The Magic Academy’s Physicist Chapter 33

༺ Why Aren’t You Tutoring ༻

 

 

 

 

 

    

**

    

  “Ugh.”

    

  I got up from bed holding my head.

    

  There was still an hour or so until the sun peeked over the mountain. Lotte was soundly asleep in the next bed over.

    

  It was the first weekend after starting at Tilette. I should’ve been excited about not having to see the Prince or the professor for two days but I wasn’t.

    

  [Did you have some kind of nightmare?] 

    

  Well, it wasn’t a nightmare. I didn’t recall having any dreams since I came into this body.

    

  “Maybe because the mosquitoes will be out soon.”

    

  I didn’t think there’d be mosquitoes in this world as well. The one difference was that the mosquitoes here were categorized as Magic Beasts. If caught and squashed, they yielded a mana stone that was slightly thinner than human hair.

    

  Though it was the weekend, there was a lot to do. I had to learn the other types of magic besides Fire and complete the Innate Magic necessary to fight the Cataclysms. And what else? Today was the first day I was tutoring Lotte.

    

  When I rummaged through my pocket, the two silver pieces I hadn’t used yet bumped against each other and clinked. This silver was far more valuable than the tens of gold that the professor or the Prince had said they’d give me.

    

  But there wasn’t time to sit here and smile. I had about three different places to visit prior to teaching Lotte magic theories. Putting my thoughts away, I finished getting ready to go out.

    

  The first location was the library. Tilette’s library was open 24 hours for students who pulled all-nighters. I returned the books I read, borrowed other ones, and left.

    

  The second was an affiliate institute of the Academy managed by the learned society. Simply put, it was a place like the Royal Society in the UK. By paying a fee and completing a registration process, you could publish papers as a proper member.

    

  Upon registration, I submitted a paper that I had written beforehand. It was about the induction of the ‘Magic Element-Energy Convertibility Theorem’. There was a mix of emotions as it was the first one I’d written since becoming the Golden-Eyed girl.

    

  “The form has been confirmed. Including the review process, it will take about two weeks to three months.”

 

  “I see, thank you.”

    

  With a bow, I left the institution. 

    

  The last place I needed to go was Miss Heerlein’s personal lab.

    

  “You’re here?”

 

  “Hello.”

    

  I’d just signed the interning contract with Miss Heerlein a couple days ago.

    

  Originally, Miss Heerlein had wanted to have me as her intern as soon as I got accepted but she didn’t mention it thinking that it wouldn’t be fair to work someone who had just escaped the prison of graduate school, so she said.

    

  “I’m really touched that you came here. I have a lot to teach you in the next three months so let’s work hard.”

    

  [Master. All I can see is darkness from here onwards… It seems the future is bleak] 

    

  Same.

    

  Since I already knew how to fabricate scrolls, I was quick to learn. In Elemental Magic, there were enough similarities between each property that if you already knew one type, then it was easy to build scrolls for the other types as well.

    

  “The basics of Earth Magic is to form a variety of solid matter. Solids are normally divided into crystalline and amorphous kinds.”

 

  “Then will I be starting with how to make a crystal today?”

 

  “Oh, you already know! That’s right. Earth Magic starts with creating a solid matter with translational symmetry in a space. This is a realm that also relates to alchemy so it’s important for completing higher year courses.” 

    

  Saying she’d give a quick example, Miss Heerlein went to the supply room. 

    

  A thinly-wrapped crystal sheet and a dark brown bottle of fluid were placed on the table. Underneath them, a makeshift transmutation circle with a combination formula etched into it was attached.

    

  “This is something that we’ve been working on recently together with Fire Magic major scholars. Would you like to see?”

    

  I nodded my head fervently. Once she created the transmutation spell and placed the bottle and crystal sheet, Miss Heerlein etched the two materials and mixed them together with a short chant.

    

  And the result of that was…….

    

  “Polarizer?”

 

  “You know this, too. Have the Golden-Eyed been developing these things already?”

    

  I responded with silence, because I didn’t actually know. I wasn’t aware of any other Golden-Eyed besides myself.

    

  Since I didn’t really say anything, we went back to the original topic. Miss Heerlein continued her explanation.

    

  “It seems that you know this already but this is a device that uses Earth elements to operate Fire elements. Since light is considered to be an element of the Fire Realm, the academia explains the concept of a polarizer sheet in this way.”

    

    

  “That’s fascinating.”

 

  “Right? The academia is calling this kind of multi-magic ‘hybrid’. It’s using a mixture of two magics. Hybrid Magic can’t be researched alone so it’s common for joint research to be done in two or more labs.”

    

  Hybrid Magic. It wasn’t a concept that could be learned from books in the library.

    

  “Is this something that was established recently?”

 

  “It’s been about a year. Since they concluded that Fire Magic alone can’t deal with Cataclysms, there’s been an increase of people who have put this kind of spin on their research.”

    

  As expected, it was good that I came to work for Miss Heerlein. Not only was it two birds with one stone by getting to avoid Professor Hasfeldt’s watch and the Prince’s advances, but I also got to engage in proper research.

    

  If things continued this way, my escape wasn’t that far off.

    

**

    

  Afterwards, I practiced a few different things and made some crystals until the sun passed midday. It’d been a while since I smoked that much mana grass so my mouth was pretty dried out.

