In September, the cool autumn breeze gently blows away the heat of sumr.
After months of intense battles, the entire eastern, central, and southern regions of the empire have been occupied. According to the most optimistic estimates of the council, it should take no more than two months to completely end the war with the empire.
anwhile, the railways have been laid out segnt by segnt, forming a vast network that envelops every major city in the eastern region and will eventually extend throughout the entire empire, also facilitating the organization of this academic symposium.
A magic train, loaded with passengers, begins its journey from an unfinished platform with a loud whistle, heading towards the capital at high speed!
The rolling wheels continuously rumble over the tracks, and the carriage sways subtly, but the novelty of the experience is enough to overshadow these minor discomforts.
Sean, a middle-aged wizard who has just settled down with his apprentice, gazes out the window at the rapidly disappearing dense thicket of trees and can’t help but exclaim, "What an incredible alchemical creation..."
This train stretches over seventy ters in length and can carry nearly a thousand people, traveling at a speed of 100 kiloters per hour.
It is said that it only takes nine hours to travel from the central part of the empire to the capital of the magic kingdom!
This includes stops at other cities along the way, which is simply incredible.
"Teacher, is it true that the nights in the capital are as bright as day?" the young apprentice sitting beside Sean, no more than eleven or twelve years old, can’t help but ask.
They have always been within the empire but have heard a lot about the magic kingdom from passing traders.
In the stories of these traveling rchants, the capital is almost like a paradise on earth, where food is conjured by magic, even the common people wear exquisitely beautiful clothes, all sorts of new alchemical creations are everywhere, and the mode of transportation is not horse-drawn carriages, but rather a type of steel beast that emits smoke from the back…
By comparison, the imperial cities they had lived in seed like cesspools, even the Holy City before its collapse was no exception, aside from its size.
"Of course," Sean answers with a smile, "I’ve heard that it's the masterpiece of the Star of Magic, Lynn, who trapped the mighty power of thunder in a bulb and uses electricity to create light..."
The young apprentice imagines such a scene, and suddenly, the sky darkens—the train enters a long, dark tunnel, and it takes more than ten seconds for the train to erge back into daylight at this speed.
The intense change from light to dark surprises many wizards in the carriage, especially Sean, who is curious and sticks his head out the window to look behind him, seeing a massive mountain peak!
"It's the Peak of Despair, Despair!" Sean quickly recognizes it; it is the second tallest peak in the empire, nad for its steep terrain.
This train actually goes straight through the mountain, no wonder it suddenly felt dark around.
Under Sean's watchful eye, a huge tunnel appears to run through the mountain from front to back, looking quite spectacular.
He recalls that the kingdom's musketeer corps reached here just three months ago; what kind of power could have hollowed out an entire mountain in such a short ti!
In the carriage, over a hundred wizards discuss among themselves, and one proudly dressed witch says, "The tunnel was made with a Solar Cannon, one of the grandest alchemical creations of the council. It blasted through the mountain in one shot!"
Sean and others are visibly shocked—what kind of trendous power could achieve such a feat?
So wizards express skepticism, thinking it's an exaggeration or perhaps the work of grand wizards using magic bit by bit.
The witch shrugs and does not continue, saying a Peak of Despair is nothing; the entire Holy City was flattened in the battle between the council mbers and that false god.
The Solar Cannon was originally intended to be used against the remnants of the empire's armies, but the nobles were so incompetent that the weapon was never needed.
Instead, when constructing roads encountered difficulties, especially in the mountainous central region of the empire, taking a detour would have been both ti-consuming and laborious.
So, Victorio, the council mber, had the idea to use the idle Solar Cannon for road construction. One blast could clear a mountain or destroy a forest; it was incredibly efficient!
Sean has no doubts about the witch's words, as he has heard that the kingdom's legendary wizards created a sprawling area of death spanning several kiloters, obviously a more exaggerated feat.
After a nine-hour journey, which doesn't seem too long, the excitent of their first train ride gradually subsides, and the train slowly pulls into the platform of the capital.
It is already evening!
The witch who spoke earlier is the first to get up and leave the train
, followed by the others.
Sean doesn’t rush to move but instead takes a mont to change into his best blue robe from his luggage, takes a deep breath, and steps off the train with his assistant and apprentice.
"Welco to the Magic Kingdom!"
A loud and enthusiastic voice greets them, it’s Theodore, who is in charge of receiving the train. He holds a long list in his hand, checking off each person’s na before guiding them to their transportation.
"This way, gentlen!"
Sean walks among the crowded people, clutching his luggage tightly—it contains his life's research and the reason for his attendance at the academic conference.
His young apprentice looks around curiously; everything about this city is novel to him.
He sees the beautifully decorated train platform, the broad, clean, and slightly crowded bustling streets, the strangely shaped, fast-moving alchemical cars, the smoking alchemical workshops... even the bricks on the train platform are so smooth they seem like mirrors, making him feel guilty as if he’s damaging a work of art.
Before the last rays of the setting sun fall, bright lights begin to shine from pillars along the streets, dispelling the approaching darkness...
The oval lamp contains a filant heated to incandescence, vividly demonstrating what it ans to trap lightning in a bulb.
Nearby, a soothing song arises from nowhere; the lodious tune seems to contain a special rhythm, intoxicating those who hear it.
"Who is playing the music?" a curious alchemist asks, as there is no visible band performing.
