Chapter 59
Chapter 59
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 59
Chapter Title: Chaotic Semester and Falling Rocks
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The Magic Tower at the start of the semester was pure chaos.
Freshmen still buzzing with energy darted about, while grim-faced zombie researchers shuffled among them.
Of course, those lively freshmen might join the zombie ranks in less than a month.
Liam was right in the middle of that horde.
He'd just wrapped up the first lab meeting of the semester.
Tired.
"Should I start exercising too...?"
Lately, his floor had been crawling with suspiciously buff graduate students.
Isaac had spun off an independent Ideal Gas Magic School...
They always looked so full of life. Kinda jealous.
As Liam headed to the library, he spotted some classmates raising their voices in the hallway.
"No, listen. Forget the nitpicky stuff—look at the whole picture."
"...You look at this data. The eccentricities are all different. How do you explain that?"
They seemed locked in a heated argument.
Liam carefully skirted around them.
But.
"Hey. Liam! Over here!"
"..."
One of his classmates spotted him.
In the end, Liam got dragged into standing awkwardly with them.
"Liam, what do you think?"
"...About what?"
"Planetary orbits. Is it heavenly mana distorting the light, or something else?"
Apparently, they'd gotten into a debate about planetary motion.
"Hmm... No idea. But wasn't that settled a few hundred years ago?"
His classmates responded.
"No! What you're thinking of is why the planets move. This is about why their orbits look elliptical!"
"It's trending again lately. The Magic Survey School used it as an entrance question for new students."
That's when Liam pieced it together.
"Ah."
The Magic Survey School—Isaac's place.
A guy who dragged around all sorts of rumors, so no surprise if a problem he made went viral.
'But why make a question like that?'
If Isaac was involved, it had to mean more than just a fad.
Liam started pondering seriously.
'Is Her Highness the Princess using Isaac to keep the theologians in check, maybe?'
One classmate spoke up to Liam, who was lost in thought.
"Hey, Liam. You share a room with Uphills, right? Heard anything?"
"Ah... Heard anything..."
He'd been getting requests like this every day lately.
People hoping to snag some crumbs falling from Isaac's table.
Liam totally got it.
The Magic Tower was slapping premiums on anything tied to the 'Magic Survey School' or 'Isaac Uphills' these days.
The [Calculus] craze from the end of last semester was still raging, and now the [Ideal Gas - Absolute Temperature] paper had piled on.
That paper had his own lab in an uproar.
Reorganize all the old experimental data on the new temperature scale...
Just hand out some mercury barometers already.
What are we supposed to do without a budget...!
'Think positive, Liam. You can do this.'
Anyway, living with Isaac, he'd picked up some fun stories.
Most were gibberish, but some were genuinely useful gems.
Still, he couldn't just blab those secrets around.
'Not making that mistake twice.'
Liam said,
"Oh yeah, that liquor Uphills gave me last time was delicious."
"Not that kind of thing..."
Not that kind?
'It was so clear and pure. Perfect.'
Personally, Liam preferred that distilled spirit over the top-shelf wine Gwendolyn had brought to the party.
As Liam deftly changed the subject, his two classmates dove back into arguing with each other.
That's when he glimpsed a little girl over their shoulders.
She was dashing desperately across the lobby toward somewhere.
...He'd bumped into her with Isaac once before.
Her name was...
"Anna Uphills?"
Dolloren said she was ducking the dean again by clearing out of the lab.
I asked her,
"...If you're doing that, wouldn't it be better to just go on a business trip?"
"Can't yet. Still dealing with the backlash from the isolation field."
"I see."
That isolation field had more risks than I'd thought.
And she'd taken the hit for my share too. Felt grateful.
I bowed my head.
"Thank you."
"No need for that. When a disciple's in a pinch, the master steps up."
A master helping her disciple...
Lucky she wasn't the type to think the opposite.
I saw Dolloren off and took my seat.
"Alright then... Time to start my research?"
Quitting time for most, but prime time for me.
Original plan was to recreate the absolute zero Dolloren had shown.
Too tough.
The mana wavelength I'd memorized only worked inside the isolation field.
So today, I'd probe this instead.
Thud.
I set the pouch Dolloren gave me on the desk.
The gold coins heavy enough to crush the desk were safe in the vault, but this felt even better.
"Heh heh heh."
Size mismatch inside and out. How was it made?
Was the interior a four-dimensional space?
Spacetime curvature via general relativity?
I tried detection magic first.
Nothing beat it for measuring physical quantities.
But the pouch's data was off.
Outside readings came in clean, but inside was full of noise.
"That's weird."
Why?
That's when the lab door opened and Giuseppe walked in.
"What brings you here this late?"
"...Dropping off some gear. What about you, Junior? Not heading home?"
"Stuck because of this."
I showed him the subspace pouch.
"Ah. A gift from Professor Dolloren."
"You recognized it right away."
"Of course. Detection magic doesn't work on ancient artifacts."
"...What?"
No way.
Didn't it work fine on the Memorizer Pendant?
"Why's that?"
Giuseppe answered confidently.
"Because ancient artifacts are all completely temporally severed from the present—made under entirely different laws."
Asked one thing I didn't know, got a pile more unknowns.
