Woods raised his head, staring at the coat rack in the corner of his office, lost in thought — then suddenly leaped to his feet: "It was Odenko who just discovered that 'Flashstone' ore down south — the characteristics match perfectly. Could there really be a new element?"
With a wave of his hand, his black top hat and double-breasted formal coat flew over and dressed him of their own accord, seeming even more urgent than the last time he'd rushed to find Lucian. He then rode the elevator to the base of the magic tower and took a carriage toward a peculiar tower at the edge of Allendel that resembled a pair of demonic horns.
Odenko was a friend of Woods — a four-ring mage of the Transmutation and Summoning schools. His grandfather was a Transmutation Grand Mage who had nearly made it onto the Supreme Council, so the family was extraordinarily wealthy. He loved traveling and collecting all manner of unusual things, but rarely dabbled in elemental or alchemical research. The new minerals he discovered often sat around his home for ages before he remembered to have someone analyze what magical substances they contained and what they could do.
Urged on, the carriage galloped at breakneck speed, no longer able to maintain a smooth ride. Yet Woods, a mage of Force Field and Astrology, sat as if on flat ground, feeling not the slightest discomfort. The Main Star of Destiny within his soul grew unusually active, but it foretold not the slightest hint of trouble.
*Squeal* — the sharp sound of wheels grinding against the ground rang out as Woods leapt from the carriage and charged straight for the entrance of Odenko's magic tower.
"Eh? Woods, is your house on fire?" The sensing Magic Circle Odenko had set up around his tower detected Woods in advance.
The man resembled a black bear overall, because the transmutation magic passed down through his family basically began with learning to transform into an ordinary bear. Over several generations, they had gradually come to look either like brown bears, or black bears, or northern snow bears…
Woods' body had been enhanced by magical potions, and despite running such a distance he felt no soreness or cramps — just slightly out of breath: "Black Bear — no, Odenko, sell me a few chunks of that flashstone ore. The new magical mineral you just discovered down south."
In his haste, without thinking, Woods had blurted out the nickname he used for Odenko in his mind.
……
Swan Lake, within the Rose Estate.
With the arrival of Gaston — member of the Arcane Audit Committee and director of Element Will — the high-ranking mages began arriving one after another, including Ravendy, member of the Arcane Audit Committee and vice president of Element Will, a nine-ring mage; Overy, member of the Arcane Audit Committee and director of Element Will; and five other arcane authorities in various branches of elemental magic.
Of course, the Arcane Audit Committee was not limited to just these five people when it came to reviewing elemental papers — most high-level arcanists practiced magic from two to four schools. But generally speaking, as long as they had not left Allendel and its surroundings, elemental arcane papers were submitted to them first.
Besides the six authoritative high-level arcanists, there were also other senior figures from Element Will, totaling thirty-two high-level mages. However, only twenty among them had achieved an arcane rank of six or above.
As for Grand Mages and legendary mages from Element Will, only Ravendy had come. After all, this was an annual conference focused primarily on mid-level mage papers. But even so, the concentrated power present was enough to annihilate a country — elemental magic, having developed to its current state, had long been dubbed "the destroyers" by mages of other schools. Their trademark was all manner of devastating explosive magic, terrifying corrosive and highly toxic magic, and magic targeting the elemental composition of the body.
When Ravendy — who looked like an ordinary grey-haired old man — wearing a black robe decorated with the sixty-five currently known elemental symbols, finished his brief opening speech, the "Annual Conference on Elemental and Alchemical Magic" officially began. The first to present a paper was Timothy, another arcane genius of Element Will whose name Lucian had long heard.
He had black hair, blue eyes, was tall, and wore gold-rimmed magical glasses — the picture of refined, scholarly handsomeness. Yet his paper's subject was the extreme violence of the four-ring spell "Chain Detonation." Through arcane theoretical research and magical experimentation, he had improved the spell's base alchemical formula and then mapped it onto the construction process, boosting explosive power and blast radius by fifty percent.
"How about that? Brilliant idea, isn't it?" Lazarus stood ramrod straight in a corner of the hall, listening intently while marveling to Lucian beside him. His naturally optimistic temperament had already pulled him out of that embarrassing situation.
As an "uninvited guest," Lucian naturally couldn't sit in the high-backed chairs like the other arcanists. Moreover, the tables before them held copies of the yet-to-be-formally-published *Elements* journal, which they could refer to at any time to follow along with the presenter's paper — helpful when the descriptions were hard to parse, providing both text and experimental data for understanding.
"With Mr. Timothy's modifications, if enemies continue to defend and evade based on past experience, this will become the source of their nightmares." Lucian listened earnestly to Timothy's presentation, especially the part about mapping the alchemical formula onto the construction process — that was his own weak point. Once he could make up for it, he would be able to attempt constructing nitroglycerin and potentially RDX into corresponding spells, then decide on a case-by-case basis whether to use ones with magical fluctuation or without.
……
After obtaining the "flashstone ore," Woods simply borrowed Odenko's luxurious magic laboratory to conduct his experiments.
With the help of a magic circle and alchemy array set up by a Grand Mage, Woods quickly separated the accessory substances from the flashstone ore and then placed the result inside the Spectroscope Magic Circle.
The magic circle activated smoothly under his control, and Woods stared unblinkingly at the spectrum before him.
When he saw spectral lines he had never encountered before, Woods' breathing immediately grew heavy, his face flushed crimson, as if he had fallen into an indescribable dream. Those spectral lines were so dreamily beautiful, and yet so awe-inspiring!
It really was a new element! This mixed substance truly contained a new element!
Beside him, placed safely on the alchemy workbench, the relevant column of Lucian's paper read: *"This aluminum-like element will be discovered by the spectral analysis method."*
Woods turned his head to glance at the open paper, then turned back to study the spectrum carefully. This was not a guess — it was practically a prophecy! And the content Lucian had "prophesied" was derived entirely from the periodic properties of the elements laid out earlier!
What did this mean? Woods' mind was a chaotic mess, buzzing, unable to grasp the thought.
Then he took a deep breath, banished all other thoughts, activated the magic circle and alchemy array, and attempted to purify the new element using various methods such as high-temperature burning.
The laboratory set up by the Grand Mage was extraordinarily capable. By the time lunch arrived, the magic circle before Woods already held a lump of silvery-white metallic crystal — lustrous and beautiful.
Woods skipped lunch entirely and began measuring the new element's data and properties.
…
"Atomic weight: 69.8." After measuring the new element's atomic weight using several methods in succession, Woods looked toward the paper beside him with something almost like fear, even though he remembered the contents clearly in his mind.