452 The Two Generations (1/2)
Hearing the thunder, Lucien looked outside the window. It was already early morning. The soft dawn light was a bit fuzzy in the drizzle.
Turning off the magic circles and alchemical facilities, Lucien walked to the window with a cup of tea in his hand and pushed the window open. The refreshing, moist air came directly to his face.
What a lovely day.
Thinking of the paper titled New Alchemy that he just finished, which was actually a compilation of dozens of papers, Lucien took several deep breaths of the fresh, cool air and then said to himself in low voice,
”Here comes the era of head explosion.”
The realm that they were stepping into was strange and unimaginably queer, diverging completely from human being's intuition. The query brought by that 'cat' would trigger a brainstorm for every arcanist.
......
In the Kingdom of Electromagnetism, the magnets were crumbling, the electric currents disappearing. The bolts of arc light in the sky had joined the lightning. Together, they struck the ground and the protection shield of the magic tower.
”Is this the end… Sir?” Barek looked out of the drastically shaking window, and he saw the many black cracks appearing on the shield.
Suddenly, the electric currents in the sky joined together and turned into a giant electric snake. It slithered all the way up along the magic tower and opened its mandibles wide. As the bolts of lightning in the sky were absorbed by the snake, its body had swelled up to its limit.
The snake exploded abruptly, filling the space with silver-white fireworks. Whether visible or invisible, the electromagnetic waves suddenly became prominent in the entire space, like the magnificent tides of an ocean.
Starting from the middle, the waves seemed to broke into small pieces. But the shape of the waves was maintained.
However, this spectacular scene lasted for not even one second. Before Barek realized what he saw, it had completely disappeared.
The collapsion had stopped. The Kingdom of Electromagnetism survived. However, evidence of the terrible destruction was everywhere. Less than ten percent of the electric currents and magnetic field were left, and there were even terrifying black holes in the air.
A long sigh followed.
”Sir…” Barek was worried, as he knew clearly that a legendary archmage's demiplane was the reflection of his own cognitive world. Witnessing what had happened to the demiplane, Barek knew that his teacher's cognitive world must have experienced something very bad.
Wearing a wig and gold-rimmed glasses, Brook walked down from the stairs. His face was abnormally dull-red. He shook his head, and said, ”there's still no way for me to fit the light quantum hypothesis into the wave theory.”
”So the result…” Barek asked subconsciously.
Brook said in a low spirit, ”although I was mentally prepared, the fact that the experiment result perfectly matches the hypothesis was still a bit hard for me to accept. Thus, my cognitive world was shaken. Then I tried to understand the hypothesis from another perspective and combine it with the wave theory to reconstruct my cognitive world, yet I cannot find the breakthrough point.”
Barek was not young anymore, but now he was still caught in a great panic. ”Sir, your cognitive world has…”
He could not say the words out.
”Has broken and solidified.” Brook rubbed his forehead, revealing a hint of fatigue and helplessness.
Barek knew how this worked, but he still could not believe it. He was even more shocked and grieved than Brook. ”So Sir… You can't make any further progress anymore?”
”That's right.” Compared to Barek, Brook appeared to be quite calm. He shook his head self-deprecatingly and said, ”I have to be grateful. Three years ago when I first saw Evans's light quantum hypothesis, if it had not been the limited experiment conditions, I would have done this experiment right away. If that had been the case, my cognitive world would have collapsed completely, and the Kingdom of Electromagnetism would have been destroyed thoroughly, together with half of Allyn. Fortunately, because of the mental preparation and the feedback of the experiments in the past years, I'm still alive.”
The collapse of a legendary archmage's half-solidified cognitive world could be powerful enough to affect the main material world.
Therefore, Brook was not exaggerating. If the Kingdom of Electromagnetism had gone down, half of Allyn would have indeed been buried with its falling. What was needed to say here was that Allyn was a city with the protection of the most powerful Mythals in this world, and if this were to happen in other cities like Rentato or Aalto, the entire city together with the surrounding towns and manors would have been completely devoured by the explosion of the electromagnetic storm.
”Bloody Evans!” Barek flared. Although he knew that this was not Lucien's fault, he could not accept this emotionally.
Brook waved his hands; his face had turned from dull-red to pale. ”If he was insisting on an absurd belief, I would definitely fight him until the last second. However, the experiment result has proved his hypothesis, which means I am the one who's wrong, and I am the one who's too obsessed with my own incorrect belief. In this case, shall I hate this world for not existing as how I wish?”
Although his cognitive world had broken and solidified, Brook still maintained his manner.
Brook was completely different from Fernando, whose feelings and emotions were always intense, but there were two things that they shared in common: the reverence towards the unknown, and the passion for arcana.
”But…” Barek still could not accept the reality. His brows knitted together bitterly, as if he had been the one who had lost all the hope for making any progress in just a few hours.
Brook walked to the window in the living room with his hands folded behind. ”This isn't necessarily a bad thing, Barek. For me, there is indeed desperation, but there's also hope. In this great setback, there is also chance.”
”…?” Barek did not get it.