novelThe Open Stratagem
| ← Ch.650 | Ch.652 → |
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
In the Golden Cathedral in Aalto, Violet.
It was close to early evening. Led by Philibell, Gossett and the rest of the priests finished their Sunday pray. Without saying a word, Philibell stood up and went back to his living room. In the past, he would stay to preach or guide the priests.
"What happened?" asked a red robe confusedly.
Gossett shook his head, "No idea. It's been a month that His Excellency's been acting weird."
"A month? Does this have anything to do with Arcana Voice? They say that His Holiness is Viken, the disaster sorcerer..." the red robe was rather apprehensive.
The low and middle-rank priests were already callous to the repeatedly playing rumor, as there was no solid evidence for support and the story even seemed a bit lame to them. However, for those senior-ranks who knew some of the hidden history and secrets of the Church, they had found that a series of details in this rumor in fact conformed to the history. Maybe there was truth to it.
Of course, there were all kinds of possibilities in history, and it was not difficult to make up a seemingly sensible story. Therefore, they did not treat it very seriously. However, when it was mentioned again, the red robe still felt quite concerned.
Gossett looked up and said seriously, "Yes... I remember that this has started after His Excellency attending the emergency meeting held by His Holiness..."
"I don't see the relation..." said the red robe with the gloomy look on his face. It seemed that there were some bad associations going through his mind.
Gossett forced a smile, "Me neither. I mean... Any devout believer would feel upset hearing such slander."
In Philibell's living room.
Philibell, the Bright Angel, was sitting behind his desk lost in his thoughts while staring at the flickering candle. As the day was getting darker, his beard had been lit up by the candlelight.
Suddenly, the burning candle made a slight noise and then violently grew taller, reflecting the redlight onto Philibell's face.
"Are you ready, Philibell?" The candle started "talking" in a hoarse voice, "This can help you recover the faith you've lost and send you a further step closer to the God of Truth. We don't need you to do much, but just give us the key information when the key moment has arrived."
Philibell looked gloomy. He slightly squinted his eyes and said to the candle, "There's no way that you can ascend to Mountain Paradise. How can you know he's the ultimate Lord just because of Sun King's notes? I won't believe you. And I will neither do what the Northern Extremist once did! This is unforgiven betrayal to Lord's blessing!
The candle giggled, the candlelight flickering, "You called him his title, not his name, Philibell. You can't lie in front of me. No matter what kind of past His Excellency once had and no matter where he came from, after he integrated himself into Mountain Paradise, he has become the true god, the ultimate existence that transcends all the demigods, the 'Lord' as you priests call him. Now he's just in a temporary sleep, and the more followers he has, the quicker he'll wake up. Philibell, are you going to betray the God of Truth like Benedict III?"
"Atlant, I know you play with people's minds. But it won't work on me. You shall go now, or I'll turn on the divine circles here." After a while of silence, Philibell said with deterimination.
The candle insisted, "Philibell, I can feel what you're truly thinking. If you will, we'll always wait for you to join. You will see. The priests, including Richard, in Holmish Church will grow very fast in a short period of time, as our discovery in the Realm of Gates is beyond your imagination. We're now even a step further than those in the north. They haven't even approached Mountain Paradise."
Then the candle flickered, and the voice disappeared.
Philibell turned on the defensive divine circles in the Golden Cathedral silently, and his face looked rather gloomy. After the divine circles had all been activated and after he cast Blessed Realm, Philibell finally put on a mysterious smile. His pupils had pure light shining in them.
"Our bright future comes from the prosperity of the Church. His Holiness has made his generous offer, and we're not idiots to split on our own. Atlant, you have underestimated His Holiness so much..."
In a manor outside of Aalto.
Atlant closed his eyes. In front of him, there was a silver candlestick. At this time, the candlelight suddenly twisted and projected an unidentifiable figure on the wall.
"Who is it?!" Atlant suddenly opened his eyes and stared at the figure on the wall with great alert.
The candlelight flickered, twisting the figure, and the old voice came from it, "It doesn't matter who I am. What matters is the information that I am bringing to you."
"What?" Atlant was rather cautious, trying to figure out the intention of the unexpected "visitor".
The flame said, "I have a lot. I can tell you how to become a demigod, including how to ascend the legendary ranks, how to agglomerate the power of emotions, how to transform a body, what the specific magic circle is, and the secrets of forging the special divine items..."
