A few days later, an official summons arrived from the Magic Tower’s Administrative Office. It was a summons to attend the 'Magic Tower School Assembly' as a witness.
"Thankfully, they listed me as an assistant."
It seemed that dropping Giuseppe’s name while solving this case had paid off. Just then, my roommate Liam saw the summons on my desk and let out a sharp gasp.
“Isaac, is this real?”
“Hm? Ah, yes. They told me to come to a meeting.”
“…You speak of the School Assembly as if you’re going out for a stroll.”
Liam pointed to the summons and continued.
“That’s not just any meeting. The School Assembly is the Magic Tower’s most important decision-making body, held only once per quarter.”
“I see.”
No wonder the summons looked so fancy.
“The attendees are usually the ‘school heads’ and ‘chief professors’ with decades of experience.”
“Wow…”
This was a bigger deal than I thought. In terms of my past life, wasn't this like a new employee walking in to give a presentation at a board meeting?
Liam continued.
“The people who attend the assembly… they’re the living history of the Magic Tower. They won’t tolerate anyone shaking the tower of common sense they’ve built up.”
“I suppose that’s true of any scholar.”
“Especially when it’s done in a way they can’t understand.”
Liam didn't seem to be speaking in generalities.
The morning of the Magic Tower assembly. Giuseppe and I headed for the grand conference hall on the 45th floor of the main building.
Gugugugu.
The floating staircase carried the two of us up for quite a while. … Giuseppe seemed unusually nervous. I said to him, “As long as we stick to the plan, there won’t be any problems.”
“Do you really think so?”
I had a perfect plan. 1. When my turn comes, present appropriately. 2. There is no step two.
It might seem like a simple plan, but that was intentional. The more complex something is, the more fragile it tends to be. That’s just the way of the world.
“Junior. If it’s too much, I can do the presentation.”
“No. It’s alright.”
I declined Giuseppe’s offer. But I was grateful for the thought.
Thud.
The floating staircase came to a stop. I’d heard that the higher you go in the Magic Tower, the fewer people you see. Elara, the floor leader, had told me that.
But it seemed today was an exception. There were far more graduate students on the 45th floor than I expected. -“Hey. Don’t move that over there!
That’s another school’s spot.” -“Then where should I put it?” -“Over there!”
Ah.
I realized why there were so many people.
‘They’re here to work…’
That’s a graduate school for you. It would have been stranger if people of the school head’s level carried their own achievements around. Here and there, I could overhear talk about our school.
“Huh? The School of Magical Surveying is attending this meeting? Aren’t they the school that was exiled to the annex?” -“Your voice is too loud, they’ll hear you.” -“So what if they hear… it’s the truth.” …If they were going to talk, I wish they’d say something nice.
All they did was gossip.
“Senior. Is our school always treated like this?”
“Ignore them. It’s always been this way.”
“Hmm…”
Our school’s standing was probably about the same as the humanities back on Earth…
‘Do they really feel the need to mock us…?’
I could understand pity, but this was too much. I checked the affiliation of the student who had just slandered our school by stating facts.
‘School of Fire Element Magic.’
Good.
For my next commission, I’ll take on one that they failed. And I’ll take fifty percent of the compensation from you lot, too.
“What are you staring at so intently?”
“…It’s nothing. We should probably head in now.”
We entered the grand conference hall and took our seats. A short while later, people began to gather in small groups and the meeting started.
“We will now commence the second quarterly Magic Tower assembly of Imperial Calendar year 374. Before we begin, a word on His Majesty the Emperor, who watches over the Empire…”
I mostly tuned out the meaningless opening ceremony. The presentations from the other schools… I listened to them half-heartedly.
And then, it was our turn.
“Next, we will have the report from the School of Magical Surveying on the ‘Project for Normalization of the Imperial Capital Central Bell Tower’s Sound Resonance.’”
At the vice dean’s words, I rose from my seat. The professors saw me and muttered quietly among themselves. -“He’s young.” -“More than young… he’s a child.” In a gathering of old folks, it was only natural that a kid like me would draw attention.
I gave a slight bow to the elf Dean sitting at the head table and began my presentation.
“The most important part of this presentation was the calculation of ‘sound reflection.’”
I continued my presentation, channeling my past life experience of defending my thesis.
And so…
“This concludes my presentation.”
