Throne of Magical Arcana
chapter-236

After experiencing the great shock brought by the previous two experiences, the fact that Life Force Theory was overturned was not such a big surprise for those grand cardinals. However, they had imagined that the Congress was right now targeting Creationism, the realm of God.

The success of the experiment forced the grand cardinals and legendary knights to doubt Creationism, and they started to question themselves whether this was a true forbidden realm that only belonged to God. They did not know what to do, and showing their great anger seemed to be the only way right now that they could hide their inner fear and guilt.

Over the past hundreds of years, the several popes had all put emphasis on introducing arcana to improve divine spells, and thus all the grand cardinals were also relatively profound in arcana. If a grand cardinal went to the congress, within a year or two, he or she would probably be around middle-rank level. Therefore, despite the fact that they were all very angry, they still had countless ideas going on in their minds, using all their wisdom to find a loophole in the experiment. As long as they could find one, they would say that the experiment was a mistake, and so they could defend Creationism.

Before the Pope spoke, the Bright Hall was just as noisy as the market in Lance.

"This experiment is just a prototype of the prehistoric natural environment described by legends, and no one can say that this is the real environment where the God of Truth created the world," said the Pope, Benedict II.

"But that’s also what Canon tells us… Lightning, flood, volcano…"

"What Cannon describes is only the tangible environment, but what about the gases? It is possible that the gases involved in the experiment are not the original ones when God first created everything. Did any of you notice that there was no oxygen used in the experiment? In the Congress’ eyes, oxygen is the most useful gas to the human body."

"But… This is just our assumption…"

"We do not need to prove their mistake. We only need to emphasize the possible errors existing in this experiment," said the pope. "It is the sorcerers who should prove everything, not us. If they can't prove it, they can never overturn Creationism."

The pope’s new perspective comforted the grand cardinals. They were less angry now, and they started listening to the pope in a relatively calm way.

The pope's tone was getting tougher, "Regardless of whether the experiment is valid or not, I admit that the experiment indeed has proved the fact that life ingredients can be generated by a natural environment. However, is it something that can just shake your belief in God? Can you just say that life is not bestowed by God?"

The cardinals remained silent.

"A body needs a soul, but a soul does not require a body. A soul without a body can be the Holy Spirit, petitioner, or life in other forms. So, let me ask you… What is the essence of life?

"It is the soul that ascends to Mountain Paradise, never the flesh. I think that the reason why you are feeling confused right now is that the first pope who started the composition of Canon did not make this point clear enough.

"So you tell me… Who created nature? Who created the laws of nature? It was God. God owns the glory for life ingredients being produced following the laws of nature!"

A series of questioning and answers had clearly established and interpreted a new Creationism. The great anxiety in the grand cardinals mind gradually disappeared, and then they became devoted again.

The saint cardinal, Sard, who moved through a magic portal directly from Aalto to Holm, was crossing in front of his chest. His eyes, which were often dim, right now were beyond clear,

"All glory shall go to God. Pope Benedict, please let all our pastors and cardinals hear the true will of God, so they can feel the might and glory of God."

Compared to the time when Lucien saw Sard in the Psalm Hall, Sard now looked even more aged and sophisticated, and his eyes appeared to be deeper and darker, as if they could absorb the light around him.

"This is the most important thing for us at the moment. We shall have all the cardinals and pastors in every parish feel Lord's true will." The Pope calmly commanded, "At the same time, send more people to Holm and Colette to help Philibell and Varahall with reassuring their people."

Although it was clear that the most important task in front of them right now was stabilizing the Church’s belief foundation, and thus not a good opportunity to go to war against the Congress of Magic, Stone and other knights were still being quite restless.

"Your Grace, shall we just let those sorcerers go? They’ve insulted the Church to this degree, and they must pay the blood price. If we do nothing, those sorcerers would see us as being weak and timid, and they would keep attacking us."

"That’s what they want. They want us to declare a war against them when we are not ready. And If we do, we will definitely suffer from great loss facing our north Church enemies and the heresy followers and dark creatures in the Dark Mountain Range. Although they will for sure also suffer a great loss, we’ve got more enemies than they do right now. Without we distracting them, the Congress would grow very fast," answered the pope calmly. "The sorcerers know that we will be having a great war sooner or later, so they always want us to start the war when we are in an unfavourable position, because defending is always much easier than attacking. We serve God, so we value the glory of God the most, not ours. We’ve permeated the Congress to some degree, and we will make them pay, but not now. However, of course, we shall start switching our major attention to the Congress side from now on."

Then, the pope turned around and started giving orders, "Stone, you lead the Knights of Grail to Holm to assist Philibell. Augusta, you go to the north and try to parley with the North Church to ask them to show their resolution in defending God’s glory by facing the sorcerers as well. This is a tough task, and I hope your faith in Lord can help you with it."

After receiving their tasks, the grand cardinals started leaving one by one. In the end, only the pope was left in the Bright Hall.

When he dropped his scepter, the Pope looked just like an ordinary senior. The light surrounding him made him look very lonely.

