569 Malicious Purpose 3 in 1 (1/2)
In Allyn, the City in the Sky…
The Atom Institution paid so well that Blake was able to rent a villa with a garden in the suburbs after only one year. However, his habits did not change because he had come to Allyn, and he could not go to sleep without listening to 'Arcana Voice' and 'News of the World'.
”…This concludes the Congress' expansion in the four countries of the strait and the north coastline…”
The brisk voice of Lark spread into Blake's ears, making him, who was leaning against the sofa lazily, feel peaceful and delighted from the bottom of his heart. He was integrated into the tranquil night around his house.
Zi, zi, zi. Electric noises echoed from the magic radio. Blake looked at it in confusion. What happened? 'News of the World' should still have half a program left. Was it because of the disorder of electromagnetic signals again?
Rising from the sofa, Blake walked towards the magic radio. He was about to adjust it with his right hand, when an old voice suddenly came out from the radio:
”Mr. President, it's true that new theories or achievements that can break my bottleneck will arise soon, but they are also very likely to break my head, especially if they are from Lucien Evans, the Headcrusher.”
Blake was stunned all of a sudden. Mr. President? Did he mean Mr. Douglas? Had 'News of the World' invited him, too? That would be too exciting.
The arcanists who grew up in the Congress had been taught with the president's deeds of establishing the Congress despite all the dangerous through arduous work since childhood. His gravity theory and motion system were also the classics that all the sorcerers worshiped and learnt. After hundreds of years, it was still the two pillars that supported the arcana system. 'Mathematical Principles of Magical Philosophy' was praised to be the most important masterpiece in the history of arcana and magic, and a symbol of civilization that separates darkness and ignorance from the real discovery of the world mysteries.
Therefore, for most arcanists, the president was the mental pillar of the Congress, a mountain that could not be circumvented in the field of magic, and a man who supported the sky of the arcana system. He had been admired by everyone, old and young.
”The advancement he brought forth hasn't been fully revealed. Perhaps, you will see the value of his new theories in three, five or ten years.”
Yes. It was exactly the president! Both the voice and the tone suggested so!
Blake suddenly grew excited. He had the privilege of listening to Mr. President's speech indirectly through 'Allyn's Past Week' in 'News of the World', which left him with a deep impression. His easiness, generosity and his unreserved compliments for the new talents were absolutely authentic!
”This is fantastic. They have finally invited Mr. President to 'News of the World'! The only problem is, why is the interviewer an old man with such an unpleasant voice, instead of everybody's old friend, Ms. Lark or Ms. Nightingale? Their voices alone are an entertainment.”
Some hilarious thoughts occurred to Blake, but he guessed that the man was Mr. President's old friend, that was why he could invite the president. The two channels had been established for several years, but none of the Highest Council were willing to participate in the talk shows.
”Like 'On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies and Mass-energy Equation'?”
”Yes.”
Douglas' obviously gloomy voice came into Blake's ears, making the smile on his face disappear.
While he very much admired his boss and the manager of the Atom Institution - Mr. Lucien Evans, it was still only limited in the fields of new alchemy and elements. He had been Mr. President's follower when it came to the gravity theory and the motion system. Therefore, he was partly excited when witnessing Mr. Evans disrupt Douglas' motion system, and partly lost because the mental pillar that supported his arcana ideas suddenly collapsed. The arcana world that was clear and visionary became chaotic and obscure.
Also, the disruption of the relativistic space and time over the absolute time and space, and the mind-boggling descriptions, overwhelmed him, who began to question the whole arcana system.
If Mr. President's motion system, one of the greatest classics, was wrong, what else couldn't be?
Thankfully, there was still the awe-inspiring gravity theory!
...
In the broadcast room of 'News of the World'…
'Lark', Samantha, had been reciting her script attentively, prepared to comment on the matter freely a while later, when the door of the broadcast room was suddenly opened.
”Something happened!” The arcanist who walked in spoke palely.
Samantha was both the anchor and the manager whom Lucien entrusted the affairs of 'News of the World' to. She hinted that something had happened with her eyes and asked the arcanist responsible for the broadcast to play advertisements.
The arcanist who just entered carried a magic radio with him. He said both in confusion and panic, ”Ms. Samantha, your broadcast has been cut off, replaced by a conversation between Mr. President and another sorcerer.”
”What?” Samantha knew very well that Mr. President had never been invited to the show.
She was taken aback by the unprecedented situation for a while.
The new arcanist turned on the radio, allowing everybody in the broadcast room to hear an old voice:
”… suspicious about myself and the arcana system in the past hundreds of years. Mr. Douglas, I've been following you since the end of the War of Dawn. We established the Congress under the suppression of the Church. Your gravity theory and your motion system were the lighthouses that guided me. But right now, one of the two lighthouses has been announced 'wrong'. I really don't know what to believe now. I'm like a boat in a storm, with nothing but darkness before my eyes.”
