Chapter 99: The Dawn of a New Era

Klein’s treatise continued to send ripples through the magical circles of the Royal Capital.

If Lia Farrien’s discovery of ‘electricity generating magnetism’ had been the earth-shattering first peal of thunder, then Klein’s revelation of ‘magnetism generating electricity’ was the formidable lightning bolt that immediately followed.

Electricity and magnetism, two forces once considered entirely distinct, now, illuminated by the brilliance of these two treatises, finally revealed their intrinsic, interconnected nature.

The newly established Electromagnetism school was plunged into a fervent atmosphere of creativity.

Within the Royal Academy’s metallurgic workshops, lights blazed twenty-four hours a day. Magicians of all ages thronged the space, the air thick with a stimulating, exhilarating cocktail of ozone, metallic acids, and agitated magical energy.

They might be found arguing heatedly, faces flushed, over the optimal winding of a coil, or toiling through the night, sleepless, to refine the sensitivity of a galvanometer.

“No! Your calculation of the magnetic flux change rate is flawed! You’ve neglected the decay of the fringe magnetic field!”

“Nonsense! Master Klein’s law is based on an ideal model! What we need to do now is find a correction factor applicable to reality! You old fossil, your brain is harder than granite!”

“Who’s seen my #7 copper wire? I need to verify the effect of different materials on induced electromotive force! Don’t touch that! That’s the mithril filament I just acquired!”

The constant cacophony of arguments, exclamations, and the occasional minor explosion from a short-circuited line filled the air.

Yet this was not chaos, but an order brimming with vitality.

The old theories, which personified lightning and lodestones, were unceremoniously swept into the dustbin of history.

In their place emerged cold formulas, rigorous data, and experimentally verifiable results.

Almost daily, new manuscript submissions arrived at the editorial office of *On Magical Principles*.

Among them were ‘On the Distribution Law of Magnetic Fields in Circular Currents,’ ‘Further Exploration into the Direction of Induced Current—Supplementary Application of the Right-Hand Screw Rule,’ and ‘Preliminary Observations on Permeability Changes Under Different Magnetic Field Strengths’…

Here, sparks of thought erupted with unprecedented density; every paper, even one offering only a minor correction to previous theories, would ignite a new round of discussion and verification.

The entire school functioned like a colossal, high-speed engine, greedily devouring old knowledge and, with astonishing efficiency, producing new theories.

“I swear, an uncontrolled electric arc nearly singed my hair!”

Adèle, still trembling slightly, patted her chest, gracefully drained a cup of warm floral tea, then buried her grimy face into Lia’s chest like a child.

Vladlis, meanwhile, subtly sighed as they gazed at their scorched cuff.

Not far off, Professor Ilsa and her students were gathered, whispering around a peculiar coil.

Slender filaments extended from the coil, swaying like tentacles in the air, occasionally sputtering faint sparks.

Lia, her beautiful face smudged with a touch of ash, cradled her teacup in her hand.

“You wouldn’t believe what the Academy is like now, Lia! It’s an absolute madhouse! I personally saw Grey and that old fossil from the Electrical School—they were practically coming to blows over the stability of a golden battery, then they were arm-in-arm, writing a joint paper! Good heavens, just two months ago, they would have loved nothing more than to turn each other into experimental subjects!”

Lia, feeling the warmth of the teacup against her palms, simply listened with a gentle smile.

Through the window, she could discern a faint halo shimmering above the distant Academy, a byproduct of the excessively agitated magical energy.

This was precisely the sight she had envisioned.

Not merely by her single-handedly thrusting groundbreaking theories upon the world.

But rather, by igniting a spark, and then watching that spark grow into a raging wildfire.

“Speaking of which, today’s the release day for *On Magical Principles* again.”

Adèle rubbed her hands together, her face alight with anticipation.

“I wonder which genius has made a new discovery in electromagnetism this time. I bet a gold coin the cover will be eye-catching, something about ‘Induced Electromotive Force and its Applications in Spells!'”

Adèle, brimming with excitement, dashed out, only to return like a gust of wind a short while later.

This time, however, her face had lost its earlier excitement, replaced instead by a peculiar expression.

“Lia…” She placed a parchment, still redolent with the scent of fresh ink, onto the table, her voice a little dry. “You’d better see this for yourself.”

Lia, her brow furrowed in confusion, picked up the special edition, her gaze falling upon the title.

The cover bore a title utterly unrelated to electromagnetism.

