Chapter 445: Now This is What Modernization Looks Like!
As soon as those words came out, everyone collectively gasped in shock, and Edith was utterly stunned.
What does that even mean?
The Modern School isn’t modern enough?
Some students immediately recalled that last week, their tutor Euphilia had made a similar remark during class.
She said the Classical School wasn’t classical enough.
After that, she went on to share her unique insights about Classical Magic.
It wasn’t exactly revolutionary, but it certainly made waves.
And now here we are, with someone claiming the Modern School isn’t modern enough. Is this implying…
Edith’s tone turned strict, abandoning any pretense: “Tutor Euphilia, I hope you choose your words wisely!”
“Your insights on the Classical School are indeed pioneering and challenging—a topic worthy of study. But considering you belong to the Classical School, is it entirely appropriate to dismiss my Modern School with such outrageous remarks?”
Euphilia nodded: “What you say is fair, Tutor Edith. However, progress in academia relies on exchange and discussion. Magic researchers should be able to find common ground between our two schools.”
“I’m merely suggesting ideas that are more modern. If you see no value in them, feel free to dismiss them as a joke.”
Edith let out a sigh of relief.
After all, Euphilia held a high position, and she had gotten a little too heated just now.
Now that they both agreed to take a step back under the guise of discussion, it was all good.
Besides, neither of them was particularly inclined to continue this lesson anyway.
“Tutor Euphilia, why don’t you share your thoughts? I’d love to see your wild ideas, and I’m sure all the students are eager too!”
With that, Edith stirred everyone’s excitement.
This is exactly what we love to see!
Women fighting… No, no—women arguing… Wait, this is called exchanging ideas!
Euphilia took the lead: “The theory of Modern Magic is something I hadn’t encountered before coming to Saint Felis Academy. I learned about this direction here, and it piqued my interest, so I read some texts.”
Actually, she hadn’t read much at all—just a couple of textbooks.
Those textbooks were mostly read by Yuliya; Euphilia had been too busy napping.
“From what I understand, the Classical School operates on a stream of consciousness, while the Modern School relies on data streams.”
Edith nodded: “You’re right.”
In the Classical School, learning magic involves repeating and mimicking, and then suddenly—bam!—you’ve got it. You might even skip the process and just get results.
The Modern School, on the other hand, builds up step by step. If you mess up any single step, all your previous efforts turn to dust.
It’s like solving a math problem.
Some people can just glance at the answer and jot it down—that’s what we call the “one-glance method.” It requires talent.
Then there are those who deduce the answer step by step, finally arriving at the solution. That’s the reasoning method, which demands rigorous logic.
Of course, some folks can’t solve it at all. Too bad; if you can’t do it, you can’t do it. That’s what we call the “give-up method.”
Now back to the theory of Modern Magic.
Thanks to the textbooks and a couple and a half lessons from last week to this week, Euphilia began to grasp the Modern approach.
So she asked if they would always proceed this way in the future.
If the answer is “yes,” then her assessment would be that it’s not modern enough.
Following the approach Edith had just described, let’s take the simplest and most familiar spell: the Fireball Spell.
In the academy, the Modern approach to casting spells involves stacking layers of magic circles. Once the circles are layered correctly, poof! The spell is a success.
This is actually fine; it aligns with the magical principles Euphilia mentioned. The stacking of magic circles serves as a guiding process.
Now, let’s look at the magic circles in isolation.
We have 2 units of raw magic power and 8 units of fire element—that’s the input power for the Fireball Spell magic circle.
So, let’s express this magic simply.
Fireball Spell [2, 8].
We can adjust the magic circle to create Fireball Spell [1, 9] or [3, 7]—whatever works.
If we venture into other spells, like the more complex Exploding Fireball, it has raw magic power and fire element plus earth element.
So, we could represent it as Exploding Fireball [2, 8, 3], where the three numbers correspond to three types of power.
Multi-element spells can be represented this way too.
For combination spells, like Ice Storm, it’s basically a blend of freezing magic and storm magic—not simply a mix of ice and wind elements.
So, we could list it as:
Ice Storm [2, 5, 2, 4]
This is called a determinant—it’s the fundamental expression of Algebraic Magic!
Using this approach allows us to record every spell and its variations effortlessly.
“That’s my idea, part one.”
Initially, Edith dismissed Euphilia’s fundamental magic composition ideas as basic, but when she saw the equations so succinct and beautiful, she couldn’t help but be taken aback.
Can a single name and a few numbers really represent a spell?
Is it really that simple?!
This method not only uses fewer words and is clear at a glance, but it also categorizes magic excellently.
Similar spells grouped together make the differences between them crystal clear.
“Algebraic Magic…” Edith murmured the name.
It was an unheard-of term, but just perfect!
“Tutor Euphilia, this idea has immense practical value! And it completely aligns with the Modern School’s elegance in simplicity and logic! This is so modern!”
Edith felt a surge of excitement.
She fully endorsed this idea and was confident other tutors would agree as well.
In that case, one must admit that Tutor Euphilia is indeed very insightful and full of ideas.
Just based on this single thought, she could earn praise from all the Modern magic practitioners.
“Recognition is enough,” Euphilia smiled slightly. “The expression is merely the foundation of Algebraic Magic; I believe its more significant role lies in understanding the interactions between spells.”
“But we can discuss that later. I have two more ideas: one called Analytical Magic, and the other Physical Magic.”
“Analytical Magic? Physical Magic?”
Yet more terms they’d never heard before.
The former was somewhat acceptable; at least “analytical” sounded familiar, but “physical”—where did that even come from?
“Analytical Magic explores the relationships between various components of magic and the specific effects produced when they are combined.”
“And Physical Magic examines the rules that might arise in real-world applications of spells, such as spell collision in offense and defense, magical interference, interruption of casting, and delay in casting.”
In simpler terms, it’s the magic version of analytical geometry and physics.
