Throne of Magical Arcana - The Result

As a bell rang, a puppet picked up the paper and quickly leafed through it.
    

“Sound wave? Apprentice level?” murmured the puppet, “Master said that he won’t review papers below a certain level, and master’s students are not here today as well. Alas, the paper can only be handed over to the several arcanists from Common Arcana then.”
    

After identifying the paper’s level, the puppet waited for around five minutes until it receiving the message that the spell itself, Bat Screaming, had been confirmed valid. Then the puppet called a red-beaked and green-feathered bird from outside of the window. The bird’s responsibility today was to bring the several papers to another magic tower.
    

It was not easy to use magic circles to send things among different towers.
    

The bird flew very fast, with its feathers producing a cover to prevent the strong wind. Soon, the bird disappeared in the sky.
    

…
    

On the third floor of a blue magic tower, in a messy room filled with books.
    

A middle-aged man with light-yellow mustache was looking at the books in front of him, frowning and thinking.
    

For sorcerers of this level like this man, he needed to continuously make progress in his own specialized arcana field.
    

At this time, he heard something pecking at the power cover of the tower. Smiling, the man put the journal book down and pressed the button on the table.
    

The energy cover was retrieved, and the window opened. The same red-beaked, green-feathered birds flew in. Walking on the table proudly back and forth, the bird dropped the papers down, “Mr. Woods, these are the papers for today. Please review them as soon as possible.”
    

When the bird was speaking, the bird’s voice was as sweet as its chirping.
    

Woods pulled out a handful of small white particles and gently threw them to the bird, “Is any of these for new magic reviewing, Selena? If there isn’t, come and pick them up tomorrow.”
    

While eating the small white particles happily, the little bird answered, “There’s one, Mr. Woods. Please review it now.”
    

Then, the little bird picked out one of the parchment rolls.
    

When Woods was reading Lucien’s new magic report, a surprised look gradually appeared on his face, “Bat Screaming… Apprentice level… Interesting…”
    

After reading the report, Woods hurriedly searched for something among all of the parchment rolls on the desk, “Not this… not this… There should be a corresponding paper… Yes! Lucien Evans… Bats…”
    

Pulling out the roll of paper from Lucien Evans, Woods started reading carefully.
    

“This young man… very curious. He has the potential to be an arcanist,” murmured Woods. “Surprisingly, this young man carefully explored bat, this non-magical creature, while most ancient sorcerers are busy with examining magic creatures to discover their power… The controlled experiment was also very carefully designed. Although the experiment does not have much to do with arcana, this young man’s way of thinking is still very creative and impressive. Wait… Lucien Evans is only a first circle sorcerer? That’s quite surprising as well…”
    

Woods felt that Lucien Evans was too common a name for a talented sorcerer to be noticed in the academy, so Woods thought that he should suggest this Lucien Evans to put an extra word after his name for distinction.
    

After reading this paper, Woods stood up and asked his apprentice to catch two bats for him.
    

Woods only used a very short period of time to repeat Lucien’s experiment and he confirmed the result in Lucien’s paper. Woods got very excited, “Sound wave can really be used for the purpose of location! It’s no longer merely a weapon for deterring or killing!”
    

Sound wave did not exclusively belong to a certain school. In fact, all of the schools had sound wave spells, for example, Homan’s Oscillation belonged to the school of Force, and Banshee’s Howling belonged to the school of Necromancy.
    

Although Woods almost could not wait to write a paper to respond Lucien’s idea, he decided to sit back and write down his comment on the paper first, “Groundbreaking…”
    

The same scene was seen in another office in a magic tower, but this office turned out to be the headquarter of the journal Sound Wave.
    

…
    

In the hall of Sorcerer Administrative Department, Lucien was sitting in the couch, tasting a non-alcoholic beverage called Sky Blue recommended by Lazar. Lucien liked its sweetness.
    

Swirling the pure blue liquid in the transparent glass, Lucien was sipping the beverage while talking with Lazar leisurely about some common sense of the congress.
    