*Report on the Discovery and Property Determination of Six Predicted Periodic Table Elements*

The authors were not some renowned Archmage, but rather a research team comprised of a dozen or so mages from the Elemental School.

‘The Elemental School?’

This was the immediate reaction of many, reading the new special edition simultaneously but in different locations.

During this radiant era for the Electromagnetism school, the Elemental School had seemed to languish in a forgotten corner, remarkably quiet.

Until the appearance of this paper.

As the mages, filled with skepticism, turned to the first page of the treatise, their breath involuntarily hitched.

The paper’s introduction clearly articulated their research motivation: to verify the bold predictions put forth by Miss Lia Farrien in her treatise, *On the Periodicity of Elements*.

While it had caused a minor stir upon its initial publication, Lia’s Elemental Periodic Table was largely regarded merely as a novel classification method.

Most mages had approached the ‘undiscovered elements’ that Lia had circled in black boxes with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Now, however, this paper provided the answer with irrefutable facts.

The paper meticulously documented how this team, inspired by the concept of ‘spectroscopic analysis’ found in ancient treatises, refined the ‘flame test’ in alchemy to construct the first rudimentary ‘spectroscopic device’.

They had spent months analyzing thousands of rare ores collected from across the kingdom.

And then, they found them.

They named one ‘Rui’, a silvery-white metal, soft, with properties similar to lead but a higher melting point. Another, a peculiar liquid metal with an extremely low melting point, melted in the palm of one’s hand, which they named ‘Gallium’. Yet another, named ‘Germanium’, was a silvery-grey metal, possessing properties between a metal and non-metal, and a unique magical conductivity.

Within the paper, they announced the discovery of six entirely new elements at once!

Had it been merely this, it might only have sparked jubilation within the Elemental School itself.

What truly sent shivers down the spines and even made the souls of all mages who read the paper tremble was the comparative table appended at its end.

The table was divided into two columns.

The left column contained Lia’s original predictions for the properties of these unknown elements, made in her earlier treatise based on the law of elemental periodicity.

The right column presented the data obtained by this research team through actual measurements.

[Comparison of Properties for ‘Eka-Silicon’ (Germanium)]

[Predicted Data (Lia Farrien)] | [Actual Measured Data (Joint Team)]

Atomic Weight: Approx. 72 | Atomic Weight: 72.6

Density: Approx. 5.5 | Density: 5.32

Color: Silvery-grey | Color: Silvery-grey

Oxide Properties: Amphoteric Oxide | Oxide Properties: Amphoteric Oxide

They were almost identical!

It was as if the data on the right was merely a more detailed version of the predictions on the left!

Panic, admiration, awe, fervor…

A myriad of complex emotions exploded throughout the magical world of the Royal Capital.

“How did she do it?”

An aged master of the Elemental School, gazing at the paper in his hands, first erupted in an almost disbelieving ecstasy, then let two streams of hot tears fall from his clouded eyes.

He let out a strange sound, somewhere between a sob and a laugh, as he muttered to himself.

“I have spent my entire life studying the transmutation of elements, yet it pales in comparison to a single table from a young girl… What have I truly learned in my lifetime… Hahahaha! The truth was right there, yet I was blind for fifty years!”

“Quick! Re-evaluate the worth of all ore veins! No, not just that—re-examine the very world beneath our feet! Our understanding of this world will be fundamentally rewritten, starting today!”

This storm was fiercer than the previous two combined.

For it was no longer confined to a single school of thought, but struck at the very foundations of nearly all mages.

Alchemy, Enchanting, Potionology, Material Science… all fields related to matter were poised to undergo a revolutionary upheaval.

And the source of all this pointed to one name.

Lia Farrien.

****

Inside the Mage Tower.

Lia quietly observed the paper in her hands, while Klein stood silently at her side.

Lia’s expression was serene, yet the subtle glint in her eyes betrayed the turmoil within her.

She had known this day would come sooner or later.

But when it truly manifested before her, a profound sense of emotion and resonance, transcending time and space, still struck her soul.

She lifted her head, looking at Klein. “I didn’t expect them to act so quickly.”

Klein’s gaze shifted from the paper, settling upon Lia’s face.

His eyes held a complex mixture of astonishment, scrutiny, and a hint of something he himself hadn’t yet realized… pride.

“You seem… unsurprised.”

“I trust the answers truth reveals to me.”

Lia gently placed the paper on the table. “Once a clear direction is established, finding them is merely a matter of time.”