Inside the "True Secret Realm."
This was far from the first time he'd read this paper in recent days. He greatly admired Lucian's line of reasoning starting from particle nature and discontinuity, and he was delighted that numerous problems in New Alchemy had been solved. Yet as time passed, that initial joy hadn't fermented into satisfaction and happiness—he wasn't even as excited as he'd expected.
For mages, the resolution of one problem usually represented a deeper understanding of the corresponding arcane domain, corresponding to a concrete model or law. But Lucian's quantum mechanics wasn't like that. After all the complex calculations, it did produce results that matched reality, incorporating the recently discovered problems and quantum numbers. But beyond that, there was nothing. It couldn't describe the internal structure of the atom with any greater precision, nor could it reveal the laws hidden within. It left everyone in a fog—knowing that this was the result, but not understanding why.
That matrix was like a guardian of the gate to the truth of the world—so mysterious, so cold, shutting everyone out. Only the Archonists in the elemental and alchemical fields would cheer; everyone else couldn't summon the excitement that should have accompanied so many New Alchemy difficulties being resolved.
"The matrix itself isn't difficult—there were similar mathematical tools in the past. But once it's integrated into the complex system of New Alchemy, the calculations become truly headache-inducing, especially when you try to think about what those calculations actually mean." Douglas shook his head and said with an amused tone, "Lucian has locked everyone inside a labyrinth of matrices. Even if he refines it using existing mathematical tools, it can't solve the fundamental problem—what arcane significance lies behind it all, and whether the derived formulas possess concrete arcane definitions."
"However, regardless of all that, no one can deny the tremendous significance of Lucian's quantum mechanics. It simply needs time for people to explore its deeper layers."
He set quantum mechanics aside rather than delving further into it, and continued his own efforts to find exact solutions to the Evans gravitational field equations. He believed that some of those solutions must contain the mysteries of the vast starry sky and macroscopic celestial bodies.
Even for a grand Archanist of his caliber, focus remained paramount in arcane research. He might set aside time to study New Alchemy, research soul-related questions, or examine the electromagnetic field, but the bulk of his effort went into force fields and astrophysics. General relativity in particular had shown him the hope of unlocking the secrets of the vast cosmos and finding a path toward quasi-divinity.
Like Douglas, the vast majority of Archonists, once they'd passed through the initial thrill and excitement, came to recognize the complexity and cumbersomeness of this new system—its "unfriendliness." It was like the most reserved of ladies, coldly rejecting the advances of every suitor, refusing to let anyone understand her thoughts.
More and more Archonists were getting headaches—headaches over imagining the model of the atom's interior, and headaches over trying to attribute inner meaning to Lucian's quantum mechanics.
Yet some day in the future, they would surely regret the very act of searching for that inner meaning, wishing Lucian had never created this thing in the first place—for the truth of the world was nothing less than "the Beast of Destruction"!
And in this regard, only a handful of people were different.
Hathaway, after quietly reading through the paper, spent an unknowable amount of time calculating in her clean and orderly study. The black tea and pastries in front of her went untouched, their state unchanged. Then she furrowed her brow slightly and fell into prolonged contemplation, searching for the arcane significance behind this system and its two quantities that didn't obey the commutative law of multiplication.
When she found nothing for the time being, she abandoned that boundless line of thought and decided to approach the new system from a different angle—solving the problem of an atom with two electrons. On one hand, through this generalization, she hoped to fully establish the correctness of the new system and remedy any potential issues within it. On the other, she hoped to discover arcane meaning through practical application.
Fernando accepted Lucian's idea and abandoned his plan to construct a model for the interior structure of the atom. Instead, he focused on exploring arcane significance, integrating it with his own research on electron arrangement.
Vincent and Helen combined their exploration of the arcane meaning behind Lucian's quantum mechanics with research into the wave-like properties of electrons.
Inside the Kingdom of Electromagnetism.
After verifying Lucian's paper, Brook nodded gently in affirmation of Lucian's line of thinking, then threw himself back into his own work—attempting to construct a wave function for the electron. Since the electron displayed both wave-like and particle-like properties, and the particle perspective could solve the problems of New Alchemy, then the wave perspective should be able to as well.
"Did I miss something?" Brook muttered to himself in puzzlement. His initial wave function was riddled with problems.
The more he worked through the wave function, the more he felt that what Lucian called "mathematics first" carried extremely profound significance.
In the Theater of Destruction,
…………
Because they were waiting for Douglas, Fernando, Hathaway, Laventie, and others to provide proofs for portions of the matrix mechanics derivation, Lucian's quantum mechanics was actually delayed by a full month before being published in *Arcane*. Likewise, the electron diffraction experiments slated for April's issue were pushed to May—otherwise, the majority of Archonists who couldn't comprehend the complex calculations would have no way to judge the value of the quantum mechanics paper.
The March issue had set mages pondering the problems of unknown domains, marveling at Lucian's remarkable perspective, and accepting his ideas without much difficulty. Fernando's Exclusion Principle had delighted Morris,
On the first of April, when the "Unified Higher Magic School Entrance Examination" officially commenced, Lucian appeared in the core district of Nexer Palace, and under Natasha's lead, made his way toward the royal treasury.