It was Friday of yet another week. After eating breakfast in their respective rooms, the Archanists gradually filtered into the great hall. According to Lord Ravendy, the experiment would yield results today or tomorrow at the latest, which sent a thrill of anticipation through the Archanists who had spent the entire week in a state of burning curiosity.
Although for the past seven days they had done nothing but sleep and meditate while observing the experimental apparatus with their naked eyes, their spiritual senses, and the Magic Seals they had placed, the process itself looked utterly mundane. The pure water simulating the primordial ocean evaporated as it always did, rose into the mixture of gases, and was struck by lightning with a routine crackle before condensing back into droplets and returning to the glass vessel. There was not the slightest trace of mystery or eeriness—it looked like a perfectly ordinary natural scene that anyone might overlook.
"So what will the result actually be? Honestly, I've been curious for ages and I can barely wait for the reveal," said a necromancer of the Pale Hand, in high spirits after having made preliminary progress in reconstructing his personal Meditation environment. He chatted eagerly with his companions about the experiment that had plagued them all for seven days.
A female necromancer with slender golden eyebrows furrowed pressed her lips together: "Jason, I honestly don't believe such a simple experiment can produce anything strange or significant. High-temperature evaporation and lightning strikes are far too crude. The natural environment is a thousand times, ten thousand times more complex than this—the factors and components involved are complicated enough to make your head explode! If it were that easy, the Lord of Restless Souls and the other Great Archanists would have started simulating the primordial environment ages ago."
"Lily, I think so too. Hehe, after staring at this apparatus off and on for days, I feel like there are lightning flashes dancing in my eyes constantly, as if they've taken over my entire brain. Even when I look at the sunset, all I see is crackling lightning," Jason said with a touch of humor to Lily, though his words were no exaggeration. Many Archanists who had stared at the discharge apparatus for prolonged periods found that vivid impressions lingered in both their pupils and their minds.
Lily rubbed her eyes: "It's just a temporary effect. I see the same thing when I focus on other things."
The two were chatting happily when they spotted a familiar mage approaching them—a man with hair going silver at the temples, deep wrinkles, and gentle blue eyes that radiated tranquility and calm.
"Jason, Lily, good morning," the old mage greeted them warmly.
Jason smiled: "Good morning, Fern. Is something up?" Lily nodded in agreement beside him.
The old mage Fern's face was full of earnest emotion: "Dear Lily, would you mind switching seats with me? I'd like to discuss the Doctrine of Human Vitality with Jason."
"Why? What is there to discuss about the Doctrine of Human Vitality? Hasn't it already been overturned?" Lily was puzzled and not particularly eager to go sit among the elemental mages.
Old mage Fern's expression turned serious: "As a matter of fact, I don't believe that at all. Can you deny the existence of vitality and the soul?"
"Of course not—that's the very foundation of all necromancy. To deny them would be to completely negate the entire necromantic school and the very value of our own existence," Jason answered without hesitation. "What has been overturned so far is only the 'Human Body' Doctrine of Human Vitality. It doesn't touch on souls or other life forms, and it simply corrects the direction we've been pursuing for years—using living people, corpses, and so forth to synthesize human bodies. The other necromantic theories concerning the soul remain entirely untouched."
In the traditional necromantic view, corporeal beings like humans, elves, and dragons were considered superior to elemental creatures and alchemical life, because the latter only exhibited the soul-vitality aspect and lacked the complementary physical vitality. Therefore, to achieve human body synthesis, one could not use non-living materials—a position that persisted until Lucian and Felipe successively overturned it with their two experiments.
Old mage Fern shook his head: "What has been synthesized so far are merely the ordinary components that make up the human body. They are still a vast distance away from the Mysteries of Life and other fundamental building blocks of the body. You can't possibly claim that the Doctrine of Human Vitality has been overturned. Perhaps the key to unlocking every secret is hidden within the very composition of the human body. Look at how wondrous the structure of the body is—in its finer details, it is filled with a sense of mysterious awe and unfathomable complexity. Do you believe we have already unlocked all of the body's mysteries? If that were the case, then we wouldn't need phylacteries, wouldn't need soul vessels, wouldn't need to separate souls, wouldn't need to swap bodies—we could simply achieve immortality!"
"Oh, Arcane Mysteries above, Fern, your insistence on and views about the Doctrine of Human Vitality go even beyond mine—you could rival those old fogeys in sheer stubbornness," Lily said, rubbing her forehead in mild confusion. "I believe the human body holds countless mysteries, but I also believe in the results of Felipe's experiment. I need a moment to think—go ahead and talk with Jason."
"Arcane Mysteries above" was a common exclamation mages used to express surprise or politeness.
Lily stood up and walked over to the elemental mages' side of the hall, sitting down quietly. She thought for a long time before reaching her own conclusion: "First, acknowledge that the old Doctrine of Human Vitality was wrong. But the mysteries of the human body objectively exist and remain to be explored. During that exploration, any conclusion that emerges would not be strange. One must maintain an open-minded attitude—that is the most correct stance when confronting a new magical doctrine!"
Old mage Fern took Lily's vacated seat and gazed at Felipe, who was three rows ahead and to the side. His eyes were sharp and cold, even as he discussed the Doctrine of Human Vitality with Jason.
Today or tomorrow would be the final day. For the glory of the Lord, he would have to sacrifice himself. But among the necromancers he knew, even Lily—who held the most favorable position—was still a considerable distance from Felipe, not close enough for Nikolai to guarantee a kill. He would need to take a risk and thread through the narrow gaps between the seats in the non-aisle rows, advancing five or six steps forward.
"May the gates of Heavenly Mountain open for me," old mage Fern silently drew a cross in his mind.
