Throne of Magical Arcana

Around the City in the Sky, the bright sun dyed the white clouds gold. The pitch darkness a moment ago was gone. It seemed that the world had turned from an abyss back into a normal one.

Deep in the clouds, the magnificent-looking Rudolf II stared at Allyn in silence for a long time, before he heaved a sigh and disappeared from the sky.

Although he had regained the strength of the peak of legendary, he would need more accumulation and great opportunities in order to become a demigod. It wouldn’t be easy and natural at all. Also, the way to become a demigod that he modified was one based on faith after all. Even though he had recovered the memories of Thanos during his first advancement, the odds of success were still not high, and he could die in the process with one moment of carelessness.

Therefore, after witnessing Douglas successfully become a demigod based on the sorcerers’ traditional “cognitive world”, the Sun King, who used to be the brilliant consul of the Magic Empire, felt that he couldn’t keep up with the wheel of history any longer and that he had been drowned in the river of time, obsolete and outdated. Faced with the new “sun” in the new era, he found it so dazzling that he only wanted to run away.

But eventually, the proud and confident side in his heart still won him over again.

“We’re invited to visit?” Ogre, the Umbral King, saw that the defense of Allyn was canceled, and the loud and magnificent voice of the alchemical life echoed in the high sky.

Dracula floated in the sky and looked down at the clean, modern Allyn, before he snorted, “Do you want to go?”

“Hehe.” Ogre chuckled in embarrassment and simply opened the gate to his own demiplane. Douglas had become a demigod, and he was also an authentic sorcerer. How could Ogre have the courage to visit his place? If anything happened, he wouldn’t be able to escape at all!

After Ogre left, Dracula, Danisos, Belkovsky, and the other experts all returned. Although the City in the Sky was like a vulnerable and alluring lamb that had been skinned now that the defense had been canceled, it was a place no less dangerous than the Holy City in their eyes.

The elven queen thought for a moment and lowered the altitude, landing on the Allyn magic tower.

……

The moment the defense of the City in the Sky was canceled, space-time waves spread out from the 33rd and the 34th floors of the Allyn magic tower. All the members of the Highest Council who were in the main material world and who were not mired in relics had come in a hurry, partly to send their congratulations and partly to learn the mysteries of the demigod level as soon as possible.

By the time Lucien and Natasha, who were also curious about the demigod state, arrived, more than half of the Highest Council had been gathered in the conference room.

Douglas, who was receiving congratulations from Oliver, Hellen, and Vicente, stood up immediately after Lucien walked in and greeted him with a smile.

“Arcana Above…” Before Lucien offered his congratulations, Douglas had approached him and given him a warm gentleman hug.

“Without your help, it couldn’t have been as easy for me to reach the demigod level, if I could even find the path to the demigod level at all.” Douglas patted Lucien’s shoulder and loosened his arms, expressing his gratitude sincerely.

Lucien smiled rather shyly. “I only offered the dessert; what filled the belly was the main course before it.”

“Huh?” Douglas knew well what Lucien was trying to say, but Hathaway was rather confused about the metaphor. She had never been good at literature.

Lucien explained with a smile, “Mr. President’s studies on the celestial bodies’ motion system and gravity are like the main course, and my discovery of the sun is like the dessert. You cannot neglect the main course just because you feel full after eating the dessert in dinner. As a matter of fact, the main course is the most important reason to stop your hunger.”

Hathaway frowned indifferently, as if she were confused why it was expressed so subtly when it could’ve been expressed straightforwardly.

“Lucien, it’s not good to be too modest. Your arcana studies in the past decade are the most brilliant and important part of the history of magic.” Douglas was in a lot of mixed feelings.

“My modesty is not the issue at hand right now. I think the most important thing right now is to satisfy our curiosity. I believe that everybody cannot wait to hear the mysteries of demigods from you now, Mr. President.” Lucien directed the topic back to track.

Fernando, who had arrived as quickly as possible, returned Lucien’s equipment to him and said loudly, “You can express your gratitude in private. All I am interested in is the specialness of the demigod state, the things that we need to pay attention to during the advancement, and the corresponding arcana mechanisms.”

Douglas clapped his hands with a smile. “Before I answer your questions, I have to ask one thing. Where are our guests?”

“None except Aglaea dares to visit Allyn,” Hathaway replied coldly.

“Then, let Aglaea attend our meeting in case she chooses a wrong path in the future.” As he spoke, Douglas became solemn and said to the members of the Highest Council who were present, “I hope that you won’t choose the wrong path either.

