Chapter 1116: Chapter 1053: He’s Definitely Here to Cause Trouble!
"He’s got to be here just to screw things up!"
Only when the Secret Monk’s leather boots had faded away at the end of the corridor did Calik slam his fist hard on the desk.
The ink bottle bounced, ink splashing out and spreading over the piles of drafts on the desk, like an ugly bruise.
"Mentor Calik, mind your words." The research monk beside him hurried to dissuade him.
But Calik was still seething. What kind of news had that Secret Monk just brought him?
Turns out the Saint’s Grandson himself was pulling strings to push through a paper that had failed review.
Some nonsense about "a certain Advisory Council representative who wishes to remain anonymous discovered this paper."
Some nonsense about "His Holiness read it and found it quite good, so he wants to sit in on the presentation."
"Quite good?" He yanked at his silver‑gray wizard‑scholar’s robe. "It’s a disgusting piece of opportunism, look here, he even opens by saying he was ’inspired by the Confession of Spring Castle’... what a boot‑licking horse pat!"
And that ’Advisory Council representative who wishes to remain anonymous’—besides Leonardo, who else would bother with this paper?
This isn’t a paper about ether, this is Leonardo’s River Island academic clique and Kerben’s Dragon‑tongue clique squeezing out us wizard‑scholars from Celestial Maiden City!"
In the office, the other five research monks all kept their heads down, no one spoke.
Sunlight filtered through stained glass, casting speckled patches of light on the floor and illuminating the dust motes floating in the air.
Those dust motes seemed to carry Horn’s "comments" as well, weighing heavily on everyone’s heart.
Calik snatched up the paper "On the Bipolarity of Ether," crumpling deep creases into its edges with his grip.
He was a core scholar of the Magic Power school, and although Hilov belonged to the Mana school, they did indeed have disputes on ordinary days.
Loton’s proposal looked well‑meaning, a reconciliation between the two schools, but in essence it just erected a third school.
He was not affirming the conclusions of the other two schools, he was negating all their papers and every bit of their honors.
He would inevitably be besieged by the other two schools; no matter how beautiful the ideal, without practical results it’s all bullshit.
"And he has the nerve to say ’don’t let politics invade academia’." He cursed under his breath. "If this isn’t invasion, what is? In order to prove his academic viewpoint, he’s invading our academic viewpoint!"
If this goes on, no one will care about the truth; everyone will just follow the Saint’s Grandson’s lead when they choose their research, won’t they?"
The old research monk beside him pushed up his glasses, his voice like a bellows leaking air: "Lord Calik, His Holiness is, after all..."
"His Holiness is a scholar too!" Calik cut him off, his chest heaving. "A scholar has to argue with evidence, with logic, not crush people with his damned carrot seal!"
Grabbing the paper, Calik began to study it again.
Indeed, the paper’s logic was flawless.
But it was wrong right at the root—singularity is an axiom, not a hypothesis!
If I hypothesize that I can fly, of course I can derive all sorts of bizarre theories.
But I can’t fly, so those derivations are castles in the air.
Halfway through, Calik couldn’t hold back; he tore at the paper and crumpled it into a ball.
"This isn’t a paper, it’s trash, and this is how I treat trash!"
With that, he tossed the crumpled paper into the nearby fireplace.
The flames crackled rhythmically as they burned, like a little snare‑drum piece being played.
Watching the fire slowly turn the paper to ash, Calik seemed finally to make up his mind: "Do we have another copy? Give me one more."
When submitting a paper, it was usually in triplicate: one official copy, two duplicates.
They were to be kept separately by the author and the paper review committee; strictly speaking, it shouldn’t be given to Calik.
But his research monks still handed the paper to him; it had no plagiarism value anyway.
Taking the duplicate, Calik rolled it up, tucked it under his arm, and headed for the door.
"Mentor, where are you going?"
"I’m going to see Her Highness Hilov."
Calik’s leather boots thudded dully on the bluestone slabs in front of the institute.
He walked over to the stables and found the coachman squatting in a small room by the fire. "Bring the carriage around."
Soon, the coachman drove up in a two‑wheeled carriage—this was the official vehicle the Saint’s Grandson had assigned to their institute.
The rims of the carriage wheels were sheathed in copper, and the wheels themselves were wrapped in hardened Slime glue.
This model was a special supply from the Mechanical Palace, and it ran much more smoothly than ordinary carriages.
"To the Mechanical Palace."
The wheels rolled and rumbled as the carriage bumped over the cobblestones of Slime Street.
Calik had no mind to look at the scenery outside; his body just swayed with the rocking of the carriage.