Completely temporally severed? Time severance? Temporal isolation?
I repackaged it into something understandable and asked again.
"...So, you mean there was an era where Noether's time-translation symmetry was a bit off?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"..."
Damn.
No way to explain this.
Right then.
Knock. Knock knock.
Rhythmic knocking.
Anna.
Bang!
The door flew open as Anna burst into the lab.
Gasping for breath, she somehow forced out words.
"Huff... huff. I-I solved it! The ellipse problem! So huff... accept me as a grad student now!"
"..."
She wanted to jump straight to grad school without even finishing undergrad.
What terrifying ambition...
I approached the panting Anna and handed her a glass of water.
"Little sis. No clue what's up, but drink this and calm down first."
"Huff... Thanks."
Anna downed the cup in seconds.
Then she explained the whole story.
...No idea why, but the ellipse problem had reached her too.
I checked the answer sheet she thrust at me.
'Holy crap. For real.'
Anna had actually solved it.
She'd even gone beyond Kepler's laws, approaching universal gravitation.
'This world has Newton-level talent after all...'
And it was my little sister.
My eyes misted up a bit.
Her concepts of force and acceleration weren't solid yet, so there were limits.
But for a pre-modern college student to reach this conclusion? Incredible.
I ruffled Anna's hair.
"Wow... My little sis is amazing. Insane."
"Sliced through every problem. How's that?"
"Yeah yeah, you did great."
"Heh. Thanks."
Anna continued,
"So you'll take me now, right?"
"...Well, about that."
I explained the situation late.
The problem was just to screen 'pre-grad students,' and she wasn't qualified yet.
But Anna wasn't listening.
Her bright eyes burned with obsession.
Anna said,
"Fine, I'll be a pre-grad student then. Take me."
"..."
Speechless.
Giuseppe, eavesdropping from afar, covered his mouth.
...I wanted to accept her too.
But enrolling a early teen in grad school? My conscience said no.
I knelt to meet Anna's eyes.
"Anna... There's more to life than research. Let's finish college first and find those other important things."
"...Like what?"
"Make some friends who click with you."
"How many?"
"..."
If I said a hundred, she'd do it.
Anna pressed on,
"Just take me already!"
"..."
No logic left.
She acted so mature usually, but childish when it counted.
Kids should act like kids, though.
I knew I shouldn't laugh, but giggles slipped out.
"...Why are you laughing?"
"Just..."
I handed her the draft of Principia.
"Can't take you this time, but your achievement will live on as co-author here."
"..."
"And we'll recognize your IP on the theory, so expect big money hitting your account."
"...Sigh."
Anna let out a deep sigh and said,
"Fine, won't ask again... Guess you gotta graduate college after all."
Back to adult mode.
"But grant me one favor instead."
"What is it, sis?"
"Just... spend a weekend day out with me."
"Where to?"
"Our foundation. I wanna see it being built with you."
And so, that weekend morning.
I headed to the Barren Basin to keep my promise with Anna.
"Wow..."
Anna gasped at the construction site visible through the carriage window.
I was stunned too.
It had been barren wasteland not long ago.
Now? Not anymore.
The foundation for the boarding school building was already underway.
In a world with magic, civil engineering moved at a blistering pace.
At the site, the supervisor I'd met before rushed over to greet me.
"Welcome, Mr. Uphills. What brings you today...?"
"Just sightseeing."
The supervisor glanced at Anna and smiled warmly.
"Your daughter is adorable."
She was short, so the mix-up made sense.
"...Not my daughter. My sister."
"Pardon? Ah, sorry."
We toured the site under his guidance.
From the highest point, the whole basin came into view.
Anna leaned on the railing, mesmerized by mages shifting massive stone blocks and laborers hammering atop them.
Right then.
BOOM!
An explosion rocked one corner of the site.
Panic erupted among the workers.
"Argh!"
"What the hell! What's happening?!"
Someone shouted next.
"The stars' courses lie within divine providence!"
Terrorists?
The blast had dislodged several tons of stone, now plummeting toward workers below.
"Danger! Everyone get out!"
The supervisor yelled, but too late.
"Wh-what's that?!"
"Run!"
No time to evade.
I surged my mana immediately.
Telekinesis
v = √(2gh)
2ad = v² - v₀²
σ = F / A
F = ma
I first calculated the impact velocity of the falling stones and a suitable acceleration to avoid shattering them.
Then applied the force accordingly.
Magic implementation.
Execute.
Rumble...!
The falling stones halted midair, crushed under their own weight.
"...We alive?"
"What in the world... Am I seeing this?"
Compression strength checked out—no shattering, no extra damage.
I used magic to lower the stones safely away from the workers.
The site supervisor wiped cold sweat.
"Whew... No idea what happened, but thank you so much, Mr. Uphills."
I shook my head.
Too soon for thanks.
"Let's catch the culprit first."
"...Culprit?"
That cryptic line right after the blast.
'The stars' courses lie within divine providence.'
Undeniably the dogma of the Planetary Motion Theology School, extinct for centuries.
No clue why they'd hit here now, but they'd picked the wrong target.
I activated detection magic at once.
Far off, a worker's body heat slipped between carriages.
That's the guy.
I pulled iron marbles from the subspace pouch.