“In the past, the road ahead of us is covered in a mist, and it’s understandable that we made mistakes during our exploration. However, the mist is now cleared, and a straight path is lying right before us. There’s no reason to walk in any other direction. The Congress of Magic will not tolerate such deviated sorcerers.”

The atmosphere was slightly frozen, but none of the Highest Council showed any emotional change.

“After watching you successfully become a demigod through the cognitive world and the demiplane, I don’t think any sorcerer will make an irrational choice,” Oliver replied with a smile. Vicente, Hellen, Atlant, and the other legendary sorcerers expressed their attitude too.

After Aglaea came in, Douglas began to answer everybody’s questions about demigod. It was basically the same as what he described to Brook and Hellen.

“… Up until so far, demigod does not have a corresponding arcana mechanism, and there is no place for demigod in the arcana system either. That’s something we need to work on in the future, like how we studied the nature of magic,” Douglas concluded in the end.

Lucien listened attentively. When Douglas mentioned that he had to “collapse” in order to appear in the main material world, he scratched his chin, deep in thought.

“Do legendary knights have to go through such status transformation too?” Natasha asked. She had been particularly persistent and passionate about that.

Douglas nodded his head. “All the demigods should be in a similar state. So, changing with the aim toward such a state should be the main theme for every growing legendary knight. I think you should associate it with training and fighting.”

The first legendary knight was born under the “direction” and “experiment” of sorcerers. So, Douglas, who was from the Magic Empire, had a lot of understanding of the subject.

Including the elven queen, all the experts present had asked the things they wanted to know. They were still digesting the new knowledge, and nobody asked any more questions.

Seeing that, Douglas stood up and said, “Is this all? Then, I’ll have to explore myself now.”

Chewing on Douglas’ descriptions just now, Aglaea suddenly realized with mixed feelings that the Congress of Magic was the most powerful force on par with the South Church right now. With one demigod and four top legends, it was even stronger than the South Church to some extent!

Of course, considering that it was easy for Viken to carry out his full strength in the main material world, and Viken could perform “God’s Arrival” with “Mountain Paradise”, the two forces were still equal.

Right when Douglas was about to “run”, Fernando suddenly opened his mouth. “I remember that you devised the delayed choice experiment and the quantum eraser experiment before, except that they could not be conducted due to the high requirements. What about now? Can you accomplish them?”

Most sorcerers looked at Fernando in shock. The two experiments were likely to shake the current arcana system. If the result turned out to be bad, everybody’s worldview and outlook would be completely subverted, and they had to seriously consider Lucien’s observer theory.

Do we have to be so fast? Give us more time to be mentally prepared!

Douglas’ gentle smile was gone. He said in hesitation, “The requirements are indeed met now, but I can only know whether or not the experiments can be conducted after I confirm it. I’ll tell you the result later.”

Fernando said solemnly, “If an arcanist is too scared of a certain result to run an experiment, he doesn’t deserve to be called an arcanist. Exploring the unknown and the truth is the fundamental reason why I chose the path of arcana. I will not betray that. So, I would like to know the results of the two experiments, and whether or not they reveal the truth of the world.”

“As a matter of fact, it is not a serious problem. The microscopic domain is a new field with many debatable issues. Nobody has constructed their cognitive world based on that. So, even if the two experiments disrupt our understanding, it will only shake our worldview and outlook but will not blow up our heads. Our cognitive world won’t be broken and solidified either.” Pondering for a moment, Oliver agreed with the proposal. His eyes behind his gold-edged glasses were full of the earnestness for exploration.

Hellen was not distracted at this moment. She said calmly, “The shake of understanding of the world will also cause the arcanists to feel frustrated. Their cognitive worlds won’t be steady, and their strength will stagnate as a result.”

She did not offer any example, but there were a handful of members of the Highest Council who could not advance into the legendary level because their worldviews had been disrupted by the achievements in the microworld.

“However, even if my strength might stagnate, I still would like to know what the result is,” Hellen added and looked at Douglas firmly.

For arcanists, the desire for knowledge and exploration was their specialty. If they knew that the answer was up ahead but could not reach for it, they would rather be killed. As for whether or not the answer was acceptable, it would be a different matter.

Douglas looked around and saw that everybody had similar countenances on their faces. So, he sighed half in relief and half in concern, “At the very least, I have to get the experiment devices prepared first.”

“In that case, let’s live stream the experiment,” Lucien suddenly interjected, making everybody look at him in shock.