In the main hall of the Allinur Branch of the Silver Moon Song Alliance, the archanists voiced their reactions one after another, marveling at and being awed by the elegant simplicity underlying the microscopic realm.
"I recall Lord Heinrichs once said that the essence of arcane is simplicity and intuition, that its beauty springs from strict determinism and awe-inspiring symmetry. Though intuition has been overturned by Lobachevsky geometry, Evans geometry, general relativity, and matrix mechanics, and strict determinism is on the verge of collapse as the probabilistic interpretation of the wave function and the uncertainty principle gain experimental confirmation, simplicity and symmetry still appear to reign over 'our world.' That is why the Brook Equation is hailed as the poetry of the goddess, and the mass-energy formula and the Lucian Equation are praised for possessing the ultimate beauty."
One archanist spoke with the cadence of an orator.
Heinrichs had been a legendary mage of the Parliament some one or two centuries ago, making extraordinary contributions across the arcane and magic fields and winning the highest honors in numerous disciplines. Many current force field and stellar variation formulas were his achievements. Had things gone differently, he could very well have become a Grand Archanist. Unfortunately, he encountered a saint of the Southern Church during an expedition to ancient ruins, and both perished.
Yurisan set down the journal in his hands and said with a smile, "So, according to symmetry, both nucleons and electrons should have corresponding antiparticles. The types of microscopic particles aren't as few as we imagined."
"That's to be expected. Day gives rise to night. The existence of matter and antimatter fits within the philosophical framework—it doesn't diminish the simple beauty of fundamental particle types," another archanist said confidently.
Yurisan nodded and said deliberately, "Of course, it's only the variety that's simple. The intrinsic properties of microscopic particles are anything but simple."
The moment these words left his lips, every archanist in the room changed expression. Some grimaced helplessly, some sighed in resignation, some grew agitated, and some stared blankly.
Although wave-particle duality had not yet gained unanimous acceptance, it had essentially become the mainstream interpretation, understood by the vast majority of archanists. Yet the uncertainty principle and the probabilistic interpretation were deeply challenging their nerves and souls—as if the entire world might become illusory and unreal at any moment, and they themselves might become equally insubstantial. The double-slit experiment with electrons, quantum superposition, and the resulting "observer effect" forced them to adopt an attitude of avoidance, as if merely thinking about these problems would make their heads explode.
"Mr. Yurisan, I should take my leave. The many problems of quantum field theory have every cell in my body crying out for careful study." An archanist put away his bitter smile and used the excuse of studying quantum field theory to depart.
Yurisan smiled. "I hope your research can bring inspiration to their Lordships."
"One can hope." The archanist replied with a stiff smile. He could barely understand the papers himself—how could he possibly inspire their Lordships?
Although spending a year or two of dedicated study, with his foundation as a Fifth-rank Archanist, might give him a chance of understanding the quantum field theory in this issue of Arcane and discussing it with numerous senior archanists and Grand Archanists in the journal, that was still a matter of one or two years away. By then, quantum field theory might have progressed to a level beyond his comprehension!
He increasingly felt the gap between his own level and the cutting edge of the microscopic world. Without extraordinary circumstances, better guidance, and desperate effort, the gap would almost inevitably keep growing—until he could only study papers written by others years ago, slowly trailing behind the tail end of the times, or even becoming obsolete.
Of course, he wasn't exactly terrified by this, because from journals such as Arcane, Magic, Nature, Elements, and Electromagnetism, he could see that fewer than a hundred archanists could truly discuss and research the cutting edge of the microscopic world. The rest could only provide experimental support or counterexamples for their theories. In other words, people like himself were the mainstream of the era.
"Perhaps the times have always been led by a very few—and the arcane field is no exception. For the vast majority of us archanists, it's enough to digest their research findings." The archanist shook his head, abandoning his earlier self-consoling thoughts.
......
Lontat Third General School. This was the third general education school established jointly by the Holm Kingdom and the Magic Parliament, following the successful operation of the first two, whose students' demonstrated caliber in daily life had been widely recognized by the citizens of Lontat. Since the first batch of students had not yet completed the full five-year curriculum and the true effectiveness remained to be seen, the general school model had not yet been expanded to major cities and was being established gradually within Lontat itself.
The cold wind howled, making Ali shiver all over. A wool vest, a tweed shirt, and a thick double-breasted long coat failed to make him feel any warmer. He thrust his hands into his pockets, lowered his head to bury it in his upturned collar, and walked forward at a brisk pace.
"Damn Lontat. It's much colder than Samara City." It was his first experience of such bitter cold—the small town of Samara lay to the south of a tall mountain, which blocked all the cold air blowing from the north.
Originally, Ali would have had to wait for the unified entrance examination in June to enter the general school and would have had to pay to attend various "preparatory programs" run jointly by scholars and magic apprentices. But the establishment of the Third General School gave him an opportunity: due to the growing number of magic apprentices, many tasks that previously could not be completed for lack of manpower had been "revitalized." Coupled with a large influx of laborers into Lontat, the Third General School was completed six months ahead of schedule. Since Lontat's Municipal Hall, already strained financially from the city's expansion, did not want to see the newly built school sit empty for half a year, they held a special unified entrance examination ahead of schedule and filled the first-year classes before the New Year.
"Grandpa Short, is there any mail for me?" Ali stopped at the school gate and asked the muscular, gray-haired old man. It was said that he was a retired High-level Knight Squire who had been injured fighting demon-infected creatures and had been recommended to guard the Third General School's gate by the "Soldiers' Rights Protection Association" established by Her Majesty.
Short shook his head. "Ali, not a single letter today."
"Thank you, Grandpa Short." Ali turned and left in disappointment. After arriving in Lontat, his slight sense of inferiority had prevented him from writing to his pen pal Jane. It was only after being admitted to the Third General School and settling into a stable life that he had resumed writing to tell her about his situation and his new mailing address. Since then, he had waited day after day for a reply.
Back in the classroom, warm air rushed to greet him. The cold instantly melted away, and Ali felt more comfortable than ever before.