"...This brings us to the point of Urielian Particles. We found them in the ancient texts and have somehow managed to make out what they are recently. Rather than particles of their own, they are part of an atom that forms the positive parts, neutralizing the charge of the atom when together with electrons," Professor Andrew said with a confident voice. Unfortunately, his words didn't prompt any reactions from the jurors. The audience was much worse. Probably half had already zoned out, and the rest were trying their best to keep up.

"Just like this, the nature of gravity seems to lie in particles. I called them 'gravitons'," he went on to explain. This caused three of the jurors to nod in approval while the other two to frown. "Just like how electrons are negatively charged fields in an atom, gravitons are the ones that are gravitally attractive."

In fact, quantum gravity was an already theorized field. A lot of telekinetic mages supported it, but there was no solid foundation behind it. Most of those who supported it did so because it seemed to make sense. There was also the fact that gravity magic usually contained esoteric and unknown particle magic formulae, which could very well point toward something else.

"I'm sorry Mr. Andrew, but I can't quite understand the part on page 7, line 10. Could you talk further about it? You support quantum gravity but don't explain how it relates to mass itself. It doesn't even explain how orbital mechanics could work. I can't help but see your 'gravitons' as a useless hypothesis," one of the jurors who didn't support the quantum gravity theory said.

This wasn't actually an attack on Professor Andrew's thesis but quantum gravity in general. It was one of the main points of argument against it, after all.

Alec, on the other hand, could reconcile this world's understanding of physics with his past world, assuming that it functioned similarly at all. What these mages were struggling with was the fact that their metaphorical tower of scientific knowledge had weak spots. Some of its middle floors were thinner, and less robust than it needed to be.

The reason they couldn't solve gravity magic for such a long time was their lack of understanding of gravity itself. They couldn't go far in this field as long as they kept to what an Earthian would call Newtonian physics. Not to mention the fact that they had a simplistic, Thomsonian atomic model.

Truly, if Alec had let Professor Andrew be and do the thesis defense, he would have completely messed up this question.

"These 'gravitons' I mentioned are carriers of information," Professor Andrew answered. "They relate to mass, the classical particles in a way I can not comprehend. That is also unimportant, as I will continue the rest of my defense correlated to the pieces we have left from an unknown first circle gravity spell..."

Listening to his words, Alec sighed to himself. If not for this piece of gravity magic, these people wouldn't be discussing such topics at all. The thought of 'quantizing' gravity was something that wouldn't pop up without first understanding the quantum world more.

And that was exactly what Alec would do to shake things up a bit. Hopefully, it would be enough to distract people from Professor Andrew's disaster of a thesis and achieve a plethora of other goals.

"Excuse me!" Alec said. He used a first-circle voice-enhancing spell to make sure he was heard. While doing so, he got up and briefly looked at Evan, gesturing with his hand. At his gesture, Evan blocked his ears, completely cutting off his hearing sense. This was just another part of their test that would hopefully teach them more about their situation.

The next moment, every single head turned towards Alec, more than a thousand mages looking at him directly. Alec would be lying if he said that his heart didn't jump at the sight. Still, he calmed his nerves quickly.

"As Professor Andrew's assistant, I have done a bit of self-study. I think I have an answer that might sway the esteemed jurors’ thoughts," he said with elegance, again, amplifying his voice. Unlike what one might expect, nobody laughed at his claim. Instead, an awkward silence encompassed the hall.

"What are you doing?" Alec heard a whisper from his side. Iris was looking at him with a horrified expression, trying to figure out his intentions. In answer, Alec smiled wryly and jumped. With a clean motion, he was out of the cluster of seats, free to walk to the stage as he wanted.

"I am a co-author in this thesis, so I hope that this doesn't count as an offense," Alec said with a gentle smile. His gait was one of confidence, his arms swaying as he took wide but patient steps.

"State your name, student," One of the jurors said while eyeing the thesis in front of him.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"I am Alec Greenwood, second year," he said, his voice loud and clear not only because of the voice amplification but because of how well-endowed he was at public speaking. One stutter, a little stop to take a breath, or an awkward pronunciation would have made him look weak, but he made none of those mistakes.

Many whispers could be heard rising from around him. Although there were a lot of different sentiments, most of them acknowledged him because of his success in the theoretical exams.

And truth be told, Alec had the necessary qualifications. Since the start of his academy life, he had struggled with magic. He lacked years of basic knowledge, which made it hard for him to excel in it. However, with the amount of effort he put into studying, abusing The Author's Pen, and the advantages he had created for himself – such as the mana brain, his higher-than-average mind stat, and all the potions he used –, Alec could finally call himself a genius. A prodigy of sorts...

