Chapter 152: The Electroscope
Evan paused. The vein ran downward slightly, and there was no telling how deep it went. He wasn't a professional prospector, but he could tell this was clearly a rich deposit, and likely more of it lay nearby — though the mining rights posed their own problem, given they stood on Norma's own soil.
Evan didn't intend to trouble himself over that. Let Ortlando handle it — whether to mine independently or notify Norma's government was a decision for someone else to make.
"Let's go. The werewolves are dealt with. Time we headed back," Evan said. Xiaoshuang, cradling a magic gemstone that looked far from small on her own frame, flew up to settle on his shoulder.
Evan thought it over and sealed the cave entrance with an illusion array — one designed to lead people quietly past the opening without noticing it at all.
Outside, the cries of ordinary beasts carried through the night, but no wolf-howls followed. This place had never actually held wolves at all — only larger predators — the howling had only started these past weeks, and now that the werewolf was gone, it wouldn't be heard again.
Back at their lodgings, the students had already turned in, though the teachers were still awake. Mikoyan asked how it had gone, though no one thought much of the answer — just a handful of werewolves, by the sound of it, likely only Bloodfang tier. No one paid it further mind.
Evan simply said they'd been dealt with. What genuinely caught everyone's interest came next — the discovery of the magic gemstone vein. Jessica walked through the details, producing samples. Mikoyan picked up a clear piece of corundum, channeled magic into it, and studied carefully how the power flowed and amplified within it, concluding it was a genuinely fine magic gemstone.
"We leave tomorrow," Evan said. "Would you look after the vein for us, Professor Mikoyan? Once we report it, Hollingburton will handle things from there."
Mikoyan nodded. "Don't worry, I'll see to it. It's getting late — you should all rest."
The next day, the group returned to Hollingburton through the transport array, greeted like heroes the moment they arrived. Privately, several legendary mages, Arcanists, and Ortlando himself pressed Evan and the others for a detailed account of everything that had happened. As for the culprit, the Gonuo Society — every outpost of theirs near Norse was wiped out in a single night not long after.
The Gonuo Society's headquarters sat somewhere in the eastern reaches of Tyrenese, a secret organization operating in shadow. Within that single night, the entire society went further underground than ever before. Hollingburton hadn't managed to root them out entirely, but the thunderous retaliation left a quiet trail of bloodshed across more than a few nations behind closed doors.
Hollingburton, an academy with centuries of history behind it, had once again shown the true weight it carried among the world's power players.
Evan also reported the discovery of the magic gemstone vein, and Ortlando gave the order to begin mining without a second thought, entirely unconcerned with whatever Norma's government might have to say about it.
Everything else settled into ordinary business after that. Jessica handed over her Mind-Stealer specimen to the school, and the faculty were delighted — Professor Roland especially, having long wanted one of the creatures for study, given how close to extinction they seemed to be. He personally awarded every member of the rescue team fifty magic points each — a considerable fortune by any measure.
Construction on the floating city continued. Evan paid it a visit and found the sigil-work underway — an enormous undertaking, covering the entire structure in magical script, likely a year or two before completion. None of it required his involvement any further.
Evan returned to his teaching duties. The students sold off the magical beast materials they'd gathered in the Barbarian jungle to the school, and Evan received his own share when it came time to divide the proceeds — he took it without hesitation, having earned it fairly.
Evan found his own wealth climbing steadily, though a mage's growth demanded no small amount of money and materials in turn. His life settled into a steady rhythm — moving between classroom, laboratory, and quarters. He'd promised Jessica he'd help measure electrical charge properly.
Evan also wanted to use the chance to test whether this world's electrical laws matched those of his old life. Jessica had already completed her dissection of the electric eel, and using magic, she'd reproduced its discharge in a solution — though she had no way to measure the actual current.
Evan built an electroscope first, hammering two thin sheets from a lightweight metal and connecting them to a metal rod. "We already know there are two kinds of electricity," he told Jessica. "The ancients discovered that a glass rod rubbed with silk can attract small scraps of paper, and experiments were done on this before — the charge on the glass rod behaves opposite to the charge on amber rubbed with fur. They called the glass rod's charge positive, and the amber's negative, but the study never went further than that."
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"How is that different from the electricity the eel produces?" Jessica asked.
"I have a theory — that electricity only ever comes in two forms, positive or negative, and everything else about it is simply a matter of quantity. That's why I built this electroscope, to test the idea," Evan said.
"Something this simple can measure the amount of charge?" Jessica said, doubtful.
"It can, and with fairly good sensitivity — though only roughly," Evan said, rubbing the glass rod with silk and touching it to the metal post. The two thin metal leaves sprang apart instantly.