My turn was over. It seemed my effort to hypnotize myself into thinking I was ‘Steve Jobs’ throughout the presentation had paid off.
‘That didn’t go too badly…?’
I was satisfied with that. It was at that very moment.
“I have a question.”
Someone from the ‘School of Magical Device Materials Processing’ section raised their hand.
“Damn it…”
Giuseppe muttered from the seat beside me.
“That’s Rufus. He was in my class, and he’s sore because we got paid too much.”
Rufus, as if he’d been waiting for this moment, shot up from his seat and spoke.
“The core of this report lies in having controlled the path of ‘sound particles.’”
Wait. Sound particles? Not waves?
Did I say something like that?
“However, there is a major question here. It’s because sound is not a particle in the first place.”
Rufus puffed out his chest proudly. As if he had discovered some great truth. I was so dumbfounded that I was momentarily at a loss for words.
‘Is it okay to speak now?’
I turned my gaze to the elf Dean. She gave a silent nod. I guess that meant go ahead.
I asked Rufus.
“Where in my report did it say that sound is a particle?”
“You said that sound ‘reflects.’ Doesn’t that mean it’s a particle?”
“…Excuse me?”
I was tongue-tied again.
Ugh. Good grief.
The principle of wave reflection… where do I even begin to explain it… Of course, it would be easy to ramble on and on like I usually did with Liam.
‘But if I did that…’
I glanced over at the Dean.
‘I feel like the fallout would be hard to handle…’
Trying to explain it with even the simplest one-dimensional wave equation was impossible. Because calculus was not well-developed in this world. While I remained silent, the head of the ‘School of Sound Magic’ spoke up.
“Rufus is right. Sound is a wave. Like water ripples, which are also waves, when sound hits a wall, it breaks and scatters rather than reflecting cleanly.”
Another school head responded to his words.
“…Even so, we can’t just ignore the School of Magical Surveying’s report. Since they’ve already solved the problem, we must consider the ‘reflection’ a fact.”
“There have been recent attempts to explain the transmission of light with ether… perhaps sound is similar?”
“Indeed… light also reflects, so that would explain it.”
They were muttering amongst themselves, but every word they said was infuriating.
What? Ether?
The medium for light? I shuddered at the name of the ghost that had haunted science for the longest time in history. A reenactment of the Michelson-Morley experiment was desperately needed.
But that was impossible in this place, at this time. The professors' conversation continued.
“So it must mean that ether is involved this time as well…”
“How fascinating that it applies to sound, too.”
“Come to think of it, in our laboratory…”
At this festival of misconceptions…
Snap.
The thread of my reason broke. I spoke without even asking for permission.
“That’s not right.”
“What?”
“I said, it’s not like that.”
In an instant, dozens of eyes were on me. The attention was suffocating. …I hate this kind of thing. I looked them straight in the eyes and opened my mouth once more.
“Sound is a wave, and its various movements, including reflection, can be explained without the existence of ether.”
Giuseppe, sitting next to me, grabbed my wrist tightly. I guess he meant for me to stop. But it couldn’t be helped.
If you draw the sword, you have to cut something. I turned my gaze and asked the elf Dean.
“May I use the blackboard?”
“By all means.”
I approached the blackboard placed on the side of the conference room. Then I picked up a piece of chalk.
‘Ah… I didn’t want to be seen in a place like this…’
I drew a sine curve graph on the blackboard.
“Waves transfer energy in this form. As you can see, a wave has a highest point, the ‘crest,’ and a lowest point, the ‘trough.’”
I marked a few more points on the graph.
“When two waves meet, and the crest of one wave overlaps with the crest of another, their height doubles. In that case…”
As if in response to my words, the Dean answered.
“The sound would be amplified.”
“That’s correct.”
In a similar fashion, I rambled on about constructive and destructive interference of sound. Since I couldn’t prove it with equations, my explanation grew long-winded. When I finished, the professors began to speak up, one by one.
“It makes sense… it does make sense, but…”
“According to that theory, is it also possible to cancel out sound with sound?”
“The theory is plausible, but you can’t prove it.”
“Wasn’t it proven when he solved the bell tower commission?”
“…That could have been luck. What’s important is reproducibility.”
A fire, once lit, does not go out. Not until it has burned all its fuel. Just as the noise in the conference hall was getting on my nerves.
