Chapter 9: An Idea of Pure Genius

A dead silence filled the room.

Klein stood before the desk, his eyes fixed on the parchment covered with five equations, motionless for a long while.

Lia stood nearby, her breathing shallow.

She felt she had gone too far.

To produce five equations in one breath, so fluently—it was hardly the performance of someone merely ‘recalling an ancient text’.

Just as her heart pounded with anxiety, wondering how she might salvage the situation, a knock came at the door.

Adèle entered, carrying a tray with their lunch.

Her gaze immediately fell upon the parchment covered in strange symbols and her master’s unprecedented focus.

She placed the tray on an adjacent empty table, her movements so quiet they made no sound, and prepared to slip out unnoticed.

“Eat with us.”

Klein spoke suddenly.

Adèle froze, as did Lia.

“Master, I…”

“Sit.” Klein’s command was brief, but it left no room for refusal.

Adèle had no choice but to stiffly pull out a chair and sit beside Lia.

The lunch that followed was unbearably tense.

Adèle kept her head down, prodding at the mashed potatoes on her plate, while Lia nibbled cautiously at her bread, occasionally stealing glances at Klein from the corner of her eye.

Klein ate quickly—or rather, he merely performed the mechanical act of eating.

He set down his fork and knife, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and pushed the parchment of equations to the center of the table.

“A theory must be proven.” He looked at Lia. “Tell me, how would you demonstrate to everyone that this theory is correct, and that the axiom accepted for centuries is wrong?”

Adèle’s hand trembled, and her fork clattered onto her plate.

‘Prove the ancient masters wrong? What is Master saying?’

Lia’s heart skipped a beat.

‘Isn’t this just the Leaning Tower of Pisa experiment? Does he even need to ask?’

She put down her bread, her face twisting into the conflicted expression Klein had come to recognize.

“The ancient text… I think it mentioned a very direct method,” she began cautiously. “Find a high place, like the top of our own mage tower. Then, prepare two spheres of vastly different weights but similar size and shape—an iron ball and a wooden ball, for instance.”

Klein said nothing, merely gesturing for her to continue.

“Drop them from the top of the tower at the same time.” Lia spread her hands. “If the theory that heavier objects fall faster is correct, the iron ball will certainly land first. But if this new theory is correct, then ignoring air resistance, they should land simultaneously.”

Adèle was completely dumbfounded.

She stared at Lia as if she were looking at a madwoman.

‘This junior apprentice isn’t just questioning an axiom in private—now she wants to design an experiment to publicly disprove it?’

Klein considered this for a moment, then shook his head.

“It won’t work.”

Lia’s heart leaped into her throat.

“The fall from the top of the tower to the ground is too fast,” Klein pointed out the critical flaw. “It’s over in the blink of an eye. The human eye cannot precisely distinguish the order in which they land; the margin for error is too great. Even if we saw the result, an experiment like that would not serve as decisive proof to convince those stubborn minds.”

Lia’s mind raced.

‘What could be done? A direct fall is too fast to observe. So what if it wasn’t a direct fall?’

‘I’ve got it!’

‘The inclined plane! Galileo’s even more brilliant experiment!’

“Master, the book… it also mentioned a more ingenious method.” Lia’s eyes lit up, her face alight with the excitement of someone discovering a new world. “It said that since a direct fall is too fast, one must find a way to ‘slow the process down’.”

“Slow it down?” Klein’s interest was piqued.

“Yes!” Lia’s spirits lifted. She picked up a dinner knife from the table and leaned it against the edge of a plate, creating a makeshift ramp. Then she took a single pea and placed it at the top of the knife.

“We don’t need it to fall vertically. We can prepare a long, very, very smooth and straight wooden plank, and set it at an incline like this.”

The pea rolled down the blade, its speed much slower than if it had simply dropped onto the table.

“The smaller the angle of the plank’s incline, the slower it will roll. That way, we’ll have enough time to observe and record.” Lia grew more and more excited. “We can carve uniform markings on the plank and use a simple pendulum to keep time. We can record where the sphere is at the end of the first swing of the pendulum, where it is at the end of the second, and so on…”

She looked at Klein. “According to this new theory, the displacement should be proportional to the square of the time. In other words, if the distance traveled during the first interval is one unit, then the total distance traveled by the end of the second interval will be four units! By the end of the third, the total distance will be nine! This pattern has absolutely nothing to do with the sphere’s weight or material!”

The room once again fell into a dead silence.

Adèle’s mouth hung open. She stared blankly, her gaze shifting from the rolling pea to Lia, her mind a complete void.

She didn’t understand any of it—the square of time, the distances of four and nine. But she understood the demonstration.

Using an inclined plank to transform an incredibly fast process into a slow one that could be observed at leisure.

‘That idea…’

Klein stood up.

He didn’t look at Lia. Instead, his eyes were glued to the tilted knife and the tiny pea on the table.

“…Slowing the process of the fall…” he murmured to himself. “Trading a longer distance for a longer time…”

He snapped his head up, his deep blue eyes blazing with a fanatical light that startled even Lia.

“Genius!”

He uttered the single word, his voice hoarse.

“This is an idea of pure genius!”

He began to pace back and forth across the room, completely ignoring his unfinished lunch and the two apprentices beside him.

“No, a wooden plank isn’t smooth enough. The error caused by friction would be too great. We must use Magicrystal! A single slab, at least five meters long, polished to absolute smoothness!”

“The spheres can’t be ordinary iron and wood, either. Their densities are different, so they’re affected by air resistance differently.

We need metal spheres of the same size but different densities! Gold and silver! No, lead and mithril! The difference in their weight is substantial enough!

Timing… a pendulum’s period can vary. No, I’ll create a magical metronome with a constant period! It will emit a flash of light at a fixed interval!”

Klein’s speech grew faster and faster, a feverish flush coloring his cheeks. He was completely lost in the fantasy of designing this grand experiment.

Adèle was too frightened to move. She had never seen her master in such a state.

Lia was starting to panic as well. She had only proposed an idea; how had it driven her master to the brink of madness?

Klein stopped pacing abruptly. He turned to Lia, his gaze so intense it felt as if it could burn right through her.

“This verification cannot be witnessed by us alone.” His voice trembled with excitement. “I will invite Master Laplace to witness it! He is the most open-minded, and also the most stubborn, old fool in the academy! If even he can be convinced, then no one will dare to question it!”

‘Laplace? Another archmage?’

Lia felt things were beginning to spiral out of her control.

“Adèle!”

“Yes, Master!” Adèle shot to her feet as if struck by lightning.

“Go and prepare the materials at once! I need a five-meter slab of Magicrystal, at least half a meter wide, treated with the finest polishing arts! Also, go to my storeroom and retrieve those two perfect spheres of lead and mithril!”

“Yes, sir!” Adèle dared not hesitate for a moment, immediately turning and rushing from the room.

Klein turned back to Lia. He took a step forward, placed his hands on her shoulders, and leaned down until their faces were nearly touching.

“You have done well,” he said, enunciating each word. “Very well.”

With that, he released her and strode quickly from the room, leaving only his final words hanging in the air.

“Wait here. Don’t you go anywhere!”