His confusion and loss stunned all the arcanists in the broadcast room. That seemed to be the best narration of the questions they had themselves in the past several months. Those who had never experienced mental meltdowns couldn't have understood the helplessness and hopelessness in the words.
Samantha, of the school of astrology and force field, held her breath and waited for Mr. President's answer. He had never offered any comment on the issue before.
””It's not wrong but a low-speed approximation of the relativistic system.”
Douglas' voice echoed, just as everybody expected.
Different from the low-level arcanists like Blake, most of the arcanists in the room had the privilege to meet Mr. President when 'News of the World' was praised by him, and they could clearly tell that it was exactly Mr. President's voice and tone. Samantha, who had visited the Land of Truth with her teacher together, was most certain of it.
But Mr. President's answer was too plain and unconvincing, wasn't it? It was just Lucien Evans' quote.
””Mr. President, low-speed approximation means that you neglected too many things in your motion system, and there were too many errors. Also, don't you think that 'time is space, and space is time', 'time depends on matter and is speed's function' completely overthrows our understanding?”
Yes! That's the feeling! The arcanists agreed with him in silence. Give us a model or explanation that we can understand, Mr. President!
”It is indeed different from our intuition. When I saw it, I also felt that my past thousand years were denied.” Douglas admitted rather honestly.” Douglas' old and gloomy voice came out.
Boom!
Most of the people in the broadcast room felt a thunder bursting out in their heart. His life over the past thousand years was denied… Completely denied…
Even Mr. President's life was completely denied. What about theirs?
Samantha was brooding in a trance first, before she suddenly realized what was going on. ”This can't be Mr. President's reply! This is the enemy's scheme!”
”Brian, you go and find Lucien. I'll ask Ms. Hellen to activate the powerful interference devices to block the electromagnetic signals from Allyn!”
It was an emergency plan that Lucien came up with before. Having been teleported from Earth, he couldn't have neglected the possibility that the enemy could counter-brainwash the sorcerers with radios and electromagnetic signals. So, he made quite a few emergency plans.
Although only Allyn could be blocked for now, Samantha had no time to bother the branches and the local organizations!
”The truth of this world is beyond our imagination. Too many questions can't be answered, and more and more things point at the same thing. What's the nature of gravity? How did it appear at the beginning? If your astronomical motion system works, what's the initial force that made the planet spin?”
Samantha's hand, which was about to touch her communication earring, was frozen. It was the question that puzzled every sorcerer of the school of astrology.
What was the nature of gravity? How would Mr. President reply?
Inertia let her connect to Hellen's secret frequency while she waited for answers. She said with a voice as predictable as wind, ”Ms. Hellen, the enemy's signals have hijacked 'News of the World'…”
Hellen, who was defending Allyn on the thirty-third floor, was a woman who looked like an elf of snow. Her lips were blue, but she was surrounded in a weird charm.
Hearing Samantha's words, she was not in a hurry to activate the powerful interference device in Allyn. Instead, she turned on the radio on her desk, trying to figure out who had infiltrated them in what way, so that they could be better prepared in the future.
”That's exactly what I'm confused about. Where does gravity come from? How does it spread? How was it created at the beginning? The more I know, the more lost and scared I am.”
Perhaps I've been wrong all this time.”
As she listened, shock and a collapse of faith appeared on Hellen's delicate and cold face beyond her control.
Other people might have suspected that the voice was fabricated via magic or divine powers, but as a grand arcanist, she knew very well that after one became a legendary sorcerer, their cognitive world would gradually melt with their soul, and their words would carry their cognitive world's influence and feedback to the real world. Even when they did not perform any magic, their voice still had a unique air, unless they disguised it on purpose.
Unless they knew the constituents of a legendary sorcerer's cognitive world, it was barely possible to duplicate and fabricate the unique feeling. Every person capable of that was the best in the fields of illusion and transformation, like the Eye of Curse, the King of Nightmare and the Master of Transformation, but why would they do such a thing when the Congress had just secured a glorious victory?
Also, two of the six grand arcanists were more or less Douglas' students: the 'more' one was Brook, the Emperor of Control, and the 'less' one was Hellen Paris, the Witch of Iceland.
'Cabin of Palmeira' was a magic group that had controlled the northland since ancient Magic Empire. In its heyday, it had three legendary sorcerers. After it was melted into the Congress, it had developed very sluggishly because they were unused to the arcana principles. Since Hellen was exceptionally talented and had unusual understanding in arcana studies, her teacher thought that she was too good for him to teach and asked Douglas to help with the teaching.
