Chapter 168: The Golden Age
"Of course there was a magical response. That eel paper gave me an ability similar to the eel's own — I call it Electrical Discharge. The werewolf research let me shift into something close to a werewolf myself — part of Transformation magic. Why do you ask? Don't tell me you got nothing back," Jessica said, a note of strangeness in her voice. Xiaoshuang had settled onto her shoulder by now, not quite following the conversation, blinking curiously at Evan.
"That's not scientific!" Evan blurted out. "Then why didn't the goblins, ten thousand years ago, develop into some brilliant civilization? No one's ever said goblins knew magic."
Jessica looked puzzled. "What's 'scientific'? Some kind of magic?"
Evan shook his head, realizing he'd let slip a term from his old life without meaning to. "Science is what humans call the study of nature. Why would magic favor humans so specifically, though?"
"I don't know. Maybe humans are simply special — enough curiosity, strong enough mental power," Jessica said. "Goblin civilization is only legend anyway, nothing anyone can confirm. You really got nothing from your own papers?"
"Perhaps because I'm a necromancer, and lightning happens to be one of a necromancer's natural weaknesses," Evan said thoughtfully, though genuinely puzzled underneath. If there really was some feedback mechanism at work, what kind of mechanism could it possibly be? Did this world itself carry some kind of intelligence, aware of each person's individual circumstances?
"I know what it is," Jessica said, laughing. "You set the trap for yourself. You believe necromancy is naturally countered by lightning, so you never let yourself believe you could have it. I read once that there used to be a necromantic spell called Corpse-Phosphor Lightning, though it's long since been lost." She said it lightly, without noticing that her offhand remark had struck Evan like an actual bolt of lightning.
If that was true, then magic was fundamentally a psychological phenomenon, made concrete only through this world's own peculiar nature — much the same principle as fantasy-born creatures. And the reason no one else experienced what Evan had was simply that everyone else had grown up steeped in this magical culture from birth, taking its unspoken assumptions entirely for granted. Evan hadn't.
Understanding crashed over him like a physical wave, his eyes lighting up at once. He felt a tingling sensation spread through his whole body, a complex image rising unbidden in his mind — the sense that with a single motion of his hand, he could summon thunder itself. The hair on his arms stood on end, and he quickly dispersed the gathering magic, knowing he'd worked it out.
There was no feedback mechanism at all — only his own mind, after prolonged study, arriving at a conclusion it believed without reservation, turning illusion into reality through sheer conviction. The true mystery lay within the self. The self was where the real, endless wonder resided.
His own presence shifted noticeably in that instant, enough for those nearby to sense it. Jessica certainly felt it, though she had no idea her offhand comment had triggered the realization — she found it a little baffling, but was pleased for Evan all the same, assuming she'd guessed correctly that his suspicion of his own necromantic limits had simply blinded him to the feedback.
"Thank you, Jessica," Evan said.
"No need to thank me. You were just confused for a moment. What was always yours would naturally come to you eventually," Jessica said, pleased.
Watching the crowd thin, Evan smiled. "Shall we head off, then?" The two of them left the lecture hall together, making their way back to the villa. Once in his room, he told Xiaoshuang on his shoulder, "Go on and play."
"You know, your hair stood on end back in the hall just now. What happened?" Xiaoshuang asked.
"I've grasped a new kind of magic — a lightning-aligned one." He pulled off his bracer, and thin sparks of electricity leapt suddenly between his hands, dancing back and forth.
"Lich, you can produce lightning magic without the bracer now — and it's different from ordinary lightning too, like you can control its size at will. How did you manage that?" Xiaoshuang exclaimed.
"I'm not entirely sure myself — it just felt like I knew how, and then I did. Strange, though — a lich isn't supposed to use anything but necromancy. Am I not really a lich anymore?" Evan said, murmuring an incantation, attempting a fireball. No matter how he tried, nothing came of it. He tried other schools of magic too — still nothing.
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That confirmed he remained a lich. But now he could cast lightning magic, however limited for the moment, and something in him genuinely lifted at the discovery. He'd carried an odd, hard-to-name feeling about his own nature as a lich for a while now, especially since the whole business with Tina and Andrea.
What Evan didn't know was that two men were currently plotting how to get into Hollingburton. One was the other lich, Boniface, forced into it under Ormani's thumb — punishment, in its way, for the careless contract he'd struck with a devil, leaving him no room to refuse. He had no wish to enter Hollingburton at all, reasoning by his own instincts that the moment he set foot inside, he'd be walking straight into Evan's territory, sealing his own doom. So he dragged his feet at every turn.