…………
Before long, Felipe, Lucian, and the rest of the Archanists had all arrived. The one taking the stage to explain and demonstrate the magical experiment was Larry.
Larry's round, plump face carried a trace of excitement, and his voice was slightly elevated: "While we were discussing those questions that Evans raised, we discovered a remarkable relationship between the concentration of a solution and its conductivity. So I began to wonder—what if it wasn't a solution at all? What if it was pure water, containing no dissolved substances whatsoever? What would its conductivity be like?"
Since the conductivity of water was common knowledge, the Archanists had never considered this direction. Even though they could easily produce pure water from oxygen and hydrogen, the tone of Larry's voice told them that the result might not be what they expected.
After finishing his introduction, Larry proceeded to produce pure water and verify its conductivity. When sparks of electricity appeared one after yet another while the Magic Circle at the bottom of the vessel—designed to detect electrical current—showed no reaction whatsoever, every mage's expression grew peculiar. Common knowledge had been overturned once again. Fortunately, this was not a foundational theory for constructing one's personal Meditation environment.
After bubbles emerged one by one, Larry concluded the experiment: "As you can see, prior to being fully electrolyzed into hydrogen and oxygen, pure water does not possess conductivity. From this we can conclude that when an alchemical substance dissolves in water, it undergoes a remarkable transformation. As for the nature of that transformation, I don't have a conclusion yet. What I'd like to show now is a new fourth-circle spell I constructed based on this principle—'Larry's Water Elemental Shield'—a hydromancy spell that can effectively defend against Lightning Bolt attacks."
Larry then began to explain the structural principles, projection models, and other details of this fourth-circle spell. Although he concealed the critical core model, the vast majority of Archanists listened with great attentiveness. With the underlying principles in hand, they might well be able to construct similar spells of their own.
Old mage Fern, however, seemed unable to concentrate. He kept glancing around to see which attendants had been called in to provide hot water, black tea, hot towels, and other items. When he noticed that five or six attendants were already serving at various locations in the hall, he turned and raised his hand to signal a nearby Magic Apprentice.
"Archanist sir, what do you need?" The Magic Apprentice walked over with quick, silent steps, his attitude exceptionally deferential—every single person in this hall was at minimum a mid-tier Archanist!
Fern nodded kindly: "Child, bring me a cup of black tea with lemon slices. I need to stimulate my spirit a bit."
This was a perfectly ordinary request that any Archanist might make. Jason beside him paid no notice, absorbed in listening to Larry's explanation of the water-elemental shield. Since light was an electromagnetic wave and belonged to the category of positive energy, lightning likewise fell into that category—it was the bane of necromantic magic. Jason naturally had no intention of missing the chance to learn Larry's new spell.
"Very well, Archanist sir. Please wait a moment." The Magic Apprentice backed away a few steps and headed toward the main doors.
At that moment, Nikolai took a daring step forward, overtaking one of the attendants and positioning himself at the very front.
"You—go pour a cup of black tea and bring it to that Archanist." The Magic Apprentice paid no attention to the attendants' original order and naturally assigned the task to Nikolai, who was standing first in line. The attendant behind him was baffled—was this fellow trying to curry favor with the old mage and get taken on as an apprentice? Wake up! If you had the spiritual power and arcane talent, you'd have been recruited into a magic academy already. When there's work to do, you slack off whenever you can!
Nikolai went to the small room in the corner of the adjacent hall, poured a cup of black tea, and struggled to calm his nerves: "The Lord is watching over me. This is my most glorious moment. I will enter Heavenly Mountain!"
His devout faith helped him regain composure. He walked, step by steady step, toward old mage Fern's row, then threaded through the people sitting along it and arrived before the old mage. With reverence, he set down the white-glazed porcelain teacup.
"Honorable Archanist sir, your black tea with lemon slices." Nikolai placed the cup down slowly, as though he did not know old mage Fern at all.
On the other side, a mid-tier Archanist sitting four rows behind Lucian also waved for a cup of plain water.
Valente saw that the position was barely workable. He gritted his teeth, made up his mind, and—regardless of the risk of exposure—lunged forward as well, accepting the assignment. If the timing was right, when Nikolai used the replica of the Sword of Truth to kill Felipe, he himself might have a fleeting opportunity to eliminate Lucian. After all, Evans's magical rank was only second-circle, and he would never expect anyone to attack him at a moment like this.
Nikolai set down the teacup and slowly turned around. Staring at Felipe's back three rows ahead and to the side, he found that the distance of seven or eight steps felt like the road to Heavenly Mountain itself—so far, so long, and yet so irresistibly alluring.
"It's only a replica of the Sword of Truth, but it still counts as a ninth-tier Divine Arts artifact. To wield it, I'll have to pay an enormous price, and I won't be able to unleash its full power. Besides, it's a sword, not a talisman that can project Divine Arts at range—I can only achieve the perfect effect if I strike Felipe at close range."
"At this distance, I'll need someone to draw his attention so I can close the gap before he can react."
Nikolai walked slowly toward the aisle, calculating the distance. If old mage Fern had not yet created a diversion to capture Felipe's attention by the time he stepped into the aisle, then he would have no choice but to go all in—with no hope of retreat, he would rush forward through the gaps between the seats, and even if it meant mutual destruction, he would eliminate Felipe.
Valente carried the cup of plain water and placed it on the small writing board in front of that Archanist, likewise calculating the distance to Lucian. He would make no move to attack until Felipe was dead, and he was prepared to accept even a missed opportunity.
Just as old mage Fern drew a deep breath, ready to draw everyone's attention to himself, suddenly an Archanist near the front of the hall shouted in a voice that rose from a murmur to a piercing cry:
"The apparatus—the apparatus! Something's happening!"