Chapter 135: The Flame of Truth

The twelve-day journey was not as grueling as Lia had anticipated.

She originally thought she would be counting the seconds while passing the days in the jolting carriage.

In reality, this period of time was like drifting sand between her fingers, leaking away before she could even grasp it tightly.

Every morning, she woke up to the swaying of the carriage.

She would steal the book the Great Mage was halfway through reading, and then watch as he helplessly pulled out a new one.

The two of them would bicker a few times over the snowy landscape by the roadside, and before they knew it, the sky would turn dark.

The topics of their occasional idle chats were very jumpy, ranging from what to eat for breakfast to which shop in the capital had the best black tea, and even to Alfred finding a partner.

Yet, the two of them could always keep up with each other’s topics and never found it strange.

The only exception was Klein’s constant curiosity about a certain black tea Lia had mentioned that day.

He wanted to know why it was delicious when iced but terrible when not, but Lia never explained it clearly.

When that familiar black tower appeared on the horizon, Lia actually felt the illusion of, ‘Are we here already?’

The carriage came to a steady halt beneath the tower.

Pushing open that heavy main door, a gust of old and dry air wafted toward them.

The hall was dead quiet, with only dust motes dancing in the pillars of light shooting in from the clerestory windows.

“Senior Adèle isn’t here?”

Lia surveyed her surroundings.

“She’s likely still on her way back.”

Klein was accustomed to this.

He gave a casual wave of his staff, and the luggage stacked at the entrance automatically lined up, floating toward the second-floor storage room like obedient soldiers.

“As long as she hasn’t called me for help, there’s no need to worry about her.”

Being a mentor like this is truly… relaxed.

Lia shrugged and picked up her skirt to head upstairs.

Returning to the room she had been away from for so long, she pushed open the door and was greeted by a thin layer of dust.

Although the Mage Tower had automatic cleaning arrays, those were for the public areas; private rooms usually required the owner’s own maintenance.

If this were before she came to the capital, she might have had to roll up her sleeves to fetch water and mop the floor.

But now, she was a noble Third-Circle mage.

Lia stood in the center of the room and gave a light, crisp snap of her fingers.

Her spiritual power instantly outlined an exquisite wind-element model.

“Whirlwind Sweep.”

A gentle, small cyclone generated out of thin air in the room.

It accurately swept over the bookshelves, desktop, and under the bed, adsorbing every speck of dust into itself.

Finally, it condensed into a dusty little ball, which Lia tossed directly into the trash can.

Immediately after came a composite application of the water and fire elements.

A cloud of pure water mist was sprayed evenly onto the bedding.

Then, high heat instantly evaporated it, not only carrying away the stale odor but also making the quilt fluffy and soft.

It emitted a dry fragrance like it had been exposed to the sun.

Done.

Lia patted her hands in satisfaction and threw herself into the soft bed.

This is exactly how magic should be used.

Things like fireballs and ice spikes—how could they be as practical as doing laundry and housework?

For the first few days after her return, Lia basically spent her time catching up on sleep and organizing her gains from the Leo City trip.

As soon as Klein returned, he dove into the laboratory on the top floor.

It was said he was researching that piece of high-purity Mana-Spirit Crystal; even his meals were sent up to him by Lia using a Mage’s Hand.

Until this afternoon.

Lia was sitting in the study, planning a future commercial map against a map of Leo City, when the doorbell downstairs was rung rudely.

It wasn’t a polite “ding-dong,” but a frantic clanging as if someone were desperately shaking the bell.

Lia let out a sigh and set down her quill.

There were very few people in the entire capital who dared to ring the doorbell of Klein’s Mage Tower like that.

Just as she reached the head of the stairs, she saw that the main door had already been pushed open.

Master Horace rushed in like a whirlwind, waving several thick journals in his hand.

He didn’t look like a Ninth-Circle Archmage, but rather like a gambler who had just won the lottery.

Behind him, Master Laplace looked like he was taking his time.

“Where is she? Where is that girl?”

Horace’s loud voice echoed in the hall, making the chandelier shake.

“I’m right here, Master Horace.”

Lia leaned over the railing, looking helplessly at the old man.

“If you break the door, Klein will send the bill to the Association.”

“If it’s broken, then it’s broken! This old man will pay for ten!”

Horace’s eyes lit up when he saw Lia.

Originally just walking fast, he now directly used a Flight spell, whooshing up to the second floor.

He slammed the journals in his hand onto the railing in front of Lia.

“Explain! Now! Immediately! Explain this clearly to this old man!”

Lia looked down at the journal.

The cover was printed with Introduction to Magic: Special Supplement.

