580 The Highest Council (1/2)
In the morning two days later, Lucien, who had been stabilizing his strength inside Babel, came to the thirty-fifth floor of the Allyn magic tower early and opened the door of the conference room of the Highest Council.
The conference room was no different from any other conference room that Lucien had seen. They were equally spacious, and they all had a common long cherry desk at the center. The only thing special was that the twenty-four chairs were made of precious materials. Their velvet plating was emitting luxury and yet low-profile redness. Different patterns had been engraved on the back of the chairs to indicate the identity of the members. Among them, there were the storm with lightning, the crown of arcana and magic, etc.
”Evans, here.” Klaus, the Alchemy Master who was always wearing a mischievous smile, pointed at the chair on his opposite side.
He was the legendary sorcerer who came earliest, followed by an alchemical puppet in the appearance of a little girl.
Lucien looked over, only to discover that the back of the chair was the pattern of the internal structure of atoms, where electrons surrounded protons and neutrons, like an infinitely reduced version of the celestial bodies motion system.
”The classic model that is soon to be outdated…” Remarked secretly, Lucien nodded at Klaus and sat in his spot.
”Mr. Klaus, you seem to have been here for a while?” Seeing that they were alone in the conference room, Lucien asked in smalltalk.
Klaus smiled casually, ”Evans, you are already a grand arcanist. Such courtesies are unnecessary. Just call me Klaus. I'm a person who prefers to arrive early. Every time I wait for other people, I feel that I have additional time, and I can think, idle by and enjoy the luxury of freedom without being disturbed. This is a wondrous feeling, don't you think? You are an early person, too?”
”Yes. I'll be anxious when I think that other people are waiting for me, but when I wait for other people, as long as they are not late, my mind is peaceful and my head is full of inspirations after I come early.” Replied Lucien with a smile, not expecting them to share the same feeling in that regard.
Klaus opened his hands. ”We understand life and enjoyment better than they do. However, for me, the luxury time is over, because there are so many questions that I would like to discuss with you the moment I see you. The new alchemy is full of intoxicating charm. It is even more addictive than all of my puppets, golems and alchemical lives.”
”If the questions are about the new alchemy, I would be happy to discuss them with you.” Said Lucien with a smile.
Klaus knocked the table. A pair of metal arms suddenly fell from the ceiling with a cup of hot red tea. Then, the creature said respectfully, ”Your Excellency Klaus, your favorite 'Count Red Tea'.”
”Evans, what's your favorite drink? Ask them to prepare it.” Sipping the red tea, Klaus went on. ”As a matter of fact, after reading your deductions based on protons, the periodic table, the relative atomic weight and the equivalent elements, I had absolutely no doubt about the existence of neutrons. Its discovery was only a matter of time. However, I do have a lot of confusion about the tracks, transition and radiation of electrons.”
As I expected… Lucien was not surprised at Klaus's confusion. After asking for a 'Sky Blue', he said, ”There are indeed many problems in that regard. We can discuss them together.”
The smile on Klaus's face was gradually gone. ”First of all, the electronic transition you described is a quantum process. That is to say, when it jumps from one orbit to another, there will be no journey in the middle at all. It will simply blink to the destination. Is it some sort of space jump or teleportation? Is it what our space magic is based on?”
Because space jump, teleportation and barrier could never be explained, the space magic had been developing very slowly and had an extremely high demand. Even the South Church and the Congress of Magic did not have the wealth to deploy too many permanent transmission magic circles. They could only manage to connect their headquarters to the capitals of the countries. As for the local provinces, counties and cities, they had to count on the primitive way. Things were only improved after electromagnetism messaging, wired phones and telegrams were developed.
”Perhaps yes, perhaps no. I haven't really studied it yet. The transition of energy level is just a preliminary explanation. There may be better theories to describe it in the future. We can only approach the truth step by step but cannot claim that we already have the truth.” Lucien did not expect Klaus to ask such a sophisticated question.
Klaus nodded, knowing that the problem wouldn't be resolved anytime soon. After all, the energy level and transition of electrons was still a theoretical speculation in Lucien's new alchemy and had never been observed in an experiment yet. They could only be inferred based on the observed phenomena.
”The question is, why do electrons have orbits, and why would they 'transit'? Gravity makes the artificial planets spin around the world and creates their orbits, but the electromagnetic power will only make the electrons hit the nucleus.” An indifferent voice echoed at the gate. Hathaway, beautiful but strict, had arrived early, too.
The studies on the new alchemy had been in the phase of searching for neutrons or other anomalies previously. Although there were such problems, it was not the mainstream. However, after the discovery of neutrons, the explanation of the orbits and transition of electrons became a top priority for the grand arcanists and the legendary sorcerers. Also, it could be seen from her fluent description that Hathaway had considered the problem for a while.
Rubbing his eyebrow, Lucien said, ”The electromagnetic power probably does not apply to the microscopic realm. Some other forces are playing a role. Orbits and transitions are just a hypothesis for now. We can only confirm whether it is true based on experiments.”