It was close to five forty in the early evening, and the magic tower was going to close soon, but the two sorcerers were still sitting in the hall chatting casually. Both Cindy and Donna were very curious, so Cindy, craning her neck, whispered, “Mr. Lazar, Mr. Evans, are you waiting for something?”
    

Lazar smiled, pointing to lucien, “I’m with Evans to wait for his new magic assessment result and the result of his paper… Well, maybe not result of the paper. You know that paper review usually takes three days, as all the board members are very, very cautious.”
    

“Of course, the committee members always have their own business to deal with.” Cindy agreed with Lazar first, then she turned to Lucien with great surprise, “Wait, Mr. Evans’ paper?”
    

Lazar nodded.
    

Both Cindy and Dona were more than surprised, “Mr. Evans, you learned arcana before?”
    

“I started studying arcana about a month ago,” answered Lucien. “Although I did make some progress, this paper is from my past experience.”
    

“I see…” Cindy nodded and smiled, “Although this paper, honestly speaking, is not very likely to pass the board’s review, I’m sure the new magic can help you activate your arcana badge, Mr. Evans. And you’re the first one I’ve ever seen who submitted his paper on his first day in the congress! Your name will be on my diary, for sure!”
    

“My pleasure.” Lucien grinned, feeling quite relaxed.
    

A while later, Lazar pulled out his pocket watch and took a glance, “Evans, we should visit Mr. Eric now.”
    

“Good luck,” said the two girls.
    

…
    

In Eric’s office.
    

“The result is not here yet. It seems that the board is pretty busy today,” said Eric. who also felt a bit surprised, since in most cases, the review of an apprentice-level magic should not take more than twenty minutes.
    

Lazar was a bit worried, “Mr. Eric, can we wait here?”
    

“Help yourselves.” Eric nodded, and then turned around and picked up a book to start working on his own business.
    

Lucien remained quite calm. He was quite confident that Bat Screaming had already passed the review, or the bad news should have arrived way sooner than this, and this meant that Lucien already had at least one arcana point.
    

The office was very quiet.
    

When there were only a few more minutes before the tower closed for the day, the cage lit up with white light again.
    

Eric put down his quill and stood up, “Finally, here they are.”
    

When the white light disappeared, Eric got confused, “Why there’re three folders?”
    

Then he picked up one and read, “Bat Screaming, apprentice level magic. According to Mr. Garfield and Mr. Jeffrey, this magic is groundbreaking, but the structure of the spell is still very problematic. From the five aspects of judgement: level, theory, effectiveness, structure and meaning, three arcana credits and four arcana points were given.”
    

Eric was very surprised. As he looked at Lucien, he murmured, “Groundbreaking? Three arcana credits? For an apprentice level spell…?”
    

Eric knew clearly that a new first circle spell could win a sorcerer two credits, and he well understood what did the word “groundbreaking” meant.
    

Lazar also repeated, feeling unreal, “Three arcana credits and four arcana points… with Evans’ new spell?”
    

In contrast, Lucien stayed relatively calmer. He did not really understand how generous the reward was, and he was still waiting for the comment on his paper.
    

Eric took a quick but meaningful glance at Lucien, and then he handed the folder to Lazar, “Yes. Unbelievable as it is, it is true.”
    

After Lazar read the document back and forth a couple of times, he looked at Lucien as if he never knew him, “Mimicking bats?”
    

“Yes,” Lucien confirmed his question. “Mimicking bats to detect objects.”
    

“Well… That’s… That’s very creative…” Lazar rubbed his forehead a bit. “I have to say that I’m feeling jealous now.”
    

At this time, Eric opened the other two folders, and he looked totally stunned, “Here… are the results of the review of Evans’ paper.”
    

Lazar could not believe his ears, and there was also mixed facial expressions on Eric’s face, as he thought of how he was treated when he submitted his very first arcana paper.
    

“Yes.” Eric paused a bit and answered, “According to Mr. Garfield, this paper is groundbreaking, carefully-designed, insightful and impressive, and four arcana credits and six arcana points are suggested to be given to the author. Mr. Garfield also suggested the author to add extra words after his name for distinction.”
    

Both Mr. Eric and Lazar were now looking at Lucien, since nothing like this ever happened before!