"Ha ha, it’s the wind playing the music, a lody played by magic!" Theodore explains with a laugh.
Considering that the church’s Holy City is constantly filled with loud hymns, the capital of the kingdom, as the council’s front, certainly cannot fall behind in this respect!
Speaking of which, it’s nothing unusual. The so-called sound is produced by the vibrations of objects, and combining this with Dean Lynn’s resonance theory, by placing a special harp on each statue throughout the kingdom and playing one, the sound will naturally echo throughout the capital.
This kingdom-wide magical lody is naturally the masterpiece of the Wave School!
As Theodore explains, he leads everyone to board a series of pre-arranged alchemical cars and head to the Magic Research Institute.
When they arrive, it’s around seven o'clock in the evening.
Sean steps into the exhibition hall filled with excitent; it is larger than expected, with rows of seats arranged in a circular, tiered fashion, and hundreds of magic lights illuminate the interior as if it were daylight,
They are evidently the last batch to arrive; tens of thousands of wizards have already gathered in the huge hall, discussing and exchanging ideas in various magical fields.
However, not all is harmonious; disputes and cursing are intermittent, but fortunately, no one dares to start a fight inside the hall.
Sean, ever so reserved, does not intend to join the discussions and takes a seat on the outer edge with his apprentice, listening attentively to the surrounding wizards.
This year’s academic conference seems particularly grand, no longer hosted by grand wizards as before. Several legendary council mbers have arrived, indicating the importance of this event.
Sean imdiately turns his gaze towards the council mbers’ seats; this is the first ti he has seen the true faces of the few legendary council mbers at the pinnacle of magic studies. The figure in the center is particularly prominent.
Sean understands that must be the Star of Magic, Lynn, whose na terrifies the church and resonates throughout the empire.
Just then, the exceptionally young council mber looks over and clears his throat to speak.
"Ladies and gentlen, please quiet down!"
His commanding voice instantly fills the entire hall, carrying an undeniable authority and pressure, and the hubbub and disputes abruptly cease.
In just a second, only echoes remain in the vast hall.
After all, Lynn has served as a judge before and is very familiar with the proceedings. He briefly utters so pleasantries, welcos the many wizards who have co from afar, and officially announces the start of the magic conference!
An old wizard under the gaze of the audience, along with several apprentices, carries a transparent box onto the stage.
Inside the box is a very intricate device, the main body being a giant gear with a diater of about three ters. Each tooth of the gear is sloped, and it contains forty movable short rods, each with a twenty-kilogram iron ball at one end, moving outward along the wheel's spokes.
"This is my research achievent, a vacuum perpetual motion machine!" the old wizard on stage proudly introduces his grand invention!
Nowadays, the magical world has many power devices, such as steam engines and improved internal combustion engines, but without exception, they all require energy consumption.
So, he has been pondering whether it’s possible to find a thod that doesn’t require any fuel to continuously produce power!
Thus, this perpetual motion machine was born. It utilizes the planet's own gravity, employing an asymtrical fra structure that creates a
gravitational imbalance between the heavy and light sides of the fra, pulling the lighter side and generating a continuous chanical motion.
To minimize the influence of external forces, he even pleaded with a grand wizard to empty the elents inside the device, allowing the machine to operate continuously!
The wizards present are quite interested in this peculiar perpetual motion machine.
Although the power output of this device is limited, what if it were scaled up a hundred or even a thousand tis?
The power generated could potentially supply an entire city!
Sitting in the judges' seats, Lynn rolls his eyes.
Well, a perpetual motion machine has erged!
This is basically like his demonstration of the earth's rotation with Foucault's pendulum.
In a vacuum, unaffected by any interference and using the influence of gravity, Foucault's pendulum can theoretically achieve 'perpetual motion'.
However, this perpetual motion machine clearly falls short, and its biggest problem is that it simply cannot produce much power, and its efficiency is far inferior to that of using hydropower, wind power, and solar energy.
If this can be called a perpetual motion machine, then a water wheel powered by flowing water might as well be called one too!
Lynn quickly points out the flaws of this 'perpetual' device in a few words.
Sean and others notice that the speed of the perpetual motion machine is gradually slowing down, and the grand wizards roughly estimate that it will stop on its own in no more than two days, clearly far from being 'perpetual'.
Victorio tries to smooth things over, saying that using planetary gravity to provide continuous power is a novel idea, but this perpetual motion machine doesn’t have much practical value.
Under everyone's 'nitpicking', the confident old wizard blushes and repeatedly defends that his perpetual motion machine has great potential and just needs further improvent. He leaves the stage with a face full of indignation, clearly upset that his 'great invention' wasn't well-received.
Then it's Glenn's turn to co to the stage with his new cara, demonstrating it to everyone, and accompanied by a burst of flashing light, under the influence of magic, a black and white photo appears in front of everyone very quickly.
This alchemical device, capable of imprinting reality onto 'paper', imdiately sparks the interest of many, having been amazed by the lifelike images published in the newspapers before. Now, under Glenn's explanation, they finally understand the principle behind it.
"Pinhole imaging, huh? That's a clever idea..." Aurora says with a smile.
Many know about this natural phenonon, and wizards who advocate the particle theory of light consider it one of the most direct evidences of light traveling in straight lines, but Glenn is indeed the first to think of utilizing this phenonon.
For this new invention, Lynn and the others unanimously give high praise and imdiately decide to award him a Morning Star dal to recognize his achievent...
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