At this moment, he realized... He realized that this was what he had been waiting for since arriving in this world. He hadn't known it but feeling these eyes on his back, carrying the weight of their attention was something he had missed from his days of being a famous web novel author.

"You can't go back once you get on that stage, young man," the juror said after checking his name on the thesis paper. Although Alec could see the contempt in his eyes, he could also see admiration. The juror probably admired Alec's confidence.

Without another word, Alec jumped onto the stage in a single step. He didn't worry about his swift motions attracting attention. After all, he was way past the point of worrying about that.

"For years, our understanding of gravity has come from fragmented, lost pieces of magic," he said. He prodded using his mana against one of the floating chalk sticks and took its control from Professor Andrew, who had backed away to a corner with a fake frown on his face. "We focused on magic, trying to see the world from metaphorical magical glasses."

As Alec spoke, the singular chalk he had taken control over, flew up and ahead, drawing a circle on the blackboard. That circle seemed to carve a space of his own, pushing away the writings of Professor Andrew.

"I don't know how it used to be in ancient times..." Alec muttered. Leaving the circle on the blackboard on its own, he turned toward the jury and continued. "But I think we should put down those glasses. Magic isn't the building block of our universe but just a product of it. Only the mind can understand nature, magic can only manipulate it."

"We don't know where you are going with this, Alec Greenwood. Please hasten your explanation," one of the jurors prompted, cutting Alec's inspirational speech. Alec couldn't say he wasn't annoyed by this.

"I say, to rediscover gravity magic, we have to take one— no. Several steps back. We are trying to quantize gravity because we saw it in an ancient piece of magic. But we don't understand nature well enough to do that."

Finally, Alec turned around and lifted his hand. The chalk was prompted to start drawing little circles on the bigger ring he had made.

"Since the discovery of negatively charged fields, namely electrons, made by Professor Howard, we have had the same atomic model," Alec said. He turned his head slightly to gauge the reactions of the judges and found them to be frowning. He was challenging something a student wouldn't after all.

"But I would like to showcase an experiment I have devised. Could a professor specializing in fire magic step up?" Alec asked. Then, suddenly, a familiar face appeared on the stage. With a lot of gasps and shocked faces, Professor Howard had stepped up.

"You are challenging my model. It's only correct that I step up to help you showcase your research," he said. Alec couldn't exactly understand the logic behind that statement, but still appreciated it. He trusted that Professor Howard wouldn't mess with the experiment, and such an authoritative figure doing the experiment would raise its credibility.

"Does anyone have some gold with them?" Alec asked. Gold wasn't exactly a valuable resource, at least in the academy. Quickly, a particularly generous student brought over her golden jewelry.

"Professor Howard, please amalgamate pure gold into an approximately 1000 atoms thick gold foil," Alec said. Professor Howard complied and with a flick of his hand, created the foil.

"Could you also conjure some alpha rays?" Alec continued by saying. He then gazed around the conference hall and said, "I want to ask every juror and capable mage here to cast the spell, 'Particle Gaze' on those alpha rays."

'Particle Gaze' was a third circle spell used mainly in experiments. It was used to mark certain atoms and make them visible. It didn't actually make the atom look bigger. If that were the case, the inner workings of the atom would have already been deciphered. Instead, it was more like a representation, merely a way to keep track of their trajectory.

Around the conference hall, more than a hundred mage's eyes glowed in blue, indicating that the spell had been cast.

Taking a deep breath, Alec turned toward the jurors and asked.

"What do you think would happen if we bombarded the gold foil with these particles?" Alec asked.

The jurors whispered amongst each other, seemingly trying to come to a conclusion.

"Please elaborate on your question, Mr. Alec," one of them said. It seemed like they didn't understand what Alec meant.

"Let me rephrase then, could one of you demonstrate the alpha rays' supposed trajectory?"

Without further ado, one of the jurors raised her hand and pointed forward. A glowing light ball flew forward and hit the gold foil before disappearing.

"Great. No matter how thin the gold foil is or how small the alpha rays are, the uniform atomic structure wouldn't let them pass. Right?" Alec said with a shit-eating grin. Some of the professors, especially Professor Howard seemed to be slowly understanding what he was getting at. "Now, I would like everyone to watch closely. Professor Howard, please bombard the gold foil with alpha rays!"

With a nod, the fire mage started bombarding the golden foil.

The conference hall suddenly went silent...