Throne of Magical Arcana

The square near the Rose Boulevard was jam-packed with people after the lights were on.

It was the habit of many citizens of Rentato to take a walk to the nearest square after dinner and wait for “Arcana Voice”. However, after the promotion of offering a magic radio with enough subscriptions, it was no longer as crowded as before. But of course, the people here were not few at all in terms of absolute number.

“Hello, everyone. This is FM 592.6M, ‘Arcana Voice’. I am your old friend, Nightingale. Thank you for listening to our program…” As the sweet voice that sounded like their family member came out of the trumpet, all the audience focused their attention and stopped talking with their partners. Also, after the live stream last time, they were already able to picture Ms. Nightingale’s look with her voice.

After many programs, “Magic Room”, a session that people couldn’t quite follow but were very interested in, started.

“Dear audience, I’ll teach you how to resist the shallow hypnotization spells… Zi. Zi. Zi…” Before the magnetic male voice finished his sentence, shrilling noises came out of the loudspeaker. Then, the noises were replaced by messy sounds of electricity. However, everything was back to normal soon, except that the low, magnetic male voice went back to Nightingale’s sweet but exciting voice.

“Dear audience, dear audience, this is ‘Arcana Voice’. Now, I would like to announce a piece of breaking news…”

“What’s going on?” The audience looked at each other in bewilderment. They had experienced signal interruptions before, but it had never been restored so quickly, and even the program had been changed!

Breaking news?

That was something that they had never been through. Therefore, they could barely realize what was going on.

In the noble villas, the civil houses, and the schools, the members of the audience who were listening to “Arcana Voice” looked similar. They had no idea what had happened that called for a piece of breaking news.

…

Inside the Atom Institution, after Layria, who brought the students up above, told Heidi and Annick about the unusual phenomenon of two suns in the sky, they decided to return to the ground by paying the cost themselves so that they could know what had happened as soon as possible.

It was both because of their curiosity and because they hoped to brace for the worst situations as quickly as possible. After all, if they stayed in space, they probably couldn’t return if anything happened on the ground. After the energy ran out, they would become floating corpses in space. For similar reasons, most of the researchers who were unmarried did not leave the Allyn magic tower.

“Heidi, you’ve discovered a new particle?” The discussion about the two suns had been going on for a whole afternoon and a dinner. So, Layria couldn’t help but change the subject, asking about Heidi’s discovery.

Looking at her friends’ sparkling eyes, Heidi smiled in satisfaction. “After repetitive confirmation, it’s a new particle that is different from any known particles. Its mass is about two hundred times that of electrons, and it is very fast.”

“A new particle? Does the number of fundamental particles not agree with the principle of simplicity?” Many arcanists believed in the philosophy that the more fundamental, the more simplistic, just like the amazing “symmetry” that existed everywhere. Rock took off his black top hat and asked in confusion.

“We can only respect the experiment results for now. Maybe, fundamental principles are not fundamental?” Heidi spoke while she looked at the clock on the wall of the laboratory. She exclaimed, “It’s the time for Arcana Voice!”

She seemed to prefer Arcana Voice to News of the World.

Rock said with mixed feelings, “Possibly. Right, did you receive feedback from the truth of the world after the discovery of the new particle?”

“Very abundant feedback.” Having always been straightforward, Heidi replied with a brilliant smile.

“Hehe. Heidi, haven’t you been complaining that you never won the prizes like the Holm Crown Prize? The discovery of the new particle will probably fulfill your wish.” Katrina was happy for her friend.

Heidi shook her head and said, not too expectantly, “I don’t think the discovery of a new particle deserves any, unless it’s a very important one, like what Ms. Hathaway predicted, or if the particle is discovered through a new approach. I’d better wait for the breakthrough in artificial intelligence.”

“Is it not the particle that Ms. Hathaway predicted?” Both Annick and Katrina were surprised. From the properties measured so far, the new particle was quite similar to the meson that Ms. Hathaway predicted.

Heidi sniffed. “We can only know the result by testing if it participates in the strong interaction. For now, we can only assume that it is not.”

She was certainly not entirely unaffected after her friends won the highest prizes in different fields, but it did not stop her from making the rational choice. She was more and more confident about the future of artificial intelligence, and she believed that she would win a certain highest prize, and maybe even an Evans Prize in Arcana, for that.

In the middle of their discussion, weird noises came out of the magic radio and caught their attention.