The title occupying the entire cover was exactly the thesis she had given to Horace before leaving—On the Differential Characteristics of Fields and the Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field.

Below the title, those four elegant formulas were bolded and enlarged, occupying the most prominent position like a divine oracle.

“Explain what?” Lia asked curiously.

“The name!” Horace pointed to the line of small text above the formulas.

“Why is it called ‘Maxwell’s Equations’? Who is Maxwell? Is it an old monster from some hidden family? Or some deity you fabricated?”

At this time, Klein also walked down from upstairs.

He was wearing black laboratory robes, and his cuffs were still stained with a bit of silver powder, clearly having been drawn down by the noise below.

Laplace also floated up with a smile, standing beside Horace with an air of listening intently.

“That’s right, little Lia.”

Laplace stroked his beard. “For the past month, the entire magic world has almost come to blows over this name.”

“Some say it’s a transliteration of an ancient language meaning ‘Ultimate Truth’.”

“Others say it’s your mentor Klein’s nickname…”

Klein’s face darkened slightly.

Lia almost laughed out loud.

She cleared her throat, and her expression became serious.

This was the rhetoric she had prepared long ago.

“In fact, there is no such person.”

“Maxwell—this is just a code name.”

“Max represents the maximum, the ultimate; Well means the source, the spring.”

“This set of equations not only unifies electricity and magnetism, but also predicts that light is also an electromagnetic wave.”

“It is the ultimate source leading to the essence of the world.”

Lia raised her head, her eyes clear. “I do not wish for this set of formulas to be credited to a specific person’s name, even my own.”

“Because truth belongs to the world, not to individuals.”

“So I fabricated a name—a symbol representing the ‘Source of Truth’.”

This explanation was half-true and half-false, leaving the two old mages stunned.

Horace’s mouth hung open for a long while before he finally slapped his thigh hard.

“Good! What a fine ‘Ultimate Source’!”

The old man’s eyes were full of admiration, and even a hint of emotion.

“Young people today would bash each other’s heads in for the naming rights of a theorem, but you—you actually created a pseudonym! This kind of vision… this kind of character…”

Horace turned to look at Klein. “Look at your student! Then look at you! Back then, you argued with me for half a day over a fluid formula!”

Klein was expressionless: “That was my formula to begin with.”

“Alright, alright, let’s set the matter of the name aside for now.”

Laplace interjected, his expression becoming exceptionally focused.

“Little Lia, do you know what has happened in the month since this thesis was published?”

Lia shook her head.

She had been busy with accounting, cultists, and mining in Leo City, so she truly hadn’t paid much attention to the academic circle.

“Insanity,” Laplace uttered two words.

“Everyone has gone completely insane.”

He pulled a stack of manuscript paper from his ring, which was covered in various waveform diagrams and calculation formulas.

“Since you proposed the concept of ‘displacement current’ and predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves in your paper, the people in the light and lightning departments are acting as if a fire god shoved a fireball into their brains.”

Laplace unfolded a drawing, pointing to a curve on it.

“Cavendish from the Royal Academy’s Optics Lab, that die-hard ‘microscopic’ advocate—after reading your paper, he locked himself in a darkroom for seven whole days.”

“He came out the day before yesterday, scruffy as a savage, but he announced that he had preliminarily verified the existence of electromagnetic waves by measuring the oscillation frequency of Leyden jar discharges.”

“And!” Horace snatched the conversation back, his beard shaking with excitement.

“Based on the two constants in your formula—vacuum permittivity and vacuum permeability—we back-calculated the propagation speed of electromagnetic waves.”

The old mage took a deep breath, his voice dropping low.

“That value is… almost exactly identical to the speed of light.”

Approximately three hundred thousand kilometers per second.

In this world, though the measurement of the speed of light was crude, there was already a general range.

The theoretical value derived from Maxwell’s Equations was an amazing match for that observed value.

“Do you know what this means?” Horace stared fixedly at Lia.

“It means that light might just be a type of electromagnetic wave,” Lia calmly provided the conclusion.

The room fell into a brief, dead silence.

Although the formulas predicted this conclusion, the shock was still unparalleled when it was confirmed step-by-step by experimental data and observations.

It was like someone telling you that the air you breathe every day and the dirt beneath your feet were actually different forms of the same thing.

“Not only that.”

Laplace added, a hint of childlike excitement in his tone. “If light is an electromagnetic wave, then we have the theoretical basis to control it.”

“No longer relying on talent and incantations to ‘pray’ for light, but using mathematics and formulas to ‘manufacture’ light, and even… transmit information.”

“Communication.” Klein suddenly spoke up.

He walked over and picked up the journal.

