Hearing Fang Zheng's answer, everyone was left speechless.
"How could magic possibly exist in this world?"
Misaka Mikoto was the first to retort, but Fang Zheng merely shook his head at her complaint.
"If you're just saying that as a joke, that's one thing. But if you genuinely think so, then that's unscientific."
"Huh?"
Misaka Mikoto was completely dumbfounded by Fang Zheng's response.
"Why?"
"Because magic is merely a word used to describe the existence of a certain phenomenon, not the essence of the thing itself."
Fang Zheng took a sip of iced black tea and continued explaining to the group.
"For example, modern people can use lighters and make video calls on their phones. But if you traveled back a thousand years and used a phone to talk face-to-face with someone thousands of miles away, people of that era would see it as magic too. Why? Because, to them, magic is something they cannot understand and that current common sense cannot accomplish. Look, people back then could only exchange information through letters. They simply could not imagine technology that would let people see and speak with each other from thousands of miles apart."
At that, Fang Zheng spread his hands.
"So they would consider it magic. But you should all understand that it isn't magic. Even if you don't fully understand the principles involved, you should at least know roughly about radio waves, communications technology, and the like. To you, this is something modern civilization can accomplish, right?"
Hearing this, the others nodded. They had to admit that this was the first time they had heard such an explanation, and it was rather interesting.
"Simply put, magic describes phenomena that people cannot understand and that could not possibly exist at their current level of civilization. So don't be so