"You're Benedict III... No, you're Viken..." Atlant's voice rose up. Fortunately, Atlant wasn't really here. In this room there was only his golem clone.
The flame laughed, "I said it already that it doesn't matter. What matters is if you want to ascend to top legendary and become a demigod!"
Atlant sneered, "So you think I'm an idiot? I will use the method given by my enemy?"
The flame twitched, "It's okay if you don't trust it, but I think you wouldn't mind reading the complete material in this regard. You can always verify the method on your own, and I don't need you to do anything for me."
"What do you mean by you don't need anything from me?" Atlant was a bit surprised.
The flame was a bit amused by Atlant's reaction, "What do you have, Atlant? I'm just showing my mercy to you. Douglas, Fernando and Lucien Evans have found most of the secrets to become demigods, but they never decided to share them with you. I am different. I'll tell you all."
"So an internal conflict is what you want..." Atlant finally realized what Viken was doing, but he did not resist. It was just a golem clone here, so any conspiracy would not hurt him.
A fine string of flame reached Atlant's head and started sending him the knowledge.
After a while, when Atlant finished reading the material, the fine flame string appeared. The candle also went off after leaving Atlant a low giggle. As it said, the candle never asked Atlant to make a promise to do anything!
"King of Calamities is indeed very generous..." Atlant finally released a long sigh. Benedict III had directly shared the secret of becoming a demigod with him completely without charge! It was supposed to be a great lure that could easily trigger legendary wars. However, now the secret had been dumped onto him like free potatoes in the field!
Although Atlant had known the secret, the chance for him to become a demigod was still very slim as there were still countless difficulties and dangers waiting for him in the front. But at least for now, he knows the only way to ascend to a demigod level!
Atlant had a rough idea what Benedict III wanted to do. Closing his eyes, Atlant could not help but read the secret over and over again, although he was well aware of the fact that what it meant. The secret was just too captivating for him to say no.
Just like Evans once said, this was an open stratagem, so no promise or contract was needed.
...
In the Month of Winter, the theory of wave mechanics had been added into Basics of the New Alchemy despite Heidi's great reluctance.
Mr. Ernesto from the dean's office walked in and announced two things: One was that the academy was going to take all the students to the northland for a practicum course to improve their adventure skills and comprehensive competency, and the other was that the latest issue of Arcana had been available.
The look on his face was rather cheerful. He had just got rid of the heavy rock bearing in his mind for a long time.
"Quite a thick one, isn't it?" Onore said to his colleagues. He had been obsessed with studying wave mechanics recently, and thus he believed that he had gained a deeper understanding of new alchemy.
Leafing through the journal, Onore realized why this month's Arcana had added extra volume. His Excellency Mr. Evans published a paper on it, which demonstrated the relationship between wave mechanics and matrix mechanics using strict math. The demonstration had proved that they were two different presentations of the same theory. Since the mathematical tool he used in this paper was quite rare in the previous studies, Mr. Lucien Evans further explained it. The method was from applying Tower Geometry in three-dimension situation to more dimensions and even infinite dimensions. To differentiate it from Evans Geometric Space, it was called Evans-Levski Geometric Space.
In fact, if it had not been the effort made by Levski and other Tower arcanists in the previous years after Nature was established on Evans Geometry, Lucien's paper would have been much, much thicker. Because of their earlier stage studies, Lucien could use a good number of references instead of explaining everything.
But still, called Hilbert space on the earth, it was still this paper which officially established the status of it.
In the past years, the general theory of relativity had confirmed the value of Evans Geometry which was earlier deemed "totally useless", and Lucien's ideas had freed the Tower arcanists from the limitations from their own imagination and knowledge. Therefore, the development of mathematics had been rapid, and many arcanists had made their great contribution. They had stopped seeking for the practical significance of a mathematical model, as they were not able to and also they did not want to bother, instead, they were pursuing mathematics for its own sake.
Meanwhile, the progress in mathematics also helped them better understand the cutting-edge arcana theories. Their progress in magic was much faster than they had expected. Now, Levski had come close to the senior-rank!
"Mr. Evans's paper makes me dizzy." Clark rubbed his eyes.
Onore grinned, "Yeah, I know. But this paper had finally confirmed wave mechanics. We have nothing to worry about now."
He was in a very cheerful mood.
This cheerfulness was shared by most arcanists who had read this paper. Even those who preferred matrix mechanics and the feature of discontinuity had to admit the success of wave mechanics.
| ← Ch. 650 | Ch. 652 → |