“Dear audience, dear audience, this is ‘Arcana Voice’. Now, I would like to announce a piece of breaking news…”

Heidi and her friends immediately became solemn after Nightingale’s voice came out. The only thing that deserved such interruption could be the special phenomenon of two suns during the day!

The whole Atom Institution fell into silence, and a sweet voice spread out of the magic radio.

“According to the announcement given by the Highest Council, at 11:37 a.m. today, Lucien ‘Atom Controller’ Evans, a grand arcanist, a legendary sorcerer, and a member of the Highest Council, discovered the sun at the coordinates of… in the standard universe location, proving the existence of planets and stars. It raised unprecedented feedback from the truth of the world and resulted in the unusual phenomenon of two suns in the sky.

“Dear audience who witnessed the phenomenon, there is no need to panic. This is not the end of the world. On the very contrary, it marks the most solid first step for intelligent creatures to explore the universe. We will no longer be bothered by whether or not planets exist.

“Although Mr. Evans must’ve garnered abundant returns, they cannot compare to the great significance of his discovery for all the intelligent creatures and the confirmation of the existence of planets for all the arcanists. This is a small step for Mr. Evans, but this is also a great leap for all the intelligent creatures. It’s a major monument of our exploration in the world and the universe…”

The announcement used all sorts of words of compliment, but Heidi did not feel that it was exaggerated at all. They would’ve been thrilled and offered their sincere congratulation even if it were any other legendary sorcerer who discovered it. Those who did not study arcana and never read the history of the Congress of Magic would never know how important and significant the discovery was for the arcanists.

“It’s about time. The sun has been hiding for so long…” Alfalia suddenly said with mixed feelings. It had been so long that some arcanists suspected that they were not in a real world but a “laboratory” of a certain almighty god.

Heidi and Annick looked out of the window. It was pitch dark outside except for the lights from the lamps down below. However, the darkness was gone in their eyes, and the whole world had been illuminated.

The heavy darkness that had covered magic since the Magic Empire was finally driven away by the sun at this moment!

Heidi stood up in excitement, as if she were trying to do something, but she eventually got scared and stopped.

“Heidi, what do you want?” Layria held back her shiver and asked in curiosity.

Heidi raised her arms. “I want to cheer. I want to launch a fireball at the sky. The explosion will be the horn of our triumph!”

“I want that too.” Sprint, who had always been a rogue, apparently loved the idea, but Allyn had strict regulations.

Annick, who was relatively rational, suddenly realized that, if Allyn did not have so many regulations, it was possible that many gigantic fireballs would have been shot at the sky, and fire would be spluttering out everywhere. Sorcerers tended to express their happiness through the most violent approaches in their excitement, and what they were best at was certain magic.

“What a splendid view it would’ve been…”

…

In the square, in the villas, in the houses, and in the schools, all the listeners were stunned by Nightingale’s announcement.

The Church had been attacking the sorcerers because they couldn’t find any planets to prove the correctness of their celestial bodies’ motion system and their gravity theory. Some clerics preached that the Lord covered the space because of their blasphemy, preventing them from seeing the truth of the world. Some mocked that their arcana studies were buildings without foundations and would collapse at any moment.

Although arcana had been proven correct one step after another, winning the support of most of the people of the four countries on this side of the Storm Strait and filling them with curiosity and awe in arcana, those people would never be entirely convinced until the stars in the sky were discovered.

After the South Church was exiled, the people who acknowledged the reign of the Congress of Magic began to hope for the discovery of planets as desperately as the arcanists did, trying to prove that it was not a punishment of the Lord and that their betrayal was not blasphemy.

However, now that the good news came and hit their mind just like that, they felt that they were caught in a dream.

“Great!”

A roar broke the silence. An elegant-looking gentleman took off his black top hat in excitement and threw it high into the sky, as if he could not find another way to unleash his excitement.

After the silence was broken, exclamations burst out like a tsunami. Under the influence of the first gentleman, the people all took off their hats and tossed it into the sky.

Wearing hats was a fashion in Rentato. So, the whole sky was occupied with hats. Some were the black top hats, some were round, some were soft, some were the broad-edged hats with beautiful ribbons, some were convenient hats embedded with feathers and flowers, and some carried hazy veils…

“Great!”

Looking at the thrown hats and hearing the tide of roars, a reporter from “Rentato Weekly” wrote subconsciously, “Perhaps, from today onward, there will be a new custom in the kingdom for celebrations in the kingdom, which is hat-throwing.”

All kinds of hats fell like rain.