For Hellen, Douglas was like a father who supported the sky of the Congress of Magic and illuminated the path of arcana studies, but now, he was saying 'Perhaps I've been wrong all the time'. How could she not feel that her whole world and her whole life was collapsing? She was so shocked that she even forgot to implement the interferences.
”Perhaps, the voice was fabricated by a demigod…” Hellen tried to explain it.
...
Perhaps I've been wrong all the time.”
Felipe was also listening to 'News of the World' in his own magic tower inside Heidler city.
At first, he also thought that President Douglas was a special guest, but he soon realized that something was wrong. However, the content of their conversation was so corruptively charming that he listened on uncontrollably.
When the founder of the arcane system, the explorer of arcana frontiers and the leader of arcanists spoke somewhat in pain that he might have been wrong all the time, even Felipe, who had always been egoistical, felt unbelievably surprised and lost, too, the brilliance in his eyes dispersing.
”Are you going to tell us that you were wrong in the beginning, when we have made it this far after all the hard work?”
Holding the red cup of wine, Felipe looked out the window. The whole Heidler city was enshrouded in the darkness of night. Lights were flickering like stars, like the unsettled mind of all the sorcerers who had heard the conversation.
Even though he was a necromancer, they still had more or less studied gravity, which seemed to contain the deepest mysteries of the world, and they still respected Douglas, who founded the Congress and the arcana system, from the bottom of their heart. His invention of calculus and his studies on geometric models made the advancement of the sorcerers of all schools much easier and less dependent on drugs and materials.
...
In the headquarters of the Will of Elements, Raventi, who was to safeguard the place tonight, looked gloomy, his face tightened, as he listened to 'News of the World'. It never occurred to him that Mr. President would say such things!
He was in a good relationship with the Tower, and he had profound studies on gravity, too. He understood that the questions like Where's gravity from? How does it spread? How was it born at the beginning?' were the ultimate enigma in gravity studies that could not be avoided. He had similar confusion himself.
However, how can you lose confidence and say that you have always been wrong, Mr. President?
It doesn't matter if there are problems. We can solve them one at a time!
How is it possible to figure out all the mysteries at the very beginning?
Everybody has witnessed the development of the gravity system over the past years. The success of the artificial planets further convinced everyone of its validity. Was it not progress but retrograde?
We cannot be impatient about the problems that involve the origins. We have to walk on the solid foundation that is our current research achievements!
Mr. President, you must not lose your confidence!
If you lose your confidence, too many arcanists and even legendary sorcerers will be confused, lost and even desperate.
””Perhaps, we should look for a philosophical explanation. Perhaps, there was indeed a First Cause and a source that created everything. In that case, the system of celestial body motion can be perfected and constructed.”
”Sometimes, I can't help but think that way. There's probably really a supreme being and a First Cause, or the whole arcana system cannot be explained from the origin. It's like a house without the foundation, which will collapse under the gentlest breeze.”
The supreme being, the First Cause, and the arcana system which cannot be established without those concepts… You are not seriously trying to tell us that, Mr. President, are you?
We have been fighting the Church and the believers of the God of Truth for our entire life, only to discover that all our pride and faith depends on the God of Truth after all?
Raventi rose from his chair abruptly, his right hand trembling violently. Finding it impossible to believe that President Douglas said that, he began to identify its veracity with prophecy.
It was true…
Even Raventi, an archmage who had pursued truth and despised hypocrisy for his entire life, looked old and weak. He couldn't believe, nor could he accept, that Mr. President would believe that a supreme being had been dominating everything, in which case the arcana system and the Congress of Magic he established would be a joke, and so would be Raventi himself, who was attached to them.
”Annonis, are you listening to News of the World? Hurry and check if Mr. President's words are true with astrology.” Raventi remembered that he was not good at prophecies, so he hurried to contact his best friend.
...
When Samantha was petrified by Douglas' questions about the gravity theory, an arcanist of the school of electromagnetism in the broadcast room hurried to inform Lucien, who was the person with the highest clearances that he could reach out to.
After ending the conversation with Natasha and sending his regards to Grand Duke of Orvarit, Lucien stayed in his office in the Atom Institution and continued the studies on his own magic structure and arcana studies. He felt the passion to work for his family now that they had exchanged their rings and settled their relationship.
Suddenly, Lucien's monocle became hot.
”Mr. Evans, hurry, listen to 'News of the World'…” A strange male voice echoed in panic, but he could not explain what was going on in his anxiety.
Lucien asked quickly but got no effective answer. He could only turn on the magic radio and set it to the channel of 'News of the World'.
”That is to say, your gravity system and your motion system will collapse without the First Cause, right?”