Everyone in the conference hall held their breath, waiting for the experiment to start. Even those who hadn't understood what was going on were excited.

Professor Howard created alpha rays using an ancient spell that was barely understood and pointed them toward the gold foil. He flicked his hand but nothing seemed to happen; at least according to the people who hadn't cast the 'Particle Gaze' spell. Those who did, saw something incredible, something that would change the world of magic forever.

When the first particle made contact with the gold foil, it passed right through it. As if there wasn't anything on its path at all, it shuttled right through, ripping apart the old atomic model in the meantime.

With excitement, Professor Howard kept the bombardment going. Most of those particles flew right through, some had very slight changes in their trajectories, and an incredibly minuscule amount was directly reflected.

After confirming that this wasn't a mere coincidence by keeping the bombardment going for half a minute, Professor Howard's hand fell to his side. Everyone, including Professor Andrew, was baffled by the results.

If there were a few particles that passed through the gold foil, they could have kept the previous atomic model with very slight changes... Unfortunately – or fortunately – for them, the exception here was the particles that were reflected.

"What does everyone think about that?" Alec suddenly split apart the silence that had encompassed the conference hall. All eyes were once again, turned toward him.

‘After this, I will attract a lot of attention,’ he thought to himself. ‘However, I am ready. It was about time I took over the spotlights. I have all the contingencies and backup plans ready. Whatever is hiding in the shadows, it can hit me with its hardest.’

Riding the momentum of the experiment, Alec turned around. He pointed his finger toward the blackboard and the chalk started drawing.

"First and foremost lesson we can learn from this experiment is the internal construct of the atom," Alec said. Now that everyone had the time to gather their bearing, they started listening to Alec with rigor. At first, he was nothing more than an overzealous student. Now, he was a prodigy that needed an audience...

"From how the alpha particles behaved, we can come to three conclusions. First, the ones who passed right through tell us that an atom is mostly empty. Whatever its inner constructs are, they are all gathered in a singular spot," Alec said. He started by drawing a cluster of circles, namely, the protons.

"On the other side, some alpha particles had minuscule trajectory changes while passing through the golden foil. If we consider the angles of those changes, we can conclude that they were caused by the alpha particles' interaction with small, negatively charged other particles. Those are what we call electrons!" he continued, his voice booming. As the chalk stick moved with grace, it placed the electrons in orbit around the protons.

"And finally, the particles that bounced right back with incredible force tell us that there is a condensed, relatively heavy cluster of positive charges inside the atom. I'll call this cluster of Urielian particles the atomic nucleus," Alec stated the third fact. He placed plus signs in the protons.

"And electrons... They can't stand still around the nucleus," he said while pointing at the cluster of protons in the middle. " Or else, the opposite forces would attract the electrons into the protons, and the normally stable structure of the atom would become unstable. That isn’t how it works, so the electrons have to orbit the nucleus at all times!" Alec said while drawing the orbital lines around the nucleus.

"Our universe, when we go down to the smallest scale, looks the same! The atom is similar in nature to our solar system!" he finally said. The conference hall was shrouded in silence once again. While everyone was busy contemplating Alec's words, someone started muttering to himself.

"Electrons... Orbit... Energy levels..." Professor Howard's mouth moved sluggishly. His hand caressing his chin, he seemed completely lost in his thoughts.

Suddenly, his eyes widened and he raised his hand. Hundreds of magic circles started appearing and disappearing without ever rotating to activation. Each of those magic circles was similar, like different variations of the same, fourth circle spell.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

None of the mages there, even the professors, seemed like they were capable of understanding what they were. However, Professor Howard kept going on.

"Electrons! Orbits!" Professor Howard shouted with excitement. His normally calm demeanor seemed to have changed. There was a wide smile on his face, and his eyes glowed in a blazing blue. "Of course. They are not a charged field inside an atom but a particle of its own! That's the reason I couldn't figure it out!"

The number of magic circles appearing and disappearing around him was decreasing in number, but some of them actually started activating, releasing little sparks and crackles.

The audience could feel the heat radiating from the man, so most of the people in the front rows stepped back, watching with a mix of terror and excitement.