Evan smiled. "You see that? This is called like charges repelling. Now let's see the same effect produced by lightning-aligned magic."
He pointed a finger, and a thin, weak thread of lightning appeared at his fingertip. He touched it lightly to the device, and the leaves flared open again at once.
Something seemed to click for Jessica in that instant. Evan continued, "I suspect lightning in the sky, and every other electrical phenomenon, share the same fundamental nature — differing only in quantity. Friction generates only a tiny amount, while something like the electric eel produces something far larger."
Jessica couldn't wait any longer. She triggered her magical apparatus reproducing the eel's discharge. Evan startled and rushed to stop her — too late. There was a crack, and the electroscope dissolved into a smoking wreck.
Evan gave a rueful laugh. "Miss Jessica, that device of yours puts out far too much charge. You can't test it with the full output at once. Never mind, I'll build another."
He worked his hands through a quick spell, and within moments a new electroscope took shape. After a moment's thought, he built a second one, this time with noticeably heavier metal leaves.
Jessica said, sheepish, "I got too eager. Let me refine my apparatus a bit first."
The two of them spent weeks in the laboratory refining their equipment, and eventually two papers emerged from the work. Evan's was titled Reflections on Electricity, and Jessica's The Electric Eel: A Non-Magical Creature Capable of Discharging Electricity. Evan's paper unified people's understanding of electrical phenomena from first principles — friction to lightning alike — laying out the two forms of static charge, explaining what electrical current actually was, and describing, for the first time, the construction of an experimental device: the electroscope.
Jessica's paper built on the electric eel's unusual ability, ultimately unraveling the mystery of bioelectric current and proposing that all living bodies carried some trace of electrical current within them, however faint.
Both papers appeared in Magic, Jessica's drawing directly on Evan's framework, functioning essentially as a case study in support of his own theory.
Both papers earned silver-tier ranking, fifty magic points each credited to their respective gold cards — since both already held gold cards, no separate silver card was issued. Once the papers went out, two distinct waves of enthusiasm swept through the magical research community — no telling how many mages threw themselves into electrical studies, while another faction, mostly necromancers, headed deep into remote jungles to study every kind of creature, magical or not.
Through his experiments, Evan confirmed that this world's physical laws matched those of his past life. He let out a quiet breath of relief at that. Was this world simply his old one, with a layer of magic added on top? With the physical laws confirmed consistent, Evan began turning over whether he might work out Ohm's Law and electromagnetic induction next.
While Evan turned this over in his mind, another term passed. Xiaoshuang kept spending her days running wild with the creatures of the mountain forest, while Jessica continued dissecting werewolves, hunting for the root cause of the transformation.
Honestly, without the foundation carried over from his past life, Evan's academic achievements might well have fallen short of Jessica's own. Fortunately, he'd studied physics in high school back then, and simply stood on that foundation now. Still, he had something to take genuine pride in — his very first paper had been entirely his own creation, approached purely from the angle of magical theory, dissecting the nature of fantasy-born creatures. And it was that very paper that had first caught Pope Clement VIII's attention. His work now drew steady scrutiny from the Creationist Church at every turn.
Clement VIII was leafing through the latest issue of Magic again and came across another of Evan's articles. This time, reading it through, he found nothing to comment on — a piece analyzing the nature of electricity, offering some genuine insight into lightning-aligned magic, ordinary enough on its face. In this world, beyond the magical elements, matter was understood to be composed of atoms — solid, indivisible spheres with no internal structure at all, a view first proposed by the ancient Xilun philosopher Democritus. The Church's own Scripture held that the Creator had brought forth all things from nothing, creating both the magical elements and the atoms alike — which meant the existence of electricity simply confirmed the existence of the lightning element within that same magical framework. This lich was proving genuinely interesting, though — by the glory of the great and highest Creator above — what knowledge could ever escape His domain entirely?
Evan had no idea he'd already climbed, in Pope Clement's estimation, from a minor heretic to a major one. But with Hollingburton's strength behind him, and Norse's own peculiar political standing, he remained, for now, beyond easy reach. Still, Clement found himself curious just how far this lich might go.
Winter break arrived, and Evan went into seclusion. This world had no real concept of seclusion as such, but Evan told Xiaoshuang he was going into closed cultivation regardless.
Curious, Xiaoshuang asked what that meant. Only then did he remember it was another phrase carried over from his past life, and he explained it to her. She rolled her eyes. "That's just meditating hard for a while. Why dress it up like that?" — utterly unimpressed, though Evan had long since grown used to her attitude and thought nothing of it.
What he didn't know was that Xiaoshuang found the phrase genuinely stylish, and went and made herself a large sign, hanging it by his door, painted with a few bold characters: IN SECLUSION — DO NOT DISTURB!