Clap!
The elf Dean clapped her hands.
“Quiet.”
At that small sound, all the noise in the hall ceased as if by magic. She said to me.
“Isaac Upperhills. Can you devise an experiment to prove your claim?”
“Of course.”
“Do it.”
At my command, graduate students brought in a large water tank and two bells.
‘That water tank must have been ridiculously heavy…’
Graduate students really have it tough. The Dean asked me.
“According to you, what is supposed to happen?”
“Just as the wave patterns in the water tank will have high and low points, the sound of the bells here in the conference hall will be loud in some places and soft in others.”
“Good. Proceed.”
“Yes.”
I dropped two pebbles into the water tank at the same time.
Plop.
Two ripples spread across the surface of the water. Soon, a pattern emerged where the two ripples met. In some places, the waves surged higher, and in others, they became eerily calm.
It was a clear phenomenon of ‘interference.’
“It’s… it’s real.”
A young professor muttered beside me. Immediately after, Rufus replied.
“No. Not yet. The most important proof, the one with the bell sounds, still remains.”
The Dean nodded.
“Alright, now ring the bells.”
At the Dean’s words, two graduate students holding bells came running.
“No. Not you two.”
“…Yes?”
“Isaac Upperhills. You do it.”
I couldn’t very well defy the Dean’s command.
“…Yes, I understand.”
I used telekinesis to lift the two bells into the air. And then, I rang them.
Diiiiing.
Other graduate students were standing in the places where I predicted the interference phenomenon would occur. Those people would stand there and report what actually happened to the sound of the bells. The graduate students walked back and forth between the places where the sound overlapped and where it canceled out.
“The pattern is identical to the water tank! The sound really does get louder and softer!”
“Really…?”
“Yes!”
“Did the sound really… really disappear?”
The head of the School of Sound Magic also walked through the points of interference I had predicted.
Diiiiing.
The bell rang once more, and his mouth opened.
“It’s real…”
Everyone listened intently to the declaration from the professor of ‘Sound.’ He was, after all, the person with the most authority on this subject. He muttered under his breath.
“Then what have I been doing all this time…”
The other professors fell silent, one by one, glancing at him cautiously. Normally I would have to ring it a few more times… Should I stop here?
Just then, the Dean whispered in my ear.
“Don’t stop, keep ringing. There’s something I want to test.”
“…Yes.”
One must obey the boss’s orders. Diiiiing– The bell rang again, and the face of the head of the School of Sound Magic hardened. But the Dean paid no mind to such things.
She spoke to me again.
“Now, make a wind blow here too.”
“…How strong should I make it?”
“Enough to blow away a single sheet of parchment.”
“Understood.”
I immediately devised the spell. I calculated the air resistance on the parchment. From that, I determined the minimum wind speed required.
Then, I created a difference in air pressure to generate the wind.
Whoooosh.
A wind blew. The Dean said.
“The interference phenomenon has changed.”
“That is because air is the medium for sound.”
“Is it impossible to calculate how the wave changes according to the flow of air?”
“…It is extremely difficult.”
“How difficult?”
“To calculate that, every single citizen of the Empire would have to take up parchment and pen and calculate the movement of the air.”
“In that case, how did you repair the bell tower, Isaac? The air must flow around there as well.”
“The bell tower is a structure that is sealed off from the outside, with the exception of a few passageways. Therefore, it was possible to calculate it by approximation.”
“I see.”
The Dean’s eyes sparkled. Seeing her sly smile, she seemed to be enjoying herself.
“I see. That was a good answer. Write that down.”
“…What should I be writing down?”
“Not you, Isaac. I’m talking to the head of the School of Sound Magic.”
Th-th-thump.
The hands of the head of the School of Sound Magic trembled. Without a word, he took out a sheet of parchment and began to write down my words. The Dean smiled towards the head of the School of Sound Magic.
Her smiling face revealed a beauty that seemed inversely proportional to her personality.
“We’ll have to change all the university textbooks. There will be much to do.”
She continued.
“With that, today’s meeting is hereby adjourned.”
At the Dean’s one-sided declaration, the professors froze with dumbfounded expressions. If I stayed here any longer, things would definitely get more tiring. For now, let’s escape.
Rustle, rustle.
I gathered my things and stood up.