"Wait…" Woods slightly raised his chin, "Black Bear recently found some special ores in the south. I remember… they have similar characteristics."
As he pointed at the hangers, Woods’ black top hat and long jacket directly flew toward him. Today, he was even more rushed than last time.
After taking the elevator and then the coach, Woods finally arrived in front of the strange-looking magic tower with two horns on its top.
Black Bear, whose name was actually Odonkor but Woods often secretly called him Black Bear in his mind, was a fourth circle sorcerer specializing in Transformation and Summoning. His grandfather was a very wealthy archmage who liked travelling and collecting all kinds of special things, despite the fact that he seldom had interest in conducting any serious researches.
Woods hurriedly jumped off the coach and rushed toward the gate of the tower.
"Hey, buddy… Why are you rushing?" Odonkor’s magic circle informed him that Woods came to visit him in a hurry.
Odonkor surely looked like a black bear, as their family tradition in studying Transformation originated from observing bears, and his relatives all looked a bit like bears.
Gasping, Woods responded, "Black Bear… No, no… Odonkor, sell me a couple of Flashes, the strange ore that you found in the south!"
In Rose Garden.
After Gaston’s arrival, more senior-rank sorcerers gradually arrived, including Raventi, a ninth circle sorcerer, member of the Arcana Review Board and vice president of the Will of Elements, and Overee, also a member of the Arcana Review Board and director of the Will of Elements, aside from other three authorities.
Of course, there were way more than five people who were qualified with reviewing papers in the field of Element, but they were the most specialized ones.
Besides the six senior-rank arcanists on the top, the leader level of the Will of Elements still had another thirty-two senior-rank sorcerers. However, among them there were only twenty whose arcana level was above level six.
On legendary level, only Raventi attended today’s conference, as this meeting was mostly a chance for middle-rank sorcerers to exchange their ideas and thoughts. Nevertheless, the great power that the people had who were present at this conference was still enough to destroy a whole country. The school of Element was known for its destructive power.
Raventi didn't look like anything other than a plain-looking old man, and today he was wearing a black robe embroidered with sixty-five symbols, representing the current existing elements. After his short and straightforward opening speech, the conference officially began.
The first one who gave the speech based on his paper was Timothy, the famous genius in arcana from the Will of Elements.
Timothy had black hair and blue eyes. Wearing gold-rimmed spectacles on his nose, he looked profound and elegant. In sharp contrast, the topic of his paper was rather violent: Explosive Cascade. By simplifying the fundamental alchemical formula of this magic, Timothy improved the power of the spell by fifty precent.
"Wow… That’s really something…" Lazar was very impressed and excited.
Lucien, as a guest who was mistakenly invited, could only carefully listen to the speech beside the platform, while those arcanists were sitting on their tall chairs, listening and referring to Timothy’s paper for more detailed statistics and explanation. However, he could still see the great value of Timothy’s paper. Facing Explosive Cascade, if someone still tried to use common strategies to avoid the attack based on their past fighting experience, the spell would turn into their nightmare. Lucien paid extra attention to the alchemical part, as he knew that this was his shortcoming in his study. If he had a deeper understanding in this field in the future, he could start trying to use nitroglycerin to create more spells.
...
After getting some Flashes, Woods borrowed Odonkor’s fancy lab and started doing his experiments immediately.
Very quickly, Woods extracted the substance he wanted from Flashes and then he put the substance in a spectroscope magic circle.
The magic circle slowly started working. Woods held his breath.
When he saw the beautiful, dream-like spectral lines that he had never witnessed before, Woods’ breath became heavy, and his face flushed.
New element! There was new element in there!
Beside the magic circle lied Lucien’s paper. As if the author already knew what Woods could find here, the paper wrote: "This aluminum-like element can be found by spectral analysis".
Woods was right now staring at the paper, and he could not believe his eyes. This was not a speculation, but a prophecy! And the prophecy was based on the period of elements put forward by Lucien!
Woods’ head was buzzing.
Then he took a deep breath and started turning on more magic circles. He was going to try possible ways to purify the new element out of the extracted substance.
Odonkor’s fancy lab definitely worked very well, and before lunch, there was already a pile of silver-coloured crystals sitting right in front of Woods.
There was no time for lunch. In the next second, Woods started measuring this new element and testing its characters.
"Atomic weight… 69.8…" After adopting several methods, Woods was sure that the number that he came up with was correct. All of a sudden, he felt intimidated looking at the paper lying on the table beside him.
But deep in his mind, he remembered the paper clearly. The paper wrote:
"The atomic weight of this aluminum-like element should be between 68 and 70."
Woods could hear his heart beating so strong and so fast that his ears were drumming. With his lips closed tightly, Woods continued his experiment to measure other features of the new element.
"Specific weight… 5.94…" Woods murmured voice trembled.
On the paper, it wrote:
"Specific weight, between 5.9 and 6.0."
"Non-volatile… Can slowly dissolve in acid and lye." Woods’ voice trembled.
The paper wrote:
"Non-volatile in normal temperature. Acid and lye can dissolve it."
All the predictions put forward by Lucien Evans were right.
Woods felt thrilled. He was too shocked to say anything. His mouth was partially open, and his hands shaking.
What did this mean?
What did this mean!
At this point, Woods had no more doubt or hesitance. He knew that this paper would be a milestone in the field of element… no, in the history of the whole magic world!
With shaking hands, Woods completely wrote down the experiment data record, and saved the sample of the new element safely in a magic container. Bringing them, Woods subconsciously grabbed his black top hat and rushed out of Odonkor’s magic tower.
"Hey, buddy! Your coat!" Odonkor called Woods from behind.
The cold wind sobered Woods a bit and he realized that his coat was left in Odonkor’s place, but Woods still jumped directly on the coach waiting for him and hurriedly he said to the coachman,
"To Douglas! Be quick! As quick as possible!"
The coachman was taking a nap before Woods jumped on the vehicle, and now he was driving the coach like crazy.
In front of the iron gate of Douglas.
"What?! Evans is out, again?!" Unutterable frustration struck Woods.
"Yes, Mr. Lucien Evans is out," answered the golem calmly and peacefully. "He should be in Rentato now, but I don’t know why."
"What the fu*k…?!" Refined as Woods, he could not help swearing, "Rentato again?!"
Standing in the cold wind, Woods did not leave until his face got numb. When he calmed down and then came back to his office, he spent an hour and developed a simple report on the finding of the new element and the comparison between the new element’s features and the corresponding predictions made by Lucien in his paper.
Then, he arrived at the Sorcerer Administrative Department and handed the report in.
Although he was very excited with sharing the great finding with all the sorcerers, before that, he needed to make sure that there was a guarantee that his own work could also be recognized.
"Element… To Mr. Raventi, Mr. Gaston."
The alchemical life was still following its daily routine, having no idea how important this report would be.
A brown-colored elemental being picked up the report in Mr. Gaston’s exclusive lounge.
"From… a level four arcanist. Mr. Gaston’s not in the office today… and his students are also in Rose Garden today together with him…" the elemental life talked to itself, "Well… I shall just send it directly to Mr. Gaston to let him decide who should review this paper."
And it was the same situation in Raventi’s office.