Glan Natural Science Academy

Chapter 36

The meeting was still ongoing.

Knock knock knock!

The unconscious movement of tapping the table revealed the chaotic thoughts of the eldest scholar among them.

For so many years, faced with the female scholar’s relentless efforts as well as her many research results, even he began to waver.

“Antonio once said, the development of faith comes from constant self-belief while the development of knowledge comes from constant self-doubt. Even the great pioneer admitted he is a landmark in humanity’s path in our pursuit of knowledge. Perhaps the theorems of the truth in the past are the fires that the barbarians encountered in Summer.”

The flames of Summer encountered by the barbarians was a story passed on in the Sealand Principality.

In a barren land, a barbarian coincidentally discovered that during summer thunderstorms, shrubs would inflame before the storm came. This was the case for many years, resulting in that barbarian to think that he discovered a great truth.

Thus: shrubs will burn in Summer. This barbarian was venerated as an oracle by the other barbarians.

Until one year.

In this year’s Summer, lightning didn’t ignite the shrubs. Faced with the upturning of the laws of truth by supernatural power, the barbarians felt fear towards the unknown and devolved into unrest. The oracle attributed it to god’s punishment and told the others that they need to offer sacrifices to get god’s forgiveness.

The barbarians offered cows and goats to shrubs but didn’t receive god’s reply.

And so the oracle asked them to give up even more valuable sacrifices. To get god’s response, they began using human sacrifices…

This story originated from Sealand’s Adolfo Gauss and the exact specifics of it were not possible to verify.

In the story, the barbarian who discovered the Summer flames allegorized Adolfo Gauss himself – a lone explorer on the road of truth who also at times feel fear, confusion, and perplexity.

The eldest scholar in the room, an old man, looked up, his eyes sweeping between Kubo and the female scholar repeatedly.

Finally, the old man’s gaze rested on Kubo.

“The reason why the Academy chose you as the head-of-year for this batch’s initiate students, and also what the chancellor is trying to convey, is most probably for you to validate your views with actual results. Over these years, we’ve taken notice of Alia’s efforts and results. It’s about time we face the proposition of this grand novel academic field, what do you say?”

Alia was the female scholar behind the publication of dissimilative psychism!

Kubo stayed silent. Great pressure pressed on him.

The old man looked at Kubo for quite some time, then said, “This matter doesn’t only concern the Academy, but also the academic disciplines of natural law and evolutionary secrets. It’s not for us to decide on a whim. How about this, we’ll use the graduation test results of Kubo’s batch of new students to discuss how to proceed with dissimilative psychism. It’s been more than 10 years. We can easily wait for 3 more!”

“Agreed.”

Replied a scholar who hadn’t said anything before. Not wanting the meeting to end haphazardly among meaningless arguments, he said, “We should discuss how to handle the Church’s pressure!”

“I think that even though the Church proclaims to send a cardinal to check on the laboratories, their true goal is most probably to make the committee compromise and isolate the Balda Principality.”

Kubo and Alia were disinclined to speak any further in the meeting because of their dispute earlier in the meeting.

Although the Academy’s body of power had conflicts when it came to academic problems, but towards outside forces, they were united and didn’t really diverge.

Brimstone extinguished his smoke pipe and murmured, “I wonder if this is the old Pope’s intention or the will of the soon-to-be-coronated new Pope. Regardless, we old fellows have done all we could, completing the mission and dealing with those arbiters. For the remaining things, just leave it to the committee and the chancellor.”

All the principalities’ royal families had their respective Royal Committee on Fellowship. Although they’re not the Academy’s body of powers, they have significant influence on the Academy because of various reasons, similar to an academy’s emeritus chancellor.

Suppose an academy’s chancellor controls the authority on distribution of resources in the academy internally. The Royal Committee on Fellowship will, by influencing politics of the principality, fight for the academy for more resources.

Brimstone lit his pipe again and said, “I just hope the committee will weigh things carefully. On one hand, we mustn’t completely abandon the Balda Principality. Otherwise, what they go through now is most likely what we will experience in the future. On the other, the royal sciences academy’s collection of books and documents are handed down by successive scholars after their hard work of studies…”

The Church’s history of ransacking the royal sciences academies came from a long time ago.

Ever since Pioneer Baniwens was subjected to the ecclesiastical court’s judgement and died in order to protect the truth, every academy would have happenings of incidents that the Church can interfere in. In all incidents, the Church would have the ulterior motive of ransacking the royal research institute.

Once the Church managed to enter royal research institutes, they would burn a large quantity of progressive books and even interrupt the progress of some large-scale experiments, causing the academy’s efforts of many years to go to waste .

Indisputably!

The Church’s objective of negotiation this time was the Glan Principality’s isolation of the Balda Natural Sciences Academy. If this goal wasn’t reached, they would inexorably suffer huge losses in return.

After all, the sorcerers who’d remained silent for 10-plus years appeared in the Glan Principality. Then even managed to collect sacrifices right in front of the Academy and escape without leaving any survivor.

Speaking of which, it was Kubo’s failure that led to the Academy’s current predicament.

Perhaps only due to this that Kubo didn’t act as overbearing in this meeting, didn’t say much and was dominated by Alia.

“Those Balda scholars have truly been too extreme lately. Although the Church had failed in the last two crusades and their prestige has fallen off drastically, atheism is the limit of their tolerance. Those people actually proclaim that humans can break through the limits of the body’s potentials and become god. In the short term. It’ll bring about a huge boost in development for the academy in the short term but it’ll also act as seeds of their own destruction.”

Said the old man with resentment.

Since the Utlan Principality’s trial of Heliocentrism, all the principalities’ royal family compromised and burned a large number of progressive books that went against the Church’s will. For these many years, things have been relatively peaceful between them.

The Church paid more attention to conquering the Land of Night while the academies expanded vigorously in the time being.

Although there were no birth of new pioneers, the number of basic scholars far exceeded before and all the academies’ basic education blossomed. “Magician” had become a symbol of mystery, power, wealth, sagacity and elegance in the eyes of the common people.

And now!

The Balda Principality crossed the unspoken agreement between the Church and the academies because of some short term gain. They not only endangered themselves but were also dragging the other academies into a quagmire together with them. How could the old man not feel resentful?

If it were 10 years ago, the Church wouldn’t have acted in such a large-scale way even if the same thing happened then.

“I suggest that before the cardinal arrives, we should catch as many of the Church’s criminals to use as negotiation to reduce our losses, and also to contact the Balda academy to pressure them to get some compromises from the Church!”

Somebody else interrupted.

“And regarding that sorcerer, for him to be able to destroy all evidence then escape under Kubo’s and Brimstone’s eyes, even if he isn’t one of the legendary supreme sorcerers1, he must be a famous great sorcerer of the Dark World. Try to contact the Dark World and investigate who it is!”

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