Chapter 432: Progress
Fourth floor of the High Tower, inside a slightly dim room.
Alarm bells rang occasionally. An extremely complex magic circle flashed with beige light as Shadow Crows appeared out of thin air, spitting out scrolls one by one.
There was only one person in the room, wearing a hexagram badge on his chest; he appeared to be an advanced wizard apprentice.
He skillfully infused mana into the rune array beside him. Over twenty Hands of Mana appeared out of thin air, rapidly picking up the scrolls:
“Element, forward to Lord Bayen and Lord Logan.”
“Soul, forward to…”
As his somewhat weary voice sounded, the scrolls fell into different teleportation positions respectively and vanished in a flash.
Members of the Review Committee of the Magic Council were the best candidates for reviewing manuscripts. However, due to the high volume of submissions, only advanced wizard apprentices or Official Wizards who had published a paper in Magic were eligible to have their work reviewed by committee members. Other manuscripts were reviewed by advanced wizard apprentices who had published papers in Magic. Those who couldn’t decide could apply for a review by a committee member.
Manuscripts were generally reviewed by two review committee members of the relevant school (those who had published papers in Magic), who made independent judgments. If the controversy was too great, a third reviewer would be added until a small academic conference was convened to decide.
Betty’s paper bore her badge imprint, so it was directly assigned to Bayen and Logan, the founders of the new theory of the Elemental School.
On the seventh floor of the High Tower, in a room where various glass test tubes and vessels were arranged somewhat chaotically, Logan’s large hat was set aside. He poured a bottle of purple reagent into a colorless transparent reagent. Boom! A violent explosion shattered the various vessels in the laboratory.
The short old man, Logan, extended his right hand. An eggshell-shaped transparent Magic Crystal Shield appeared, blocking the explosion.
“Failed again. Improving the Life Potion is too difficult.”
Suddenly, he heard a thump-thump-thump beating against the barrier outside the room. He snapped his fingers, canceling the barrier and opening the window. A black-feathered crow hopped in, spat out several paper scrolls with a gurgle, turned around, and fluttered away.
“Forget it, no more experiments. Let’s read papers to relax.”
Logan muttered, and with mana circling around, he cleared all the trash in the room.
He flipped through the papers. “Precipitation Method for Extracting Sulfur,” “Experiment on Extracting Silver Salts via Chloride Precipitation,” “Several Studies on Phosphorus”—these were all studies conducted by advanced wizard apprentices based on the new theories proposed by him and Bayen.
Logan scanned them casually. They were all from old acquaintances who had appeared in the Magic journal before; their thinking had shifted quickly. Just then, Betty’s paper caught his attention.
Betty’s 2-Ring Badge was like a burning morning sun, flickering slightly. Logan opened the paper “New Experiments on the Relationship between Flame and Air.”
“Does Betty want to reconstruct flame from the perspective of the new theory? Combustion is an exothermic reaction? This viewpoint is interesting; I need to repeat her experiment…”
In another room on the seventh floor, Bayen also began his replication experiment.
“Gunpowder can burn in a vacuum, and not only that, it can burn underwater. This is an amazing discovery. Can we redefine combustion? Is its essence a type of heat release? Perhaps I can discuss this with Betty.”
In Logan’s room, he created a glass bulb inverted in water with a lit candle inside. Logan used a glass siphon to equalize the water levels inside and outside the bulb, then quickly removed the siphon.
The water level inside the bulb rose. When the candle went out, a large amount of air remained inside the bulb.
“Combustion consumes air!”
The light of discovery bloomed in Logan’s eyes. He paced back and forth, thinking constantly.
“Can this remaining air support combustion? It’s worth a try.”
He replicated the experiment and placed sulfur and camphor on a rack inside the bulb beforehand. After the candle went out, he used a convex lens to heat the sulfur and camphor. As expected, the remaining air could not support the combustion of sulfur and camphor!
He then thought of suffocation. If animals don’t breathe, they will suffocate and die. Do animals also need something from the air?
Logan put a mouse inside a sealed bladder membrane. The reduction of air inside could be seen from the external pressure causing the bladder membrane to concave inward.
A mouse placed with a lit candle lived only half as long as a mouse without a candle. Due to the candle burning, the air reduced by one-thirtieth. One mouse caused the air to reduce by one-fourteenth.
After the candle went out, the mouse could still live for a little while longer.
Logan also experimented on animal blood. He placed fresh arterial blood in a vacuum environment. The arterial blood produced foam and released gas. If blood circulation stopped, no gas was produced.
It was getting late. In the dim laboratory, Logan put his big hat on his head and roared excitedly:
“Only part of the air participates in the process of combustion, and similarly, only part of the air participates in the process of respiration! The essence of respiration and combustion should be the same; both are a release of heat!
“This substance that overlaps between saltpeter and air is the most important thing. Respiration uses it, and combustion uses it too!”
Logan excitedly recorded his experimental results and opened the door, only to find Bayen and Betty already waiting there.
Bayen looked at Logan with a smile and said to Betty, “I knew it. Logan must have been captivated by your magical experiment. He didn’t notice our magic signal at all.”
“Come in quickly. I expanded on Betty’s experiment and just got new results. Let’s discuss this together.”
Logan excitedly grabbed Betty, who was standing on her mechanical disc, and Bayen, pulling them into the room.
After repeating the experiment, Betty said with joy in a somewhat sharp voice, “That’s it! The part of the air consumed overlaps with a certain substance present in saltpeter. Logan, your research is amazing! You proved that combustion and respiration are phenomena of the same nature!”
Bayen also said excitedly, “Based on the experiments of the three of us—mainly the results of Logan and Betty—we can draw the following conclusion: both combustion and respiration require the consumption of a certain object. This object exists in saltpeter and also in the air. Combustion and respiration are both heat-releasing phenomena. And currently, the most important thing is this consumed object!”
Betty nodded repeatedly: “I believe the components of objects are air, water, and three types of earth: one is combustible earth, one is mercurial, and the third is soluble or vitreous. When the combustion reaction begins, the combustible part is burned away.
“I think this combustible earth can be called Phlogiston, that is, ‘fire quality and fire element, not fire itself.’ This Phlogiston can consume the combustion-supporting object to achieve the combustion effect!”
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