Greetings, Mister Principal

While Reiner was surprised to see Claire order a full serving of food for five people, the papers on the combustion reaction he sent finally arrived at headquarters of the Magic Association in the capital of the kingdom, which was the location of the High-level Magic Council, the Rainbow Tower.

This paper first went through a simple repetitive review, and then was classified as Alchemy and New Substances according to the keywords of the content. Finally, after the thesis was backed up, its copy came to Grimm's hands.

Grimm was a fourth-ring mage who had good attainments in the study of alchemy. Recently, he has been exploring new elements. As for the thesis review, this was a task assigned by the high-level magic council to each mage like him.

"...The experimental idea is worth learning, but due to the error of the premise, the conclusion has obvious problems. It is recommended to try again under the condition of ensuring the experimental conditions. this paper is not approved."

"...The purpose of the experiment is unclear, the process is messy, the conclusion is rough and contains serious errors, and this paper is not approved."

"...The experimental settings are reasonable and the conclusions are exploratory, but the paper is not in-depth, and it is slightly flawed. This paper is approved. It is recommended to award three points."

In just one hour, Grimm had already reviewed three papers.

Generally speaking, a paper would be reviewed by at least three reviewers, and the opinions of the three would be combined into the final result. If there was a major disagreement, it would be handed over to a higher-level reviewer for decision.

Due to the recent trend of element discoveries, the papers on new substances and new elements Grimm received were endless; but most of them were shoddy and illogical, and a small number of people mistakenly considered different forms of a substance as a completely new substance.

According to the high-level mage His Excellency Pluto Alterac's theory, basic elements constituted different substances. Some substances could not be broken down unless special means were used, so those substances were also called elements. Generally speaking, the elements discussed in academia referred to those elements, and the four basic elements were given the title of "basic".

Since Madame Maria discovered the existence of sulfur fifteen years ago and successfully advanced to the sixth-ring mage, people couldn't wait to experiment on all substances, hoping to find new elements; but so far, people only managed to discover forty kinds of elements, and there was no trace of the laws related to these elements.

Grimm also wanted to find new elements to advance his rank. The fourth ring to the fifth ring required a lot of preparation. He wanted to use the discovery of new elements to stir up his Heart Lake and get feedback from the world so he could be promoted to the fifth-ring mage.

The bell rang, it was already noon. Grimm was thinking about whether to go to lunch first, but then he saw another paper appearing on the teleportation magic circle.

"I'll probably eat something after reading this paper."

Grimm thought. He picked up the copy and saw the title on it.

"Discussion on Special Gas Produced in Grey Stone Heating Experiment and Research on Several Issues of Traditional Combustion Reaction Theory" by: Reiner Ian Gray; Co-Author: Sharon Kluane.

"Ian Gray?"

Grimm saw the author's name at first glance. The Ian Gray family was a well-known big business family, but he has never heard of any mages engaging in research in their family?

"Probably it happened to have the same name."

Shaking his head, Grimm opened the paper.

"This format is pretty good."

From the table of contents, the paper's format was excellent, the main point was clear, and the discussion was progressive. Grimm, who had seen too many of those messy, scrawled papers, really liked it.

But the more he read, the more he became frightened, and when he turned the last page, his hands even began to tremble slightly, which was almost impossible for a fourth-ring mage.

From the content point of view, this was a very basic experiment: Grey Stone was heated to produce White Stone. However, the author of the paper carefully sealed the experimental device and discovered that there was a special gas in it. At the same time, he also weighed the quality of the product before and after the experiment, verifying that the gas was indeed generated in the experiment.

In the traditional fire element combustion theory, this kind of gas should not exist. Even if it existed, it was impossible to have the property of preventing combustion, because it should be the mixture of the precipitation of fire elements!

This was a huge challenge to the current combustion theory. If the experiment was true, then it was very likely that the combustion theory that has lasted for three hundred years would be completely overthrown!

That was the cornerstone of modern alchemy!

If this was a randomly fabricated paper, then Grimm wouldn't be so surprised. The problem was that the paper's data was detailed, the experiment was methodical, the intentions between the steps were clear, and even the reaction device diagrams were drawn. It was as if the author of the paper was not afraid of others to verify the result.

Grimm felt dizzy. As an alchemy mage, the backlash brought about by the refutation of the theory he had always believed had had a certain impact on him, but Grimm still had the last glimmer of hope in his heart.

The theory of alchemy should be reproducible. As long as he could repeat this experiment and get a different conclusion, then he could show that this was just an accidental phenomenon, and the combustion theory was still correct.

Thinking of this, Grimm no longer cared about eating. He hurried out of the office with the paper and ran to the laboratory.

As a fourth-ring mage, Grimm already had his own independent laboratory. He opened the door and waved his hand gently. The experimental equipment on the table returned to the cabinet, clearing out an empty area.

The equipment needed for the experiment described in the thesis was not difficult to find. Grimm was quickly ready. After taking a deep breath, he tremblingly lit the flame.

As the heating continued, when the first bubble popped out of the tube, Grimm only felt a buzz in his head, like a tower crashing down in front of him. Everything he had known in the past decades suddenly became so strange to him.

This was the result of the magic backlash. Grimm fell into a chair, coldly watching the bubbles emerge one by one and enter the gas cylinder.

Fortunately, Grimm has been thinking about new elements during this period, and he has also read many unpopular papers for inspiration, so he did not have such a firm belief. The main reason why he would have such a backlash was mainly that the combustion theory was too fundamental.

Nowadays, most of the brilliant magic achievements were based on the fire element combustion theory. It was just like the foundation of a high tower, if it was destroyed, the consequences would be disastrous.

If such a fundamental theory was wrong, then why didn't other mages notice it before? What the hell were he and other mages doing in the past?

Grimm had no time to think about this problem. He read the paper again, focusing on the author's name this time.

"Reiner Ian Gray, who are you exactly?"