‘This part should be related to telekinetic magic…’ Alec thought. There were fifteen books strewn across the table in front of him, all opened fully, displaying different paragraphs and magic circles. He filled so much space on the table that the four-person table was completely occupied by him only.

There had actually been a student who had tried to push away some of the books to create space for himself, which was probably a confrontational move as the next table was completely empty. However, after meeting Alec’s angry glare, the student decided that it wasn’t a good idea to cause trouble in the library and went his own way.

Shifting his gaze from one book to the other, Alec drew another line on the paper he was writing on.

‘So far, the most I could achieve is figure out what the mangled and dysfunctional magic circle parts in the notes given to me by Mr. Andrew meant,’ Alec assessed his situation. The sun was already approaching the horizon, signaling the approaching end of his time.

‘He tried using wind magic, failed miserably as that probably has nothing to do with gravity,’ Alec thought. He wasn’t a scientist in his previous life. His relationship with science had partially ended when he graduated high school. However, as an author, he had a duty to study popular science to create some far-fetched pseudo-scientific rationalizations of his magic systems to make his books more enjoyable.

‘So far, I have found traces of fire magic, telekinesis magic, and arcane magic in the ancient texts. Though, I feel like these classifications are wrong,’ he thought. Telekinesis was apparently a downgraded imitation of gravity magic, which made it a very crude magical branch.

‘I should first go looking into fire magic that might be related to gravity magic.’

Reaching out to one of the books on the table, Alec flipped the pages until he saw a title that attracted his attention.

[Inexplicable Feats of Fire Magic]

Was the title.

As Alec read through feat after feat, one managed to pick his attention.

[What is the-]

He read, skipping the names of a few locations that were mentioned and going to the important bits.

[The crater was obviously man-made, having some bits of leftover buildings on its outer edges. What can’t be understood is the size of the crater. Some say it was done by an ancient council of mages working in tandem, using gravity magic to change the path of a meteor passing by. But there are clear signs of fire magic on the spot. However, none of our theories explain how someone, or a group of people, could muster such an amount of mana. Even using the strongest methods of explosive magic, there would be a need for thousands of over hundred-level mages. Were the mages of that era really that accomplished?]

‘Huh… A spell that can generate an incredible amount of force with a relatively small amount of mana?’ Alec thought. ‘Nuclear fission spells? That’s a good method to kick your civilization back to the Middle Ages. Nuclear bombs were at least controlled by a group of people. If you hand over that much power to individuals, it would be impossible to exercise control over anyone.’

As far as Alec understood, the world had gone through a baptism a few hundred years ago. It had kicked civilization back by a huge amount and had destroyed a big chunk of the magical systems that had been studied so far. The leftover mages were mostly initiates or somewhat well-accomplished assistants who had to reconstruct the magic systems from the get-go.

Flipping the page again, Alec kept reading. He had taken a Low Focus Potion beforehand, so his reading speed was on overdrive. Consuming too much knowledge, he would probably get a headache afterward.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

‘Most of what I see here points toward one thing,’ he thought. ‘Before the presumed nuclear war, fire magic was actually magic that dealt with particle physics.’

Turning his head, Alec picked up another book. This one was about thunder magic, which Alec thought to be mainly about electricity.

‘If I knew more about the fundamental forces, I would probably be able to classify what each magic branch corresponds to. Is thunder magic electromagnetic force? Or maybe, I’m just overcomplicating things and they are completely unrelated to the physical sciences.’

‘Anyway, my thoughts are straying away from the main focus,’ Alec thought as he kept reading.

By the time the sun had completely set and midnight had come, he was done doing his readings. It was time for the actualization part.

‘What was it again..? Gravitons? Were those an unconfirmed hypothesis or just a fact? Fire magic might be about gravity particles. Thunder magic is the… I don’t know. Arcane magic is used to connect everything in some unknown method,’ Alec listed his findings. Which was not much. ‘The fire magic part should be the easiest way to go. It is the most developed magic branch after all. If I managed to achieve some findings in that sense, I should be able to do the presentation.’

Lifting his hand, Alec used some intent and mana to create the fragmented fire segment of the gravity magic circle. As long as he didn’t go to the realization stage of the spellcasting, the wards wouldn’t activate and the spell circle wouldn’t explode.

‘This fragment is made up of three parts. One seems to be used to focus on a certain group of atoms,’ Alec thought as he scratched his cheek. The library had become more and more desolate, leaving Alec alone. ‘The concept of atoms is currently known, but not expanded upon. Even still, this part is well-understood by the experts. It should be the part that chooses the target of the spell. Still, I don’t know what this gravity spell actually does.’

Neither the research notes handed to him nor the books in the library explained what this magic circle might do. The only thing publicly known about it was that it was a fundamental spell of the first circle for the gravity branch.

‘The second part is more esoteric. Its functions are very similar to the first part, however, the particles that it focuses on are unknown. Is this the part that captures the gravitons?’ Alec glanced over the second part.

‘The third part…’ he mentally muttered before squinting his eyes. He searched his mind for an answer, but couldn’t do so. Not a coherent one at least. ‘It does something. There are two pointers that import the two target particle groups from the first two parts of the fire segment. Then it does something with those. But I can’t understand what. And from the notes that Mr. Andrew gave me, he can’t understand them too.’

Alec tousled his hair in deep contemplation and lowered his head for a minute. Then, he sat up straight with renewed vigor in his eyes. He had made his decision.

‘Today, I will solve the second part of the fire fragment,’ Alec thought. When he looked around, he noticed the library to be completely empty. Although he was tempted to take out The Author’s Pen right then and there, it was better to find a more isolated place. For this, Alec decided on his previous hiding spot in the corner of the library. It was a great place to do his thing with the pen.

Taking out the pen, Alec thought about what to write, readied his intent, and brought down the pen on the ground.

[First Circle Gravity Spell, Fire Fragment, Second Part Research Paper]

He wrote. Although it was a bit verbose, there wasn’t a correlation between how many words he wrote and the creation’s mana cost according to some of his past experiments. As long as it somewhat accurately described the creation, anything was fine.

As mana started draining from his body, Alec started drinking his stock potions. This time, he had readied himself for the sudden expenditure. He didn’t know if the gravity spell would cost more than the antibiotic. On one hand, the antibiotic was much simpler in its essence, making it much easier to create from zero. On the other, the gravity spell was somewhat known in this world and had work done on it already.

‘I’ll shortly learn the answer,’ Alec thought.

One potion, two potions, three potions…

Just as the fourth bottle was about to run out, a paper with a small magic circle piece similar to a pie drawn on it appeared on the ground.

Alec picked up the piece of paper with shaky hands. This piece of paper was probably enough to make a lot of failed mages want to strap him to their basement and enslave him for free research. Obviously, Alec wasn’t going to go over and hand the Professor the paper.

‘I should water down the amount of knowledge until it becomes believable,’ he thought. ‘And I also have to prepare the presentation…’

He left his small, hidden corner to look through a nearby window. It was already past midnight, which meant that he would have to sacrifice some of his sleep time to complete this task.

‘It’s going to be a long night…’