, and his achievement in many arcana fields is incomparable. I'm sincerely glad for you that you can become his student, Lucien.” Drummond tried to be closer to Lucien.
Lucien greeted Drummond and said, ”Every morning I have to go through Mr. Fernando's brainstorm. Every morning time seems to pass by very slowly.”
It took Drummond a few seconds to figure out what brainstorm was. He smiled, ”Not many people are willing to stay beside the Lord of Storm when discussing arcana and magic questions.”
Lucien and Drummond walked into the living room. Lucien asked politely, ”Mr. Drummond, it's my great honor having you here. Honestly speaking, I did not recognize your name immediately as I never expected you to come and visit my place in person. I should be the one visiting you, sir.”
Holding the stick, Drummond said, ”I just got the news from the board that you've got a breakthrough in studying the factors affecting hormone secretion, and you've introduced Electromagnetic Theory into the field of Illusion. By the way, hormone is the term put forward by Ms. Isabella to call the certain human body alchemical substances. I've read your paper, and I think your paper is of great value. I am here to invite you to publish your paper in our journal. The theme of our next month issue accords with your topic well. I think it's better than sending you an invitation letter to express my sincerity, and also to apologize for what happened to your previous paper. I've fired the editor who rejected your contribution.”
Arcana was the most well-known and reputed journal in the world of magic, and its chief editor came to Lucien in person for his paper! Drummond was treating Lucien like a grand arcanist or a legendary sorcerer! But, of course, apologizing for what happened last time was also part of the reason.
”No worries. Thank you very much, Mr. Drummond.” Lucien and Drummond sat down on the couch in the living room. Lucien asked, ”You mentioned the theme of the next month issue… Does Arcana have a theme?”
Before getting more information, Lucien would not say yes casually. Not to mention that Mr. Woods from Common Arcana was an old friend of his.
”Since Ms. Isabella's paper passed the review, great controversy has been caused. In the past week, many senior-rank arcanists have developed papers or designed experiments to refute Ms. Isabella's theory. So, in the next month's issue, we have decided to give the most space to these papers. This was the theme. We're hoping that your paper can achieve the expected outcome as your paper is the best support to Ms. Isabella's theory,” said Drummond sincerely.
”To achieve the expected outcome…” murmured Lucien. He soon realized what Drummond was talking about.
Lucien guessed that most members in the Highest Council were not happy with the fact that Illusion and some other schools of magic had never belonged to the system of arcana, which caused the barrier between the sorcerers from Family of Sorcerer and most arcanists. So they were using this as an opportunity to let Lucien's paper become the solid support of Ms. Isabella's theory, thus the conservatives could feel the pressure. If Isabella won the Laurel, arcana would win, as the sorcerers from Family of Sorcerer had to admit the fact that the arcana system could at least explain part of the school of Illusion.
Of course, Isabella's paper itself was good enough to win the Laurel. This was the premise.
Lucien crossed his fingers and said in a low voice, ”Mr. Drummond, Mr. Woods from Common Arcana has helped me a lot, and I've promised that I would first consider publishing my papers on Common Arcana first. I keep my words.”
Lucien was expecting a better offer.
”Evans, Arcana Review Board is discussing something recently. It is totally unfair that publishing a paper on different levels of journals gives a sorcerer the same credits. Therefore, they are going to give each journal a corresponding coefficient. When deciding on future citation credits, a sorcerer can get more credits by weighting the base credit by the corresponding coefficient,” answered Drummond, well prepared. ”They've decided to evaluate each journal every five years based on the influence of all the papers published previously. The coefficient varies from one to three. Common Arcana is doing a good job these years, so the coefficient Common Arcana deserves shouldn't be bad. But I have to say that Arcana currently still enjoys a higher reputation. Arcana credits are very important to sorcerers, and this is also the will of the highest council. I am sure that Mr. Woods will understand. Also, if you support us this time, we will always reserve a place on Arcana for you and your paper. We can negotiate the schedule.”
Arcana only did this for people who were at least members of Arcana Review Board!
Lucien nodded. After all, this was part of the plan of the highest council. He smiled, ”If Mr. Woods won't blame me, I'm willing to publish my paper on Arcana.”
Later, in Lucien and Drummond's casual talk, Drummond said with pity, ”If Ms. Isabella did not publish her paper before you, and if your paper was more precise, your paper would be the focus. If that was the case, you probably would become the second arcanist in the past hundred years who could win two highest prizes before reaching senior-rank. But you're still young, so you still have a lot of potential, especially as the Lord of Storm's student.”
After Drummond left, Lucien went back to his study and continued to work on analyzing the fifth circle spell.