Chapter 262 — The Road to Truth
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 3
Gao Song threw question after question at her, and once several "whys" had come crashing down in succession, Hedy felt that the excitement and joy which had just surged through her had cooled considerably. Not long before, she had believed she had touched a field of the magical world that no predecessor had ever set foot in, had grasped new knowledge she could never have imagined in former days—yet once Gao Song finished asking his "whys," she found that the things she did not understand had only multiplied.
Not only had she failed to reveal any truth of the world; she had come to recognize, more profoundly than ever, her own ignorance of that truth.
Even though this was not the first time Gao Yang had flung out a string of "whys," Hedy still felt thoroughly pressured.
Yet on Kamael's face beside her there was no trace of disappointment—because he had no face to show it with. The ancient mage had sunk into deep thought the moment he heard Gao Song's questions; those questions echoed through his mind one after another, and he suddenly felt an enthusiasm he had not known for hundreds of years welling up from within. He thought of a very, very long time ago, of when he was still a magic apprentice, of the first time he had learned that such a multitude of mysteries existed in this world—and of a sentence his mentor had once spoken:
"Humankind always moves from the unknown to the known, and then from the known into another unknown. So long as your mind can still breed new perplexity about this world, your steps forward will never halt."
Kamael had never expected that what would give him fresh momentum in the world of magic would be a knight lord such as this. He sighed with genuine feeling: "My lord, your thirst for truth commands admiration—it surpasses that of many a magic researcher who clings to the old ways."
"I'm just curious by nature—I can't help turning a great many things over in my mind," Gao Yang said with a shake of his head, gazing at the arcane obelisk at the center of the room. "Long ago I began to wonder about this: what exactly is this 'magic power' that permeates the whole world? Why can only a small portion of humanity sense it naturally? And how does magic power affect all things? I once tried to find answers in the ancient chronicles and scriptures, but came away with nothing... People seem intoxicated only with putting magic power to one-sided use; very few ever bother to consider its essence..."
Kamael heaved a long sigh. "I believe that over the long sweep of history someone must have raised such questions, but regrettably... our civilization has still failed to take that crucial step into the realm of essence."
Gao Yang mused. The appearance of the arcane obelisk had in fact already stirred certain associations in him, and those associations dovetailed neatly with a conjecture about magic power he had formed long ago:
Is magic power a kind of "wave"? Or something whose nature resembles a "wave"? Or is the phenomenon of "magic" itself a form of vibration?
But in this world of bizarre physical properties, did the omnipresent "wave" still obey all the laws Gao Yang knew? Pick up a pebble and drop it into water—the ripples look perfectly ordinary—but in the realm of magic power, invisible to the naked eye, would everything still operate as in the material world?
Even a legendary knight's magic perception could only sense the vague, chaotic magical environment of the natural world; at this stage there was no technology capable of precisely observing and measuring magic power... But Kamael, perhaps, could?
At that thought, he looked at Kamael and Hedy and tentatively tried to spark their inspiration: "Have you ever considered—when the arcane obelisk is running, by what means does magic power propagate?"
"'By what means'?" Hedy frowned, her expression turning thoughtful. "The transmission of magic power requires a medium... but in the absence of a medium, how exactly does it propagate..."