Chapter 333: Persuasion

After Lazar and the apprentices left, the place suddenly became quiet. Leo closed the gate in the front and turned on the protection magic circle. Lucien went back to his study and started to work on his paper.

In the quiet night, Lucien's mind was rather sober. On an ordinary piece of paper, he wrote down the title—The Experiment on Human Body Electric Current and Brain Electromagnetic Wave and the Application in Illusion.

Books related to the researches studying brain waves in Lucien's spirit library were very limited, since even in the world that Lucien came from, researches in this field still remained underdeveloped. Therefore Lucien had to study a few illusionary spells to make the paper more reliable.

The paper was very challenging for him. The several papers that Lucien published in the past were other experts' findings already available. The only thing he had to do was alter the findings based on the real situations in this world. These papers only took him two to three hours each.

Releasing a sigh, Lucien did not start developing the paper based on the materials he gathered right away. Instead, he was going to talk to the Lord of Storm on the following day. As the student of the grand arcanist, Lucien would not waste the chance.

Lucien closed his eyes and enjoyed the coolness of the night for a few minutes. Then, he took out another pile of paper and started to write the application of his research institution.

Even writing the application was not easy. If not being careful, Lucien would reveal his understanding of atoms that could shock the whole world. He could not directly tell the public that an atom could still be further divided, and within in an atom, there was a very wonderful structure. But if he completely avoided talking about this, the application would be very unlikely to be approved. Lucien was in a great dilemma.

In the end, he chose to describe his purpose and research interest in a rather general way.

When he read the application himself, Lucien sincerely thought to himself that the fund was not easy to get. If this application failed, he had to switch to a more specific research area and give up using the name Atom Institution, but this would mean that every research topic was only going to be a short-term one.

As a researcher who was extremely interested in getting funds, Lucien hoped to set up a long-term research project to save as much time and money spent on doing experiments as possible, so he could save his profit from Holm Mineral and Harvest for future use. Everyone knew that becoming a senior-rank mage could cost a lot of money. A senior-rank mage had to build his or her own magic tower, buy all kinds of alchemical materials, and prepare for the rites.

Lucien also decided to show the Lord of Storm this application to his teacher. If Lucien could win his support, the whole thing would be much easier. If necessary, Lucien could reveal some of his real thoughts on atoms in front of Fernando. Maybe Fernando would yell at him, but it was still worth trying.

After a while, he calmed himself down and started to analyze the fifth-circle spell, Fernando's Lightning Smelter.

It was his first time analyzing a fifth-circle spell because he never expected that his soul and spiritual power could reach the fifth-circle level so fast. There were still many third-circle and forth-circle spells that Lucien had not studied. His plan was to focus on the difficult ones first and then go back to the lower ones.

...

Next day in the morning, Lucien came to the headquarter of the Congress of Magic.

"Good morning, Mr. Evans," greeted the tower guard on the gate. It was the alchemical creature, Prospell.

Lucien said politely, "Good morning, Prospell. How're you doing recently? Sorry, I didn't see you yesterday."

"The same... You know, having sorcerers coming in and out through my body all day long." Prospell would not admit that he did not want to show up yesterday because the Lord of Storm was there, "Mr. Evans, I heard you've reached the fifth circle. Good for you! When you become a senior-rank sorcerer and start to build your own magic tower, don't forget your promise. A female tower guard. Gentle, soft, considerate... much better than me!"

Lucien wondered since when they had this promise. He finished talking to Prospell, who was feeling a bit excited, and entered the magic tower.

It was still early. The headquarter was still quiet. On Lucien's way to Fernando's study on the thirty-third floor, he barely met any people.

Fernando, the Lord of Storm, was still wearing his favorite ancient-styled, bright-red magic robe, sitting behind his desk and reading the letters.

"Lucien, if you don't have anything else to do, help me with the letters first. Use my tone and reply to these letters. After you finish, we go to the lab," said Fernando directly. He did not give Lucien a word of praise for coming here early.

Lucien hurriedly nodded, "I've finished the draft of the paper. Please take a look."

"Good." Fernando nodded. Fernando took over the pile of paper and read it very carefully. He did not treat it casually just because it was written by a middle-rank mage. From time to time, Fernando even cast the spells on his own for verification.

Seeing Fernando frown, Lucien's heart was grasped by a big hand.

"Illogical... How do you want to persuade the board using this?!" Fernando commented.

Although the comment was very straightforward, Lucien was glad that Fernando did not yell at him. His response was still within Lucien's expectation.

Lucien hurriedly nodded and put on a humble-student look.

After criticizing Lucien's paper from the very beginning to the end, when Lucien started to feel that his draft was basically just a piece of trash, Fernando softened his tone a bit and said, "Of course, compared to all the shitty papers from those fools, this paper is still relatively interesting and creative. Nothing in the paper is a real mistake. Revise it and develop it into a decent paper. Don't put my name on it like some people. I don't want my name to appear on such a paper."

"Yes, sir." Lucien felt he just sweated a lot. Although Fernando did not yell at him, Lucien still suffered greatly hearing all the mistakes he made in this draft when Fernando pointed them out one by one. Because he relied on himself when writing half of the paper, Lucien knew that he would make a lot of mistakes, but he was still under huge pressure just now.

Before Fernando picked up these letters again, Lucien hurriedly said, "Sir, I'm applying for starting a research group. This is my application."

"Research group? Are you still not busy enough?" Fernando took over the application form, "Atom... Atom Institution. What a big topic... Umm...'The institution aims at studying the relationship between the periodicity of elements and atoms, exploring more factors resulting in the characters of elements and atoms', combining the findings with elemental, electromagnetic, light-darkness spells, etc. In conclusion, the institution is established to facilitate the development of elemental magic and arcana system...'"

It seemed that Fernando was a bit amused when reading Lucien's application. Fernando did not take a serious attitude toward it. "So... you need a big and fully-equipped lab, a lot of precious materials, and lots of arcana points as allowance. Young man, you don't get funds like this. This general, ambiguous application will not be approved by Magic Research Board. And you seem to be quite ambitious. You want to turn this into a long-term research? That'll make your application even harder."

Lucien was prepared, "I think... I think the way that the Congress currently reviews all the applications is to some degree quite short-sighted. Arcana is developing very quickly, and there are new fields emerging all the time. The new fields are not specific yet but we cannot give them up, nor can we merely rely on the senior arcanists' private researches. The resources should be allocated equally, so more arcanists can be involved. This is another reason why I want to set up Atom Institution. I believe that more and more arcanists have realized the importance of studying atoms since the periodicity was found."

When he was saying that, he looked rather serious.

"You made me feel I was listening to a speech in the city council..." Fernando grinned. "Tell me more about how you understand atoms. If you want to win my support, you have to persuade me first."

Lucien knew that the cunning, old grand arcanist would not be deceived easily. He had to go further on this topic.

Lucien's brain quickly worked and he tried to be very cautious with his words, "Since the periodicity was found, I've been seeking for something deeper behind the laws, but I was at a total loss. Then, by chance, the idea struck me that maybe we should step out of Atom Theory and question what we think we've already known. If atoms are the smallest units as people believe, why the features of atoms vary so differently?"

Lucien paused a bit. Fernando looked at him thoughtfully.

"Maybe..." Lucien was a bit hesitant, "Maybe an atom can still be further divided!"