Throne of Magical Arcana

Inside the Atomic Universe…

After Natasha fell asleep, Lucien rose and walked to his desk. He took out a thick pile of papers from his magic pouch and turned to a certain page. While considering, he drew seven lines under the word ‘self-awareness’, which were connected to ‘Greed’, ‘Arrogance’, ‘Pain’ and the other emotional expressions that represented the seven primeval devils.

Then, he left a big question mark behind the seven words and wrote: “The quantum transformation of the soul requires the superposition of more possibilities? The superposition of other feelings and self-awarenesses?”

“On the other hand, the pure congregation of faith and self-awarenesses will offset one’s own self-awareness, thereby preventing one from collapsing from the quantum superposition state? However, one’s self-awareness will also be greatly affected as a result, which may lead to other problems?”

“How should the problem be resolved?”

Lucien put on a smile as he wrote on. He tapped the paper with his fingers, as if he were inferring and guessing something.

Shaking his hands with a half smile, Lucien collected the paper and took out a piece of blank paper, on which he wrote:

“The Relativistic Wave Equation of a Single Electron.”

Natasha, exhausted, was sleeping and recovering, when she suddenly sensed the terrifying force of obliteration and destruction. She opened her eyes warily, only to discover that the magnetic field around Lucien who was in his pajamas had been twisted. A dreamy spectrum appeared like a picture, and the most overwhelming power was descending from the infinite heights!

Half of the colors nearby were black, and the other were white. When they collided, they were destroyed in an unimaginable state, before they were born from the void again.

“Feedback from the real world…” Looking at the constantly-changing, black-and-white scene, and feedback of the World she realized what was going on. Also, she somewhat sensed that it was the cycle of the creation and destruction of matter.

The experiences she had when she tried to become a legendary knight, and the problems that occurred to the blood power of Sword of Truth that was purely destructive, were all answered at this moment.

She pulled on her pajamas and walked to Lucien’s side quietly, watching him finish the paper.

“…I once tried to avoid the negative energy result that Dieppe, Larry and Jurisian concluded. However, after constructing the equation and theoretically explaining all the current experiments, I have realized that negative energy is unavoidable. With that in mind, however unreasonable it is, we can only include it in our arcana theories and build a new system that can accommodate it. I hereby predict that there is an antielectron whose electric charge is positive. When it encounters an electron, they will immediately be destroyed by each other and yield tremendous energy…”

“If we think more broadly, there may be other antiparticles, and the matter made of such antiparticles can be called antimatter…”

As he wrote on, Lucien remembered certain concepts in the quantum field theory that he confirmed before. Therefore, the vacuum surged, from which the positive and negative electrons were born, before they obliterated each other and released energy.

Inside his cognitive world, the universe background became hazy, as if matter was being generated and destroyed all the time. The infinite starry sky arrived from far away again, bringing in tremendous feedback from the real world. The objects inside the cognitive environment were changed as a result, and an incomplete new legendary spell was constructed!

Also, ‘Eternal Blaze’ in Lucien’s cognitive world was naturally engraved into his soul, allowing him to step into level three of legendary directly, even though he had only ten legendary spells.

“Positron Cannon” Lucien wrote a full stop for his paper and closed his eyes, feeling the incomplete, new legendary spell. He knew that he had to find ‘antielectrons’ in reality in order to complete it.

“It’s really hard to make advancements simply by practicing and perceiving the blood power without understanding the mysteries of the world…” Natasha sighed with mixed feelings. That was the reason why legendary knights of higher levels were fewer than sorcerers of the same level. However, as an optimistic girl, she soon cheered herself up and declared, full of ambition, “It’s still not too bad. Although I don’t understand the specific arcana theories, I think I will be able to become a legendary knight with your interpretation and illustration…”

Lucien smiled at her. “All the classes will reach the same direction when they arrive at the top level. It’s about understanding the mysteries of the world. However, the arcanists have the best and most effective approach to explore the world’s mysteries.”

All the different roads led to the same destination.

……

After Lucien’s open class, the Congress of Magic was caught in a weird state of ‘silence’ in general. Everybody discussed the double-slit experiment with electrons, Oliver’s cat, Douglas’s entangling particles, Lucien’s experiment of deferred choice, etc., but nobody discussed the influence of a conscious, considerate and intelligent observer on the microworld. They subconsciously evaded the most horrifying explanation.

