The roundtable meeting continued.
Knock, knock, knock, knock.
The absentminded tapping of his fingertips on the table revealed the most elderly scholar's inner turmoil.
After so many years of witnessing the female scholar's unremitting efforts and numerous research achievements, even his own convictions had gradually begun to waver.
"Antonio once said that faith develops through constant reaffirmation, while knowledge develops through constant self-doubt. Even the great pioneers admit that they are merely milestones along humanity's path to truth. What was once considered a law of truth might one day be nothing more than a summer fire discovered by a Barbarian."
The summer fire discovered by a Barbarian was a story passed down in the Xilan Duchy.
According to legend, in a barren wilderness, a Barbarian happened to discover that during summer thunderstorms, bushes would catch fire just before the rain arrived. After witnessing this for several years in a row, the Barbarian believed he had discovered a great truth.
Namely: bushes caught fire in summer. The other Barbarians therefore revered him as a tribal prophet.
Until one year.
That summer, the thunderstorm failed to set the bushes alight. Faced with a truth overturned by an unknown supernatural force, the Barbarians grew fearful of the unknown, lost and uneasy. The prophet blamed it all on divine punishment, insisting that a sacrifice had to be offered to earn the god's forgiveness.
The Barbarians offered cattle and sheep to the bushes, but the god gave no response.
So the prophet demanded more precious sacrifices. Desperate for a response from the god, the Barbarians began offering up people alive...
The story was said to have originated with Gauss Adolf of the Xilan Duchy, though its true origin could no longer be verified.
The Barbarian who discovered the summer fire was an allegory for Gauss Adolf himself: a solitary explorer on the path to truth, beset by fear and uncertainty, and unsure what to do.
The old man raised his head and looked back and forth between the female scholar and Gubo.
At last, his gaze settled on Gubo.
"The Academy chose you to serve as director of instruction for this class of introductory students. I suspect the dean hopes you'll prove your position through results. We've all seen An Liya's efforts and achievements over the years. It's time we faced this great new academic proposition head-on. Don't you agree?"
An Liya was the female mentor who had published the academic paper on Alien Spirit Communication!
Gubo fell silent, a tremendous pressure unlike anything he had ever felt weighing on his shoulders.
The old man watched Gubo for a long while, then continued in a low voice. "This matter concerns not only the Academy but also the fields of Natural Law and Evolution's Profound Meaning. Its academic implications are enormous, so we must proceed with caution. How about this: three years from now, we'll use the graduation assessment results of Gubo's class of new students to determine the direction of the debate on Alien Spirit Communication. We've waited more than a decade already. We can wait three more years."
"Agreed."
Another scholar, who had yet to speak, voiced his support. Unwilling to let the meeting once again end in a pointless argument, he added, "For now, let's discuss how we should deal with the pressure from the Church."
After a pause, he continued, "The Church claims it will send a Red Cardinal to search the Royal Science Laboratory, but I suspect its real aim is simply to make the committee yield and isolate the Balda Duchy."
Because of their earlier dispute, neither Gubo nor An Liya wanted to speak again during the meeting.
Though the Academy's governing body had its disagreements over academic matters, it still maintained basic unity when facing outside forces. Their differences in principle were not too great.
Liuyan extinguished the pipe in his hand and muttered, "I wonder if this is the old Pope's intention or the will of the new Pope about to take office. Either way, we old fellows did everything we could and completed our task of dealing with those arbitrators. The rest is for the committee and the dean to handle."
Every kingdom had its own Royal Academician Committee. Though these committees were not part of the academies' governing bodies, their extensive connections gave them considerable influence, much like honorary deans.
If an academy's dean controlled how the academy's internal resources were allocated, then the Royal Academician Committee secured more resources for the academy by influencing duchy politics.
Click.
Liuyan relit his pipe and continued, "I only hope the committee can strike the right balance. On the one hand, we absolutely can't abandon the Balda Duchy completely; otherwise, what's happening to them today could happen to us tomorrow. On the other, the Royal Academy of Sciences' treasured books and documents were painstakingly researched and passed down by generations of scholars..."
The Church had been searching the Royal Academies of Sciences in various countries for a long time.
Ever since the Pioneer White Niven had been tried by the Ecclesiastical Court and died by execution by fire for standing by the truth, whenever an incident occurred at one of the academies that gave the Church an opening to intervene, searching the Royal Academy of Sciences had become its ultimate aim.
If the Church succeeded in entering a Royal Academy of Sciences, it would surely burn countless books promoting progress and might even interrupt major experiments, reducing years of research to ashes.
Without a doubt!
The Church's aim in these negotiations was to have the Grand Duchy isolate the Balda Natural Academy. If it failed to get what it wanted, the Academy was bound to suffer enormous losses.
After all, the Witchers who had vanished for more than a decade had reappeared in the Grand Duchy, collecting sacrifices in full view of the Academy—and escaped unharmed, without even leaving a single survivor behind!
In the end, it was Gubo's failed mission that had brought the Academy into its current predicament.
Perhaps that was precisely why Gubo hadn't been as aggressive during this roundtable meeting and had barely said a word, allowing An Liya to get the better of him.
"Scholars in the Balda Duchy have indeed been making some rather extreme statements in recent years. The Church has lost much of its prestige over the past century after two consecutive failed crusades, but atheism is already the limit of what it can tolerate. Those people are even claiming that humanity can break through its own limits and become gods. Although that brought the Academy rapid growth in the short term, they're simply courting disaster!"
The old man spoke with indignation.
Ever since the heliocentric trial in the Utoran Duchy, the royal families of various countries had compromised with the Church, yielding and burning countless books that went against its will. For all these years, the two sides had managed to coexist peacefully.
The Church had been able to focus more of its efforts on expeditions to Night's Veil Land, while the academies of various countries had used that time to develop rapidly.
No new pioneers had emerged, but there were far more scholars at the grassroots level than before. Basic education was flourishing at academies everywhere, and "wizard" had become a symbol of erudition, refinement, wealth, mystery, and power in the public eye.
And now!
For the sake of short-term growth, the Balda Duchy had broken the unspoken compromise between the royal academies of various countries and the Church. It had not only endangered itself but dragged the other countries' academies into the crisis as well. How could the old man not be furious?
If a similar Witcher incident had happened at the Grand Natural Academy more than a decade ago, the Church would never have made such a major move.
"I suggest that, before the Red Cardinal arrives at the Academy, we do two things. First, use the Mercenary Association to do everything we can to capture some fugitives from the Church. They could serve as bargaining chips when we negotiate and help us limit our losses. Second, step up our contact with the Balda Natural Academy and put pressure on it in exchange for concessions from the Church!"
Someone interjected.
"And there's the fugitive Witcher. He managed to erase the body and escape right under Gubo and Liuyan's noses. Even if he isn't the legendary Great Warlock King, he must be one of the most renowned Warlocks in the Dark World. We should try contacting the Dark World and find out which powerful figure it was!"