Alec, on the other hand, was baffled. He watched the fire mage with his mouth slightly open. He had barely talked about electrons' orbits and the man had immediately started producing a new spell from it.

"I can see it... The flow of the universe!" Howard Hunter shouted. At one point, he had started floating, his feet still perfectly parallel to the ground. The sparks and crackles kept increasing in length and volume. The man's hair stood on its end.

"I dare not treat you as a mere student anymore, Alec Greenwood! You inspired me, so you deserve the honor. I name this fourth circle spell after you! Alec's Lightningbolt!" His voice was almost ethereal, echoing and resonating throughout the academy grounds.

Finally, one last magic circle appeared. This time, it spun with a certain weight behind it. Alec could see the air in front of Howard Hunter's hand heating up, ionizing and turning into plasma. Once the air was ready, the floodgates opened. Millions of volts of potential difference folded electric and magnetic fields into each other, unleashing a tree-trunk-wide lightning bolt carrying more than a billion watts of power. Carrying with it the smell of ozone…

The bolt traveled approximately ten meters away from Professor Howard. Lichtenberg Figures, branching tree-like patterns illuminated the surroundings. The thunder struck the ground with a deafening explosion that caused many students to shriek in terror.

On the other hand, Alec who was the closest to this feat and actually felt pain from the lightning's heat didn't even frown. Instead, a crazed grin adorned his face. With his obviously charged hair standing up, it wouldn't be hard to call him a mad scientist.

He was left breathless, gasping for air. Although it wasn't exactly his discovery, the knowledge he had brought to this world had unfurled in front of his eyes. Not to mention the creation of a spell in his name.

“It’s a thunderbolt… He actually controlled electricity to such a degree…” Professor Andrew muttered from the edge of the stage. Electricity was a newly recovered branch of magic and was mostly at an experimental level up until then. This feat of Professor Howard heavily implied the soundness of Alec’s atomic model.

As the commotion finally started calming down, Professor Howard adjusted his hair and turned toward Alec with a cough, gathering everyone's attention.

"Mr. Alec, do you have anything left to say?" he asked.

"Yes, actually," Alec answered, which garnered a lot of attention. He turned to his side and slapped the blackboard, causing a layer of chalk dust to come off. Holding himself back from coughing, he looked around the conference hall once more.

"Today, we took one more step toward a place where our ancestors stood hundreds of years ago," he said. For a brief moment, his presence seemed strong enough to compete with Professor Howard's. "However, answers are nothing but mere facilitators to more questions. The intelligent mind craves, and humankind tries to sate."

His words urged the slightly cheerful atmosphere to settle, causing everyone to pay more attention.

"I promised myself that I would fully understand this world one day," Alec said. 'In more than one way,' he added mentally. Then, waiting for people to completely subsume his words, he continued.

"Chances are, I will die before then. If not for external causes, I will die from old age. Still, there are questions I want answers to before then."

Ordering the chalk without breaking eye contact with the audience, Alec started listing.

"Moving electrically charged particles will emit radiation and lose energy. Then why do the electrons not fall into the nucleus after a certain amount of time? " the first line was written down quickly. His control over telekinetic magic, coupled with his knowledge of gravity magic, helped him write beautifully, almost like a calligraph.

"Second! How do the nucleus and electrons relate to a matter's properties?" he wrote down while saying.

"And finally, is this the end? We used to think atoms were homogenous not long ago, but we can see that it is made up of smaller particles," Alec said while watching the audience's reactions. "Is it the same for electrons or Urielian particles?"

Placing down the chalk to the side, Alec walked closer to the audience, to the edge of the stage.

"More questions will pop up as we walk this road, but we will answer them too. Until the day we know enough to use ancient magic, and even after that... I can't wait to see the day we understand nature, and bend it to our will!"

Satisfied that this inspirational speech wasn't interrupted like the last one, Alec jumped off the stage confidently. With a small prod of telekinetic magic, he signaled Evan – who had been waiting with his ears blocked and eyes looking away all this time – to follow him. Together with Iris, they left.

While leaving, all they could hear was thunderous applause gushing out of the conference hall...