However, just because they avoided it did not mean that the distinguished arcanists and the grand arcanists would. The papers on that aspect had been submitted to the Arcana Review Board.

Larry sat inside the dark library like a statue, as if he hadn’t moved at all for hundreds of years. Oliver’s cat panicked him, and Lucien’s observer theory terrified him, making it impossible for him to calm down for his own research and adventure. His head was swarmed by questions in that regard.

Suddenly, he sighed and picked up the pile of papers before him that needed reviewing.

“‘What Exactly Is Consciousness?’… by Mr. Vicente…”

“‘The Boundary Between Spirit and Flesh… by Mr. President…”

“‘Differences Between Soul and Self-Awareness: A Problem of the Observer Effect… by Mr. Fernando…”

“‘What Is Observation?’… by Ms. Hathaway…”

Reading those papers, Larry felt that his head was unusually swollen and chaotic. After Mr. Evans introduced consciousness into the microworld, the objective, concrete domain of elements were suddenly filled with colorful fantasies. The incredible speculations were about to destroy his worldview.

He pressed his temples and put those papers on self-awareness, soul and observation aside, deciding to leave them alone for now. Suddenly, he saw a paper that was rather thick.

“‘The Relativistic Wave Equation of Single Electron’, by Lucien Evans…”

He wrote similar papers about that before, so he was refreshed and devoted himself to it.

As he read on, he became so excited that he kept pulling his bow-tie with his left hand, as if he were trying to spread out the heat in his heart. “He has come up with an equation by speculation and then explained it.”

“Also, this equation is full of mathematical and arcane beauty. It is short, beautiful and seems to contain the deepest and most fundamental laws and mysteries!”

Then, his eyes were suddenly widened, because all the problems that occurred to the microscopic domain in the past years had been explained by Lucien with the equation rigorously and self-consistently. Brook’s scattering experiment, the unusual splitting of magnetic fields, the accurate structure of the spectrum… Everything was perfectly unified by the equation. Even the hypothesis of electron spin that Annick and Sprint proposed had been inferred by Lucien with the equation, showing that it was the relativistic effect when the electrons abide by the law of conservation.

When he read such a paper, Larry felt that one achievement after another was flying at his face. Dazzling, Larry thought to himself, “This is a perfect summary of the grand development in the microscopic domain for a long time in the past. The brilliant and dazzling golden age has been compressed into one paper!”

“When we studied the microscopic domain before, it’s like ordinary people picking apples. They must spend a lot of time before they can get one of the apples from a tree. However, Mr. Evans’ equation and paper show that the apples are all ripe, and they are falling like rain…”

After the remark and shock, he noticed what was in the latter half of the paper. He was more or less upset after he saw Lucien’s speculation on antiparticles and antimatter, “…Why did I never have the courage to make such bold predictions?”

Of course, he also knew that his previous equation had many other problems. It was not just about negative energy.

“Are there really positive electrons…” Larry murmured to himself and began to write the review.

“This is without a doubt the most deep, shocking and classic equation of the microscopic domain that surpasses everything else. To distinguish it from the Evans field equation, I call it the Lucien equation. With this equation, all the problems that have taken place recently are answered. This is a sublimation of the age of the great arcana development! Of course, I don’t think that it is the end of the golden era of the microscopic domain. It is only the conclusion of the overture, and the first movement is about to begin for real!”

…

Nobody anticipated that, Lucien did not dedicate himself to the problems concerning self-awareness and the observer effect after he proposed them. Instead, he announced the integration of the special theory of relativity and quantum mechanics with an astounding equation that drove away the mist in the microscopic domain. It was like lightning piercing the sky and illuminating the darkness. Nobody ever doubted the promising future of quantum mechanics and the new alchemy again.

“If we don’t consider why the probabilistic explanation and the uncertainty principle exist, and why the wave function would collapse, this is absolutely a golden age in the history of arcana…”

Almost all the arcanists sighed as such, but they too knew that they would have to face the uncanny phenomenon if arcana and magic were to be developed any further. They had to figure out the arcana significance behind them and settle the problems about soul, magic and quantum state. When that day came, they would have to make a choice for arcana and magic:

To live, or to die?

Or maybe, to live AND to die?

(End of Volume VII)