Chapter 202: The Power of Belief
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
Since only one layer of the seal had been unlocked, right now Sun’s Corona could only sense the very strong smell of the World of Souls, and the thing it sensed must be very powerful, which meant that a horrible undead was right now staring at Lucien.
However, Lucien stayed relatively calm, and when he secretly scanned the whole study, he found no one else but himself.
Although the winter sun was nice and warm, Lucien felt cold inside.
Trying his best to behave as usual, Lucien picked up a card and pretended that he was reading the notes about an element written on the card carefully.
Sun’s Corona was getting hotter and hotter. Staring at the card, Lucien felt that there was a big white skull with b.l.o.o.d.y red-light eyes reading the notes right beside his face with him.
However, in the mirror, Lucien was the only one in the study.
Lucien wondered if this thing was sent by the Hand of Paleness, but he was also quite certain that they were still suspecting his relations.h.i.+p with Professor, instead of equating him directly with the mysterious sorcerer, or what he was facing now would be way more than just being watched.
Although there were lots of thoughts going on in Lucien’s mind, he did not show any different behavior. Like most researchers who were dedicated to their studies, Lucien kept working on his study over the elements.
In his mind, he knew that he really needed to hurry up and create his next arcana paper.
In the early evening, Lucien put down his cards and walked out of the study. The heat produced by Sun’s Corona was now hard to notice, but still relatively warm, which meant that the creature was not leaving the place yet.
Lucien relaxed a little, as he knew that it was just watching him. The only thing he needed to do and could do now was act as normal as possible.
...
After dinner, Lucien came to the lab tower as usual. As soon as he entered the tower, the heat from Sun’s Corona totally disappeared.
Lucien was very glad to see that the powerful magic circles protecting this tower could also prevent the undead from following him here.
At this time, K walked to him, "Lucien, I thought you wouldn’t come here today."
"I’m stronger than that." Lucien smiled, and then walked with K side by side, "By the way, what’s your paper on this issue of Element, K? Sorry I forgot to ask you earlier."
K scratched his hair a bit and answered shyly, "It’s about the phenomenon that elements always bond with fixed number of molecules in alchemical experiments. In other words… something like valency put forward by Mr. Larry."
"That’s the foundation of the school of Elements. Now I see why Mr. Larry appreciate your talent, K." Lucien sincerely nodded.
K was very shy. He did not respond but just smiled, lowering his head.
At this time, several people walked past and saw Lucien and K.
"Good evening, Mr. K, Mr. Evans." greeted an ordinary-looking, black-haired young man. Lucien was not sure if that was a smile on his face.
Keeping a poker face, K responded, "Good evening, Beate."
Then he turned around and walked upstairs to the fourth floor, followed by Lucien after a quick nod.
"You don’t like us, Mr. Evans." Beate smiled, "It seems that you haven’t realized what you did wrong."
K turned around again and said to him angrily, "You don’t have to do this, Beate. Even if Lucien did break the rules, he’s new here, and you could have talked to him first."
"Well… well… Our Mr. Nice’s angry now. That’s rare," said Beate’s friend. Then, his long face looked more serious, "Mr. Evans needs to receive this lesson to realize how acceptable it is to break the school traditions here."
Before Lucien said anything, Beate cut in, "Now I don’t care who broke the rules. The most important thing to me is the development of the school of electromagnetic wave. If you keep sticking to your wrong theories and believing that atoms are the basis of the world, K, I’m afraid that your head is gonna explode as you think too hard, ha. Now we’re gonna study the application of electromagnetic wave following Mr. Fernando, and good luck to you element guys."
Beate was usually not a very talkative person, but now he was feeling great, and so were his friends.
Lucien was p.i.s.sed off, but there was nothing he could do right now. After they walked away, Lucien asked K confusedly, "K, what does that mean by… one’s head… explodes?"
K answered in his low voice, which echoed in the s.p.a.ce, "This is not a formal theory, and this’s an a.s.sumption put forward by the president of the congress. He believes that one’s meditative world is a reflection of one’s own understanding of the nature of the world, and one’s own ideas and knowledge.
Lucien nodded, and in his heart, he agreed with Mr. Douglas.
"In addition to the more than ten common meditations that suit most meditation environments, each of the other meditations has to work with its specific environment. If not, or if the environment is not stable enough, one’s spiritual power is likely to explode, and that may do damage to one’s soul and brain structure, or, directly blow up one’s head," said K seriously. "If a sorcerer’s belief was proved wrong by some new theory, and if he or she could not accept or understand the new one, his or her meditation environment could hardly change. As you may know, Lucien, changing one’s ontology and understanding of the nature of the world can be very, very difficult, thus failing of adjusting oneself to new knowledge can greatly disturb a sorcerer’s way of doing mediation and the stability of the mediation world. At the same time, losing confidence and belief is fatal to a sorcerer as well, consequently. People could die from it. Only few sorcerers can overcome this and come back to the right path."
Lucien was deeply shock. He could not understand why Felipe became that angry and emotional when Lucien synthesized carbamide right in front of him, but now he got to know the reason. Fortunately, his experiment was not able to fully overthrow the theory of Life Force, or he would have been killed by the crazy necromancers right on the spot.
Intelligent and hard-work as Felipe was, Lucien was sure that the necromancer belonged to the group of the few people who could switch their mindset fast enough, as mentioned by K. Lucien also guessed that Felipe was right now working on overthrowing the theory of Life Force himself in order to leave no chance to his enemies, which would make a huge difference.
No wonder the Hand of Paleness sent that powerful undead thing to watch Lucien.
Without noticing Lucien’s reaction, K continued, "But all the existing theories are still under heated discussion and facing all kinds of criticism, hence they’re not solid enough to completely destroy many sorcerers’ beliefs. Therefore, spiritual power explosion was something very rare. Recently, however, in the past several great discussions, when electromagnetic induction was verified, a few senior and middle-rank sorcerers died as their beliefs were destroyed. It is said that recently when light was proved to be of the form of electromagnetic wave, several pastors in Holm got killed by the holy light in their bodies when they were praying. All those things prove that the president’s a.s.sumption is correct, and people who can withstand those great s.h.i.+fts are going to become stronger."
"The development of arcana and magic comes with blood and tears." Lucien nodded, looking rather serious. He believed that the reason why he could change his meditation environment so easily was because he actually had the correct knowledge from his original world, but here he needed to verify this knowledge first.
"So, the biggest challenge for sorcerers here who originally followed the ancient magic system is that they have to switch their understanding of the world. Many of them don’t accept it, and they can never make further progress," K nodded to Lucien. "But you’re different, Lucien. You’re not only growing together with the apprentices when you’re teaching, but also even doing experiments to verify some of the arcana theories. You were born to be an arcanist, Lucien."
...
In the following month, under the watch of the Hand of Paleness, Lucien completed his verification experiments of the nature of all existing elements in this world. However, he did not show the correct order of his element cards in his study. In order to hide his findings, Lucien did the key part in the lab and his spirit library.
Then Lucien started to develop his second paper, and its t.i.tle was:
The Periodic Relation between the Nature of Elements and Prediction of New Elements.