Throne of Magical Arcana

In the Thunder Hell, Fernando’s magic tower…

As long as he was in Allyn and not occupied by other things, Lucien would communicate with his teacher on arcana and magic once a week. When he walked into his teacher’s library today, he discovered, to his surprise, the old-school gentleman Brook who was wearing his white wig.

Didn’t they “dislike” communicating with teachers face to face and prefer letters? Lucien secretly thought to himself.

Before Lucien greeted him, Brook had already raised his glasses and smiled. “Your paper on the source of magic has been a hit in Allyn in the past few days. I’ve gotten a lot of inspiration from it too. Congratulations on proposing the first official model on the essence of magic.”

Fernando complained not far away, “The observer effect is not a good thing. It will make the world unreal…”

Lucien smiled. His teacher’s persistence in the objectiveness of the world could barely make his teacher think highly of the observer effect, particularly since the explanation did not have any convincing proof or meticulous deduction yet. It was nothing more than a scary “prophecy” that a grand arcanist randomly proposed.

“Thank you. To be honest, I’m just getting started about that. There are many parts in the paper that still need discussing, and so does the ocean of negative-energy state,” said Lucien sincerely. He believed that his teacher and Mr. Brook could tell that, too. Then, he intentionally changed the subject. “Master, Mr. Brook, what were you discussing?”

He would rather not face his teacher’s roar if he could avoid it.

“I was inspired by your quantization of the electromagnetic field when you studied spontaneous radiations. Also, Annick and Sprint’s similar works on electrons have shown remarkable value too. Therefore, I’m hoping to introduce the quantum theory into the classic electromagnetic theory to establish a quantum field theory so that electrons and photons can be better studied and the essence of the electromagnetic force may be figured out.”

When he mentioned the essence of the electromagnetic force, Brook’s old, slim face seemed to be glowing. That was his cognitive world subconsciously influencing the reality.

On the other hand, when he mentioned the studies in the microscopic domain, he cautiously used photons instead of electromagnetic waves. It was obvious that he found the wave-particle duality of light much more acceptable now. He did not reject the theory that made his cognitive world broken and solidified at the beginning at all. Instead, he was full of momentum to study it.

Fernando, whose hair seemed to be always messy, added in a bad mood, “Then, he dragged me into his studies to solve his problems, completely ignoring that I was busy studying the reason why the reactor lost control and the theories on the weak interaction…”

“Weak interaction” had been named by Fernando with reference to “strong interaction”, the nuclear force that Lucien and Hathaway proposed.

He looked reluctant and unwilling, but his red eyes were glittering. Lucien secretly chuckled about it. If his teacher was unwilling to, nobody could or dare force him to study the quantum field theory. It seemed that he had fun in it and was passionate and motivated to establish such a system.

But of course, Lucien knew very well that the establishment of the quantum field theory would go through a long and difficult process from “second quantization” because of the unavoidable problems that loomed in calculation right now, such as the infinite greatness caused by divergence, which had to be resolved through new mathematical approaches. Also, it was only one of the obvious problems.

“After recent studies, we have basically established a general quantum field theory, but it is so flawed that we plan to publish it in advance so that more arcanists could discuss it.” Brook’s delighted and thoughtful reply was within Lucien’s expectation. “It’s great that you’ve come. There are some questions that I would like to discuss with you.”

He sent an invitation straightforwardly.

Fernando’s expression slightly collapsed. He cursed in a low voice, “Goddamn infinity!”

Lucien did not refuse it. He was always happy to join such arcana discussions, which could help him transform the knowledge inside his spirit library into the knowledge that he grasped himself.

Taking over their manuscript, Lucien browsed through it quickly and asked, “Is it not a relativistic quantum field theory?”

“That’s the future plan. Now, we are focused on solving the general problems. If you are interested, we can discuss more often.” Brook did not keep it a secret. The discussion he said was clearly one that entailed paternity right.

It seemed that his teacher did not invite Mr. President to join the discussion. Perhaps because he was worried about the relationship between Mr. Brook and him? Lucien concluded. However, Mr. Brook was not wrong that research should be conducted one step at a time.

“Douglas is too busy preparing for his super-remote space jumps and working on his own projects to pay attention to any more fields. Otherwise, he would be happy to join our work. But right now, discovering a planet may be more important than living for him…” Fernando said, as if he knew what was on Lucien’s mind, not caring that Brook was right next to them at all.