“Since changing currents can produce electromagnetic waves, and electromagnetic waves can travel at the speed of light… then, as long as we can manufacture a sensitive enough receiver…”

“We could, in an instant, transmit sound and images across the entire continent.”

“Sure enough,” Lia said with a smile.

Horace and Laplace exchanged a glance.

Horace gave a bitter smile. “We old bones are still intoxicated by the beauty of the theory, while you youngsters are already thinking about how to use it.”

“That’s you, you old thing—but I have already made it.”

Laplace pulled a strange metal device from his sleeve, which was wound with dense copper coils.

“This is a prototype made according to the theory; although currently it can only make a magnetic needle twitch regularly within a hundred meters, it is a start.”

Looking at the crude device, a surge of indescribable achievement rose in Lia’s heart.

The door she had pushed open—the torrent behind it had finally begun to surge.

The mages of this world were not stupid; on the contrary, they were brilliant beyond measure.

They were simply lacking a direction, a key.

When the magical civilization accumulated over thousands of years collided with the newly sprouting scientific mindset, the sparks produced would illuminate the entire era.

“Oh, by the way.”

Horace suddenly remembered something, the fanaticism on his face subsiding slightly to be replaced by a somewhat strange expression.

“Aside from these serious research matters, there is also a… er, rather strange phenomenon.”

“What is it?”

“Because this set of equations is too perfect, especially the part about ‘magnetism’—the description that magnetic monopoles do not exist.”

Horace scratched his hair; a certain saying had become popular in the capital.

“What saying?”

“They say that this set of equations is the poetry of God.”

“Some young apprentices have even tattooed these four formulas on their bodies, saying it can increase the success rate of spellcasting.”

“There’s something even more ridiculous.”

Laplace added with a chuckle, ‘People have started buying your used scratch paper at high prices on the black market; even a failed calculation can sell for the high price of ten gold coins. They think the aura of truth lingers upon them.’

Lia instinctively looked toward the wastepaper basket in the corner of the study, where there seemed to be a crumpled ball she had just thrown in earlier…

“Ahem.” Lia gave an embarrassed cough. “That is superstition; we must believe in the truth.”

“Truth?”

Horace snorted. “In the eyes of those apprentices, do you know what the most popular sentence in the academy is right now?”

The old mage cleared his throat, imitating a youngster’s tone, and recited with a face of devotion:

“God said, let there be light. And Lia wrote the Maxwell’s Equations, and only then did light have a speed.”

Lia felt like her toes were about to dig a new Mage Tower into the floor.

“This is way too embarrassing…” She covered her face.

Klein stood to the side, looking at Lia’s crimson earlobes, a hidden arc curling at the corner of his mouth.

“It’s very fitting,” he commented flatly.

“Fitting your foot!” Lia glared at him.

Horace burst into laughter, and the originally tense atmosphere instantly relaxed.

“Alright, no more jokes.”

Horace tucked away his smile and said solemnly, “Lia, the influence of this thesis has only just begun. In the coming days, you might be very busy.”

“The academy has already decided to award you the ‘Medal of Truth’, which is given to those who have made subversive contributions to the magical system.”

“And,” Laplace added, “given the universality of this set of equations, we are preparing to revise the Basic Magic Theory textbook; you will be one of the compilers.”

Compiling the textbook.

This meant Lia’s name would not just remain in journals, but would be printed in the textbook of every magic apprentice, becoming a part of their nightmares.

“Oh no, a part of their enlightenment.”

***

After seeing off the two Great Mages, who still hadn’t had their fill, the sky outside the window had already turned dark.

The setting sun was like blood, stretching the shadow of the Mage Tower very long.

Lia slumped on the sofa, feeling more tired than if she had fought a battle with cultists.

“Regretting it?” Klein handed her a cup of hot tea.

“A little.”

Lia took the teacup, feeling the warmth in her palm.

“I originally just wanted to quietly earn some money and reclaim my family property while I was at it. Now look at this—I’ve become some incarnation of truth. Am I going to have to wear a mask when I go out from now on?”

“It is what you deserve.”

Klein walked to the window, looking at the brightly lit capital in the distance.

“Whether it’s the ‘Ultimate Source’ or something else.” Klein turned around, his blue eyes appearing exceptionally deep in the twilight.

“You are the one who lit this fire. Since you lit it, you must be prepared to be illuminated by the flames.”

Lia was stunned for a moment, then she smiled.

She stood up and walked to Klein’s side, looking at the world outside the window side-by-side with him.

“True enough.”

Lia said softly.

“Since it has already begun, then let this fire burn even more brightly.”

In this twilight where magic and science intertwined, the Golden Age of classical mechanics and electromagnetism began with a magnificent flourish.