Half an hour later, the carriage stopped in front of the checkpoint on the outskirts of the Mechanical Palace.
The guards here wore steel armor, with spring-guns hanging at their waists.
Calik presented his scholar’s badge and identification, and only then was he allowed through the checkpoint.
From the checkpoint to the Mechanical Palace, only a few people were permitted to ride a carriage, and Calik was clearly not one of them.
Walking along the stone-paved road for nearly ten minutes, the outline of the Mechanical Palace finally emerged ahead.
After having his identity checked again at the gatehouse, he had just lifted his foot to step onto the Mechanical Palace stairs when he saw an old lady in a sapphire-blue satin dress walk out from inside.
"Mera?"
The old lady took off the gold-rimmed glasses from her nose and wiped the lenses with a silk handkerchief. "I knew you’d come."
This oldest scholar on the Review Committee had a fondness for wearing fashionable clothes that were utterly out of place.
It was said that when she was young, she had stayed three years in Huaqiu City in Falan and picked up the habits there.
"You’re here to see Her Highness as well?" Calik jerked his chin, indicating that he’d noticed the paper in Mera’s hand.
Mera sighed and put her glasses back on.
"I just came out. The doorkeeper said Her Highness is not receiving visitors." She jerked her mouth toward the steps. "Her Highness says she wants to remain impartial and doesn’t wish to be influenced by any opinions before the review session."
Calik’s steps halted. "She won’t even see you?"
"She won’t see anyone." Mera lowered her voice a little. "I heard from the doorkeeper that even the messenger sent by His Eminence was stopped outside.
Her Highness Hilov said, ’I won’t leave my rooms for a month, and I won’t receive any information regarding the paper.’ She wants to focus solely on tuning the ether clock’s star-forged gears."
At this moment, even if Mera hadn’t spelled it out, Calik already understood.
As expected of Her Highness Hilov—she had easily done what others could not.
He knew Hilov’s character: she could compromise in other areas.
But when it came to research, she was completely independent, unlike Senius and those other sycophantic scholars.
Even Horn could not easily interfere with her experiments and research.
Confronted with a word passed along from the Pope, she hadn’t wanted to refuse outright and hurt feelings, so she could only handle it this way.
This was also what Horn had previously advocated—ensuring the independence of theological-technical research, keeping it from being disturbed by outside forces.
It was just that now, this enormous boomerang had ended up smashing into His Eminence’s head.
Having received Hilov’s implicit message, the two of them finally felt at ease.
They strolled back together, taking the chance to talk some more about the ether clock.
After all, the ry Court Barracks was the only place in the entire Empire truly capable of drawing on ether and conducting related research openly.
For a project like the ether clock, although it was still Kerben, Leonardo and the others who were running it, they too were involved.
After discussing a few points about the research progress, Calik suddenly asked, "These past few days, Leonardo seems to have withdrawn a large sum of funds—could it be that he’s going ahead with that biphasic verification?"
"Is that Lodun really his bastard? Is it necessary to make such a big fuss?"
Though Calik didn’t like Leonardo, Mera’s posture of attacking a colleague’s private morals still made him a bit uncomfortable.
He unfolded the paper in his hand. "If you look purely at the conclusions, Leonardo just might take the gamble."
"He has the guts for that?"
"Even if it fails, he’ll have pleased His Eminence."
It was a mistake to assume these scholars were all rigid blocks of wood; any grand scholar capable of running an independent project was a shrewd operator.
"With Leonardo stirring up this mess, I really have doubts about his qualifications as chief engineer on the ether clock project." Mera said as she walked.
"Perhaps we could bring him down when the Holy Council reviews the budget?"
"That’s probably impossible." Mera shook her head. "He’s senior and well-connected. If we pull him down, there’ll be no one to fill that seat. But we can still make him surrender some resources to our students."
"Good, that’s more like it. We can’t let them take all the benefits." As Calik spoke, he flipped the paper straight to the end.
Just then, whether out of intuition or something else, he suddenly stopped walking. "But Lady Mera..."
"Hm?"
"What if ether really is biphasic? What then? What he says does have a bit of logic to it."
"Lady Hilof cannot be wrong, and besides, his theory is built on a mistaken foundation to begin with.
If you use an error to verify an error, what you get is bound to be an error that only looks correct."
......
Time passed quickly. In the blink of an eye, white snow ceded the ground to green, and flower buds once more bowed their heads over the earth.
It was not until early April—after Horn, under the pretext of repairing the Mechanical Palace, had dragged things out for yet another half month—that this review session on the paper finally began.