Lucien had studied the problems before. Therefore, he successfully joined Fernando and Brook’s discussion and proposed many insightful ideas.

Fernando and Brook were not surprised at it. They would never believe that Lucien, who proposed the quantization of the electromagnetic field first, had never done any research in that respect.

Time flew fast while they were discussing. In the end, Brook stood in satisfaction and picked up his staff. “While the most critical problem still stands before us like the Saint Truth, we have finally made some progress. Fernando, let’s publish the paper by the end of the month and let more arcanists see it. Hopefully, they can come up with more creative and useful ideas.”

After the previous communication, he understood that Lucien did not have solutions to the few primary problems either. Of course, he was already prepared that such difficult conundrums might not be resolved in years. He had been through a lot of similar cases.

“I don’t think there are more than a hundred arcanists in the Congress who can understand and are interested in the quantum field theory…” Fernando had always been famous for his vicious tongue. “Perhaps they prefer the ocean of negative-energy state and the source of magic caused by the weird features of microscopic particles. That fits all their fantasies.”

“Ocean of negative-energy state. That’s truly a bit unrealistic. It’s hard for me to imagine that I am living inside an ocean of negative-energy particles but cannot sense it at all, but it’s not entirely impossible. Hehe. Maybe vacuums are truly not empty,” he remarked. “Lucien, what’s your opinion on the ocean of negative-energy state? It resolves the energy and matter in your magic design.”

“As a matter of fact, I believe otherwise,” replied Lucien cautiously.

Brook was clearly interested. “You have other ideas? It’s not about the truth of the world that we cannot study just yet, right?”

“My ideas are based on the uncertainty principle. Mr. Brook, do you remember the short enormous rise and fall of energy that I described in my paper?” Lucien admitted his direction of studies honestly, which couldn’t be kept a secret from his teacher.

“Vacuum fluctuation?” As he expected, Fernando simply asked back.

After a brief pause, Brook remembered what it was about. “Because time and energy are a pair of values that fit the uncertainty principle, the more certain time is, the more uncertain energy will be… In a very short time range, because of the uncertainty principle, enormous energy will flow out and suddenly disappear even in the vacuum. On average, it still agrees with the law of conservation and can barely be perceived…”

It was even more unrealistic than the ocean of negative-energy state. Tides of energy were rising and ebbing around people all the time, but none of them sensed anything or got affected!

“It can be described as an unsteady ocean of energy.” Lucien compared it to the ocean of negative-energy state so that it could be understood easier.

Fernando never objected to the uncertainty principle. What he objected to was Lucien’s proposition on the intrinsic qualities of matter that it entailed. Therefore, instead of roaring at the “rising and ebbing ocean of energy”, he said carefully, “It can also explain the source of energy. Also, it has something to do with the field theory that we are working on. I think if we work on it, we will come up with a new model that contains antiparticles.”

“In our studies, the intensity of the electric field and the intensity of the magnetic field are a pair of values that fit the uncertainty principle, which means that they cannot be zero at the same time. So, electromagnetic fluctuations happen around us all the time too?” Brook recalled their recent studies.

Lucien nodded his head. “Theoretically, yes.”

Brook said both solemnly and excitedly, “Perhaps we can devise an experiment to observe such electromagnetic fluctuations… If it’s true, vacuums will be truly marvelous!”

After he left in excitement, Fernando finally said to Lucien, “I don’t think you said everything you wanted to say in the previous discussion, did you?”

You’ve seen through me again? Lucien smiled. “It’s mainly about the definition of matter. Since we regarded the electromagnetic field as a matter a long time ago, why can’t we take one more step? Perhaps the field is a fundamental form of matter…”

“Let me think about it.” Fernando pinched his forehead.

Seeing that his teacher was tired, Lucien said goodbye to him. At this moment, Fernando said rigorously, “The observer effect is not a decent theory. You’d better not get addicted to it.”

Then, after a brief silence, he said, “However, your speculations on the ‘unsteadiness’ of the material foundation, on the source of energy and matter, and on the fluctuating ocean of energy in the vacuum are all significant areas of research.”

Lucien was immediately amused. Master, you could’ve been more straightforward if you wanted to praise me.

…

“Weak observers… The ocean of negative-energy state…” Inside the Holy City, Benedict III remarked in a low voice while looking at the sunset out of the window.