Boniface racked his brain for a way to slip into Hollingburton while still avoiding Evan entirely. The two of them, both liches, had no need of eyes to recognize each other — disguise wouldn't help either, since a lich's soul-signature never changed. Get close enough, and each would know the other instantly. For liches, it was the soul's own imprint that mattered, not the face.
Fortunately, Ormani rarely bothered checking in on him, which gave Boniface room to stall. Compared to him, the other man scheming his way into Hollingburton had it far simpler — and had, in fact, already succeeded.
That man was Reinhardt. Ever since his chance encounter with Evan during the Plowing Festival, Evan had given him no further thought at all, but Reinhardt had committed him to memory carefully. Using his mind-reading gift on a lower-year student, he hadn't wasted the following month of weakness that followed — instead, he'd spent it cultivating friendships among the students, courteous and possessed of real aristocratic bearing, winning genuine goodwill from more than a few of them.
He let it be known he wished to further his own magical education, and the students, eager to help, explained that formal admissions didn't open until July — but with genuine magical talent, which he already possessed, he could simply apply directly, auditing classes or studying independently until September, when he'd formally become a new student.
He submitted his application, and testing confirmed his light and wind affinities. His age raised no particular objection, and he was accepted as a pre-enrolled student at Hollingburton.
On the surface, he came across as thoroughly pleasant, offending no one. Having seen that Evan retained no memory of their encounter, he felt secure enough, and treasured the opportunity carefully. Though only an auditing student, he'd already earned praise from several teachers — Evan among them — and he threw himself with particular dedication into Black Magic and Defense.
Quietly, he studied the school's staff and students, watching for the inevitable friction that arose between them. He'd already decided to build his own power base within the school, working toward it patiently, one small step at a time.
He was a different man now from before. Since gaining his gift alongside his magic, he'd built up a fair sum of wealth, having charmed a few noble ladies out of considerable money along the way. The reason he hadn't chosen the Solomon Academy instead, despite the long voyage overseas to Norse, was fear that his past crime against a Solomon apprentice might surface — even suspecting Solomon had long since forgotten the matter, he wasn't willing to risk it. With only two magic academies on the whole of Tyrenese, Hollingburton was his only real option left.
Only he knew any of this. Hollingburton had no idea what storm this seemingly overage new student might yet stir up.
Evan, of course, had no idea of any of it. At that moment, he was deep in easy conversation with Baron Newton, the topic turning to light. The Creationist Church held that light was composed of tiny particles formed from the light element itself — reasonable enough, given that light traveled in straight lines, could be blocked by opaque objects, and showed reflective properties, all consistent with a particle nature.
Newton held the same view, having already taken up the study himself, and had successfully split sunlight into a seven-colored rainbow using a prism. Evan blinked, then said, "Congratulations — you've explained the rainbow itself."
Newton laughed heartily. "That's a minor result. What matters is I've grasped light's true nature — it must be a particle."
Evan gave a mysterious smile. "Perhaps light is a wave instead? Or perhaps, when the Creator made the world, light turned out stranger still?"
"Impossible. I'll prove light is a particle," Newton said, brimming with confidence. Evan smiled and let the matter drop — he knew light was neither purely wave nor purely particle, but saying so now would only hinder Newton's progress rather than help it.
The two of them went back and forth a while longer, Newton radiating a confidence and presence that suggested he felt himself unmatched in the world.
Xiaoshuang, uninterested in this kind of theoretical debate, flew about pouring tea for the two of them — not with a proper teapot in hand, but by simply willing the water to leap from the pot and follow her direction straight into each cup. Both men lifted their cups and took a sip, a faint fragrance of tea rising gently into the air.
"I've read your research paper," Newton said. "Genuinely deep work on electricity — you're the one who opened up the whole field, unifying static electricity, current, the electricity a mage can produce, even lightning in the sky, all under one framework. I understand there's a mage who actually flew a kite in a rainstorm to draw down lightning, proving your theory correct."
"Someone actually ran that experiment? Remarkable. Who was it? I hadn't heard of it," Evan said.
"Mage Franklin. His paper should be published any day now. By the Creator's grace, this world holds endless mystery, and we happen to have been born in an age of astonishing progress in magic — an age when magical and alchemical experimentation is spreading like wildfire. A thousand years from now, people will look back on this era and marvel. This is truly the golden age of magic," Newton said with total confidence — and he had every right to say so.
Evan smiled. "This is your age, Newton. Your brilliance will shine like a god's own light, illuminating nature's deepest mysteries."