The Word Magic Is Meaningless

The wooden lectern, along with several pots of fresh flowers placed on it, and even the carpet, floated into the air.

Cries of surprise rose from the crowd, and some people even started clapping.

Damn it, they really thought this was a stage trick?

"Did anyone see how I did it?" Murphy asked.

"Wires," a slightly plump man shouted from below the stage.

"Rollins Bogg. Come on, you come up." Murphy recognized him and invited him onto the lectern. "Bold hypotheses, careful verification. How do you plan to verify your guess?"

"Give me a stick. I'll sweep around these things," Rollins replied.

"Good idea." After Murphy spoke, he pointed his wand at a flowerpot nearby. "Vera Verto."

The flowerpot turned into a long wooden stick.

Another round of gasps swept through the venue. Rollins was stunned too, and only after Murphy gestured did he step forward, pick up the stick, feel it back and forth for a long while, swing it twice, and tap it lightly against the floor a few times before confirming that what he held really was a wooden stick.

"H-how was that done?" Rollins asked.

"That's the second question. Let's verify the first question first," Murphy said.

So Rollins took the pole and swept it back and forth around the floating objects, but he did not find any wires or tethers.

"What are your verification results?" Murphy asked.

Rollins shook his head. "It doesn't look like anything is suspending them."

"Then do you have any new ideas?"

Rollins shook his head again.

"Does anyone else have another explanation?" Murphy asked the crowd.

"An antigravity field!" someone below shouted.

"Very bold. William Boyle?" Murphy smiled. "Come up. How do you plan to verify your idea?"

William walked onto the lectern and thought for a moment. "Give me something light."

Murphy took out his wand and aimed it once more at the wooden stick from before. "Reducio."

The wooden stick rapidly shrank, finally becoming a little wooden rod the size of a pencil. Murphy handed it to William. "You can begin."

The latter weighed the wooden rod in shock, feeling that its weight matched its appearance, and he was a little overwhelmed. "This—this isn't scientific. This is impossible! Where did its mass go?"

Murphy smiled. "I don't know. That's the third question. Do you still want to verify your guess from just now?"

"...All right." After hesitating for a moment, William threw the wooden rod into the area where Murphy had pointed his wand earlier.

However, the wooden rod did not float up as he had hoped.

"This..."

"Do you have another explanation?"

"Maybe... the antigravity field isn't area-based, but acts on each individual object," William said.

"You can try to verify your idea."

William jumped and grabbed a flowerpot floating in midair. He pulled it down, carried it to the edge of the lectern, then let go. The flowerpot floated back into the air again.

"You've preliminarily proven your conjecture. Can you continue with a deeper explanation? Where does their antigravity effect come from?"

William looked at his own hand. Some soil from the flowerpot had stuck to it just now, and now those grains of soil were floating away from his palm one by one.

"I... still don't know," he said, staring at it all in a daze. "They still have mass. You can feel inertia when they move horizontally, and their density is obviously higher than air, so it's not buoyancy."

"Maybe magnets? Magnets installed inside these objects?" William said, then shook his head again. "But this soil, objects this tiny, would have a hard time maintaining balance during motion. Its two poles would flip extremely easily. It couldn't be pushed upward by repulsion... unless, magnetic monopoles?"

"No, no, that's too absurd. Maybe iron powder was added to these things, and magnets were placed on the ceiling."

"Is that your conclusion?" Murphy asked.

"No, of course not." He took a set of keys out of his pocket. "This keychain is made of steel, but it isn't being attracted. There isn't such a strong magnetic field here..."

"I need experiments. A lot of experiments. This is too astonishing. I've never seen this kind of phenomenon before. There must be something here, something I didn't know before."

Murphy smiled. "Congratulations. You've found an interesting question."

"So, does anyone want to try answering the second or third question now?" He picked up the little wooden rod and used the Transfiguration spell on it again, turning it into a small bird.

"Illusion!" someone said. "A hologram!"

"Oh, is that so?" Murphy aimed at him. "Wingardium Leviosa!"

The man cried out as he floated up, controlled by Murphy as he flew two laps around the room. Murphy asked, "Do you still think it's a hologram now, Stefan Welch?"

Stefan Welch's face was deathly pale, yet he was also a little excited. "Incredible. Magic! This is magic!"

"Congratulations, correct!" Murphy said. With a wave of his wand, a cloud of black aura suddenly wrapped around him. His body slowly rose, then abruptly shot over the crowd and appeared behind them. By the time everyone turned to look at him, he had already flown back to the lectern.

"Magic." Murphy used a Silencing Charm to suppress the cries of surprise from below the stage and made his own voice echo beside everyone's ears. "This is indeed magic."

As he spoke, he conjured a fountain out of thin air on the lectern with his wand. "This is magic."

Then he summoned a flock of birds. "This is also magic."

He made grass and flowers suddenly sprout from the carpet in the hall. In a few moments, he had turned the carpet into a stretch of lawn. "This, too, is magic."

"And yet, the word magic is meaningless," Murphy said. With another wave of his wand, he wiped everything from moments ago clean away.

"Just as when we explain every phenomenon as nature, miracle, or science, it is meaningless. It is merely a convenient noun we attach to the unknown."

"Magic cannot be nothing more than magic. If we do not understand the details of science, then we do not understand science. If we cannot explain the phenomena within magic, then we are no different from our ancestors who regarded thunder as the wrath of gods. In terms of understanding, we have made no progress at all."

"Yes, I am a wizard. I can use magic."

"That makes me different. But believe me, my understanding of magic is not much greater than yours."

"Right now, I am like a primitive man. I can use fire to keep warm, drive away wild beasts, and cook food, but of the essence of fire, I still know nothing."

"Where does my magic come from? How does it work? Why can this spell create fire, while another spell can make a person float? I am deeply curious about all of this, but I do not have enough energy to study each point until I understand it clearly. That is why I need all of you."

"Now I can answer the original question. What exactly is it that you will be researching?"

"The answer is magic. You were invited here to explore that unknown territory."

"To haul in the fruits of this blue ocean of magic to your heart's content—that is your work."