...

The research project was over, and what they needed to do was just to wait for another four to five months until the crops turned ripe. So the druids were now about to head back to Stroop Forest by taking the magic steam train.

The druids felt that they had experienced and seen a lot in this trip, especially with the experiment. Although all those human being’s creations such as the train were quite nice, they were still not even close to the greatness of nature, which could produce and nurture the miracle of life!

"Then, Mr. Evans, see you five months later." Iristine waved her hands toward Lucien through the train window with a sweet smile on her face, "I really hope that the alchemical product that you found can save the farmers from starving."

To some degree, both elves’ and human beings’ way of thinking could be quite strange. When an elf or a person hated someone, no matter what that the person did, everything appeared to be nasty. However, once they changed their impression toward that person, everything started to be more acceptable.

"Mr. Evans," said Iristine in a nice way, "honestly speaking, I feel that you’re pretty thoughtful with your understanding of how we should protect mother nature from our recent conversations. The only thing is that you always take your human being’s perspective."

Beside her, Arcelion turned around and slight nodded, "Mr. Evans, you are welcome to visit Stroop. I believe that when you’re actually there, you’ll appreciate mother nature even more. Of course, you’ll find nice elven music there as well."

Lucien, with his one hand in his long jacket pocket, waved the other hand slightly, "Your highness, see you five months later. Actually, I’m more interested in the old books developed from the long history of elves."

Lucien’ magic robe, Transformation, was already fixed, and the Hand of Paleness paid for it.

The train whistle tooted. Gradually accelerating, the magic steam train left the station.

Putting the other hand into the pocket, Lucien walked to the other end of the station to meet with other senior sorcerers from the Will of Elements, and there he saw a familiar face.

"When did you come back, K!" Lucien was quite surprised. Without K’s help, Lucien would have never published his periodic table of elements paper on Element.

K did not change much in the past month. He was still strong and tall, wearing the same long, black coat, and he was still shy.

"I just came back. And I met Mr. Larry." K lightly scratched the back of his head.

"Was everything okay when you went back?" asked Lucien in a concerned way.

"The problem’s been solved," said K mildly. "It was actually not a big deal. My parents got scared when a senior official from the city council was giving them a hard time. Since I’m a sorcerer, I’m also a member of the city council, and that was why they wanted me to go back."

"Great. Let’s go back to Allyn together, then?" Seeing the train was arriving, Lucien asked him.

K took a quick look at Larry who was standing beside him a bit shyly, "Thanks for your invitation, Lucien. But from today on, I’ll be following Mr. Larry around and doing research after him. I’ve heard your stories, and they were amazing. I could not believe that you not only won the Holm Crown prize but also led to the overturn of Life Force Theory within the past one month. You know… I feel like you’re still a teacher in the school, measuring elements behind my back. Life’s just amazing."

Shy as K, he was more talkative than usual as he was trying to express his great surprise.

"I’m going to stay in the Royal Magic Tower of Holm for a while." Larry joined their conversation, "Those questions put forward by you offered Mr. Gaston and me lots of ideas and great inspiration, and we are heading toward a new direction in studying the dissolution of some alchemical products. Thank you, Lucien. Your sharp way of thinking is really valuable."

Then, Larry quickly shook hands with Lucien.

"By the way," Larry continued, "the fifth circle spell, Fernando’s Electromagnetic Message, which was inspired by your bat experiment, really helped us a lot this time. From now on, communication between middle-rank sorcerers and above shall be much easier. Of course, we can still improve the spell further. Right now, the way of communication is facing a few problems, such as its confidentiality issue, the fact that it can be easily interrupted by lightnings, and that it cannot go through the barriers between different spaces… But anyway, this is a great spell, especially when you think about how expensive casting a voice messaging spell can be."

Lucien nodded, "I’m sure that the spell will be further improved."

In his mind, Lucien was very impressed by this spell created by Lord of Storm after combining radio wave, cryptology and electromagnetic wave together. When two sorcerers agreed on a certain wave frequency, they could talk to each other directly. Even for those junior-rank sorcerers who could not learn this spell, they could still buy a magic item enchanted with this spell with their approximate ten-year’s saving.

Lucien knew that there was still a deep and wide gap between Lord of Storm and himself. Although the invention of this spell was because of his bat research, Lucien was not going to be blindly proud of himself. He knew that it was time for him to study hard again, in order to create some of his own new spells, and one of them would be called Lucien’s Infrared Eyes.

Gaston gave Lucien a sign to get him aboard the train, then he said to him, "Evans, because of your great contribution to the project, the congress and the Will of Elements have decided to give you a garden villa in Allyn as your reward, equipped with a magic lab set up by a senior-rank sorcerer, where most low to middle-rank experimental facilities are available. We hope that you can focus on studying arcana, so for the next whole year, you won’t be receiving any tasks from either the Congress or the Will of Elements."

"That’s great." Lucien nodded. After waving to Gaston, Larry and K, he boarded the train.