Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

Winters speculated that the two glass spheres and the glass tube connecting them should form a sealed whole, and the liquid inside the glass sphere was likely some kind of highly volatile substance.

As a spellcaster, Winters quickly figured out the principle behind this testing instrument. Simply put, this device could detect even the faintest magical ability.

The magical ability of an untrained spellcaster is as weak as the tiny sparks from a fire sickle, and this clever instrument could detect the presence of those sparks.

First, by balancing the scale to achieve equilibrium, if the subject possesses even the weakest fire-type spell ability, just enough to vaporize a little bit of the liquid in the glass sphere, the balance of the scale would be disturbed.

Even Winters couldn't help but applaud the ingenious design of this invention. It is known that the hardest part is not training a spellcaster but finding those with magical talent from among the masses.

Just like ordinary people, spellcasters have two eyes and a nose. Before being tested, even the spellcasters themselves might not be aware of their own magical talent. Their magical abilities are so weak that even if they use magical power unconsciously, the effect is so insignificant that neither others nor themselves can perceive it.

Thus, individuals with magical potential are buried in the crowd. A sudden headache in their lives or an inexplicable shiver could actually be phantom limb pain caused by the unconscious use of magic. But they themselves might not notice these signs, which are quickly forgotten.

Yet with this testing device, even the weakest of magical abilities could be detected.

The selection of individuals with magical potential has always been a closely guarded secret of the Federated Provinces of the Republic. Through exclusive control of this technology, all the Republic's spellcasters, regardless of gender, are sent to the Federated Provinces for training.

Getting hold of these blueprints meant that the Vineta Republic could break away from the Federated Provinces and independently carry out the screening of spellcasters. They could even shove the Federated Provinces aside and independently train their own spellcasters. After all, the training content for spellcasters is no secret; Vineta has hundreds of spellcaster officers who have all undergone complete training courses in military academies.

As for the rest of the content in these notes... it overturned Winters's understanding of magic.

But whether before or after reading these notes, Winters's magical ability remained at the same level.

However, the contents kept Winters up for two sleepless nights.

In these casually recorded notes, Antoine-Laurent wrote:

"People of ancient times believed that the entire world was composed of four elements: fire, air, earth, and water. The people of Selika thought the world consisted of metals, plants, fire, earth, and water, while naturalists classified everything in the world into plants, animals, and inanimate objects. But I find their view of the world unattractive, too chaotic, too disordered. So I take it further by dividing everything that exists in the universe into two categories: matter and energy."

"Everything tangible is matter; water, gases, stones are matter."

"Everything intangible is energy, such as light and heat."

On this basis, Antoine-Laurent proposed a hypothesis: the conservation of matter.

Meaning, magic does not create matter out of nothing, nor does it annihilate matter into nothingness.

The Vaporization Spell does not make the water disappear but turns it into a gas.

"Water Creation Spell" does not create water from nothing, but condenses the moisture in the air into liquid.

Antoine-Laurent recorded an experiment he designed: in an extremely dry room, a spellcaster using a Water Creation Spell at full strength could only "create" a few drops of water. However, in a humid outdoor environment, using the same spell at full strength, the caster could quickly "create" a cup of water.

In addition, he conducted another experiment, the metal powder combustion experiment, which ultimately confirmed that metal powder gains weight after burning because the matter from the air enters the metal. When heating metal powder in a closed system, although the powder gains weight, the mass of the entire system does not change.

Antoine wrote on the first page of his notes: "What is magic? Is magic some kind of trick? Creating an apple? A rabbit?"

"If magic could create matter, wouldn't all the sorcerers in the world eventually flood all the lands by continually creating water?"

"Certainly not, the essence of magic should be summarized in a beautifully poetic sentence: it can, and only can, change the energy state of matter."

"However, I do not have enough evidence to prove this yet."

The rest of the notes are devoted to verifying this speculation, with Antoine overturning his own established magical classification and rebuilding the three major categories of spells.

In the section on the analysis of the nature of sound-type magic, Antoine-Laurent confirmed that the essence of sound is a kind of vibration. The so-called "sound" is the vibration of the source spreading into the surrounding medium.

The nature of sound-type magic is the ability to change the vibrational energy of matter. Hence, sound-type magic was renamed by Antoine-Laurent to vibration-type magic, and from this he proposed a new spell concept "Resonance Spell."

In his thoughts on acceleration-type magic, the father of Alliance spellcasters believed that accelerating objects was just the superficial aspect of acceleration-type magic. He considered that the state of motion of matter is essentially a form of energy, which he called kinetic energy. Acceleration-type magic was therefore summarized by Antoine-Laurent as the ability to change the kinetic energy of an object.