    

  But I couldn’t take a break. I had to block off most of the afternoon for Lotte in order to tutor her.

    

  The tutoring was to take place in the dorms. If it had been any other room, we would’ve been sitting on a bench somewhere but there was no need for that. I set down the books on Fire Magic borrowed from the library and asked Lotte.

    

  “What do you want to know first?”

 

  “Everything that you know.”

    

  How ambitious.

    

  “We’ll have to test you first. I need to know the extent of your knowledge to tutor you accordingly.”

    

  Lotte nodded at my words. So, it was two things.

    

  First, see how much math she knew.

    

  Magic was a study along the same lines as science in the original world. The principle or aspect might be different, but that was the case as it was a law of nature here. Through those similarities, the people of this world also built magic theories based on math. The one that was most advanced was geometry.

    

  Lotte was able to solve most geometry problems. Of course, that wasn’t the only area she was good at. She also had talent for algebra, analysis, and combinatorics as well.

    

  “What was your math score on the written?”

 

  “I think it was 89…? It should’ve been around there.”

    

  This level of skill was no joke. To compare it to Earth’s school system, she possessed mathematical thinking at the level of a third to fourth year student at a distinguished university, no exaggeration.

    

  Then the second, confirm how much she knew about Fire Magic.

    

  As the daughter of the Saliere family who was famous for Fire Magic, Lotte already knew most of the Advanced magic, even. She was good enough that there wasn’t much I could teach her.

    

  Usually, it was standard procedure to go over simple lessons on the first day of tutoring, but….

    

  “Is there any rune that could defeat a Cataclysm?”

    

  I couldn’t not mention this since I had to teach something in order to save face.

    

  “Do you know what Flare is?”

 

  “Flare?”

    

  I hadn’t planned on talking about this because it felt like I was becoming Professor Hasfeldt but sadly, this was the only ‘magic that might be able to crush a Cataclysm’ at the moment.

    

  I rummaged through my hipsack and pulled out a magic paper the size of a 34-inch monitor. On it, there was a basic production circle of Flare with the Eightfold Way overlaid on it.

    

  “Wow, this looks really complex. What magic is it?”

 

  “It’s still something in development by the academia so there aren’t too many details yet. My thinking is that it’s a powerful beam-like magic that can pierce through the beast’s thick armor.”

    

  Should I call it a laser that releases plasma? There wasn’t an exact corresponding word for this world so it was hard to describe.

    

  For Flare, just laying out the foundations almost filled out the magic circle completely. To the point that from afar, it’d look like a dot. 

    

  And because of that, I estimated about a year’s time for the development of Flare.

    

  “Why is this so hard to develop?”

    

  A fundamental question to get to the core. It was a good stance. I pondered for a bit, then spoke.

    

  “The biggest issue would be the amount of mana that’s required for Flare.”

 

  “Because it’s a lot? What if you used the transistor?”

 

  “Nah. I tried but it burst. Mana stones have a storage limit, too.”

 

  “How much mana needs to be circulating?”

 

  “At least more than 100 000 sieverts. I calculated it and we’d need a paper the size of the Empire and Kaurelia combined to make this work.”

    

  Lotte dropped her jaw and stared blankly at the scroll containing the bare bones of Flare. A minute passed by like that in silence. And then she was the one who broke it.

    

  “You know, even a magic circle like this appears like a dot from afar. Right?”

 

  “Yeah.”

 

  “Then couldn’t we make other variations of magic circles, too? Like one that circulates in a direct line, for example.”

 

  “You mean like how a harmonic oscillator oscillates?”

 

  “Exactly.”

 

  “Wait. Give me a minute.”

    

  Leaning my chin on one had, I poked at the magic circle. I looked at it from afar and even tried changing a part of the pathway.

    

  Finally, I pulled out a new paper. I tried fabricating a scroll the way Lotte had told me.

    

  It didn’t work, as expected. Still, it was a subject worth exploring. After thinking about it some more, I took out one more paper and attached them in a way that they were facing each other.

    

  This was an attempt to expand the scroll which had been drawn two-dimensionally until now into a three-dimensional one. I was planning to make a compound magic circle that would look like a direct line two-dimensionally, but a circle three-dimensionally.

    

  It wasn’t easy, of course. Lotte also kept mulling over it. This was originally supposed to be a tutoring session but at some point, we were sitting around doing research together.

    

  “How about like this?”

 

  “This is much better. Attach a magnetite and topaz crystal here and flip it.”

 

  “Then it’ll be half the output but four times the magic current, so…. We can put the transistor here to make up for it.”

 

  “I’ll draw an I-V characteristic curve. If my predictions are correct, there should be eight sections where there’s an exponential increase from a low current frequency.”

    

  The tutoring session had started at 1 p.m. By the time I came to my senses, Saturday was ending and Sunday was approaching. I was hungry but I paid no mind to it.

    

  Because I had never taken the lead in researching like this before.

    

  Tap─.

    

  “It’s done….”

 

  “It’s finished…!”

    

  Clap!

    

  Two in the morning. We shared a high-five of joy and dropped onto our respective beds.

    

    

  “Huuh.”

    

  Investing a year into developing Flare? 

    

  That kind of long-term plan was thrown completely out the window.

    

  Since the biggest obstacle in development was now gone, it basically meant that it wouldn’t be long until completion.

    

  Two months.

    

  I was going to finish it in that time no matter how it went.